This conversation with Margi Hofer covers a range of experiences as she worked through the diagnosis and then treatment for Mantle Cell Lymphoma, an incurable cancer. Margi’s age and gender make her an unlikely victim of this disease, and she discusses how that affected her, how her support network came to her aid, her reactions to the current pandemic, and her advice for people going through similar challenges.

A long-time museum curator specializing in decorative arts, Margi is currently Vice President and Museum Director at the New-York Historical Society. She has curated numerous exhibitions and is the author of several publications, including Making It Modern: The Folk Art Collection of Elie and Viola Nadelman, Stories in Sterling: Four Centuries of Silver in New York, and A New Light on Tiffany: Clara Driscoll and the Tiffany Girls. She is an adjunct professor of museum studies at the City University of New York's School of Professional Studies. Margi is a graduate of Yale and the University of Delaware's Winterthur Program in Early American Culture. 

In this podcast we speak with Frenchman and ex-insomniac Delbert Curtis about sleep, insomnia, and his top tips and tricks for improving your sleep. Earlier this year, Delbert published The Self-Empowering Sleep Book, which is full of practical recommendations based on his own experience living with insomnia for over 20 years before finally successfully addressing it seven years ago. Throughout this episode Delbert shares a number of statistics about the evolution of our relationship with sleep. We also discuss the value of tracking your sleep, checking your bedroom environment, and making time to wind down in the evening, as well as the importance of listening to and learning from your own body, as opposed to simply treating symptoms and forgetting about it.

Delbert is a software engineer, photographer, and author. The Self-Empowering Sleep Book (2020) is a decisive guide to enhance sleep and bring long-term change for a joyful life. As Delbert says, “I wanted to take the time to publish the book I would have liked to read all those years ago.” You can learn more about Delbert and his book at his website: https://www.booksforachange.com/

This conversation with Gabrielle Hartley, author of "Better Apart: The Radically Positive Way to Separate," is not our usual health conversation. However, we felt the health factors around marriage stress were important to address during this pandemic. Divorce lawyer Gabrielle Hartley walks us through some of the best and worst decisions that can be made at this time, especially for couples who are experiencing stress yet unable to move apart because of financial or other constraints imposed by the pandemic. 

Gabrielle Hartley is a leading elite divorce strategy and wellness coach, mediator, attorney, consultant, speaker, and author.

Gabrielle is known for her unique, non-toxic approach to divorce that she has developed over twenty five years. She keeps 99% of her cases out of the courtroom and at the negotiating table, as she effectively supports her clients to create a healthy, uplifted post-divorce life for them.

After growing up in New York City, Gabrielle attended Cornell University and Brooklyn Law School. She served as court attorney for Judge Jeffrey Sunshine in NYC matrimonial court and is a member of the Massachusetts Council on Family Mediation. She currently resides in Northampton, MA with her husband and three sons.

Click here to learn more about Gabrielle and her book, Better Apart.

This conversation with Dr. Martin Rossman introduces his journey into understanding the mind-body connection and the imagination’s healing potential. He discusses easy ways to reduce stress and achieve a healthier mindset, and touches upon the direct and indirect consequences of living in a state of psychological and emotional stress. Dr. Rossman’s web site is thehealingmind.org where listeners can find the free meditations and guidance he and his organization have offered to help people during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Martin Rossman, M.D., is a pioneer in the field of alternative medicine. He is the co-founder and president of the Academy for Guided Imagery, on the faculty of the medical school at the University of California at San Francisco, and on the advisory board of Andrew Weil's Center for Integrative Medicine. The author of Guided Imagery for Self-Healing, he lives in Mill Valley, California.

Physician, author, speaker, researcher, and consultant, Dr. Rossman founded The Healing Mind in order to raise awareness about the power of high quality Mind/Body self-care tools in self-healing and in the health professions. A graduate of the University of Michigan Medical School in 1969, he has had a long-standing interest in the practical importance of attitudes, beliefs, emotions, and Mind/Body practices in medicine and health. In addition to a busy practice emphasizing non-drug medicine and patient participation, he has taught clinical guided imagery to over 10,000 health professionals since 1982.

