Meanderings with Trudy

Melissa works in IT by day but has what she calls a “side hustle” helping people organize their homes… a thing she’s loved to do since she was a child. Organizing her family home brought her a sense of security and safety when she was a wee girl, and now she likes to help people create space for living, clearing away clutter and making space for life. Kind of a lovely thing, really.

She also talks about her life growing up on Staten Island, yes, near to the Statue of Liberty that most people think of when they hear of the island. Her life growing up was a little fraught with a father who was unwell and immigrant parents who struggled to make their way in America. We meander around some of her childhood memories, not all of them happy, but that too is part of life and is also what builds our capacity for joy.

We also talk about the role of wonder in life, in ourselves and in the world around us. It’s kind of a lovely thing, this sense of wonder that Melissa and I share together. Its one of the many things that I really liked about meandering with her in this penultimate meander around joy as I break next week until the fall.

Next week I’ll have a final wrap up meander, just me, for you. I hope you’ll stay tuned.

Episode links:

Chapman Coaching Inc.

Melissa’s podcast is called “Making Way,” a podcast about finding your path in life. She interviews a wide range of people, and gives them each space to tell their story, sharing their wisdom. Give it a listen!

And finally here is Melissa's organizing "side hustle": a company called "Messy Space"

Royalty free music is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

Please send thoughts and comments to [email protected]

As always, this podcast is sponsored by the guests who give of their time, and by my company, Chapman Coaching Inc.

Royalty free music is gratefully received and is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

Live life joyfully, and always let kindness guide you.

Today we do a little recapping, and also reflect the Enneagram into our lives moving forward. How we can play with the characteristics of our type, and begin to learn how to choose how to respond to situations as opposed to simply react in our age-old way. This can create some unease in our relationships because we are acting outside of how others expect us to be… in our personal lives, and in our work lives too.

In short, the Enneagram is both information (what’s my type, what are the gifts and challenges of my type), and a practice of pausing and paying attention to who I am and how that plays into my relationship with myself and others. How do I show up with my gifts? And how can that affect the world? We talk about how the Enneagram can save the world… yeah, that big and that small too.

There’s this and more in this episode, I hope you’ll stick with us as we explore. And please, share our work widely, give us a review or a drop us a few stars. If you have comments or questions, please send them to [email protected]. Angie and I will be back in the fall with some fresh meanders, but I will repost past episodes over the summer so stay tuned for “Meandering Again” episodes.

Episode links:

Chapman Coaching Inc.

Big Stone House

Royalty free music is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

Please send thoughts and comments to [email protected]

As always, this podcast is sponsored by the guests who give of their time, and by my company, Chapman Coaching Inc.

Royalty free music is gratefully received and is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

Live life joyfully, and always let kindness guide you.

This is our fifth episode in this “Grief Busting” series with special guest and expert on grief and bereavement, Dina Bell-Laroche. You’ll remember Dina from her chat with me back in November, 2022.   

Today we meander all round myths relating who and what can help grieving people. We start by talking about Dina’s newly released book on grief and loss called “Grief Unleashed: Moving from the hole in our hearts to whole-hearted.” Dina has written this book into being over the last decade, and over the twenty-two years since the death of Tracy, her sister. She talks about how witnessing her mother’s journals from those days, as she unpacked her daughter’s cancer and unfolding of this to her death, enriched, and in some ways even drove, the writing. “This book has written me…” says Dina, and that is often how it is with us as we move through our grief and bereavement. This is one of the many ways Dina found solace, and healing, after Tracy’s death. 

Living means we will experience loss of all kinds, big and small. And when we can grapple with that in a healthy way, we develop resiliency to be with life as it is in this very moment. We also spend some time today talking about grief and bereavement in high-performing athletes – a very real thing for athletes as they compete (win/lose), come back from injury, or decide to retire. A different view of grief, but also very relatable, and informative, for us all.

I hope you enjoy this final episode in our deep dive into the myths around grief and how dealing with our grief can deepen our joy. 

Dina and I will break for the summer, and will have something new for you in the fall. In the meanwhile, feedback is welcome, so please drop us a note at [email protected].

Episode Links:

Chapman Coaching Inc.

Dina’s company is Grief Unleashed

Dina’s blog post outlining her 25 myths about grief, that we are exploring in these meanders and the book, “Grief Unleashed: Moving from the hole in our hearts to whole-hearted” can be purchased through her publisher

Joan Erikson, and Dana Faulds poem “Allow”

Royalty free music is called 

Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

As always, this podcast is sponsored by the guests who give of their time, and by my company, Chapman Coaching Inc.

