Mindful Mavens

The good, the difficult, and centering in the present moment: avoiding the catastrophizing/disasterizing mindset

Jon-Kabat Zinn’s book: Full Catastrophe Living: Using the wisdom of your body and mind to face stress, pain, and illness. Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction. Processing of difficult things (like the 9/11 event) is so personal and so elusive. Anja was living in NYC at the time; Steph had the opposite experience of having almost no visual digesting of the images of that terrible event. Now we are in the process of digging out of the pandemic upheaval.

Counterbalance to catastrophizing - take the morsels of uplift and allow them to be more of the focus.

Janine Benyus’s Biomimicry episode on Krista Tippett’s podcast ON BEING - highly recommend this interview and book.

statISHtics - Anja coined this term in humor referring to our tendency to quote studies but not have specifics in the moment

Be the best ripple.

Mindful Mavens is produced in partnership with MadeLife (our amazing recording space) and Facilitated Wellness (where Steph & Anja both treat clients), both located in Boulder, Colorado.

For more information, check them out at
http://madelife.com
http://facwellness.com

Find Mindful Mavens on Facebook and Instagram @‌mindful.mavens, email us at [email protected] or leave us a voice message at speakpipe.com/mindfulmavens, we’d LOVE to hear your voice!

Music: “Into The Forest” by LesFM

Neuroplasticity - the brain can grow, heal, and relearn
Mindset of potentiality
Summary: We can heal and grow and change

Episode notes/references/links:

The Brain That Changes Itself: stories of personal triumph from the frontiers of brain science - by Norman Doidge

Real Self Care: A Transformative Program for Redefining Wellness (Crystals, Cleanses, and Bubble Baths Not Included) by Pooja Lakshmin

Mindful Mavens is produced in partnership with MadeLife (our amazing recording space) and Facilitated Wellness (where Steph & Anja both treat clients), both located in Boulder, Colorado.

For more information, check them out at
http://madelife.com
http://facwellness.com

Find Mindful Mavens on Facebook and Instagram @‌mindful.mavens, email us at [email protected] or leave us a voice message at speakpipe.com/mindfulmavens, we’d LOVE to hear your voice!

Music: “Into The Forest” by LesFM

Pema Chodron’s book WHEN THINGS FALL APART has many insights that we explore as pertinent to health and well being.

https://pemachodronfoundation.org/product/when-things-fall-apart-book/ Body pain, review of the chapter titles, gratitude to Pema for her teachings and her simple but poignant examples. We also loved that Pema reads her book aloud and how it feels comfortable to hear her speak about “us normal people”.

Facing nightmares and asking what the “monster” wants.

Root cause versus branch symptom.

Mindful Mavens is produced in partnership with MadeLife (our amazing recording space) and Facilitated Wellness (where Steph & Anja both treat clients), both located in Boulder, Colorado.

For more information, check them out at
http://madelife.com
http://facwellness.com

Find Mindful Mavens on Facebook and Instagram @‌mindful.mavens, email us at [email protected] or leave us a voice message at speakpipe.com/mindfulmavens, we’d LOVE to hear your voice!

Music: “Into The Forest” by LesFM

40+ years of combined efforts and the paths leading us to the microphone

After her bachelor degree, Steph journeyed in China (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_International_Studies_University) , later studied acupuncture https://cstcm.edu/ , eastern and western herbalism, became an RN, now in master’s program at Naropa. Anja studied business for her undergrad, lived in NYC working in the finance industry, along with pursuing an acting career. Discovered the Swedish Institute (one of the oldest accredited massage schools in the US) and took a leap of faith.

Mindful Mavens is produced in partnership with MadeLife (our amazing recording space) and Facilitated Wellness (where Steph & Anja both treat clients), both located in Boulder, Colorado.

For more information, check them out at
http://madelife.com
http://facwellness.com

Find Mindful Mavens on Facebook and Instagram @‌mindful.mavens, email us at [email protected] or leave us a voice message at speakpipe.com/mindfulmavens, we’d LOVE to hear your voice!

