Dear Family,

Julie Lythcott- Haims is a Black biracial woman born to an African American man and a White British mother. Because her parents violated rules and policy by daring to love, she's always questioned norms. She grew up knowing her existence was problematic in the eyes of some, which has stayed with her giving her the superpowers of compassion and kindness. She believes in humans and is deeply interested in what gets in our way.

She is the New York Times bestselling author of the anti-helicopter parenting manifesto How to Raise an Adult. It gave rise to a TED Talk that has more than 5 million views. She's just published a new book, Your Turn: How to Be an Adult that speaks directly to the heart and mind of people coming into their adulthood. It's an inclusive, candid, and comprehensive guide for young adults and for those who love them.

Julie is a former corporate lawyer and a Stanford dean. She holds a BA from Stanford, a JD from Harvard, and an MFA in Writing from California College of the Arts. She serves on the board of Common Sense Media and on the advisory board of LeanIn.Org, among other roles.

Julie identifies as queer and bisexual. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her partner of over thirty years, Dan Lythcott-Haims, their two itinerant young adults, and her mother with whom she and Dan bought a house 20 years ago, the subject of her next book.

SHOW NOTE LINKS:

Julie Lythcott-Haims Website

Your Turn- How to Be an Adult by Julie Lythcott-Haims

Julie Lythcott-Haims Instagram

Julie Lythchott-Haims Twitter

Julie Lythcott-Haims Facebook

The Trevor Project

Rachel's Dear Family, Podcast on the topic of Sharenting

Rachel's Article on Sharenting

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Aubert Bastiat is a father, husband, ceremonialist, and facilitator of sacred masculinity circles. He was born in Taipei to a Taiwanese mother and a White American father who was an English teacher. He was five years old when his parents separated after moving to California to briefly live with his paternal grandfather. When his father left and moved to Japan, he felt abandoned.

For most of his childhood, he was raised by a single mother who struggled financially to support him and his two sisters, one who would eventually die by suicide. Aubert lived a double life, the yearbook editor and in all the AP classes while selling drugs to fuel and pay for his habit. He'd end up in jail, his life spiraling downward.

An atheist on the verge of taking his own life, he prayed to God who spoke to him. His spiritual awakening initially translated into him becoming a hermit for the next year, praying, meditating, and studying different world religions. He would rewrite the script of fatherhood in his lineage to give his young sons a new expression of masculinity, basking in the new glow of fatherhood and feeling inspired to be the best man he could be. He co-founded Sacred Sons, an emerging voice in the collective movement of healthy masculinity facilitating men's gatherings and circles to find brotherhood, wellness, connection, community, healing, and love.

SHOW NOTE LINKS:

Sacred Sons Website

Sacred Sons on Instagram

Aubert Bastiat on Instagram

Rachel's Mom, Laurie Kallen Schwent's Dear Family, Podcast Episode

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Rachel Lily Campbell, or RLC to her friends, grew up in Los Angeles, an only child with older parents who were in the exclusive art world. Born into a life of affluence, private schools, world travel, and celebrities, what she really yearned for was love and attachment from her parents. Highly gifted and misunderstood, she got into a lot of trouble, pushing boundaries. She was sent to the same rehabilitation boarding school as Paris Hilton. You'll want to listen to hear how eating biscuits and gravy in Utah County Jail was the best meal she's ever had.

An early success in the beauty industry as a stylist, it was her love for fitness that pushed her into the wellness industry. A self-proclaimed Jewish Malibu Barbie with arm tattoos and blonde hair extensions, she tried to find stability by marrying a Baptist, Republican Texas Cowboy. Her marriage would not survive the conventional life her husband's family expected of her.

Rachel's disordered eating began when she was young as a means of control and followed her until she was pregnant. She finally decided to not just find wellness reformation but deliverance for herself and for her son, Deuce. Only recently has she been diagnosed with OCD, helping her reign in her immense energy and focus to build her business and thrive.

Rachel is the founder of Break a Sweat- a company birthed after she saw the dire need for a wellness community for moms, after becoming a mom herself. Her combination of fitness and wellness expertise, plus her own personal mental health journey has placed her in a position of inspiration to so many. Her clients come for the exercise but stay for the mom tribe. She uses her platform to elevate and educate with transparency about nutrition and motivation hacks, body strengthening, regaining energy, getting through the emotional highs and lows of parenting, and more. She knows the collective healing lies in the personal testimony and wants you to step into your own power and space to feel great!

