Zen Pop

How do we react when our children have an emotional response? Yes, there needs to be some boundaries on how our children treat us, but we must also be aware of our own triggers and take responsibility for the energy we bring. We share a recent experience when our daughter had an emotional response (let’s just say it wasn’t handled perfectly). We also use the ocean as a metaphor to dist...

Our friend Jenny Zabrocki shares her personal stories about her modern family.  Jenny and her husband Jon had three biological children and then decided to adopt.  They adopted a son, Mesfin, from Ethipoia and a daughter, Iris, from China.  She helps us understand the challenges and celebrations surrounding the adoption process.  Jenny’s very honest and grounded way of sharing her story is a...

Do you forget names or what you are going to say next? Do you walk into a room and forget why you are there? Don’t fear- we can relate, and we also have some ideas to make your brain less mushy.  There is a book called “ Keep Your Brain Alive ” that discusses Neurobics – these are ways to train your brain to stay alert and sharp. Cathy just returned from a vacation and disc...

Last Friday night was “pizza & ice cream night” in our house.  Nowhere to go, nothing to do other than watch the Olympics, eat some unhealthy but yummy food and spend some quality time together.  At least that was the picture I had in my head for the evening. The problem was one of my daughters was not on board with MY plan and instead told me how bored she was and how she wanted t...

We sit down with Amy Rodgers Duffin as she explains her tactics for striking that elusive balance of career/mom/wife.  Some of the things she explains in this conversation… I am not sure who came up with this term, but to most women, it’s something we dream about, but find it difficult to have. As valuable as a winning lottery ticket, achieving work life balance means that we would actually...

When was the last time you asked somebody for feedback? Maybe from your partner, your work, or your kids?  We discuss the importance of feedback, specifically how to give it, and how to receive it.  We also discuss Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s tragic death and how these real life situations can be discussed in the home (for children who are old enough to understand). We end by talking to Kelly ...

We talk about personal responsibility as well as Kathy Caprino’s blog titled “7 Crippling Parenting Behaviors That Keep Children From Growing Into Leaders”  A link to the blog is listed under “resources” below.  The 7 beahaviors are: 1. We don’t let our children experience risk 2. We rescue too quickly 3. We rave too easily 4. We let guilt get in the way of leading we...

Help is on the way!  We interview a truly inspirational person- Jonny Immerman.  At 26 years old, Jonny was diagnosed with testicular cancer and began his fight against the disease. Throughout his experience, Jonny was lucky enough to have loving support from his family and friends but had never met anyone his age who was a cancer survivor. He wanted to talk to someone just like him, someone who t...

We discuss the importance of the inner world, specifically how this relates to preadolescent/teenage boys. They generally don’t ask for help, but that doesn’t mean they don’t need support.  We offer tips and guidance in how to understand and relate to “boy world”.  We also discuss the “innerscape” and “outerscape” of a person and why “rem...

In the first half of the show we discuss ideas a blog written by Dr. Mark Goulston on how to increase the happiness of your “couplehood”  The 10 habits discussed: 1. Go to bed at the same time 2. Cultivate common interests 3. Walk hand in hand or side by side 4. Make trust and forgiveness your default 5. Focus more on what your partner does right than what he or she does wrong 6. Hug e...

We interview Dr. Shefali Tsabary the author of the The Conscious Parent (with a forward written by the Dalai Lama) and her new book Out of Control  which questions why and how we discipline children. Some of the issues we discuss with Dr. Shefali: – What are the first steps we can take to become a more conscious parent? – What prevents us from being the parent that we want to be? &#821...

It’s Cathy’s turn to share what she learned after 11 years of marriage.  Her mistakes: 1. Being a martyr 2. Pretending to like things I didn’t like 3. Not trying things I haven’t tried (paradox) 4. Worrying about the small stuff (and not seeing the big stuff)5.Not trusting Todd’s ability to parent 5. Wanting Todd to read my mind 6. Shutting down instead of saying what...

When I do the annual job of washing the windows in my house, I always say without exception, “I never realized they were that dirty.”  I can now see how green the trees are, how blue the sky is. We see the world through our own filter.  Our soul needs to to be cleaned as well by doing things such as reading books, working with a therapist, meditating, taking a mindful walk, etc.  These...

