Choose Wonder Over Worry: Move Beyond Fear and Doubt to Unlock Your Full Potential

SHOW GUEST: Amber Rae

In CHOOSE WONDER OVER WORRY: Move Beyond Fear and Doubt to Unlock Your Full Potential, artist, speaker and “Millenial Motivator” Amber Rae uncovers how your relationship with your most uncomfortable emotions can either lead you to numb out and stay small, or guide you back to your center.

Amber is no stranger to the consequences of ignoring her own emotions. As she rose through the ranks in the digital agency world, the gold rush of Silicon Valley, and her own foray into entrepreneurship, Amber was numbing her worry, fear, and doubts with alcohol, addiction, and by hustling for approval.

It was only when she transformed her life into a laboratory for self-discovery—treating herself as a “guinea pig”— that Amber learned how to work with these emotions, instead of against them.

Resilience: Powerful Practices for Bouncing Back from Disappointment, Difficulty, and Even Disaster

SHOW GUEST: Linda Graham

Everyone knows what it’s like to be knocked off center, to lose their inner sense of balance and groundedness, at least temporarily, when faced with life’s unwanted curve balls. Whether it’s a troubling health diagnosis, the death of a loved one, a serious car accident, a layoff, or a natural disaster, life can intensely challenge our resilience.

In Resilience: Powerful Practices for Bouncing Back from Disappointment, Difficulty, and Even Disaster, author and psychotherapist Linda Graham, MFT, guides readers step by step through a process of cultivating more well-being in their lives by strengthening their resilience so that they can respond skillfully to any upset or catastrophe that would derail that well-being. In this book we can reliably use Linda's methods to build or recover our resilience so that we can cope with whatever challenges or catastrophes might come along next — to cope with anything, anything at all.

Work That Matters: Create a Livelihood that Reflects Your Core Intention

SHOW GUEST: Maia Duerr

Take a journey to find your highest calling. So many of us feel trapped in wage slavery and deadened to our true talents and life’s purpose. Or we’ve wandered through dozens of jobs and are left feeling adrift and without meaning in our lives. Livelihood is a source of great suffering for way too many.

Work That Matters author and longtime meditator Maia Duerr wandered through several professions and dozens of jobs (including alfalfa sprout packer and Buddhist chaplain) before she finally unlocked a combination of work that was deeply fulfilling and sustainable. Work is one of the primary vehicles for expressing our deepest selves. Using the 6 Keys to Liberation-Based Live-lihood as a framework, Duerr takes readers through a comprehensive process that can lead to breakthroughs and positive reformulation of their careers. Mindfulness practice is an invaluable tool in the process of gaining new perspective. Work That Matters gives you the tools to create joyful work that embodies love and compassion—for yourself, and for the whole world.

IN MY HANDS: Compelling Stories from a Surgeon & His Patients Fighting Cancer

SHOW GUEST: Steven A. Curley, MD

IN MY HANDS is a collection of compassionate, insightful, and empowering stories of resilience, hope, and determination drawn from Dr. Curley’s years of practice. These real-life accounts from the front lines of the war against cancer offer important lessons learned from ordinary people about preparedness, courage, perseverance, and acceptance.

Dr. Steven Curley has worked with cancer patients for over two decades. While his life’s work has been to help his patients live longer lives, he found that they helped him in ways he could never have expected. Curley shares, “It’s how I encourage patients dealing with the fear and uncertainty that come with a diagnosis of cancer. Not all of the stories have happy endings. But I recognize that patients relate to the harsh realities faced by other people dealing with the same potentially grim outcome. And they can find empathy and comfort in knowing they are not alone.”

When Food is Comfort

SHOW GUEST: Julie M. Simon

Julie Simon shares with Allen that the better-than-good news is that the brain can be rewired for optimal emotional health. When Food Is Comfort presents a breakthrough, comprehensive, step-by-step, mindfulness practice I created called Inner Nurturing. Part 1 discusses how we develop self-regulation, or the ability to manage emotions, moods, thoughts, impulses, and behaviors. In Part 2 presents seven skills that makeup what she calls inner nurturing, along with information, tools, and special tips that readers can use to practice self-connection and self-nurturance. In Part 3, Simon offers strategies for attracting nurturing others into their lives, as well as four habits to cultivate in order to better nurture others. 4

In summary, Julie explains how you can move beyond your compulsive behavior and preoccupation with eating and weight, eliminate the idea of dieting from your life forever, and experience a fuller, more satisfying life.