SHOW NOTE LINKS:

Break a Sweat with RLC

RLC on Instagram

Break A Sweat Facebook Group

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Carson Tueller was raised in a religious Mormon and a military family. He and his five siblings moved from state to state across the U.S. every three years. He eventually established long-term residence in Utah, where he attended college before moving to New York City.

Carson's life took an unexpected turn in 2013. The same year he came out as a gay man, he injured his spinal cord in a trampoline-related tumbling accident. His broken neck paralyzed him from the chest down, shifting everything causing an identity crisis- the impetus for his major self-discovery and exploration.

Now an LGBTQ+/disability advocate, he shares his experiences as a gay disabled man, including his journey with grief, loss, and worth. He quickly generated interest on Instagram, training and speaking to international leaders on topics like worth, inclusion, and suicide prevention. He coaches across the U.S. to universities, corporations, and nonprofits about how individuals can experience power, happiness, and fulfillment in any circumstance in life. He believes consciously creating our personal narratives can result in massive changes in our quality of life and the results we produce. Carson is passionate about giving people hope.

SHOW NOTE LINKS:

Carson Tueller's Website

Carson on Instagram

Carson's Blog

Carson's "Ask Men" article about Disability and Sex

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Chrissy Blumenthal grew up in Arvada, Colorado. She describes her childhood as pretty normal and uneventful until her parents divorced when she was nine years old. Her mother struggled to make ends meet and tried to provide the best she could for Chrissy and her older brother Gary. After high school, Chrissy took on a number of odd jobs to support herself, including a stint in mud wrestling.

At age 20, she gave birth to her first son, Cody, and shortly after his birth, she put herself through art school earning an associate's degree in the music business. After graduation, she moved to Los Angeles with her then, 2-year-old son, Cody, and she began her professional career at Columbia Pictures. She was a single mother for 12 years until she met and married her best friend, a successful film producer and writer, Jason Blumenthal in 1999. Together they had two kids, Jax and Calli.

Life felt like a fairy-tale until the summer of 2013 when her world came to a screeching halt. Four words forever changed her life: YOUR CHILD HAS CANCER. Jax was just 11 years old when he received the devastating diagnosis. Her son had stage 3 hepatoblastoma (cancer of the liver). Chrissy immediately jumped into the most important role of her life, caretaker, healer, medical advocate, and research fanatic. After a very long, turbulent, and uncertain road that included a liver transplant, lung resections, and chemotherapy, Jax is finally cancer-free. During their journey, Chrissy became passionate about raising funds and awareness for pediatric cancer research, which is profoundly underfunded by the government. She now serves as President at Chords2Cure, a non-profit centered around live music events which benefit pediatric cancer research.

Chrissy currently lives in Brentwood, California with her husband, two teenagers, two dogs, and a French lop bunny. During Covid, Chrissy was thrilled to finally get a message that she had been waiting over 2 decades to receive. It was from the mother of Chrissy's biological children, who were conceived via IVF with the eggs Chrissy donated 27 years earlier. The pregnancy resulted in twins, who have now grown into an awesome young man and wonderful young lady. Her family has welcomed them all into their homes and into their hearts. The family continues to grow because her firstborn son, Cody recently had an adorable baby girl named Arrow- officially making Chrissy a proud Glam-Ma.

SHOW NOTE LINKS:

Chords2Cure Website

Chords2Cure on Instagram

Chrissy's Email

The Wolf Connection

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The day Taun Hall's son Miles was shot and killed by the Walnut Creek Police, she stepped into her life's work: creating change to protect families from a system that failed her son. On June 2nd, 2019, Miles Hall was having a mental health crisis because of his schizoaffective disorder. Because our mental health system is deeply flawed and doesn't support families whose adult children have a mental illness, she had no option but to turn to the police to get Miles help. She did everything right- sought guidance on how to maneuver through the mental health system, was strategic and deliberate in her efforts to protect and support Miles by letting her mostly White neighbors know her Black son was harmless and non-violent but that his schizoaffective disorder made him hallucinate and believe he was Jesus.

After working with the police for two years to protect Miles during his mental health episodes, the police responded to her call for help with lethal force. On a sunny afternoon in their quiet neighborhood, the Walnut Creek Police shot and killed Miles within a block from their home before making any efforts to de-escalate the situation. Miles was not a criminal. He was ill. He had mental illness. Miles should be alive today.