Dr. Rossman is the author of Fighting Cancer From Within (Holt, NY, 2003) and the award winning self-help book, Guided Imagery For Self-Healing (New World Library, Oct 2000), and The Worry Solution (Crown Archetype, NY, 2011) and has authored numerous professional textbook chapters on imagery, Mind/Body medicine and integrative medicine. He is also the creator of dozens of guided imagery audios and home study courses for both public and professionals.

He is Founder and Director of Marin Integrative Medicine and Medical Acupuncture, Greenbrae, California; and is the Co-Founder and Past President of the Academy for Guided Imagery, Malibu, CA. He is a Clinical Instructor, Dept. of Ambulatory and Community Medicine at the University of California Medical Center, San Francisco; Adjunct Teaching Faculty, California School for Professional Psychology; and a consultant to the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine at UCSF and Dr. Andrew Weil's Fellowship Program in Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona.

This conversation with Anne Basting covers her ground-breaking approach to engaging with patients in the midst of dementia and cognitive decline - a new, generative, and playful way of imagining elder care. Basting's work has challenged conventional wisdom and resulted in extraordinary changes for patients and caregivers alike. 

We discuss storytelling and our human need for narrative, relationships and the value of living in the present moment, and what is driving Anne's personal sense urgency at this moment. She opens up about her own mom’s experience with dementia, shares stories of infusing creativity and joy into care-giving, and explains what she calls “beautiful questions.”

Anne Basting is Professor of Theatre at the Peck School of the Arts at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, and founder and President of TimeSlips. Her innovative work as an artist and scholar has been recognized by a MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship, an Ashoka Fellowship, a Rockefeller Fellowship, and several major grants. She is author/editor of multiple books, including the Penelope Project (U of Iowa), Forget Memory (Johns Hopkins), and the new Creative Care (Harper One). TimeSlips fosters an alliance of artists and caregivers bringing meaning and joy to late life through creativity, and has certified facilitators in 47 states and 18 countries. 

Creative Care (released May 19, 2020): https://www.amazon.com/Creative-Care-Revolutionary-Approach-Dementia/dp/0062906178

TimeSlips: https://www.timeslips.org/

Anne’s 2014 Ted Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPA6lklMQxM

More about Anne: https://www.anne-basting.com/about

This conversation with Dr. Lissa Chipeco is ideal for anyone who is caring for elders or getting older themselves. We discuss COVID-19 and how it’s changing life in the nursing home where Lissa practices, testing guidelines, how frightening this time is for residents and staff, fatality rates, and the ways this disease presents. We also talk about how we can best take care of our elders, both as individuals and as a society, and Lissa mentions a few key concepts and resources to help elders have the best possible life experience in their last years.

Dr. Lissa Chipeco was named Minnesota Monthly’s top doctor in Geriatrics in 2017 and 2018, and has been practicing since 1996. She chose to specialize in geriatrics because she relishes her patients’ stories and wisdom and believes that they deserve respect and assistance in navigating the numerous challenges of aging. 

To learn more about Dr. Chipeco please click here.

Books that Dr. Chipeco mentions during the conversation:

• Being Mortal, by Atul Gawande
• How to Care for Aging Parents, by Virginia Morris
• The 36 Hour Day, by Nancy Mace and Peter Rabins

This conversation with Bernadette Yao cuts across a range of healing topics, including dealing with the noise in our lives, energy healing, handling tough situations and bad news such as cancer diagnoses, and pain management. Bernadette even guides a short meditation with voice and sound during the podcast. She also graciously allowed us to append one her compositions which came up in our conversation at the end of the episode. So keep listening to hear "Sky Drums" in its entirety. 

Bernadette Yao is a sound & energy healer, meditation music composer, producer, and artist. Her private practice is located in Lincoln, MA. She specializes in designing and leading Mind Body Music & Sound Healing Workshops, and offers music for yoga classes in Massachusetts and surrounding New England. As a classically trained singer and pianist since the age of 7, Bernadette is a multi-instrumentalist using a collection of over a dozen Alchemy crystal singing bowls, quartz crystal singing bowls, and Himalayan singing bowls, acoustic guitars, harmonium, keyboards, Native American flutes, percussive instruments, as well as using her singing voice to facilitate deep relaxation and optimal healing. As a certified Brennan Healing Science Practitioner since 2005, Bernadette works through hands-on energy and sound healing techniques combined with spiritual and psychological processes to help create transformative experiences for her clients.

