60 Mindful Minutes

Our culture often teaches us to be uncomfortable with emotions, to avoid them, and to set them aside when making important decisions. But neuroscience would have us see them in a different way. In this episode, empathy researcher Karla McLaren invites us to see emotions as data, as fundamental aspects of our intelligence, and inescapable parts of our cognition. Whether you like it or not, your emotions are always at play. But the good news is, Karla can help us understand the wisdom that they bring and what a gift our emotions truly are.   Guest Bio Karla McLaren, M.Ed. is an award-winning author, social science researcher, and empathy pioneer. Her lifelong work focuses on her grand unified theory of emotions, which revalues even the most “negative” emotions and opens startling new pathways into self-awareness, effective communication, and healthy empathy. Karla is the author of The Art of Empathy: A Complete Guide to Life’s Most Essential Skill (2013), The Language of Emotions: What Your Feelings are Trying to Tell You (2010), and the multi-media online course Emotional Flow: Becoming Fluent in the Language of Emotions (2012). She has taught at University of San Francisco, Omega Institute, Naropa University, Kripalu Center, Hollyhock Learning Centre, and the Association for Humanistic Psychology. Her applied work, Dynamic Emotional Integration (also known as DEI) is a trailblazing approach to emotions and empathy that reveals the genius and the healing power within the emotional realm. Licensed DEI Trainers and Consultants are available in the United States and internationally. Karla has also developed the groundbreaking Six Essential Aspects of Empathy model that highlights all of the processes in healthy empathy and makes them easily understandable, accessible, and attainable. This fully realized model teaches people how to access, develop, and manage their empathy intentionally. It also explicitly welcomes people who have been exiled from earlier models of empathy (such as men, boys, and autistic people). With her husband, Tino Plank MA, MSN, RN, Karla developed the Healthy Empathy® program. Healthy Empathy® helps health and healing professionals develop healthy and sustainable empathy and compassion skills in their practice, in their workplace, and in their lives. Learn more at https://karlamclaren.com/.   Mentioned in This Episode Raising Happiness: 10 Simple Steps for More Joyful Kids and Happier Parents Paperback by Christine Carter Ph.D. Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right by Arlie Russell Hochschild The Gift of Fear and Other Survival Signals that Protect Us From Violence by Gavin de Becker   Connect with the 60 Mindful Minutes podcast   Web: https://kristenmanieri.com  Email: Kristen@kristenmanieri.com    Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/60MindfulMinutes Instagram: @kristenmanieri_ 

Belonging and inclusion are both critical to our health and well-being. There’s real pain to be felt when we feel like we don’t fit in or we're deliberating excluded. It’s not theoretical, it’s actually physiological, and science has proven this. During this episode, we discuss many great studies but we also bring it down to day-to-day life terms. The research is fascinating but so are the practical applications.   Guest Bio Dr. Shannon Taylor is an associate professor and Ph.D. program coordinator in the management department at the University of Central Florida. His research examines rude, abusive and unethical behaviors of employees and leaders. His work has appeared in journals in business and applied psychology and has been featured by The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Fox News and NPR. Dr. Taylor gives presentations on leadership and management to audiences in business, education, health, and government. He also serves as research director at Knowtro Inc.   Learn more at business.ucf.edu/person/shannon-taylor/.   Connect with the 60 Mindful Minutes podcast   Web: https://kristenmanieri.com  Email: Kristen@kristenmanieri.com    Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/60MindfulMinutes Instagram: @kristenmanieri_       

  We connect with other people all day long, in person and online. But how often do we take the time to connect with ourselves, to really check in and see how we’re doing and feeling? It’s not a practice our busy, fast-paced society allows for. In fact, it feels like we’re more distracted from ourselves than ever. Any given moment we have a multitude of things puling at us, demanding our attention. But there is so much value in coming home to ourselves. In this discussion with performance coach Angie Byrd we dig into why we don’t connect with ourselves and what we’re missing. And we also discuss how we can create self-connection practices and their immense benefits.    Guest Bio Angie Byrd is a teacher, writer and partner to women in motion. She serves women through intense, experiential engagements that demand presence, honesty and the shared possibility of something more. With Angie’s help, women see, feel and experience themselves as powerful beings that matter, have deep connection with themselves and in their relationships, and can pursue lives of passion and purpose. Though these transformational partnerships, Angie devotes herself to powerful, courageous women who take a stand for the lives and world they want to create. She works with clients one-on-one and in group structure designed for intense impact, speaks to audiences of all sizes and shares her work through her writings. Learn more at www.angiebyrd.com  Insta:  @angie.byrd Facebook LinkedIn   Mentioned in This Episode Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time by Brigid Schulte   Connect with the 60 Mindful Minutes podcast   Web: https://kristenmanieri.com  Email: Kristen@kristenmanieri.com    Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/60MindfulMinutes Instagram: @kristenmanieri_   

