Back for the first time in 7 years is my good friend Valerie Chaney. Val is a meditation and mindfulness educator, writer and the co-host of the We Made It Weird podcast with her husband, comedian Pete Holmes. Val is hilarious, gentle, wise, incredibly smart and one of my favorite people. It was no surprise when we talked for over three hours, so I’m splitting up this episode into two parts.

Val trained with Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield, who both have informed her work within healing trauma, mindfulness, meditation, and embodiment, which we speak about at length in this first part. We begin part one by discussing anger—and our problem with expressing it. We cover Internal Family Systems, learning to inhabit your body, embodiment vs. dissociating, attachment styles, fear of being alone, and how to approach all these insights with gentleness. 

In addition to her mindfulness work, Val is one of the most talented and creative people I know: she teaches dance, sings in a choir and, most recently, wrote a screenplay, which she discusses at the end of part one. 

Believe it or not, there’s a part two (next week)! It's a bit sillier and we cover more about therapy, what we were like as teens, mean girls, finding your hobbies and creative process, as well as the rom coms and style trends we love from the early 2000s.

Show notes:

- Follow Val on Instagram

- Listen to the We Made It Weird podcast with Val and Pete on Apple Podcasts | Spotify

- There is one spot open in my creative clinic -- if you'd like to book a free session, book here!

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