Bernadette completed four years of intensive training and certification at the Barbara Brennan School of Healing and also has a Bachelor’s degree from Indiana University in music and telecommunications. She also studied music theory at Wellesley College and she auditioned and was accepted as a Voice Performance Major at the prestigious IU Jacobs School of Music, and studied Music Production & Engineering at Berklee College of Music. 

Prior to her role in the Healing Arts, Bernadette was a classical music vocalist, singer songwriter, recording artist, and back-up singer for performers including Grammy Award winning singer songwriter, Suzanne Vega. She sang with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus and toured with Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony Orchestra as a soprano chorus member for over 10 years. As part of her practice, Bernadette has composed, produced, and recorded three music meditation albums which are used in hospitals and wellness spas all over the world: Radiance Healing Music for Mind, Body and Spirit © 2005 Bernadette Yao, Light Embracing © 2012 Bernadette Yao, and Reiki Healing Wisdom © 2015 Bernadette Yao. Bernadette was the founder of her music for meditation performance trio, Healing Wave Trio, performing original meditation music compositions by Bernadette Yao.

Additionally, Bernadette is a certified Reiki practitioner offering individualized energy healing sessions and group workshops in music, sound, and energy therapies. With this training, Bernadette thrives in her role as a Cancer Care Therapist specializing in music, sound and energy vibration therapy at the Virginia Thurston Healing Garden, and was a volunteer Reiki Practitioner at local hospitals for patients in oncology, ICU, and palliative care. 

Before becoming an energy and sound healing practitioner, Bernadette worked in the TV industry as an on air TV talent with PBS, WGBH, and WHDH. Her TV career began as a cast member on the Emmy-Award winning PBS children’s show, Zoom. Recently, Bernadette has appeared on PBS and WGBH as a TV Host. To learn more or contact Bernadette, please visit bernadetteyao.com. 

This conversation with Sarah Cooney-Nutley covers her path to diagnosis - first with Celiac disease and then with Crohn’s disease - and what she’s had to learn as a result of living with both of these autoimmune disorders. We discuss medications, emotional well-being, Irish dancing, physician interactions, and how she describes Crohn’s disease to others who might not understand. Sarah also shares recommendations for newly diagnosed Crohn’s patients, resources for connecting with the Crohn’s community, and her top self-care tips. We spoke with Sarah on Friday, April 10, 2020.

Sarah Cooney-Nutley is a Management Consultant at Capco, in London, England, where she works with financial services clients. She graduated from City, University of London in 2016, and previously worked in marketing at MVF. Sarah is a former competitive and professional Irish dancer, and is currently looking to become an Irish dance teacher on top of her full time consulting job.

This conversation with Ayurvedic Doctor Chelynn Tetreault on Tuesday April 7, 2020, covers basic concepts in Ayurvedic science, Chelynn’s experience with specific patients, her perspective on staying healthy during the COVID-19 pandemic, and how she managed her own recent health challenge from an Ayurvedic perspective. We dig into the three pillars of wellness: diet, energy and sleep. And we even discuss bowel movements! 

Chelynn is a NAMA certified Ayurvedic Doctor, Clinical Ayurvedic Specialist, and Board Certified Licensed Massage Therapist. She Specializes in female health, reproductive health, fertility, pre- and post-natal care, infant, child care and Pancha Karma. Her practice includes Lotus Ayurveda and Ayurvedic Retreat & Pancha Karma Center, in Haydenville, MA. Chelynn began her private practice in 2005. She supports clients to maintain vitality and optimal health so that they can heal themselves from a variety of imbalances. Chelynn teaches locally, and internationally. She has an unique ability to blend both practical and authentic traditional approaches to female health and spirituality, and offers Ayurvedic and Spiritual counseling, as well as classes and seminars, online or in person. You can find more information about Chelynn at her web site, www.chelynnt.com

This interview with Dr. Melanie Rand addresses a range of topics, including risks of COVID-19 to patients with autoimmune conditions, her understanding of integrative, functional and holistic medicine, and a whole lot more. Dr. Rand received her degree in osteopathic medicine from the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine in Biddeford, Maine and completed her residency at Eastern Maine Medical Center Family Practice in Bangor, Maine. She specializes and is board certified in Obesity Medicine and Family Medicine. Dr. Rand grew up in Maine and lives with her family in Brunswick. She enjoys yoga, gardening, cross country skiing and summer.