People Who Suffer

In an unplanned conversation with Morgan, he shared a story of his son that was so powerful it prompted me to start recording. This podcast covers parenting, family relationships, comparison, and other stuff. It's fun and super meaningful. I hope you love it.

My friend and colleague who does an amazing job helping parents rebuild relationships with their teens. She shares her powerful story of how she did that with her own teen by seeing things differently.You can find her at:https://bethhillmancoaching.com/Podcast:https://parentingpostwilderness.buzzsprout.com/share?utm_source=Website&utm_medium=Home+page+banner&utm_campaign=Podcast

The greatest source of mental suffering in life comes from our relationships. They can also be the greatest source of joy. Today, Melissa and I dive a little into how we can experience way more of the joy than we do the suffering.

My identity has been running the show for me much more in the past few months than I have been used to in the last few years. It's been hard to deal with on occasion and I've been grateful for all of those who have supported me through it. This is life. We are here to support each other and to receive support from each other. Thank you.

My Client Isaac shares his powerful experience of having his experience of life go from one dominated by shame, guilt, and fear, to one of presence and beauty. 

Jacob Wright is a super talented musician and a great friend to our whole family and was in town for a show so I begged him to come record this podcast with me and share his story. He became obsessed with singing, playing guitar, and writing songs a few years ago and he has gotten good. Really good. Go listen to him!https://open.spotify.com/track/0Fv7SVISNzzhCinNNe0oyN?si=686160038d0a4c47

My delightful client Hannah shares so many stories of how her life experience has shifted in the last four months. You will love her delightful presence and will probably hear lots of your own experience in hers.

Melissa Solomon is both a great and insightful coach and a magnificent singer who understands  today's subject very well and has some great insights. We also talk a little about singing together and she suggested I include a link to one of our favorite performances. So here it is:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FkGJ16zYGo

Jilly is such a fabulous human. She isn't just fun and cute, she is also hugely compassionate and supportive. Today she shares a few thoughts  and asks a few questions that relate so perfectly with suffering less.

Tasks used to seem insurmountable to me. They still can, occasionally, but not as much when I discovered I could use this simple trick that has a powerful psychological effect. A Client stops by to try this and shares his experience.

I had a client tell me she loves my own personal stories and sometimes she even loves stories of the other clients I work with even more because she could really hear her own story inside of them.  She also loved that I always had new ones to share and she loved that so I decided to share a few.

Awareness is one of the fastest ways to feeling better. Knowing what it is and why it does what it does is one of the greatest knowings we can have. 

We can be light-hearted in almost any situation. Even when someone is mad at us. It's both simple and helpful.  When we see things as they are, we see the simplicity in what seemed complex. Then suffering is replaced with ease and understanding. 

When you suddenly find yourself in understanding, the feeling can be very foreign and the mind can start to question the peace and stillness you are feeling. The question can occur "is this true peace or am I delusional?" It's peace. Let's talk for a few minutes about how to know and maintain this feeling.

This is part II of how to love yourself, because of course that subject deserves at minimum two parts. Feeling like you don't love yourself is a big source of suffering. It's also unnecessary to feel that way.

One of, if not the most ask question I get, is how do I love myself? It's an important question to know the answer to. This is part one of a dive into that question.

There's a lot of advice out there. We are living in a culture where seemingly everyone is an expert.  Much of what these experts have to tell us is not helpful to our experience of life and ends up creating more suffering rather than reducing it. Learning how to spot bad advice  is critical to our happiness and well-being.

Coach and Client, Melissa Solomon joins me for this impromptu conversation about the value of  conversation with the right person. She shares fun stories and insights about how much things have changed for her and how she now helps others experience the same kinds of change.

Every year, a lot of us do the same thing as the date changes on our calendar. We make resolutions to do things differently next year. And we do. For a while. On this episode, I'll drop a little insight on why resolutions do not tend to stick for many of us and how to have a different experience.

When we are caught up in mental suffering, it can seem difficult or even impossible to get out of it. One of the worst symptoms of mental suffering is not wanting to do anything. There is a remedy.

My Bride turned 50 and had a big party that I almost couldn't make it to because of a massively painful shoulder injury. What I learned from all of it that may help you as well.

I get this question a lot. And it's not a completely simple question. Obviously, I'm biased, but that bias was not arrived at accidentally. Who's the therapist? Who's the coach? What knowing do they have that will impact my life? 

I had the great pleasure of joining my daughter Jaci and my second daughter Chelsey for a fun and deep conversation on their amazing podcast. This is a follow up to that with an invitation to join me for the most affordable and fun thing I've done as a coach. (And hopefully the most impactful!)

Few human emotions are as destructive as anger. Anger is particularly destructive to relationships and since relationships are the most important thing in life, an abundance of anger isn't a great thing. There seems to be an epidemic of it around the globe and it is all unnecessary. What is the antidote? Understanding it for what it is. 

Addiction isn't what we think it is. When it see it for what it actually is, addiction loses most of its power. When we see it from where we see clearly, it loses all of its power.

