Jump Start Your Joy®

What is Intentional Comfort? Why is it important? I'm sharing 3 conversations that paved the way for comfort to be the season 7 theme. Tune in to hear from Jenn Oglesbee, Ilene Smith, and Julia Samuels and learn more about what intentional comfort.

In this episode, I'm taking a look at some of the foundational conversations that paved the way for me to choose a theme of intentional comfort and joy for season seven here on the podcast.

1. One was with Jenn Oglesbee, who is a life coach and a licensed clinical social worker. We had three conversations on Instagram Live over the summer (which you can find at my Instagram account: conversation 1, conversation 2, conversation 3).

2. Ilene Smith, the author of Moving Beyond Trauma who shared that the last 18 months have been a trauma vortex in a discussion we had in season 5.

Listen to the full discussion with Ilene Smith here.

3. Julia Samuel, who is a psychotherapist who specializes in grief and wrote the book, Grief Works. She and I spoke about the importance of balancing grief with intentional times of happiness or joy.

Listen to that conversation here.

I wanted to synthesize some of these ideas so that you get this kind of juicy background of how we got to intentional comfort and joy for season seven (and give you a little bit more space to play with the theme).

Resources

Jenn Oglesbee's website

Ilene's Smith website

Julia Samuel's website

Buy Jump Start Your Joy: Heart-Centered Ways to Find Joy in The Messy Middle on Amazon (affiliate link)

Follow Jump Start Your Joy on Apple Podcasts

Follow Jump Start Your Joy on Spotify

What is Intentional Comfort? Why is it important? I'm sharing 3 conversations that paved the way for comfort to be the season 7 theme. Tune in to hear from Jenn Oglesbee, Ilene Smith, and Julia Samuels and learn more about what intentional comfort.

In this episode, I'm taking a look at some of the foundational conversations that paved the way for me to choose a theme of intentional comfort and joy for season seven here on the podcast.

1. One was with Jenn Oglesbee, who is a life coach and a licensed clinical social worker. We had three conversations on Instagram Live over the summer (which you can find at my Instagram account: conversation 1, conversation 2, conversation 3).

2. Ilene Smith, the author of Moving Beyond Trauma who shared that the last 18 months have been a trauma vortex in a discussion we had in season 5.

Listen to the full discussion with Ilene Smith here.

3. Julia Samuel, who is a psychotherapist who specializes in grief and wrote the book, Grief Works. She and I spoke about the importance of balancing grief with intentional times of happiness or joy.

Listen to that conversation here.

I wanted to synthesize some of these ideas so that you get this kind of juicy background of how we got to intentional comfort and joy for season seven (and give you a little bit more space to play with the theme).

Resources

Jenn Oglesbee's website

Ilene's Smith website

Julia Samuel's website

Buy Jump Start Your Joy: Heart-Centered Ways to Find Joy in The Messy Middle on Amazon (affiliate link)

Follow Jump Start Your Joy on Apple Podcasts

Follow Jump Start Your Joy on Spotify

What is Intentional Comfort? Why is it important? I'm sharing 3 conversations that paved the way for comfort to be the season 7 theme. Tune in to hear from Jenn Oglesbee, Ilene Smith, and Julia Samuels and learn more about what intentional comfort.

In this episode, I'm taking a look at some of the foundational conversations that paved the way for me to choose a theme of intentional comfort and joy for season seven here on the podcast.

1. One was with Jenn Oglesbee, who is a life coach and a licensed clinical social worker. We had three conversations on Instagram Live over the summer (which you can find at my Instagram account: conversation 1, conversation 2, conversation 3).

2. Ilene Smith, the author of Moving Beyond Trauma who shared that the last 18 months have been a trauma vortex in a discussion we had in season 5.

Listen to the full discussion with Ilene Smith here.

3. Julia Samuel, who is a psychotherapist who specializes in grief and wrote the book, Grief Works. She and I spoke about the importance of balancing grief with intentional times of happiness or joy.

Listen to that conversation here.

I wanted to synthesize some of these ideas so that you get this kind of juicy background of how we got to intentional comfort and joy for season seven (and give you a little bit more space to play with the theme).

Resources

Jenn Oglesbee's website

Ilene's Smith website

Julia Samuel's website

Buy Jump Start Your Joy: Heart-Centered Ways to Find Joy in The Messy Middle on Amazon (affiliate link)

Follow Jump Start Your Joy on Apple Podcasts

Follow Jump Start Your Joy on Spotify

Pamela Seelig began her yoga journey more than 25 years ago when an illness (Bell's Palsy) interrupted her Wall Street career. As part of her recovery from that diagnosis, she she began meditating and it brought her some amazing results. Not only did it speed up her recovery, but the impact of meditating at during that time in her life led to a lifelong pursuit of sharing yoga wisdom with others. In this interview, she joins me to talk about Stress Relief, Meditation and "Threads of Yoga," her new book.

What that means for you is whether or not you are currently practicing yoga, there will be something for you to glean from this conversation.

