Things That Will Help

A few weeks ago, Alex asked Buffy to do an Ask Me Anything - and she indulged! and in this special episode, Buffy answers listener questions like, "How do I set and hold boundaries? What is the importance of women leading women?" And other listener-submitted questions.  We hope you enjoy this special episode, and can't say it enough: we love hearing from you. Your feedback, your que...

"What sticks to me is mine, and what doesn't stick to me was never mine to begin with." This episode is entirely devoted to the practice of letting things go without taking it personally. Clamping down on people, things, and ideas? It probably doesn't work the way you want it to. Buffy tells stories of failed party friends, people and homes changing forms, and what happens when...

This week's teaching of "generation" comes at the request of a student looking for ways to access more motivation in their lives. How can we break routines or create new, helpful habits? Buffy says: don't wait. Just begin. She emphasizes the amazing benefits of a daily, timed container (and if you've ever taken her class before, you know she means it). In this episode, you...

This episode dances around the themes of concealment and revelation; forgetting and remembering. Buffy talks about the concept of "Wintering" (by Katherine May), and why a good winter leads to a robust and vital summer. Contrast can help us remember who we are. Life has a rhythm - it doesn't stay dark and it doesn't stay light. There is usually a mixture, and when we can lean i...

Beauty marks make the world more real, beautiful, and alive. From a brisk cold winter day, to the perfect pen and paper, to strange four-year-old fascinations, this episode e will have you delighting in the small beautiful things in life. Don't forget - after listening, make your own list of beauty marks so you can open your eyes a little wider to what makes your ordinary world extraordinary....

What's your why? "Where you choose to put your focus is where your mind lives. You are the gatekeeper of your own happiness. Unlock your yes." -Tunde Oyeneyin Have you ever considered yourself the CEO of your own life? Peloton instructor and all-around badass Tunde Oyeneyin is the inspiration for this episode, and Buffy riffs on her framework of building a personal mission statement...

"If we don't get lost, then we can't really be found - we can't remember what it feels like to come back home if we never learn to really wander." When was the last time you were lost? Buffy moves us through stories of getting lost, distinguishing its different varieties in a way both poetic and practical. A healthy kind of getting lost feels like a lost that creates stren...

Welcome to Season 3 of Things That Will Help. Buffy begins this season right in the middle - in media res.  She discusses the idea of the threshold, and how we are always in the middle, on our way up, or on our way down, from just about everything. What are your practices, and your sacred spaces, when you're in the middle? Can you make time, instead of waiting for the perfect time? What can y...

Bravery does not require an absence of fear. Bravery acknowledges the fear and does it anyway. This week's stories include tales of doctor office visits, angel cheerleaders in the form of middle school teachers, closet cheetahs and tigers, and the bravery to leave a marriage. You will leave this episode feeling enlivened, bolstered, and just maybe your flicker of bravery blooming into a full...

Have you ever felt the wide, encompassing experience of grace? If you're not sure, this episode will light up the ways grace can be lived, felt, and experienced. This grace is not a grace that drains the tank, and Buffy elucidates the exceptions that are massively important to consider in the deliverance of grace. She tells tales of Elvis Presley's Memphis home, the illegal scattering of...

What do Freddy Mercury’s teeth, twins, and extreme introversion have in common? This week’s invitation is to consider your Truxel and polish it. (What’s a Truxel, you ask? You’ll have to listen to find out). 🌱 Find the accompanying playlist to this week's episode here . 🌱 Leave a tip in Venmo: @BuffyTTWH 🌱 Become a supporter of the podcast on Patreon! Patreon members support the production...

This week, Buffy delivers stories of slowing down and celebration through the metaphors of Speed Bumps and Parades.  Listen to tales of temper tantrums and raging inner fires, and how speed bumps can be a tool for course correction and parades a tool for recalibration. Your energy is currency, and speed bumps and parades will help you in spending and celebrating your energy in a wise and mindful w...

We spend so much time considering how other people think of us, rather than tending to the core of who we are - rather than remembering ourselves. If you stripped away all of the personal hurts, injustices, and trauma that have covered you up, and made you self-protect over the years, what would be underneath that? What's the quality you come by most honestly? In this episode, you’ll learn ho...

