
Culinary cozies with a touch of the islands.







Catherine Bruns writes in several different series of her own and has also contributed to a multi-author series set in Hawai'i. As with so many authors, including yours truly, Catherine works full-time and squeezes her writing around the edges of that full day.



For the second time in two weeks I'm introduced to a food dish I'd never heard of: Loco Moco. The dish originated in Hilo and consists of rice, a hamburger patty, a fried egg and gravy. Have you ever had it? 



Today's show is supported by my patrons at Patreon. Thank you! When you become a patron for as little as $1 a month you receive a short mystery story each and every month. And the rewards for those who love mystery stories go up from there! Learn more and become a part of my community of readers at www.Patreon.com/alexandraamor







This week's mystery author




Catherine Bruns is the USA Today bestselling author of the Cookies & Chance mysteries. She lives in New York with her very patient husband, three sons, and several spoiled pets. 



She also writes the Italian Chef mysteries, Cindy York real estate and Carrie Jorgenson (Aloha Lagoon) culinary series. Her book, For Sale by Killer, won the 2019 Daphne du Maurier award for Mainstream Mystery/Suspense.




To learn more about Catherine and all her books visit CatherineBruns.net







Press play (above) to listen to the show, or read the transcript below. Remember you can also subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts. And listen on Stitcher, Android, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, and Spotify.







Excerpt from It Cannoli Be Murder




Willow’s sapphire eyes went wide with shock. “You. You’re Gabby’s cousin from the book signing. Tessa something. The one who made the cannoli. What are you doing in our pantry? Where’s Marta?”



I spoke slowly and methodically, hoping that panic wasn’t evident in my voice. “Oh, hi, Willow. I was hoping to see your mother. Marta’s upstairs vacuuming.” I didn’t mention Gabby and prayed Marta wouldn’t reappear and mention her either. “How’d your father’s signing go today?”




“It was canceled. Daddy had to go to New York City to meet with his agent and a film producer. They’re turning his new book into a movie.” Her jaw tightened. “But I still don’t know why you’re in our kitchen.”



“I couldn’t help checking out your mother’s impressive ingredients. I’m in awe of her talent.

It Cannoli Be Murder with Catherine Bruns

Unbroken explores the Inside-Out nature of life and how this understanding can lead to letting go of unwanted habits, including overeating.

Social Sciences

Science & Medicine

Science

Health & Fitness

Mental Health

Life Sciences


We all have one: an inner critic. That voice inside our heads that is critical of so much that we do. That voice can become debilitating, if we let it. But when we apply what we know about the Three Principles of innate health, we can teach that voice to take a back seat, where it belongs. And, on a positive note, hearing the inner critic can even become an ally in helping us to practice stepping into a better feeling. 



You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below.



Show Notes




* A neurosurgeon’s explanation for the inner critic



* A reminder about the purpose an unwanted habit is serving



* How the feeling that comes with the inner critic alerts us to its falsehood



* On the possibility of having a different experience at any moment



* The beautiful feeling that’s always available to us



* How our thinking can be like the grooves in a record




Resources Mentioned in this Episode




* Mind Magic by Dr. James Doty




Transcript of episode



Hello explorers, and welcome to episode 65 of Unbroken. I’m Alexandra Amor. I’m here today to talk about the inner critic or that negative voice that can dog us all the time. And this is a subject, particularly close to my heart. I feel like it’s something that I’ve wrestled with for a long time and for a long time, couldn’t see it. 



Years ago, it was invisible to me, even though it was going on. And then gradually, I became more and more aware of it, but didn’t know what to do about it. And then I came into this understanding, and I put it off to the side. But it’s come up in my awareness lately. And I’ll tell you a bit more about that in just a moment. 



I was reading a book recently about brain science, called I think it’s either called Mind Magic or Magic Mind by Dr. James Doty. And one of the things he mentioned in there was, how his approach to our inner critical voice or his understanding of it was really interesting. And it was about the evolutionary process that we’ve gone through, and how our brains are wired to look for danger.



Given the society that we live in now and how generally safe we are – I hope I can say that about you – that the part of our brain that’s looking out for danger, even looks out for it in our own behavior. So it’s able to be critical of us, or it believes it’s being critical of us, in order to serve a purpose in order to keep us safe. 



I probably haven’t explained that, as well as he did in the book. But it got me thinking about the negative voice, the inner critic, that so many of us hear, and maybe don’t hear, that’s maybe silent. I find it at times just kind of running behind whatever else is going on, in my mind, and I’ll talk about in a minute how that doesn’t actually matter if we can’t specifically hear what it’s saying. So that’s some of the good news. 



Let’s jump in and talk about this. The reason I wanted to bring it up was that, in the past, we’ve talked about how unwanted habits are working in our favor, even though it might not look like they are.