"It" can seem terrifying. "It" can seem overwhelming. "It" can cause us a lot of suffering. Seeing "It" from Understanding changes all that.

We live in a time where everything (and everyone) is getting labeled. This is absolutely not helpful in our pursuit of happiness or at least our pursuit of less suffering. Language is a great indicator of what we're thinking and it would serve us to be much more aware of our own language. The first thing to do is cut back on our tendency to label everything.

My delightful bride, Jilly joins me for a convo about what we learned from our pantry remodel and the powerful metaphor of the spiritual pantry we all have.

Burning man was a huge news story a couple of weeks ago and it just so happened that my friend Landon was there and joins me for a fun and insightful take on what happened, what could have happened, and powerful things we can learn from a wild experience!

A very important personal relationship had taken a turn that left me sad and it wasn't going to change on its own. I found myself being really protective of my feelings and what might happen if I texted or emailed and didn't hear back. I could have continued to protect my identity, but I didn't. Here's what happened.

I talk about a near tragedy with my son, Jacob, and a tragedy that occurred in my family when I was young. The short answer as to if tragedies are avoidable is yes. The impact that knowing they are avoidable can have on our lives is indescribably valuable.

In this episode, I revisit a story from when I was really young and didn't know how to see things any differently than the way I did. I dig a little deeper in that experience and share a valuable insight that would have changed so much about how I saw myself and life. It will work for you too.

Haylie shares her story of change over the last couple of years. The sound on my mic didn't work out well but please listen because Haylie is who you want to hear on this one!

Another guest appearance from the fantastic Morgan. We discuss lots of things on this but mostly the fact that inner work doesn't really exist. It may feel like work to access what's inside us, but if it does, we're doing it wrong.

Relationships can be challenging. They can be the greatest source of suffering in our lives. They can also be the greatest source of joy. There is one thing that will influence the success or failure of committed relationships more than any other thing.

Why? Lots of reasons that are all tied to the same reason. Also, maybe they don't and we just don't know it.

Steve Chandler is one of the greatest Life/Personal Development/Business Coaches on the planet. He is the author of close to 40 books, one of the world's best public speakers, and one of my best friends. I am honored to have him join me for this conversation and I think you'll hear lots of valuable things in it. 

You'll love this guy and what he shares! He is a life-long friend, a phenomenal Coach, a world-class magician and a pretty decent basketball player. He's so funny, intelligent, thoughtful, inspiring, and many other things. You can find him at @BlackSheepThinking on IG and online. Enjoy!

In this episode I talk about a metaphor that I absolutely love. It has helped me understand what it is to live in the moment better than anything else I've ever known.

Chronic mental stress is the root of all mental illness and the source of suffering. We think it's just a necessary part of our experience and we all have to learn to cope with it. There is another way.

Chronic mental stress is creating an epidemic of mental illness and that makes perfect sense because it is the mental illness. It's completely understandable that so many of us are suffering with chronic mental stress and it's also completely unnecessary. 

We have really come to appreciate that living in the moment creates a more enjoyable experience of life than living in the past or the future. But what does it really mean? What is really happening? Why does making an effort to "be present" have an impact on our experience and how would truly understanding what's going on have that impact be profoundly simple? That's today's conversation.

You can mentally process thoughts, feelings, and events, or you can allow your mind to quiet and understand them instead. Both produce results. One is far better than the other.

People often have real resistance to believing that everyone is doing the best they can. But we/they are. It's called Psychological Innocence. We, and I mean all of us, can only live from our level of understanding at any given moment. Low level of understanding=pretty unpleasant experience of life. The cost of living disconnected from understanding can be really high. From brutal relationships to bad health and constant conflict and challenge, living from a low level of understanding can be extraordinarily expensive. Good news is that it's not that difficult to shift.

We find ourselves in suffering and want to find a way out. The way we choose will have a monumental impact on the directions of our days and lives. Understanding the difference between choosing pleasure as a way to feel better or finding a truer source of happiness is really important in helping us get what we all want. We all want to feel better.

My daughter Jaci joins me for a very impromptu conversation to help me with something I suffer with-a very bad relationship with social media. We cover this a little but end up straying all over the place. She's delightful and I loved this convo.

We worry and obsess over what people think about us. Of course we do. It's the natural go-to move of our identities. We judge ourselves constantly. We worry about others judging us. None of it is necessary or helpful to our experience of life. How do we get it to stop, or at least become less of a source of suffering? It's easy, actually.

The biggest barrier to experiencing pure emotional and mental freedom is the inability to comprehend that it's possible. It is possible. For all of us. Here are a few simple stories of how change occurred for people I've worked with and the value of that change in their experience of life.

Rejection can feel horrible. It doesn't have to. It can be a gift that opens the door to seeing what we couldn't see before.

This is a simple conversation around identity and the role it plays in mental suffering, along with just a glimpse into the unnecessary nature of that mental suffering.

This is the very delayed part two of the flatlining story and what happened after. Hiring the most incredible Life Coach long before Life Coaching was even a thing and how that ultimately lead to me an experience that would change everything about how life occurred for me and my ability to help others.