The Grandfamily Guidebook: Wisdom and Support for Grandparents Raising Grandchildren

SHOW GUEST: Andrew Adesman, MD

Approximately three million Americans are the sole caretakers of their grandchildren, and more of us will be in that same situation, wondering how we’re going to raise our children’s children. The Grandfamily Guidebook offers just the right mix of expert advice and insights gathered from thousands of grandparents who are raising grandchildren.

In the riveting interview, Andrew Adesman, MD, join us to discuss how your top priority now is to help your grandchildren emerge thriving from what may initially feel like a less-than-ideal situation. The deeply rewarding experience of creating a grandfamily in the midst of crisis reminds us that all families are built and strengthened over time. With this comprehensive guide you'll avoid common pitfalls as you adjust to your new normal, and have a touchstone to come back to as things unfold. With advice on everything from engaging with birth parents, to managing legal and financial considerations, challenges with school and social life, and your own self-care, you'll always have a practical, inspiring guide to building a grandfamily.

A celebrity & real life tough guy he plays on screen have transitioned into making a cream targeting pain relief

SHOW GUESTS: Martin "Marty" Kove & Logan Clarke

Logan Clarke and Martin Kove, have both lived their lives as tough guys. Logan is a world-renowned private investigator and Marty is known for his portrayal of sensei John Kreese in the original "Karate Kid" movie and now in the "Cobra Kai" TV series, as well as several other physically demanding roles in movies such as "Rambo: First Blood, Part II" and "Steele Justice". With the help of doctors and a compounding pharmacy and years of trials, they’ve helped create a pain relief cream that provides more than just temporary relief, it actually targets the source of the pain to aid in the healing process.

In today’s show, we will talk about why they chose the career paths they did, and how their bodies have been affected by their careers, and the different injuries they’ve had to deal with.

THE HEALING One Woman’s Journey from Poverty to Inner Riches

SHOW GUEST: Saeeda Hafiz

In this memoir of upward mobility through an unexpected route, a young African American woman signs up for lessons in yoga and clean eating as signifiers of her new middle-class status, little realizing that her new lifestyle will bring her face to face with the inner demons fed by the domestic violence, addiction, and poverty she witnessed as a child. Graduating, getting established in your career, and dating another professional are things many young women expect to do and take for granted. But when your parents don't support you and you have siblings in prison, those milestones seem monumental. What does growing up poor do to your self-esteem? How do patterns of stress and family violence, poor diet and poor health continue to affect you even after you escape to a higher income bracket? And what can one woman do to turn around the cycle of racism, poverty, and intergenerational suffering?

In The Healing Saeeda Hafiz gives a frank account of the anxiety and rewards of becoming "middle class" through a complete change of diet and adopting habits such as traveling and doing yoga. While her peers pursue one kind of American dream by climbing the corporate ladder, Hafiz finds meaning in learning to cook macrobiotic food and practicing meditation and yoga. By doing so, she recovers from chronic health conditions and heals from the family trauma she has inherited.

Forty Things I Wish I'd Told My Kids

Show Guest: John Allcock

Most of what we worry about never happens. Yet, worrying takes up much of our time, energy, and attention. We are often victims of our own thoughts. We automatically assume those thoughts are true, when in fact they often are not. As a result, we fill our lives with unpleasant mind state. The good news is that we do not have to be stuck with whatever thoughts arise, we can change them. In Forty Things I Wish I'd Told My Kids, John Allcock presents the essentials of mindfulness - not as something special and exotic, but as practical, down-to-Earth principles for living and overcoming the "thought" trap.

Written in clear, simple language, John will share how Forty Things I Wish I'd Told My Kids is written in clear, simple language for anyone interested in living a fuller, happier life - including parents, young adults, and readers of Anna Quindlen's A Short Guide to a Happy Life or H. Jackson Brown's Life's Little Instruction Book.

The Pain Companion: Everyday Wisdom for Living With and Moving Beyond Chronic Pain

Show Guest: Sarah Anne Shockley

In The Pain Companion: Everyday Wisdom for Living With and Moving Beyond Chronic Pain, by Sarah Anne Shockley, who has personally lived with chronic pain since 2007, offers fellow pain sufferers a compassionate and supportive guide for living with pain that can be used alongside their ongoing medical or therapeutic healing programs. The book is divided into the following four parts:

Part 1: Pain Moves In

Part 2: The Emotional Life of Chronic Pain

Part 3: Meditative Approaches to Physical Pain

Part 4: When Pain Is the Teacher

"I cannot know your personal suffering, of course; only you can," writes Sarah. "But I do understand the experience of being in significant and relentless pain for long periods of time, and I can say that this book has been written from inside of pain, a perspective on the experience and the healing of pain that we are seldom offered."