We interview Josh Becker, a teacher for Breakthrough for Men and host of the I Simply Am   podcast.   Breakthrough for Men is dedicated to making real change in the quality of men’s lives.  We discuss why it’s much more difficult to gather a group of men (vs. women) for the purpose of self exploration.  Josh helps redefine the definition of manhood – society encourages men to be strong...

We interview blogger/editor Ben Martin of The Good Men Project.  We discuss his blog which asks the question Why is it socially acceptable to speak down to children when we would rarely (if ever) speak to another adult in the same way?   Cathy also shares her thoughts on the lessons from the movie Frozen (the trailer can be found @ the bottom of this blog). This movie is all about self acceptance,...

Among the topics of todays podcast: We discuss a blog title “Is Disney TV poisoning our kids”?  Some people thinks so.  Some shows are OK, whereas others are just not good for your kids to be watching. Where’s the balance between prohibiting certain shows for your kids and letting them figure out for themselves what is good/bad and then having a discussion about the shows.  We co...

We talk with Annie Burnside, author, blogger, and teacher who focuses on spiritual development for individuals and families. In this podcast we discuss the problem with parenting books, why personal growth is the key to parenting, and how to infuse spiritual language and lessons into digestible bites. Annie also talks about raising teenagers and the true definition of success. Towards the end of t...

The theme for this week is forgiveness (big and small) and heroes.  Cathy and Todd talk about a  mugger who apologized to his victim on facebook…35 years later. In the spirit of the holiday season they discuss other forms of forgiveness – to ourselves and others. They illustrate this with the story of the two monks. and they also talk a lot about Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. As we a...

We discuss 4 ways to reduce your holiday stress: Dealing with family, How to cope with a case of the “shoulds”, Setting an intention for the holidays, Register for the 8 days of Holiday Calm Virtual Retreat . Todd features the first of four weekly shout outs to a a holiday movie.  This week we feature National Lampoons Christmas Vacation. The Tournament of Bad is in full force as we debate delayin...

We talk with Nancy Mullen, social worker, author, pastry chef, and advocate for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth. Nancy worked for several years in the HIV/AIDS field and shifted to her work with LGBT youth in 1998 as the executive director of a small, grassroots agency. She is a sought after public speaker on topics such as LGBT Youth and Adolescent Development and Current Tren...

What is Thanksgiving about? Being with family or finding the best deal? Many retailers moved Black Friday deals up a day and now people are expected to work on Thanksgiving or they feel the need to shop instead of relax.  We subscribe to not feeding into the frenzy – will you join us? We also discuss a book titled Triumphs of Experience by George Vaillant.  The book is the longest longitudinal stu...

We were inspired by a 60 Minutes segment about a group of billionaires who took “The Giving Pledge”.  It’s headed up by Bill/Melinda Gates and Warren Buffet, and the only requirement is to give away at least half of your fortune.  Sometimes it’s easy to look at the super rich and say, “Well if I was that rich, I would do the same thing.”  The bottom line is that most people in the U.S. are rich co...

Conversations With People We Love- We interview a self admitted former bully.  Mark Schultz is a friend and somebody who told Cathy and I that we had to watch the documentary Bullyand then interview him on his experiences as a former bully with the hopes that we can all learn a little bit from his experience.  He shares with us how he became a bully and the unlikely person who showed up to change...

We are talking about bullying…. again, but this time it’s about the adults (Rich Incognito/Jonathan Martin story).  We discuss “man code” and the culture of the NFL, but recognize that many cultures have a “code” that is expected to be kept. It’s easy to direct anger at the an individual, but we are reminded that most bullies were a victims at some point in their lives. We also discuss end of life...

Are you sure about that?  Parents of boys say this to us a lot, but this can be a matter of experience or expectation. Sure, it may feel true in many situations, but not hearing a peep from your boys about anything doesn’t mean that nothing is going on – they may just be less comfortable expressing their emotions and asking for help. Maybe a girl does become more frustrated or unsure about emotion...