3 Tips For Dealing With The Inner Critic


When it comes to our mental well-being and our physical health it can be so easy to look outspide ourselves for answers. Ellen Friedman takes a different approach; she guides her clients inward to connect with the innate wisdom and wellness that is already there.




Ellen Friedman guides people home to the sacred space within, where they shift their relationship with themselves, their health, and others. She partners with people who are curious to explore a simple path to wholeness through the inside out nature of life.



In addition to having a Master’s degree in Spiritual Psychology with an emphasis in Consciousness Health and Healing, Ellen has a Certificate in Soul-Centered Professional Coaching, and she shares the Three Principles understanding. Her journey has been blessed coaching nearly 1000 divine beings using a human experience to remember who they truly are.




You can find Ellen Friedman at HealingHouseCalls.com.



You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below.



Show Notes




* Seeing the whole person when it comes to healing



* Noticing how health improves when our nervous system is downregulated



* Ellen’s personal discoveries experiencing chronic fatigue



* How mental busyness affects our physical health



* How fatigue can be a signal that there is pressure on our mental system



* Are you the source of your energy?



* How our feelings are a barometer for what’s going on within us




Resources Mentioned in this Episode




* Mavis Karn’s book It’s That Simple



* Mavis Karn’s Unbroken podcast episode



* Azul Leguizamon’s Unbroken podcast episode




Transcript of Interview with Ellen Friedman



Alexandra: Ellen Friedman, welcome to Unbroken.



Ellen: I’m so happy to be here with you, Alexandra.



Alexandra: I’m so happy to have you here. 



Tell our audience a little bit about yourself and your background and how you got interested in the three principles.



Ellen: I’m always amused where that story begins every time. I was happily minding my own business, enjoying my career as a physical therapist, when the knock on the door to coach came in 2011. And I was like but I love what I do. I thought you had to be miserable to do something else. 



Then I started feeling miserable by not following that. I got in my car one day after seeing a patient and I was like, almost without logic, and I said, Okay, I heard you, I’m coming back. So I began coaching in 2011. 



Then, in 2013, in a coach training program, one of the instructors introduced a video on the inside out understanding of stress. At that time, it was a really old video. And I remember the feeling inside me, I can like, remember the chair I was sitting in. I remember the feeling. And then I also remember my personal mind going, Oh, but we’ve got techniques and tools and things to do with people.

We Are The Peace We Seek with Ellen Friedman


We usually think of stress as coming from the circumstances that surround us: busy jobs, busy lives, difficult bosses or clients. But what if stress has another origin? What if it comes from the thinking we have in any given situation?




Clare Downham is the dedicated mentor you need on your unique journey to unlock your innate potential and cultivate a thriving business aligned with your true purpose. As a certified ILM Success Mentor, she specialises in guiding emerging and established female entrepreneurs to embrace their innate mindfulness and harness it as a powerful tool for success. 



With a deep understanding of the inside-out nature of our human experience, Clare expertly navigates the complexities of the entrepreneurial journey, helping women to silence the inner critic, dissolve self-doubt and cultivate a strong sense of intuition and self-trust.




You can find Clare Downham at ClareDownham.com and on Insight Timer at claredownham.



You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below.



Show Notes




* On what happens when we ignore warning signs from our bodies



* The false messages business owners receive about having to be ‘on’ and ‘up’ all the time



* How motivation ebbs and flows naturally and there’s nothing wrong when we’re at a low ebb



* On the cyclical nature of levels of personal energy



* How some of our best ideas come during down or quiet times



* How we believe we need to be busy all the time and that resting is ‘lazy’



* How we so often try to be in a different feeling state than the one we’re naturally in



* On overwhelm and its one cause



* How being in the present moment starves stress of the oxygen it needs




Resources Mentioned in this Episode 




* Insight Timer




Transcript of Interview with Clare Downham



Alexandra: Clare Downham, welcome to Unbroken.



Clare: Hello. Lovely to be here.



Alexandra: Oh, my pleasure. It’s lovely to see you. 



Why don’t you tell us a little bit about your background and how you got interested in the Three Principles.



Clare: I was a primary school head teacher. So our primary school in the UK is aged three to 11. I was in primary education for 20 years. And the last five or so I was a head teacher to two different schools. And I became very stressed, although I didn’t know I was stressed at all, I didn’t have a clue. 



I knew there were things wrong with me. But I thought those things were what was wrong with me rather than stress as the underlying cause. One day I went into work, fully intending to start my working day and I took one look at my computer. And it was like, it was like I was frozen. It was like, my body just finally went, “No, no more, let’s go, let’s leave.” 



I literally did walk out of work. 



