My guest this week is psychologist Dr. Beth Kurland, author of the new book, You Don’t Have to Change to Change Everything: Six Ways to Shift Your Vantage Point, Stop Striving for Happy, and Find True Well-Being (affiliate link). We begin with a calming guided meditation that Beth led.
Topics we discussed included:
- The assumption that not feeling at ease is a personal failure
- Being with our distress without being swallowed up by it
- Cultivating well-being in the absence of happiness
- The role of self-compassion in well-being
- Recognizing and connecting with a deeper part of ourselves, whether we call is Self, spirit, or soul
- Seeing the world from our Wise Self
- Living from our head vs. being more connected to and aware of the body
- Contraction vs. expansion in the area around the heart
- Why we don’t habitually run toward our body and wise Self as refuges
- A simple practice for coming back into one’s body
- Proper breathing for calming the nervous system
Beth Kurland, PhD, is a clinical psychologist with three decades of experience.
She is also a TEDx and public speaker, a mind-body coach, and an author of three award-winning books: Dancing on The Tightrope; The Transformative Power of Ten Minutes; and Gifts of the Rain Puddle.
Beth blogs for Psychology Today and is the creator of the Well-Being Toolkit online program. She lives in the Boston area.
For more, visit her website.
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