​Since Miles's death, Taun and her husband, Scott and their daughter, Alexis have been fighting to create change and protect families from a loss like theirs- creating The Miles Hall Foundation to continue and expand their work. They recognize how black and brown communities are disproportionately affected by police violence and want to change police responses to mental health crisis calls, restrict use of force by police, and adopt anti-bias and de-escalation training. They are also sponsoring the AB988 Bill, The Miles Hall Lifeline Act to create a new three-digit phone line, 988 for suicide prevention and immediate, localized emergency response for individuals in mental health crisis by trained mental health professionals.

Taun's message is mental health conditions should not be criminalized, Black lives matter, Black minds matter, her son Miles matters, and change is possible and inevitable. We are all connected to someone who is suffering from mental illness and we all have the power to create change to protect and support them.

SHOW NOTE LINKS:

Justice for Miles Hall- Website

Help Pass AB-988- The Miles Hall Lifeline Act

Justice for Miles Hall- Facebook

Justice for Miles Hall- Instagram

Justice for Miles Hall- Twitter

Suicide Prevention Hotline- Website

Suicide Prevention Toll-Free Phone Number- 1-800-273-8255

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Jessica Lahey is a mom who believes every substance abuse story begins at home but can be prevented with an addiction inoculation. She uses her Bachelor's in comparative literature and her law school degree in juvenile education as a teacher and a writer. For over twenty years, she's taught every grade from sixth to twelfth in both public and private schools as well as New England's most addicted children in an inpatient drug and alcohol rehab.

Jessica writes about education, parenting, and child welfare for The Washington Post and the New York Times, among other publications. She's the New York Times bestselling author of The Gift of Failure: How the Best Parents Learn to Let Go So Their Children Can Succeed.

After years of her own alcohol abuse recovery, she was determined not to pass on the most dangerous inheritance to her sons. She's just published The Addiction Innoculation: Raising Healthy Kids in a Culture of Dependence. This hybrid memoir and science-based research approach discusses how anxiety and substance abuse are bedfellows. The European drinking age myth, zero tolerance, and the idea of "delay, delay, delay" are all examined. It's an important read for all teachers, parents, counselors, and coaches.

Jessica hosts a podcast called #amwriting with advice on the craft, productivity, and creativity for writers and journalists in all genres. She loves living in Vermont with her husband, an infectious disease specialist who has been very busy this year, her two sons, and her three dogs and two cats. During her free time, she loves to knit and garden.

SHOW NOTE LINKS:

Jessica Lahey Website

Jessica Lahey on Twitter

Jessica Lahey on Facebook

Jessica Lahey on Instagram

The #AmWriting Podcast

Rachel's Brother, Adam Kallen's Dear Family Episode- Success Story of Overcoming Addiction to Owning Hottest Motorcycle Apparel Brand and Hosting All-Men's AA Meeting

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Are you ready for some really great news? Getting together with a friend is not only fun, but it's also great for your health and happiness.

We all know how important our Dear Family, is but our friends might prove to be even more important, especially as we age. Research published in the journal Personal Relationships studied more than 270,000 people in nearly 100 countries. What it found was both family and friend relationships were associated with better health and happiness but the benefits remained over a lifetime for people who reported strong friendships. This means our friendships are more predictive of our day-to-day happiness and ultimately how long we'll live, even more so than spousal and family relationships.

Let's break that down.

• Friendship is really good for you.
• You can't choose your family, but you can choose your friends.
• When your friends are a source of support, you are happier and healthier and live longer.
• To have a friend be a friend.
• Friendship makes life worth celebrating.

Over a year ago some of my oldest friends and I started a "Pandemic Group Chat" as a means of support during such an anxiety-producing time. I never expected it would become a lifeline proving my closest friendships were even more important than I had ever imagined.

Wanting to see if my girlfriends felt as I did, I was thrilled when seven out of ten of them were able to hop on a Zoom and let me ask them questions about our friendship with a day's notice. Yes there were husbands and kids coming in and out of our rooms and dogs were barking and texts and emails were dinging and phones were ringing and dinner needed to be made…but it didn't stop us from making time for each other and feeling all the feels. When we hung up, or I should say "left the room," we felt lighter and happier and more connected…just some of the many benefits of friendship.

I want to thank my phenomenal friends, Allison Bronson, Jill Chizever, Lauren Rojany, Jessica Sacks-Davimos, Deborah Singer, Denise Snanoudj, and Kim Gursey-Wills for sharing so openly and jumping in headfirst to help support a friend. You know what they say, "Old friends are the best friends."

Make sure to listen to hear why we are each others' Crockers and learn so much more as we answer:

*What is a friend?

*What's your favorite thing to do with a friend?

*Do you consider your closest friends to be your chosen family and if so, why?

*What is it about old friends? Tell us about a friendship that has survived the test of time?