And I never went back in the end. Didn’t know I wasn’t going to go back. I thought it was going to have a nap,

Stress Relief for Female Entrepreneurs with Clare Downham


Old-paradigm psychology can try to convince us that unwanted habits are caused by a need to feel loved or safe or cared for. It can feel like we’re using food, or other substances, to soothe or comfort ourselves. In this podcast episode we bust this myth and look toward the true origin of unwanted habits.



You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below.



Are you interested in connecting with others who are exploring this understanding? Would you like some coaching and ongoing support with an eye toward resolving an unwanted habit? Click the image below to learn about the Unbroken Community and join the waitlist.






Show Notes




* The five reasons an unwanted habit has nothing to do with replacing love



* Does it matter where our painful thoughts about food originate?



* On the fluidity of thought and how it can change, morph and disappear



* How the feeling connected to a thought is going to tell us if it’s the truth or a lie



* How it’s not on us to change, manage or control our thoughts



* How we are not in control of the timeline of when things change




Transcript of episode



Hello Explorers and welcome to episode 62 of Unbroken. I’m Alexandra Amor. I’m here today to talk about the really common myth that when we have an unwanted habit where we’re using that habit to replace love that we might feel that we are missing. 



So in other words, as it said on the title card for this episode, is food really love? Or is that a myth? I’m going to tell you why I think it’s a myth.



Before I say that, I should say that I think it makes sense that we came to that conclusion. And I know for me, I spent years and years trying to love myself in a way that would cause my unwanted overeating habit to disappear. And none of what I tried worked. I tried things like journaling, affirmations, radical self-compassion. What else was in that arena of loving ourselves? Cognitive behavioral therapy. I took a course I’ve talked about this before. And it was all about creating a loving feeling within ourselves. In order that our overeating habit would drop away. And none of that worked. 



I’m going to talk about that today and about what I see now, when we have the thought that we’re using a substance like food to try to replace love within ourselves.



Before we get into that, I want to quickly have a reminder here, that if you haven’t done so already, you can sign up for the waitlist for the Unbroken community. 



The address for that is AlexandraAmor.com/community. And there’s lots of information there on that page. 



The community will be launching later this year in 2024. And we will be having some live coaching in the community, we’ll have an online group, we’ll have a couple calls a month live with me. And as I say, all the details are there on that page, AlexandraAmor.com/community. 




Exploding The Myth That We’re Using Food To Replace Love


As a long-time coach, and before that an HR professional, Dominic Scaffidi points his clients back toward an awareness of their innate wisdom and ability to thrive effortlessly. He reminds us that we are always more than our human minds can grasp.




As a Master Certified Coach (MCC) credentialed with the International Coaching Federation (ICF) Dominic works with leaders, teams, entrepreneurs and individuals to achieve professional and personal aspirations. He points clients to a realization of who they really are as they focus on creating what they most desire in life.



Dominic is a Registered 3 Principles Practitioner who is grounded in the teaching of Sydney Banks.




You can find Dominic at DominicScaffidi.com and on Facebook.



You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below.



Show Notes




* On the overlap between the Law of Attraction and the Three Principles



* Being willing to sit in paradox and wait for clarity



* On the innate intelligence that flows through every living thing



* Our human ability to resist that intelligence with our thinking



* Manifesting: Allowing ourselves to perceive what already exists



* Following a good feeling toward what wants to be



* Your wisdom is always in a beautiful feeling



* How our feelings are always indicating what we’re thinking




Resources Mentioned in this Episode




* Michael Neill’s TedX Talk Why aren’t we awesomer?




Transcript of Interview with Dominic Scaffidi



Alexandra: Dominick Scaffidi, welcome to Unbroken.



Dominic: Thank you, thanks for the invitation. I’m really looking forward to our conversation.



Alexandra: Me too. I’ve never spoken to you one on one. So this will be fun. 



Tell us a little bit about your background and how you got interested in the Three Principles.



Dominic: I’ve been self-employed as a coach, executive coach, mostly. I deal with leaders and organizations like that. And I’ve been self-employed for about 15 years. Prior to that, tt was a corporate career that I had in very large organizations. The last corporate role that I held was a VP of HR position. And so that’s kind of a bit of that. 



My career has continually moved to more and more reflection of what I’m interested in, my passion. So that kind of relates to the Three Principles, in that my purpose in life, I say, is to awaken greatness. Maybe you could say it as to reveal greatness, to reveal what’s within us. And so that’s a link to what appealed to me about the Three Principles. 



Maybe seven or eight years ago, I came across the Principles and the teachings of Sydney banks, and they immediately resonated as this is true, this is pure truth. What he was pointing to, it was just obvious, it was obvious that this is just true. And so I became really interested in delving into that into that understanding, which is a deeper understanding of who I really am, my true nature and the nature of reality. 



It Cannoli Be Murder with Catherine Bruns

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