Walk Through Open Doors with James Henson

If we pay attention, we can see that life is constantly giving us feedback about our behavior. We cannot hear this feedback if we are too busy being the main character, and this will bring us constant trouble.

Simple ways to tell if you are the main character.  Quick spoiler: you're not. 

I used to think I was the main character. Now I know I’m not.  There’s freedom in ordinariness.

Having a morning routine is one of the simplest ways we can improve our lives. I really found that how I start the morning is how my day goes. I wouldn't trade it for anything. I’m doing a class called Surviving Social Media for ClassRT on Tuesday, June 28th at 7pm CST. You can check it out here. _______________________ This episode is meant to be supplemented with the Simple Ways to Have a Good L...

People ask me often enough what kinds of things I'm working on personally and what kinds of things I struggle with that I figured I'd just do an episode about it. The first two things I'm working on were pretty easy for me to identify: I'm always working on being more gentle and on being more social. I'm not really good at either of these things, but I know they are good for me so I'm doing my bes...

We all feel this strange obligation to watch the news so that we can be informed and know what's going on. The problem is that watching the news often leads to anxiety and worry, and we may not even be as informed as we think we are in the process. This episode explores the idea of turning off the news and what that might do for us. _______________________ This episode is meant to be supplemented...

Here's a more accurate title:  “Care less about all the things that you don't have control over or that you aren’t really interested in so that you can put your time and energy into the things you can control and the things you do care about.”⁠  It's a little clunky. Everybody expects us to care about what they care about. They expect their passions and interests to be our passions and i...

This week’s simple way to have a good life is to say “thanks for sharing”. Our brains are amazing, but they are also weird as hell. We think negative things about ourselves, we get caught up in arguments and debates inside our own heads, and we get scared about future events that we made up. When we think about these things, we are giving them attention. When we argue with these things, we are giv...

This week’s simple way to have a good life is to remember that you are human. This is the first episode in a series about getting back to basics. We have a super cool brain, and we like to use it. This often leads us to overcomplicate things and forget about some simple things that have a big impact on how we feel: Eating Sleeping Drinking water Moving our bodies Going outside Being social Contrib...

As we wrap up the series on self-sabotage we take a look at one of the worst ways we limit our own success: allowing toxic people to have a place in our lives. It sucks, but there’s no way around the fact that some people will bring destruction and misery into our lives the same way someone with the flu will bring sickness. They may not mean to do it, but the results are the same. Learning to reco...

We behave according to how we see ourselves, but we have a lot more control over this than we think we do. _______________________ If you enjoyed this episode, you may enjoy the Simple Ways to Have a Good Life newsletter. It goes out every other Monday morning and is full of things intended to help you live your best life, all for free. Sign up here , unsubscribe without any hassle. I don’t share...

We are continuing our series on self-sabotage by looking at three common behaviors that hinder us: perfectionism, procrastination, and self-medication. We also talk about things you can do to break the cycle of these behaviors if you recognize them in your own life. _______________________ If you enjoyed this episode, you may enjoy the Simple Ways to Have a Good Life newsletter. It goes out every...

I did a poll on Instagram asking people what they wanted the next series to cover, and I was surprised that self-sabotage won. In this episode, we talk about self-sabotage and how it can manifest in very subtle ways. I also talk about the very not subtle ways it has manifested for me over the course of my life and what kinds of things I've done to deal with it. _______________________ If you enjoy...

“The brain secretes thought like the liver secretes bile.” Pierre Cabanis, 18th-century French physiologist. It's a little scary to see just how much authority we give our mind once we take the time to recognize just how random the thoughts the mind churns out can be. We like to think that we are rational, logical beings who only make the best decisions, but a few minutes of observing the mind wil...

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature. Marcus Aurelius This is the first in a four-part series on our thoughts and how they impact our lives. In this episode of the podcast, we explore how our thoughts determine the quality of our lives. We will conti...

We have three degrees of control in life: none, conditional, and total. Knowing which is which and focusing our time and energy accordingly is everything.  _______________________ If you enjoyed this episode, you may enjoy the Simple Ways to Have a Good Life newsletter. It goes out every Friday morning and is full of things intended to help you live your best life, all for free. Sign up here, unsu...

What does a realistic gratitude practice look like - one rooted in reality, acknowledging the difficulties of life, and not suppressing our emotions? We talk about this and more in this episode of the Simple Ways to Have a Good Life Podcast. Two Quick Links: Your Anxiety Toolbox class My friend Meredith Hooke _______________________ If you enjoyed this episode, you may enjoy the Simple Ways to Hav...

We experience a lot of different energies in the body. The mind takes these sensations and tells us a story about them, creating our emotions. When we learn how to recognize and deconstruct this process, our life gets better. 

We go through life feeling like we have to do a lot of things we don't want to do, but when we step back and look at things we realized that we are actually choosing to do a bunch of things we don't want to do. Sometimes this is necessary to have the life we want to have, but other times we are doing things without really questioning whether they are necessary or not. _______________________ If yo...

This is the first episode in the new series where we will be talking about the things that clients have most consistently told me were useful to them over the years. The idea that we are not our thoughts is easily one of the most important things that we can recognize. We talk about that in this episode, along with three simple exercises we can use to help recognize this whenever we need to. _____...

As we wrap up season 3 I'm taking the last episode to answer a few of the questions I've gotten over the last few months: Why don’t you tell more stories about your life? What are your hobbies? Favorite things? What are you working on in yourself? What motivates you? We’ll get started on season 4 next week or the week after. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, you may enjoy the Simp...

There’s power and freedom in minding your business. The world will bring you plenty of problems, it’s unnecessary to go out of your way to find more. There are plenty of things you are well-informed about, there’s no reason to have an opinion on the things that you don’t know much about. So many of our human problems arise from our opinion of things we have no control over. Acknowledging this allo...

This is another simple one. I'll talk about the things that concern me with the primary role our phones play in our lives, and I tell you about a few things that have helped me change my relationship with my phone for the better. Thank you for taking the time to listen, take care.

This one is fairly self-explanatory. Taking a break or permanent vacation from social media can improve your life. There are a bunch of studies that document the harmful effects of social media, especially on young people, not to mention the time suck and fragmentation of awareness that comes with the territory.  I don't think you have to be militant about it and you can choose how and when y...

This episode is pretty simple. I mentioned that I think taking cold showers has been really good for me, a lot of people asked me questions, so I did a bunch of research and I talk about it on here. I wanted to keep it short and concise, so it's not exhaustive but it should get you started.