Conversations with Thomas

In this warm, witty, and wisdom-packed episode of Conversations with Thomas, host Thomas Kevin Dolan explores the tender art of kindFULLness—a powerful blend of mindfulness and self-compassion. Through vulnerable storytelling, science-backed insight, and just the right dash of humor, Thomas shows how practicing kindFULLness isn’t about escaping life’s mess, but meeting it with a soft heart and curious mind.

He shares personal stories from his memoir Little Fag: A Story of Self-Acceptance and Healing, including a middle school mirror moment and an emotional breakdown at his first Pride parade—moments where kindFULLness helped him stay grounded and whole. Thomas also breaks down what the research says, from cortisol reduction to increased emotional resilience, and offers a simple, guided practice to help listeners embody kindFULLness in their daily lives.

If your inner critic needs a nap and your soul is craving a little grace, this one’s for you.

What You'll Learn:

•          What kindFULLness is—and why it matters

•          How to spot your inner critic (and kindly tell it to pipe down)

•          The science behind self-compassion and stress reduction

•          A 4-step “Gentle Pause” practice you can use anytime

•          Why you can be a masterpiece and a work in progress

Perfect For:

Anyone who’s tired of beating themselves up and ready to show up with more softness, humor, and self-acceptance.

Bridge Burning 

How often have you heard quotes like these:

“Keep burning those bridges. It’s going to be lonely on that island of yours.”

“Don’t burn bridges you may have to cross later.”

Or my favorite:

“Don’t burn a bridge and expect them to send a boat.”

Usually, this is pretty sound advice. The one thing they are all missing is that little asterisk (*) that points to the disclaimer:

•            Unless that bridge is so screwed up that it might collapse and kill you at any moment.

Sometimes you need to burn bridges in order to stop yourself from crossing them again.

Grind or Ground 

Grounding allows you to develop the capacity to appreciate your genuine rhythm and feel a natural, relaxing flow in both your internal and exterior worlds.

Grind Culture is not really about Making It to The Top. It’s about trying to compensate for a lack of self-worth built in by a society that wants you to feel this way so that it can keep on producing and dominating everything.

Rumi shares this: 

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
 and rightdoing there is a field.
 I’ll meet you there.
 When the soul lies down in that grass
 the world is too full to talk about.

When you find that field. Share the location with me and I’ll meet you there.

The 18 Inch Journey

From this inner knowing comes great wisdom of understanding of the truth of your experience and your nature. 

When we look into our hearts, we are able to access that deep wisdom and use it to inform our minds with crucial information it does not receive from the outside world. 

It is easy to allow the heart to take a backseat because most of us spend a majority of our lives leading with our brains, preoccupied with the immense amount of stimulus coming from the outside (both good and bad). 

We must actively remember to check in and to connect with the heart. 

We need the hearts wisdom to help guide us through all of the outside stimulus. 

So remind yourself daily, hourly, from moment to moment and ask:  

•        What is my heart telling me or wanting me to know? 

Become best friends, because if anyone has your best interests in mind, it’s your heart!

Self-FULL 

Many of you know that I, at one time, had 9 other siblings. And of course, from my Mom’s vantage point, the best version of her children were the ones that weren’t going to be selfish. I was loved when I shared. 

I hated sharing with my siblings. Having nothing of my own growing up was quite painful. So as much as I learned to share, I preferred to be selfish, at least that’s what I wanted as a little boy.  

In therapy one day the idea of better self-care was bandied about by my therapist. “What would it be like to be more selfish”, my well-intended therapist asked. 

I remember starting to cry. Through tear filled eyes I said, “I always thought I wasn’t loved by my Mom when I was selfish.” 

It was a story I made up when she busted me for not sharing a block of Hershey’s chocolate a friend of my Dad bought for me. 

After getting me re-grounded he gently asked, “If there was term or concept that meant you focusing on you, but you didn’t use the term selfish, what would it be?” 

As my eyes lifted to meet his, I began to smile. “What about self-FULL? Would that work?” 

Like any good therapist worth their salt he asked, “Would that work for you?” “Hell yes!”, I said. 

In today’s podcast I want to breathe some energy into the concept of being self-full. 

I’ll also share 6 reasons why living “SELF-FULL” is incredibly generous.

