The Transforming Anxiety Podcast

Ok, *today* we are going to focus on something that I know brings a lot of confusion, guilt, and pressure (aka anxiety) into our lives...and that is: ​ what community looks like ​ . I have experienced this myself and I talk to students every week about it. The people in our lives. Get-togethers and social gatherings. Family and holidays and vacations. Friend groups, acquaintances, colleagues. How...

Good morning. ☀️ I hope this finds you well. That you're doing ok so far this week. That you're hanging in, finding some flow, letting yourself breathe, and being kind with yourself. On this week's episode of ​ The Transforming Anxiety Podcast ​ I wanted to explore how we can move through *all the things* without having quite such a death grip on life. Because, I mean, I think we DO. I've noticed...

Ahhhhh, it's good to be back... back to transforming anxiety . I missed you. In this week's episode of The Transforming Anxiety Podcast I'm sharing a bit with you about why I took a(n unplanned) break, how I personally struggle a bit, and what we have to look forward to together: work that I want to do, practices I want to steep myself in, teachings I want to stay close to. With you... I want you...

This week on The Transforming Anxiety Podcast we're going to talk about that inner pileup of garbage that happens after days, weeks, months, YEARS of conversations, work, get-togethers, parenting, and activities. Alllll the garbage that starts gumming up the works, internally. The residue that happens when we ignore ourselves a little bit, when we bite our tongues, when we hold back, when we make...

I don't know about you, but I looooove to put my nose into other people's business. (Except I do know about you...I'm guessing you do this, too. Only about 100% of my students and friends and family do it. 🙃) I mean, from our vantage point, we can so clearly see what they should be doing, right? If they would just behave, if they would just cooperate, if they would just do it the right way then a...

I have something that sounds fun today, but is way more important than its cute little name and that is: time confetti . Have you ever had the feeling that you should have more time in your days and weeks than you do? Or sat down to relax for a few minutes and then looked at the clock to realize that an hour had flown by? Or felt so completely fragmented and distracted mentally that even when you...

New year! But same me. Same you. Same all of us. This week's episode of ​ The Transforming Anxiety Podcast ​ is a "what's new in the new year" but also an acknowledgment of: not much. 🙃 Goals, resolutions, and plans are all *great*. Yup. And also...maybe we can just slow-roll the new year and spend this month (this quarter?) considering what we want it to look like. I'm putting the new year in hi...

To start out the new year, I am SO excited to bring a really great conversation to you on this week's episode of ​ The Transforming Anxiety Podcast ​ . I'm talking with Scott Stabile, author, teacher, and love activist, about his new book: Enough As You Are . This book is an absolute must read. Pick it up anytime, on any page, and you'll find important lessons that you can bathe your brain in so t...

Tis the season, friend...this week on The Transforming Anxiety Podcast we're going to talk about joy . It seems we have a verrrrry tricky dynamic with joy. Have you noticed? We want to feel happy. We crave ease and contentment. And then, as soon as we feel like things are going okay, a nagging sense of doom creeps in. How can we get more joy in our lives?

Ohhh this is gonna be a good conversation heading into the holidays...something I talk about with EVERY single student of mine is their own personal definitions . Meaning: What do YOU think success looks like? What do YOU think a good friend does / says? What do YOU think it means to be a wonderful parent / employee / boss / neighbor / writer / activist? What do YOU think is enough? We get wrapped...

Y'know how movies sometimes have the " ​ director's cut ​ " where they play the whole movie with the filmmaker(s) speaking over the top of it, giving insights and outtakes and ideas about the whole process? Today, on ​ The Transforming Anxiety Podcast ​ , I want to use this Hollywood idea and apply it to our relationships (haha, yup). I think we can borrow from this to give ourselves, and the peop...

This one seems timely, given where we're at in the year...and, I don't know, history . Let's talk about ​ expectations ​ today. Should we raise our expectations? Lower them? Drop them altogether? And where the hell do our expectations come from in the first place? Yeah... This isn't a step-by-step tactical roadmap to sorting out expectations. But this conversation IS a study in awareness and givin...

On this week's episode of The Transforming Anxiety Podcast , we're going to hang out in the gray a bit. That messy middle between the extremes of "all or nothing" and "right or wrong." That murky space where most of life is lived. We're going to explore 2 contradictory approaches that we can practice. Even though we like things all neat and tidy and black-and-white. These 2 practices can be useful...