Royalty free music is gratefully received and is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

Live life joyfully, and always let kindness guide you.

In this meander, we talk about how stillness and curiosity, and withholding self-judgement, are key to seeing oneself with clarity. How we live lives of “busy-ness” so we can avoid hearing ourselves, our true selves, speak from our hearts… how boredom is a gift, and is often avoided in our highly technical, connected, world.

"The hardest work is to look at your life and love it exactly as it is right now,"  says Anjali in this meander... what a great invitation to look inside ourselves and find joy, right here, right now.

I hope you enjoy this glorious exploration!

Episode Links:

Chapman Coaching Inc.

Anjali on FaceBook, “You, Me, and the Dress”, LinkedIn, and on Instagram

Poems we referenced: "Don't Hesitate" by Mary Oliver, and "The Uses of Sorrow"; "The Guesthouse" by Rumi; "Love After Love" by Derek Walcott; and song by Ray LaMontagne "Be Here Now"

Dan Harris and his book "Ten Percent Happier"

Royalty free music is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

Please send thoughts and comments to [email protected]

As always, this podcast is sponsored by the guests who give of their time, and by my company, Chapman Coaching Inc.

Royalty free music is gratefully received and is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

Live life joyfully, and always let kindness guide you.

Soulfulness…what is it? How does it differ from spirituality? Why does it matter? And how does the Enneagram support it?

In this meander, we explore how the Enneagram is both a tool and a practice… a tool of information about my type and the other personality types, and then the invitation into awareness, so that when I slow down, I can know myself, and see where my gifts lie, and also how I trip myself up… and a practice, an ongoing intention, to pay attention to how I show up and catch myself in my own habit loop of behaviour. And from that place, choose how I want to respond to life in this moment. And this “Enneagram as a practice” supports both soulful moments in my day-to-day, and occasionally, moments of awe-inspiring spirituality. You get the gist. 

There’s this and a lot more in this episode; I hope you’ll stick with us as we explore. And please, share our work widely, give us a review or a drop us a few stars. If you have comments or questions, please send them to [email protected].

Episode links:

Chapman Coaching Inc.

Big Stone House

Royalty free music is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

Please send thoughts and comments to [email protected]

As always, this podcast is sponsored by the guests who give of their time, and by my company, Chapman Coaching Inc.

Royalty free music is gratefully received and is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

Live life joyfully, and always let kindness guide you.

Chapman Coaching Inc.

Some background about Lac McGlashan, Quebec

As always, this podcast is sponsored by the guests who give of their time, and by my company, Chapman Coaching Inc.

Royalty free music is gratefully received and is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

Live life joyfully, and always let kindness guide you.

We kibbitz around a bit to begin with around unexpected connections in the supermarket, and that old game from the 1990s, Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon… which was really about just how connected we all are in this great big world. We wrestle with expectations, the ones we have when coming new to the Enneagram, how the first level of exploration is seeking information, that’s all. The next level is about understanding those types, and those types in us….each of those types, not just our own homebase. And with time, and in community with others, we can drop in further and ask: What’s Next?

In this fast-paced world, the Enneagram is an invitation to pause and look at our stories so we can find ourselves. We explore this through story telling, and finding grace, and grief, and gratitude in the process. We dive into all of that today.

I hope you’ll stick with us as we explore. And please, share our work widely, give us a review or a drop us a few stars. If you have comments or questions, please send them to [email protected].

Episode links:

Chapman Coaching Inc.

Big Stone House

Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon

Royalty free music is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

Please send thoughts and comments to [email protected]

As always, this podcast is sponsored by the guests who give of their time, and by my company, Chapman Coaching Inc.

Royalty free music is gratefully received and is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

Live life joyfully, and always let kindness guide you.

This is our fourth episode in this “Grief Busting” series with special guest and expert on grief and bereavement, Dina Bell-Laroche. You’ll remember Dina from her chat with me back in November, 2022.   

