In this second conversation with Nolan Kim, director of Power Coaching, we explore more practices for befriending the body. We begin with a dive into the science behind cold plunging and how a simple breathing practice from Wim Hof can radically boost your immune system. Nolan also outlines a number of exercises that will help you ground in your body, lower your blood pressure, and do the hard things that life requires of all of us. Since learning to be fully in your body is the foundational base of so much transformational practice, this knowledge and these exercises can be, quite literally, life-changing.

Breathing well is central to living well. In this conversation with Nolan Kim, director of Power Coaching, we explore the simplest practices for transforming your sense of presence and power through the transformation of your breath. But this is bigger than breath: ultimately Nolan invites us into a conversation about how to truly choose life while we draw breath, because our time is too precious for anything else.

One of our most profound capacities as humans is the ability to re-story our lives. In this final episode of the storytelling series, we explore the movement from shame to compassion/self-compassion. This is primarily a somatic or embodied process, allowing our bodies to release the stored vital energy that may have become stuck in our system, with groaning, yelling, and whatever else creates emotional flow. With practice, we can release our bodies into new stories, for our sake and for the sake of the world around us.

As a conclusion to the storytelling series, we explore one of the hardest things we ever learn to do: refusing self-judgment and embracing every part of us with compassion. Self-compassion has nothing to do with going soft on ourselves or giving ourselves a pass; in fact, it demands ruthless self-awareness and integrity. It is the death of our ego's self-focus and, for many, a path to the Divine. If we can learn to hold our story and ourselves with compassion, we are well on our way to becoming wounded healers in a hurting world.

We have four “characters” in our brains: two in our left hemisphere and two in our right. These characters have vastly different concerns and focuses, and when we find ourselves mired in the more self-absorbed or anxious characters, we can feel really stuck. In this episode, following the work of Jill Bolte-Taylor, we explore a way of getting unstuck. By knowing these characters and addressing them directly, we can toggling between them. And by toggling, we can shift our experience in any given moment to broader perspective, stories, and possibilities.

Imposter syndrome is a very specific type of tyranny, under which many labor. It is the fear of being found out, of being exposed, of being revealed a fraud. It destroys freedom and consumes energy, leading to exhaustion. In this episode, we explore the roots of imposter syndrome and a pathway for confronting it—even stopping it right in its tracks—for the sake of freedom, courage, and hope.

The goal of life is, in some sense, simply to become present. In this episode, we explore micro mindfulness, through which we can train and habituate our bodies to live in a relax, restful, and regulated state (in polyvagal theory, what is called a ventral-vagal state). By recognizing “glimmer moments”—moments of everyday beauty and peace—and then training our brains and bodies to be fully present for them, we can change our lives in simple but endlessly profound ways.

In this second conversation with John Philip Newell, we explore how Celtic spirituality informs a movement back to the soul and to the earth. By framing our core human essence as well as the material world as good (contra much of the dualistic philosophy and theology that has guided Western history), we can discover deeper ways to be human beings. Guided by thoughts from Newell’s newest book, The Great Search: Turning to Earth and Soul in the Quest for Healing and Home, we explore big concepts as well as daily practices for grounding and centering our lives.