Good morning, happy Wednesday. ☺️ It's time for a(nother) conversation about thoughts. We circle back to our thinking from time to time around here because it's so dang important. We tend to glorify thinking in our culture; we definitely consider thinking to be a "higher" power than feeling. But...is it? What are our minds telling us? Is it worth listening to? This is what I want to explore with y...

Welp, we've made it to November. Which means: everyone is gonna start talking about gratitude. ​ So, ok, ok, I put together a gratitude episode for us ​ . 🙄 Ha, ok, it's not all bad. I roll my eyes at gratitude a *little bit* because it sounds so damn cheesy. We hear about it all. the. time. and it just sounds a wee bit too earnest for me to get overly serious about. But in (yet again) researchin...

I have another amazing interview for you this week on ​ The Transforming Anxiety Podcast ​ ...Scott Simon is joining me to talk about his book, Scare Your Soul . And this is far more than a book: it's an entire *movement*. Scott is a speaker, entrepreneur, and writer. And he has completely transformed his life by harnessing the fear he felt about, well, a lot of stuff. Starting with: his fear of s...

How are you? I'm so glad that we get to hang out each week. That you make space for these notes in your inbox. That you join me on this path of transforming anxiety and self-compassion and kindness and awareness. I truly believe this is the most important work of our lives. And it means a lot that you're here. Thank you. ☺️ I wanted to have a short and simple conversation with you this week about...

This week on The Transforming Anxiety Podcast I want to consider a phrase I know you've heard before, don't burn your bridges , alongside a less common idea, burn the boats . It's a fiery mash-up this week. We're going to explore why it's important to ​ keep the bridges, burn the boats ​ . This conversation is all about relationships and commitment. Awareness and engagement. It's mostly about inte...

I have a wonderful guest for you today. I am SO excited for this episode of ​ The Transforming Anxiety Podcast ​ . Honestly, this one isn't optional. This work isn't a "nice to have" kind of thing. I don't think I can overstate how important ​ polyvagal theory ​ is in the world of transforming anxiety. These principles give us a how-to guide in befriending our nervous systems and, therefore, a sho...

This week's episode of ​ The Transforming Anxiety ​ is literally straight from my heart to yours. We're talking about ​ preemptive quitting ​ this week. Why? Because this is the sit-down-pay-attention-clear-the-decks talk I had to have with myself recently. Preemptive quitting is when you quit ahead of time. You quit as a backwards way of protecting yourself from rejection, disappointment, or fail...

Something I think we all *know* but don't spend much time understanding is that: change is hard. On this week's episode of ​ The Transforming Anxiety Podcast ​ , I wanted to explore it with you on a deeper level. ​ WHY is change so hard? ​ There are a couple different kinds of change that happens in our lives. One way change occurs is that something big and major happens, and it affects everything...

Time for some real talk: this week on ​ The Transforming Anxiety Podcast ​ , we're going ​ underneath the conversation ​ ... Y'know how when you're talking with someone, there are the words that are actually being said, the back-and-forth dialogue that is happening out loud...and then there's the inner conversation you're having ABOUT the conversation? We all do this. We say, "sure, I'll be there!...

I'm SO excited to be back to our conversations with authors, psychologists, and all-around amazing people. This week on ​ The Transforming Anxiety Podcast ​ I have a brand-new book to share with you: ​ Generation Anxiety: A Millennial and Generation Z Guide to Staying Afloat in an Uncertain World ​ written by psychologist, keynote speaker, and consultant Dr. Lauren Cook. Dr. Lauren has a refreshin...

Super quick, simple, and powerful practice for you today on ​ The Transforming Anxiety Podcast ​ : we're going to talk about ​ naming the things ​ . Most of the time, we're lost in our thinking. We're telling stories about what's happening, we're fighting against how we're feeling or doing our damnedest to try to feel something *else*, and we're spinning out over the difference between our current...

This week's ​ Transforming Anxiety Podcast ​ is all about giving you a handful of tools that you can use to take care of yourself when you're really *in it* with anxiety. We're going to talk about ​ the boat, the volcano, the mountaintop, and the tide ​ . These are all mental images, drawn from nature, that illustrate the journey, the experience, or an ideal direction to point yourself in re: tran...