Today we meander all around myths relating what is grieve-able. We start with a very tender topic of miscarriage and still-birth of children and how we grieve these losses. Dina makes a critical distinction for us: that grief is an internal reorientation of our inner world after a severed attachment; mourning is when we make the grief public. When a child is conceived but lost, we don’t always know how to grieve this loss, or to mourn it. And yet, like so many tender griefs we experience through life, we need to give the loss it’s due so that we can work with it and embody the experience in a healthy way. This leads us to the rituals that helps us experience such life-altering losses, rituals like funerals, and continuing bonds. The work of grieving is all about reconciling the loss into the meaning we make of our lives.

Grief experiences ripple out and land in the hearts of others, creating opportunities for grief in that person. In this way, grief is deeply intrenched in our relationships.

In our meander, we go on to explore other kinds of things that we commonly grieve, and in this way, I hope, show that anything that causes a sense of loss is grieve-able. That really is our main message here – if it hurts your heart, it’s a loss that needs to be tended to. Losses are big and small, but all are worthy of attention and reconciliation, whatever that may look like for you. And also, there is no hierarchy to grief and our feelings of loss… a loss is a loss, and we all feel them deeply.

I hope you enjoy this episode, the fourth of five episodes in our deep dive into grief, exploring how dealing with our grief can deepen our joy. 

Episode Links:

Chapman Coaching Inc.

Dina’s company is Grief Unleashed

Dina’s blog post outlining her 25 myths about grief, that we are exploring in these meanders

Francis Weller and the Five Gates of Grief

Robin Wall Kimmerer, “Braiding Sweetgrass”

John Roedel, “Upon Departure”

Royalty free music is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

Please send thoughts and comments to [email protected]

As always, this podcast is sponsored by the guests who give of their time, and by my company, Chapman Coaching Inc.

Royalty free music is gratefully received and is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

Live life joyfully, and always let kindness guide you.

Michelle Schafer is my guest today. We taped this in mid-March, while she was recuperating on the couch with a broken thigh bone. Michelle is a career coach with an effervescent approach to life, which you’ll hear in this meander.

Michelle sees joy, with intention, in so many parts of life. Outings with her kids, sunsets on the Ottawa River, hikes in the National Capital Region, and travel.  So many of these adventures are share with her friends on her social media; when I'm down, I know I can go to her space for a wee "pick-me-up." But these days, she's having to work hard to find new ways of coping now that she can't head out into nature for rejuvenation.  Always a busy person, she's learning the gift of slowing down... insight she'll likely carry into life moving forward.

We spend a lot of time exploring her lessons from hiking Manchu Pichu in Peru earlier this year. The power of companionship in an adventure like this… how we get into dark places in our head when the going gets tough, and how an offer of companionship can be a total game changer. Lessons like this can carry forward into our daily lives too. 

If you have comments for us, please shoot us a note!

Episode Links:

Chapman Coaching Inc.

Michelle Schafer Coaching

Manchu Pichu, Peru

Some articles written by Michelle or in which she is quoted:  in Brainz Magazine on how she coaches; about finding joy; about job search lessons from Machu Picchu; and in Canadian Business Magazine, about the trend of rage applying . 

Royalty free music is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

Please send thoughts and comments to [email protected]

As always, this podcast is sponsored by the guests who give of their time, and by my company, Chapman Coaching Inc.

Royalty free music is gratefully received and is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

Live life joyfully, and always let kindness guide you.

I’ve known my guest Philip Cole for almost a decade. This meander is such a treat for me as he and I share an understanding about joy and heart and soul coming out of studying together for all this time. We’re both students of the Enneagram, and of the soul, led through our studies by Angie Arendt and Peter McGaugh at Big Stone House. You all know Angie, she's my regular guest on the PauseCast, and Peter meandered with us back in May, 2021.

Phil has a warm and thoughtful way about him, which will come into focus as we meander. He’s taught me a few things about his creative process, about family, and about fear, how it is a future based thing – without time or thinking, fear is not possible. I never thought of it that way! We talk in depth about flow and how it shows up for him in his life, making joy more plentiful and real. And we play with words a bit: “should I…” versus “I should…” turns out, these are very different things. One is a criticism, the other, an invitation. I love that. I'm always learning!

Episode Links:

Chapman Coaching Inc.

Phil’s branding company is creatingnow and he mentioned the authors Robin Sharma and Rupert Spira, and the Icelandic post-rock band Sigur Rós.

Royalty free music is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

Please send thoughts and comments to [email protected]

As always, this podcast is sponsored by the guests who give of their time, and by my company, Chapman Coaching Inc.

Royalty free music is gratefully received and is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

Live life joyfully, and always let kindness guide you.