Music: “Into The Forest” by LesFM

How we show up in the world, healing beyond just functional.

Summary: Sacredness, intentionality, Safe space, Being seen and heard.

Jean Watson and Watson Caring Science Institute, inspired the “Pause (Paws?)to Care” campaign at a local hospital.

Investing in self-care is one of the most (if not the most) important prioritization we can offer. Wording matters as well. Shifting from “I don’t have time for…” or “I don’t have money for…” to “I am choosing to spend my time and money budget in other ways right now”.

“You can’t pour water from an empty cup/pitcher” - anonymous

Self-care isn’t selfish. Converse concept (just for fun): you can’t receive anything new if you are already full of ideas - empty out your head and be silent to the infinite possibilities of the moment. (Steph’s wording from ancient teachers)

Put your well being sessions on the calendar, if scheduled they will remind you to be more proactive.

Anja and Steph share thoughts on “how often should I get body work”.

What is Homeostasis?

Important concepts around the idea that “Your body heals to functional, it doesn’t always heal to optimal”.

Body work can help people with quieting of the mind.

Mindful Mavens is produced in partnership with MadeLife (our amazing recording space) and Facilitated Wellness (where Steph & Anja both treat clients), both located in Boulder, Colorado.

For more information, check them out at
http://madelife.com
http://facwellness.com

Find Mindful Mavens on Facebook and Instagram @‌mindful.mavens, email us at [email protected] or leave us a voice message at speakpipe.com/mindfulmavens, we’d LOVE to hear your voice!

Music: “Into The Forest” by LesFM

The mavens both collected inspiring quotes starting at a young age. Join us as we laugh and ponder the journey through personal challenges, in and through!

W. Somerset Maugham: It’s a funny thing about life: if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.

Alain de Botton: To love is to be generous in your interpretation of another’s behavior.

Ralph Waldo Emerson: What lies behind us and what lies before us are all tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

Luck is the residue of design - author unknown.

It takes an awful lot of faith to believe that a woman is built like her clothes make her seem to be. - author unknown

Fashion - trends in body work discussion.

Arthur Schopenhauer: It is difficult to find happiness within oneself, but it is impossible to find it anywhere else.

Discussion about Reclaiming Joy, Bring your team together.

Personal story about psoriasis, tell the story you want to hear, using imagery as a healing tool. Does the thing you are living with have to dominate your life or can you still be in a state of appreciation/gratitude while working through the hard things that show up (chronic or acute pain, loss, injury, health concern, etc).

Our bodies are doing millions of tiny tasks at all times and it’s easy to forget how amazing they are when pain presents itself.

“To feel anything was to feel pain” was one woman’s experience before healing began. Remembering that there is often a hidden filter, which is pain. Very little cultural support/holding space for one another regarding the experience of pain. “it’s kind of lonely (on a pain journey)”. “Pain is an entity in the room.” Surge in awareness of how important mental health care is. Verbalize your needs so others can help you.

https://www.soundstrue.com/ and Hay House’s Empower You are two places where you can find lots of inspiring resources via recorded teachers, multi media.

Rumi as translated by Coleman Barks in his book The Essential Rumi: Are you jealous of the Ocean’s generosity? Why would you refuse this joy to anyone? Fish don’t hold the sacred liquid in cups! They swim the huge fluid freedom.

Ralph Waldo Emerson: Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could, some blunders and absurdities, no doubt, crept in. Forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You should begin it as serenely and with too-high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

Mindful Mavens is produced in partnership with MadeLife (our amazing recording space) and Facilitated Wellness (where Steph & Anja both treat clients), both located in Boulder, Colorado.

For more information, check them out at
http://madelife.com
http://facwellness.com

Find Mindful Mavens on Facebook and Instagram @‌mindful.mavens, email us at [email protected] or leave us a voice message at speakpipe.com/mindfulmavens, we’d LOVE to hear your voice!