We talk about:

• The importance of breath and breathing to calm down
• Calming your nervous system.
• Meditation and the various kinds of meditation that can help you deal with every day stress
• Santosha, which means contentment or gratitude in Sanskrit
• Breath practices to try right now, or anytime you need to re-center
• Her new book

I feel like this weaves in so beautifully with the theme for season seven, which is all about intentional comfort and joy.

Resources

Threads of Yoga: Themes, Reflections, and Meditations to Weave Into Your Practice by Pamela Seelig (on Bookshop.org)

PamelaSeelig.com

Centering Prayer Meditation by Paula Jenkins on Insight Timer (free)

Jump Start Your Joy: Heart-Centered Ways to Find Joy in The Messy Middle

Comfort and Joy is the new theme for Season 7 and I'm thrilled to sharing all about "intentional comfort." After spending time in the messy middle, over the last 18 months our nervous system needs a pause and a reset and some intentional comfort. So that's what we're looking at in this episode.

Here's what you'll find:

1. Intentional Comfort: It's the mindful activity of embracing comfort, and finding down time for yourself. It's important because we're all been in a "trauma vortex" since early 2020. (hat tip Ilene Smith)

2. What's the messy middle? (it's this weird undefined time we've been in, where we don't fully know when this pandemic will end, and know that we can't get back to where we were.)

3. It's time drop the idea that we should embrace "courage over comfort" or "living your big bold life" without balance of intentional comfort.

4. Introverts and highly sensitive people need to slow down and embrace comfort to be in a good place in their lives.

5. That we need comfort for comfort's sake. We need to rest for the sake of resting and wellness. (And not so that we can go do anything else. Just because.)

6. Finding intentional comforts, and the difference between comfort and numbing out. Comfort is affirming, nurturing and is taking care of oneself. Numbing out is doing something to an extreme, and losing oneself in the activity. Comfort is making space for life. Numbing out is usually an activity that takes over one's life.

7. Inspiration for the idea of Intentional Comfort:

Tami Hackbarth of 100% Guilt Free Self Care Podcast, and guest on Jump Start Your Joy

The Nap Ministry of Instagram

Jennifer L. Scott, author of the Madame Chic series of books. Also on YouTube.

Stasia Savasuk, Jump Start Your Joy guest and founder of Stasia's Style School

Jackie of Super Enthused, on YouTube and Instagram

Sonya Renee Taylor, author of The Body is Not an Apology, leader, poet, activist, and guest on Jump Start Your Joy.

Buy Jump Start Your Joy: Heart-Centered Ways to Find Joy in The Messy Middle on Amazon (affiliate link)

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Welcome to Jump Start Your Joy's Top 10 of Season One. As I round out the 6th Season of the podcast, I found myself wanting to take a look back at how the show started. Season One was magical, and memorable in so many ways.

You can read the full episode notes on my website.

Here's the sampling of who you'll hear in this episode:

1. Kathleen Davies, from Episode 1. She is a preaching pastor in Houston Texas, and my former room mate at Yale Divinity School.

2. Matthew Wood, Senior Sound Editor at Skywalker Sound and the voice of General Grievous in the Star Wars universe. Matt and I attended grade school together, and he shares how George Lucas chose him for the General Grievous role. He was on Episode 3.

3. Molly Larkin, a life coach, and registered nurse. We discussed Loving Kindness in Episode 10.

4. Liz Ross, advertising agency veteran and past president of Periscope agency in Minneapolis. We talked about leadership and putting people first in Episode 21.

5. Lexi Koch, a life coach and farmer. We talked about the courage it takes to be vulnerable in life. She was on Episode 35.

6. Holly Becker is the powerhouse behind the blog Decor8, and founder of "Blogging Your Way." She came on to talk about how to find your voice, and joined me Episode 36.

7. Jennifer Lee is the author of "Right Brain Business Plan," and a great business coach. She was on Episode 38 and we talked about how to build a sustainable creative business.

8. Sharon Aldeguer is a body builder and an IT professional. She had a brain tumor removed, and suffered nerve damage during the surgery. She joined me to talk about hope in Episode 45.

9. Flylady Marla Cilley has a successful website and helps people reign in the chaos of their homes. She joined me for Episode 46, and we talked about how habits and routines can help you find more joy in life.

10. Danny Wood of New Kids on the Block, and founder of Remember Betty was my guest on Episode 20. He had released a new album "Look at Me," which benefitted his nonprofit which supports breast cancer patients. He shared about losing his mother, Betty, to breast cancer and his family, and the fans.

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Stasia Savasuk is an amazing style coach, has an outstanding Tedx Talk, and is the founder of Stasia's Style School. She's joining me on the show, and I'm delighted to share this interview. We giggled our way through our discussion, and had a hilarious time talking about style, what lights us up, how to find what kinds of styles fit YOU, and, all about Stasia's inspiring story of becoming an entrepreneur.

