bestofourselves podcast

A community is built one act of kindness at a time. From neighbors stopping to help with a stranded car to showing up with paintbrushes, these everyday moments weave a web of connection and care. But I've been learning that strengthening this web isn't just about giving. It's also about being willing to receive. What if accepting kindness is itself a gift?

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Choosing Love in a World Built on Dominance

Finding More Kindness

What if we didn't have to wait for life to get easier before we could fully live it? Drawing on the Buddhist story of the tiger and the strawberry, Marcia reflects on finding moments of sweetness in the midst of fear, uncertainty, and grief. The tiger may still be there—but so are a warm blanket, a deep breath, the love of friends, and the sweetness of this moment.

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Breathe

Living in Uncertainty

Why is it so easy to stop doing the very things we know help us feel grounded and well? Instead of beating ourselves up or trying to force our way back with willpower, perhaps there's another way: notice what's happening, get curious, and try one small thing. This is nothing to fix, just awareness and choices.

When words fail us, what remains? Marcia shares a deeply personal reflection on caregiving, uncertainty, and the moments when experience reaches beyond language. Inspired by John O'Donohue's blessing Beannacht, this episode offers quiet companionship for anyone navigating life's darker waters.

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Beannacht from To Bless the Space Between Us

Living in Uncertainty

Silence can be a gift. The pause helps us step back from reactivity, gain perspective, and listen for something deeper than our internal chatter. But not all silence serves us. Sometimes silence protects comfort, allows harmful systems to continue unchecked, or keeps us from living our values fully.

Inspired by Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1967 speech A Time to Break Silence, this episode explores the tension between discernment and complicity, and the challenge of using our voices in service of love rather than fear, division, or self-righteousness.

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Using My Voice

Silence: A Refuge or a Hiding Place

Catching herself in a cycle of avoidance and self-judgment, Marcia explores the familiar urge to fix what feels off—and why that approach often backfires. Through a moment of honest reflection, she uncovers what was really underneath and discovers a quieter, more powerful starting point: acceptance. Not as a strategy, but as a doorway to real change.

A simple, unexpected note interrupts a cycle of stress and worry, reminding us how easily we overlook everyday acts of kindness. This reflection explores how small, ordinary moments of care—across differences and in our own communities—quietly sustain us, if we remember to notice them.

When life changes and familiar roles fall away, it's easy to feel unmoored. This reflection explores the quiet invitation in those moments—to pause, listen, and remember we are more than the roles we've played.

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Connected or Separate? - The Wave Story

In this episode, I reflect on a familiar story about an elephant held in place not by a rope, but by a belief that trying no longer matters. Living in northern Minnesota, and hearing directly from friends and family witnessing events in the Twin Cities, I explore how that same limiting story shows up in moments when constitutional rights are being tested. Drawing on the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments—and Martin Luther King Jr.'s wisdom about power and love—I name what it means for ordinary people to stand together lawfully and nonviolently. This is a reflection on civic courage, community, and why showing up, even without certainty, is how democracy is sustained.

A casual question during a cell phone upgrade sparked an unexpected political exchange—and a deeper inquiry into how we meet one another across difference. This episode reflects on presence, sacred engagement, and Martin Luther King Jr.'s reminder that love and power must work together if we're to create justice and avoid becoming what we oppose.

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Healing the Divide