  There’s so much more to travel than the places we can cross off our bucket list or the photos we can take. International travel writer Rachelle Lucas invites travelers to break from the pack and get lost in a city. The best travel experiences are the ones that we never expected to happen, and they can only be found when we put down the map or the guidebook and just explore. Travel gives us the opportunity to connect with ourselves, with our fellow travelers and with the culture we are visiting. When we’re open to it, it can broaden our belief systems, question our biases, and open our mind and heart.   Guest Bio Rachelle Lucas is an international travel writer whose worked with People magazine, Travel Channel. The New York Times and USA Today. She founded the website The Travel Bite, a food and travel blog for inspiring active culinary vacations.   Learn more at https://thetravelbite.com/.    Connect with the 60 Mindful Minutes podcast   Web: https://kristenmanieri.com  Email: Kristen@kristenmanieri.com    Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/60MindfulMinutes Instagram: @kristenmanieri_     

  During this interview, we discuss how we can prime our emotional state, refine our inner awareness and create better attention skills that result in us having a greater capacity to monitor our mind and body in real time.   Key Takeaways “We have emotional deficit disorder around our own potential.” Excellence is having the ability to create an exceptionally stable and clarified mind… we do this through contemplative practices. When we refine our emotional awareness, we come home to ourselves more readily. We must boldly re-envision our lives as something with meaning and purpose.   Guest Bio Ryan Redman is the Executive Director of Flourish Foundation, a social profit dedicated to promoting contemplative based practices in communities for the purpose of achieving mental balance and universal compassion.  He has spent most of his life learning to make the time and the space to visit his inner world. The result has been the creation of a curriculum on topics such as contemplative practices, mindfulness and emotional regulation that he now teaches to adults, teens and kids in his home state of Idaho and also across the country. Learn more at flourishfoundation.org/.    Connect with the 60 Mindful Minutes podcast   Web: https://kristenmanieri.com  Email: Kristen@kristenmanieri.com    Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/60MindfulMinutes Instagram: @kristenmanieri_ 

Here’s something we don’t think about very much: how does a relationship occur for you and how do you occur for people who you are currently in a relationship with? What are we really committed to in our relationships with our partners, our family, friends and coworkers. Try on, as a possibility, that this sits at the foundation of your relationships. If you have no idea what I am talking about, give this episode a listen.   Mentioned in This Episode “Everything you do has an impact. Who you are – that you are – actually matters. In an interconnected world (the only kind we have), our actions and the actions of others are inextricably linked- we are always and forever in a dance of mutual influence with those with whom we directly and indirectly participate. It is the unavoidable reality of being social creatures, only magnified by an ever-increasingly complex and interwoven societal structure. We matter to each other.” - Paul Greiner   Connect with the 60 Mindful Minutes podcast   Web: https://kristenmanieri.com  Email: Kristen@kristenmanieri.com    Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/60MindfulMinutes Instagram: @kristenmanieri_    Brandon Craig is a master creator, listener and results visionary coach accustomed to working in high stakes environments. Prior to building his highly successful individual coaching practice, he founded and grew a multi-million-dollar industrial services firm. He co-leads the Create Powerful Course two times each year.   Learn more at ontocore.com.    

John P. Strelecky is on a mission to inspire people to think about and start pursuing their Big Five for Life: the five things they want to see, do or experience in their lifetime that would truly define their life as well-lived. And while he’s living his Big Five every day, he’ll be the first to admit that setting out on a new path, especially one that looks very different from the one you are already one, isn’t easy. In this conversation John defines the Big Five for Life concept and what it means to think about the museum of your life. We also talk about purpose and the impact fulfilling your goals has on other people. And of course, he tells us how people start to change or shift when they start to orient themselves towards their purpose and towards their Big Five for Life.   Key Takeaways We don’t have to wait until a tragedy or health crisis happens to take stock of our life and start living our dreams. We make such a positive impact on the people in our lives when we start pursuing our Big Five for Life.   Guest Bio John P. Strelecky is an international best-selling author and creator of the Big Five for Life concept. As of 2017, his books have sold more than 3 million copies worldwide and been translated into 29 languages. Learn more at johnpstrelecky.com.   Connect with the 60 Mindful Minutes podcast   Web: https://kristenmanieri.com  Email: Kristen@kristenmanieri.com    Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/60MindfulMinutes Instagram: @kristenmanieri_   