In this episode, Stasia and I talk about:

• Her early entrepreneurial work as a child, collecting and selling worms
• How she broke up with style, and wore very bland clothing for many years
• That one size fits all is bullshit
• How to discover style that works for you and reflects who you really are
• How to get in touch with who you really are
• What it looks like to belong to yourself
• How her differently abled child has taught her so much about inside out congruency
• Her thoughts on how to jumpstart your joy: asking yourself how you want to show up, don't participate in body shaming, and getting outside

Resources Stasia Savasuk's website Stasia on Instagram

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Andrea and I are talking about the many ways that you can make some noise, own your strengths, and speak your mind. It's a big topic, and it could not come at a better time. At the heart of making noise is first getting comfortable with accepting the unique things that make you great. I know that many times, it feels more comfortable to play down your strengths because maybe somewhere back in your childhood or formative years you were told that you shouldn't bring too much attention to yourself, or "brag" about what you are good at.

The thing is, that's all a bunch of BS. Each person on this planet has a very unique set of talents and gifts, and it's your job to uncover them and share them with others. When you get stuck in the messaging that you need to hide your talent or play down what you do best, it means that you are not owning all of who you are. And it means that you are playing into fear: the fear that you're not enough and the fear of outshining others. The truth is that no one wins when you hide your greatness, AND everyone wins when you do share your strengths and talents.

And that's what Andrea has written about in this new book. How you can make some noise.

Here's what else we talk about: – how women and girls are conditioned to play down strengths and fit in, even to the point that we will hold ourselves back so we don't outshine friends or colleagues – why hiding your strengths doesn't help you or anyone else – understanding the role of intuition in stepping in to your greatness – resilience – the mindset of greatness – internalized misogyny: why some women align themselves with a misoynistic point of view, and how it keeps women from stepping into their own greatness – why we all need to make some noise, now, in the #metoo era

Read the full show notes on the website.

Resources: Order Make Some Noise by Andrea Owen Andrea Owen on How to Be Taken Seriously Even When You're Not a Serious Person (on Jump Start Your Joy) How to Stop Feeling Like Shit and Live a Kickass Life with guest Andrea Owen (on Jump Start Your Joy)

Andrea Owen's Website Andrea Owen on Instagram

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John McEuen reached out to share 2 new songs with us, and I'm releasing "Hey Joe" with the Oak Ridge Boys, and "Back in History" with John Russell in this episode as we listen to John talk about his book, the Life I've Picked.

I could not be more excited to share this week's interview. John is one of the most celebrated and best known banjo players in the world, and has had a long and exciting career in music. It was amazing to get to speak with him about his book, "The Life I've Picked," his early days at the magic shop in Disneyland (where he became friends with Steve Martin), and about being the first American musical group to tour Russia in 1977.

I also loved getting to hear about John's creative process, and how much he delights in creating music to share with others. You can hear the joy in his voice as he talks about his experiences. Plus, he talks about "bone records" which made to bootleg music into Russia in the 70s, and that is not something you are gonna hear on any other podcast today.

Get all the show notes and a full transcript at the website.

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Season 6 has been all about finding joy in the messy middle. In the season finale, I'm looking back and the 5 most memorable conversations I've had with guests over the last year. For each one, I'm sharing a bit about what stood out about our conversation, and, playing a bit of the episode so you can hear them explain things in their own words.

Dr. Jeff Speiss is the author of "Dying with Ease," and he joined me early on in the season. I love that he shared about what he's learned from working with people who are dying, and what we can all do to feel more joy while we are alive. He also talked how listening to someone in a difficult time is often the most profound gift you can give them. Tune in to our original full length conversation in episode 268.

Molly Knoderer and I went to high school together and played softball on the same team. She's a co-owner of Legacy Concierge Services, and an author. Her business works with finding care for the elderly, both in working with families and with aging people. I loved that she shared about overcoming obstacles and self doubt. And she also talked about some of the lessons she's learned about how to face hard times (like 9/11) from working with elderly clients. Listen to our whole conversation right here in episode 270.

Lan Cao, and her daughter, Harlan Margaret Van Cao wrote an amazing memoir together title "Family in Six Tones." As an immigrant from Vietnam during the Vietnam war, Lan Cao has interesting perspectives on belonging and family. She shared about how learning the syntax of English as a child gave her a framework for understanding complexities in life, and she talks about how that layered in to her understanding of her daughter as a high school student. You can listen to episode 274 by clicking here.

Erica Courdae is a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion consultant, and a life coach, and small business owner. She is also the host of Pause on the Play. I had the pleasure of meeting her in 2019 and was really inspired by her talk about "Imperfect Allyship" at She Podcasts. I loved having Erica come on to share what imperfect allyship looks like, and how we can all approach anti-racism in a way that leaves room for honest mistakes as individuals grapple with difficult topics in an earnest way. Listen to episode 283 here.

Sonya Renee Taylor is the author of "The Body is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love," and Radical Executive Officer of The Body is Not An Apology, a digital media and education company promoting radical self-love and body empowerment as the foundational tool for social justice and global transformation. It was a true joy to have her on the show, and I loved that she shared about how she defines radical self love. And, I was inspired hearing her talk about she only "gives from her overflow" in regards to activist work. You can listen to this whole delight-filled conversation here on episode 287.

Read the episode notes on the website

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