BADASS ANCESTORS

James Nasymth shares this wisdom, “Our history begins before we are born. We represent the hereditary influences of our race, & our ancestors virtually live in us.” 

We are part of a lineage, a stream of intention and creation whose fountain springs from our ancestors. 

Their lives have been lived and completed with a beginning-middle-end. And yet, something of them lives within each of us. 

I feel compelled to include my ancestors as subject matter for this podcast & in doing so I’m inviting you to call your ancestors forward to listen with you today. 

Their forces have had a hand in shaping us. It’s a beautiful idea, to see ourselves as a stream, as a lineage, and important to remember and honor those who came before us.

This podcast is being recorded in Honolulu, Hawaii.  I acknowledge that the unceded ‘Āina, or land, in which I live, called Kakaako, is part of the larger territory recognized by Kānaka Maoli, or indigenous Hawaiians.  I'm honored and grateful to be a guest of the Hawaiian Kingdom.

Refresh 

I love the word refresh. It’s such a perfect word to describe starting again or returning to something. 

In fact, we even use it as a computer term. 

Sometimes when I’m working on my computer, leave it for a while, and then come back, things freeze up. Certain programs aren’t working properly anymore. 

So I have to refresh my computer screen. And there are times when that means I need to completely reboot.

I read recently a very simple, both symbolic & practical, way to refresh your home - open the back door, let out the old energy. Open your front door let in the new energy. 

Letting in the freshness, letting out the stale. I sense it’s a powerful way to energize or re-energize our lives. 

In this podcast I’m want to share how it is we might consider a refresh on an emotional level. 

I’ll offer some very pragmatic ways to do this, all nestled in a bit of philosophy. 

It is such a privilege to grow older & as I breathe into each day with gratitude, I realize there is a lot in my life that I find I cannot control. 

For what seems like a myriad of strategies, learned from brilliant therapists & terrific life coaches, even I at times fall prey to feeling helpless and distraught, while frantically trying to manage what is happening. 

I scramble to gain ground, when I fall out of integrity, as a way to make up for it. I plunge head first - not heart first - into emotionally charged confrontations nervously rehearsing and strategizing. Sometimes it all feels pretty shitty. 

The more I allow fear to rule the roost, the more frenetically my body and mind work. Days get overloaded with busyness. Movement feels imperative - which is usually just deflection - with me not wanting to deal with life. 

Planning for the sake of planning gets ramped up. Worrying, habitual talking, zero listening, fixing, posturing, texting, doom scrolling, binging, consuming, and numbing - these tactics run my life. 

In the world of doing, achieving and looking to the future, we seldom take the time to pause or be still. We may hear whispers that beckon us into stillness, but they are easily ignored.

In this podcast I’m going to chat about how challenging it is to slow down when living in our fast-forward world. 

I’ll reflect, from personal experience, that there is always a price to pay if we don’t regularly take time simply to pause—to cease activity, to treasure quiet time, and to discern the deep meaning of life’s little moments.

“When you argue with reality, you lose, but only 100% of the time.”   

I heard this quote for the first time when reading a book by Byron Katie, and my brain screamed that I really needed to pay attention to this sentence.  

As a WayFinder Coach trained in Byron Katie’s work, literally called The Work. Think about this; when we argue with reality, we are denying what is, what already exists. 

Who of you listening argues the fact that the sun comes up every day, and that the earth rotates around the sun? Imagine dying on that hill as you argue against these two bits of reality. 

I’m going to trust, not one of you does, because that is a part of reality that we have come to accept as truth. 

In this podcast I’m going to chat about accepting what is, how to more easily embrace reality & share some insight on how to make this common thread across our challenges: our inability to deal with reality - a wee bit easier. 

Although it felt a bit nebulous, maybe even boring when I thought about sharing a conversation about challenge, I’ve landed on now seeing its merits.

During this podcast I’ll share some thoughts about challenge, challenging ourselves and what all of that really means. 

Think back to the last time you challenged yourself. 

Most likely, it involved leaving your comfort zone. There's a lot that falls under the umbrella of trying something new. For instance, maybe you ran an extra mile, woke up earlier than usual, or tried a new approach to solving a problem. 

It doesn't matter if it's a small challenge or a big one, that takes a year to accomplish. It's still a challenge.

If you're on the road to self-improvement or personal growth, you need to know why and how to challenge yourself.