Recently, my husband, Marc, and I have started testing out a new ritual. We’re habit people and find that when we can put key aspects of our connection on auto-pilot—that is, we get them to happen without having to think too much about making them happen—we seem to find each other more in the slightly chaotic, sometimes harried, often muddled, basket weave that is the life we’ve assembled together. For over a decade we’ve carved the habit of a weekly date night into our family blueprint, amassing a dugout of equally delightful and reliable babysitters and teaching our kids that mom and dad time is the norm, no different than morning breakfast or nightly tuck-ins. It’s just what we do. This is simply how the Manieri family rolls. Call us overly self-indulgent, but we find that after 13 years of marriage, we’d actually like even more couple time together (gasp!). Sure, we see each other every day, but the bevy of hurried, innocuous and sometimes snippy interactions Marc and I experience throughout our busy day feel more like baton passes in a relay than anything close to meaningful connection. So, we’ve started the practice of meeting once a week for tea (wine or seltzer works just as good, if that’s your fancy). And rather than let the day’s headlines or our endless checklist guide our conversation (Did you call the roofer? Should I book the flight to Atlanta before it gets too expensive? Are you going to call the bank about those extra fees?), we anchor our interlude in two questions that have completely changed how we spend those 30 minutes together. What would you like to be acknowledged for? What would you like me to know about your life?   Connect with the 60 Mindful Minutes podcast   Web: https://kristenmanieri.com  Email: Kristen@kristenmanieri.com    Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/60MindfulMinutes Instagram: @kristenmanieri_ 

Kostya Kimlat is a Ukrainian-American magician, motivational speaker, entrepreneur and business consultant who uses magic to help others understand the importance of perception in our daily lives. Learn more at kostyakimlat.com.   Description Having the ability to see other people’s perceptions of us is a powerful skill. We may not think about it much, but we are always “on,” which is to say that we are always being perceived by our audience (our spouse, our kids, our coworkers, our friends, etc.). Tuning into our impact and bringing clarity to how we are perceived can help guide our actions in ways that help us to strategically create the result we are trying the create: the sale, the relationship, the feeling, or the moment.   Key Takeaways Methods versus effects: there’s what we do and then there is the actual impact we have on others. Sometimes our intended impact and the actual effect don’t align. The same principles of perception used by magicians to influence an audience’s thoughts and actions have been used by leaders to inspire, generals to lead, teachers to fascinate, marketers to sell, politicians to lobby, lawyers to litigate, parents to coerce and children to manipulate. Laughter, surprise and joy create positive emotions that make occasions extra memorable. Become a delighter. Bring more laughter, surprise and delight to those around you and you’ll live a rich life.   Mentioned in This Episode Penn & Teller: Fool Us with Kostya Kimlat https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCFXV6o7cro Scientists Explain Why People Learn More When They're Emotional https://www.kostyakimlat.com/blog/scientists-explain-why-people-learn-more-when-theyre-emotional Can Watching Magic Tricks Transform Your Health? https://www.kostyakimlat.com/blog/can-watching-magic-tricks-cure-depression The Secret to Making Your Weekends Feel Longer https://lifehacker.com/the-secret-to-making-your-weekends-feel-longer-1795585378 Kostya Kimlat kostyakimlat.com.   Connect with the 60 Mindful Minutes podcast   Web: https://kristenmanieri.com  Email: Kristen@kristenmanieri.com    Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/60MindfulMinutes Instagram: @kristenmanieri_ 

Guest Bio Carrie Contey, PhD is an internationally recognized coach, author, speaker and educator. Her work offers a new perspective on human development, parenting, family life and being a healthy, happy, whole human being. Learn more at www.carriecontey.com.   Description Carrie Contey has been our parenting coach for many, many years and along the way her insights and wisdom have helped us navigate our parenthood, partnership and personhood with clarity and intention.  Today’s conversation focused on connection rituals—the habits we create to consistently sync with the people we share our lives with.  Many of us have relationships with people we see every day, maybe all day, every day. And what Carrie and I discussed today was how to add more juice to those relationships and why there is so much value in having connection rituals.   Key Takeaways We all crave a deep sense of belonging and long to be seen and felt by the people in our lives. Give away only 49%; save 51% for your own self-care because you can only give your best to the world when you’ve filled yourself up first. Creating connection rituals gives us the opportunity to settle back into our relationships and to energetically return to home.    Mentioned in This Episode The Family Cooks  By Laurie David  https://www.amazon.com/Family-Cooks-Recipes-Craving-Incredibly/dp/1623362504   Slow Family Living: 75 Simple Ways to Slow Down, Connect, and Create More Joy  By Bernadette Noll https://www.amazon.com/Slow-Family-Living-Simple-Connect/dp/0399160078   Carrie Contey, PhD http://carriecontey.com/   Connect with the 60 Mindful Minutes podcast   Web: https://kristenmanieri.com  Email: Kristen@kristenmanieri.com    Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/60MindfulMinutes Instagram: @kristenmanieri_