Backed by evidence, brimming with impact - it's no wonder Oprah and Reese Witherspoon LOVE The Human Being Journal (as do I).

Meet book authors and founders of Mahara Mindfulness, Sheba Zaidi and Genevive Savundranayagam, on this special episode as they share their journal’s essence, its well-being benefits, and advocate for universal mental health care access. 

It’s long been known that writing about our feelings enhances self-reflection, mental well-being, and long-term contemplation. In a sea of mindfulness journals, distinguishing quality amid generic offerings poses a challenge. 

Enter The Human Being Journal - crafted with an evidence-based approach, elegant simplicity, and thought-provoking questions that linger. It's the tool to navigate life's noise, prompting reflection on what truly matters. With its prompts, goal-setting, and deep questioning, it invites you to access your inherent wisdom in moments of silence.

Get your own copy of The Human Being Journal at humanbeingjournal.com, and use ELENA10 for a 10% discount. A percentage of every journal sold goes to supporting global mental health organizations.

Former BBC journalist and UK based career coach Rachel Schofield joins me on this episode. We talk career. We talk transitions. We think about the answer to this question: What is our true version of success when we think about our careers?

This episode’s topic is one of the first of many transition type examples I look at in this series because our careers seem to take up a significant amount of cognitive space. While it’s always so interesting to think about what more we want from our careers, Rachel reminds us that there are subtle nuances to consider during those times of question and reflection. And hint: it's not always about money (spoiler alert).

I hope this conversation inspires us all to think about our career well-being in a new way. 

Read more about Rachel Schofield's career coaching practice, along with her internationally acclaimed "ReWork My Life Programme".

Connect with Rachel on LinkedIn and check out her book The Career Change Guide: Five Steps to Finding Your Dream Job

In life, our attitude is everything. And according to my next guest, renowned Canadian author Ann Douglas, crossroads are best dealt with a side of optimism (because what other way is there?). This episode touches on midlife and with reason - it is a major time in life (like any life stage, really) that gives way to eye opening moments of learnings that can apply to anyone, at any age. No matter our circumstance, Ann's wisdom is profound.  

Ann Douglas' full bio

Check out her book, Navigating the Messy Middle

Connect with Ann on Instagram @annmdouglas or on LinkedIn 

Apparently, the story of the great Leo Tolstoy goes like this: he suffered from inner turmoil and could have faced his future more confidently had he had the right tools at hand. 

That’s my aim with Liminal – to help us discover ideas and concepts to help us all navigate transitions when they present themselves in our lives. 

The research on the nature of transitions is clear – the ending of something marks the beginning of a new way forward. Transitions come and they go – and with them, they hopefully spark a realization that we truly deserve the best of what our time has to offer us. And I can’t help but think about that one dreaded end we’ll all eventually face.

No doubt, it’s a long way away but thinking about the end of our existence sparks real action, no? It should – and we get it served up straight by internationally acclaimed well-being professional Jodi Wellman (MAPP, Penn U). 

The more I’ve explored the theoretical underpinnings of life transitions, the more I see how closely the experience of working through them and answering the questions they beg of us runs parallel to Jodi’s work and research. 

Jodi’s new book You Only Die Once comes out in May and more about her work on helping people maximize life can be found on her site fourthousandmondays.com. 

We’re going to unpack a lot in this series and getting started with Queen’s University Professor and Registered Psychotherapist Dr. Jodi Basch is the right way to do so. 

Often transitions are opaque in nature – not matter what we do, it feels as though we can’t see beyond the present moment, and that it’s like we’re living in a fog. 

This conversation with Dr. Basch is enlightening for all of us because she takes us to a spot where we can almost feel ourselves floating to the top if we consider the moments that are simmering in our lives right now.

This conversation grounds us in a deeper understanding of what transitions means for us, and what it all comes with. The feelings, the thoughts that follow. And it all begs the question – what do we do with it all?

More about Dr. Jodi Basch here

Get in touch with Dr. Basch:

Change doesn’t change people. Transitions do. After diving into the literature on the topic, it’s stunning to me that we lack a common language around life’s transitions given how many we encounter either by choice or circumstance all our lives. Sometimes, being in a transition is like losing the plot of your life. And that’s because as anthropologists and psychologists alike say, transitions put us in a liminal state where we must navigate between a past that’s clearly over, and a future that’s still unwritten and uncertain.

For that I say, we need a new literacy for understanding life’s transitions seeing as they affect all aspects of our well-being, personally and professionally. 

Liminal is my new podcast and I chat with experts from around the world to explore what it is about transitions – big or small – that drive us to ask ourselves what more we want to achieve with full heart, or who it is we really want to be. 

To quote transition leader William Bridges, most people in a transition have an experience of no longer being quite sure of who they are. Turns out that these inner doubts are a good thing, for they are signals and signs that one is ready to see and understand more now. Well, sign me up.