*What's the nicest thing a friend has done for you?

*What did our pandemic group chat show you about friendship? How have your friendships fared during the pandemic?

*Like in the movie "When Harry Met Sally," can men and women be friends?

*Some of our friendships are going on 45 years now (granted we were 5 when we met). What's it like to grow old with your friends? What are the benefits?

*What's the first thing you want to do with your friends once we're all vaccinated?

SHOW NOTE LINKS:

Corresponding Article- Dear Friends, You're Like Family

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Thank you! Your support means the world to me. Wishing you love, happiness, and good mental health always.

Jaycee Gossett is a dancer, model, teacher, podcaster, and wanderlust who believes the limitations we experience, whether physical, emotional, or spiritual are tied together- a true mind/body connection. Jaycee shines a light on how movement connects us and brings us so much joy bringing her years of competitive Latin ballroom dancing into schools, to wedding couples, and in her wildly popular exercise classes.

Jaycee has worked in front of and behind the camera. She produced and starred in a show for the Travel Channel called "Dance the World" highlighting how people move their bodies in different ways. After growing up around many brothers and their friends, she shares why women need other women. Her unforgettable goddess retreats celebrating divine femininity in Costa Rica and Brazil were named one of the best retreats by Well and Good.

She's a founding teacher and the VP of Training at The Class, a cathartic workout for the body and mind started by Taryn Toomey. Jennifer Aniston, Christy Turlington, and Gisele among many others say it is their favorite workout because it not only is great exercise, it is a spiritual release through music, movement, and breathwork where you are pushed to get uncomfortable in order to change. Jaycee continues the conversation in her new podcast, The Class where she creates a mental and emotional toolbox using the same three pillars discussed in The Class: Curiosity, a desire to learn, Vulnerability- a state of openness, and Authenticity- showing up in a genuine way.

Before marrying my awesome brother, Adam Kallen (DF Podcast episode one), she dated Val Kilmer for three years who she credits for her introduction into spirituality and a love for nature. A true wanderlust, Jaycee shares how her first year of marriage went during a pandemic in a Brooklyn apartment she shares as a newlywed with a cute but rambunctious puppy. Jaycee opens up about her infertility journey and the challenges she's been through. She rids the shame and stigma around a topic many of us are often too fearful to bring up, in the end helping so many others to see they are not alone.

SHOW NOTE LINKS:

Jaycee Gossett's Instagram

Jaycee Gossett Website

Jaycee's Sizzle Reel for Dance Around the World

Jaycee- The Class- Movement

Jaycee- The Class- Podcast

My brother, Adam Kallen's Dear Family, Episode- #1

My Mom, Laurie Kallen Schwent's Dear Family, Episode #50

Chili's Instagram

Jaycee's Photo Credit: Rachael Dunville

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Thank you! Your support means the world to me. Wishing you love, happiness, and good mental health always.

Jaycee is a dreamer who inspires others to dream and find the power within themselves. She encourages us to overcome limitations through movement and guided self-exploration.

Christine Koh thinks we should all enjoy life by doing less- and this comes from a woman with many businesses and kids who are still at home. She's a music and brain scientist turned multimedia creative who spent a decade in academia and was awarded prestigious fellowships at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and MIT. On the verge of becoming a professor and after her first baby, she decided to change her career path to focus on creating content to help people live better, happier, and with elevated purpose and intention.

She's the founder of Boston Mamas, a pioneer in the hyperlocal lifestyle niche. She co-hosts Edit Your Life, a podcast about making room for awesome, and Hello Relationships, a podcast she co-hosts with her husband that helps people stop small relationship aggravations from becoming big problems. She's the co-author of Minimalist Parenting, a book to help parents enjoy modern family life more by doing less. She's the designer and co-owner of Brave New World Designs, a stylish collection of advocacy-oriented designs where 20% of each sale goes to a different charity related to the design. And she's also the creative director at Women Online, a communications firm specializing in using social media for good.

With the ability to juggle her many businesses and edit her life to get rid of the unimportant, she makes time for baking and decorating gorgeous cakes and spending time with her husband, two daughters, and her pandemic puppy.

SHOW NOTE LINKS:

Christine Koh Website

Boston Mamas

Edit Your Life Show- A Podcast

Hello Relationships- A Podcast

Christine's Book- Minimalist Parenting

Brave New World Designs

Women Online

Video of Christine cutting her hair

Rachel's Blog Post- The Time My Mental Health Advocacy Backfired

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Thank you! Your support means the world to me. Wishing you love, happiness, and good mental health always.