Did you know that mutts are generally healthier than purebred dogs? Buffy talks about why that makes sense, and shares stories of Anusara yoga, "guru moments," and how cherry-picking the sweet fruit from various systems can help you build your  own personal system of integrity, intuition, and wisdom. 🌱 Find the accompanying playlist to this week's episode here . 🌱 Leave a tip in V...

Well… it’s election week, and even though Buffy recorded this before we knew the results, her message is simple: roll out the red carpet for your feelings. Be in their bigness, their complexity, and their fullness. Don’t skip over them. Are you celebrating this week? Feel it. Grieving? Feel it. And, no matter what, remember: we can’t abide in feeling by ourselves. Find your people, be in community...

What do you believe in? What do you give a damn about? In this episode, Buffy talks about the high stakes moment in time we are living in, a time where neutrality and silence can have dangerous consequences. She asks you to consider what you, right now, you are hooking your hitch to. You’ll hear mosh pit metaphors, wrong-place-wrong-time stories, and a great wide call to yoke your beliefs to your...

Beauty marks are daily, sense-based, present-tense small treasures that are hopeful, happy, and good. Small lighthouses. They don’t negate anything hard, but they help one to remember the beauty amidst the difficulty.  She reads the original Things That Will Help by her brother Benjamin, who was the catalyst for this podcast. There is so much difficulty these days. No matter what you are managing...

Intuition: it’s really simple, and it’s really hard. It is, like most things, a practice. The voice of our intuition is always there, but we listen selectively. Buffy weaves stories of torn ACLs, blue necklaces, and a dangerous hot springs encounter, which will have you both holding your breath and breathing more deeply afterward. This week, get quiet enough to hear yourself. Get low enough to the...

Do you ever find yourself minimizing your suffering because of how it compares to other suffering in the world, in your community, in your family? In this episode, Buffy talks about the insidious trap of comparative suffering - the way it stifles your story, makes small your grief, and in the end, really doesn’t help anybody. Listen to stories of apology, struggling creatives, and the way hidden s...

Between the rapid fire news cycle and the pandemic of 2020, we are square in the middle of collective resilience training. Buffy reframes the idea of resilience from “bouncing back” into a new picture of “bouncing forward.” Resilience isn’t really possible if we get too nostalgic about the way things were - we have to stick in the present tense, and to build and bounce forward from challenge and d...

Buffy extends the idea of“birth” out of the sole context of birthing a child, and into the world of birthing ideas, business, creativity, relationships, and family structures. In our creative lives, an incubation period is necessary, and how when we over-share, or share too soon, we jeopardize a vital, healthy birth. “When we let things marinate in the dark, they build blood, bone, and nutrients,...

This episode is entirely devoted to the book “See No Stranger” by Valarie Kaur. Valarie invites us to transition into a new, vibrant world through an embodied description of how the individual body meets the collective body, and where the two are dependent on each other. She invites us into an ethos of “revolutionary love:” a love that is electric, proactive, and leaves space for sacred rage. This...

Are you tired of hauling other people’s expectations? And, are they really their expectations, or just what you think they are? The topic of shattering the myth requires deep self-inquiry, especially when it comes to deciding what’s ours and what’s not ours to haul on the next leg of the journey. Shatter the myth that you came with, you’ve been perpetuating, or what’s been perpetuated for you. Thi...

In order for magic to touch down, curiosity has to be in the room. Buffy talks about curiosity from the standpoint of creative processes, and curiosity in relationships. Expect stories of vibrant art and choreography, patience, tiny discoveries, and the power of the pause. She mentions Robyn Thayer, whose work you can find on her website or Instagram ; scholars and authors Harriet Lerner and Brene...

Most of life exists in the gray spaces, where we are waiting for the next move to become clear, or we are recovering from the move we just made. (Or both.) When so much time is spent in the gray areas, what can we do to stay anchored to what’s real and present? Buffy riffs on this and more through stories of gardening, The Pineapple Year, and presence. Buffy references Livia Shapiro - visit her we...