Music: “Into The Forest” by LesFM

A compassionate (towards self) view of privilege can be the concept of a crisis of abundance (Steph might have coined the term, but who knows?). Examples include: having to choose between two or more great things or having too many choices/responsibilities. The stress involved in these moments is real but remembering to come from a place of gratitude helps to frame the situation. Anja points out the ‘Yes And’ approach. Underprivileged populations notwithstanding, we have ways to reboot our attitudes.

Drinking water analogy is the difference between pushing the row boat out onto a beautiful lake versus pushing the row boat on a basin oo BOG or sludge.

Chinese medicine also uses water ways to represent different energy flows in the body.

Internal GPS (Abraham Hicks), tune in to what you really need/want.
Lots of information in the body and intuition, and when we slow down we are able to listen a little better (meditation, body work, any meditative type activity).

Intuition discussion - the brain is aware at all times of countless amounts of information but is filtering it out. We are not consciously aware of all the info but intuition might be a deeper knowing based on subconscious processing of the totality of the information in which we are swirling.

Analysis paralysis - Do the next small thing. Our podcast LEAP INTO THE UNIVERSE is an example of doing the next small thing.

Shout out to MADELIFE for offering the podcasting space for us to use and explore. Service mindset.

Abundance identified by both Steph and Anja for being able to work at Facilitated Wellness in Boulder (Anja is now the owner of FW). Basically, we love what we do and feel so LUCKY to work together, and with our amazing colleagues. Our purpose is to be open to what unfolds for our clients and hold space for them and ourselves. Bringing our full selves into the treatment room.

Consuming life in big bites - fun idea that we loved to play with (and Steph is back in school, AND we decided to start a podcast!)

Pyschedelic movement briefly touched upon. We discussed how important it is to “stay in your lane”, especially with respect to the limits of one’s license (massage therapist, acupuncture, LPC - Steph’s hopeful additional license in a few years)

“if you want to get something done, ask a busy person” - “never felt more alive”. Having people on your team to help one navigate the pace of life can lead to a juicy life.

Adding a self-care session on to a busy time in life might feel like an impossible extra, but might provide the quiet space and decompression of the body so that there is clarity and more space.

“If you are busy you should sit for 30 minutes. If you are REALLY busy, you should sit for an hour.” - author unknown.

“Start by doing what’s necessary, then do what is possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” - attributed to Francis of Assisi

Cathy Heller YOUR TURN TO PODCAST. Steph signed up for this but Anja is the magic behind the production of the work we do. In deep gratitude!

Mindful Mavens is produced in partnership with MadeLife (our amazing recording space) and Facilitated Wellness (where Steph & Anja both treat clients), both located in Boulder, Colorado.

For more information, check them out at
http://madelife.com
http://facwellness.com

Find Mindful Mavens on Facebook and Instagram @‌mindful.mavens, email us at [email protected] or leave us a voice message at speakpipe.com/mindfulmavens, we’d LOVE to hear your voice!

Music: “Into The Forest” by LesFM

Steph and Anja go deep on languages, learning, problem-solving, test taking, little kids & sports, laughter yoga, power stances, and how important it is as humans to establish safe, healthy physical connections in our lives.

Episode notes/references/links: Hold onto your hats, this episode is a joyful meander through a handful of topics that your hosts, Steph and Anja hold near and dear.

LaughterYoga.org Dr. Madan Kataria
Power Stances https://www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_may_shape_who_you_are/c Amy Cuddy
The High Five Habit with Mel Robbins

Playing the game for fun, not necessarily to “win”. Point of suffering: having an expectation of something that is different than what is present.

Love of language anecdotal discussions and stories. Bilingual and multilingual stories. Language used during body work sessions. Creating a safe space and helping to distinguish between pain and sensation. Encouraging clients to speak up and communicate discomfort. Pain is your body telling you that something is not right. (and the pain might get “louder” if not listened to).

Frequency of touch in different cultures: https://www.rebekkamikkola.com/post/touch-in-different-cultures

Study: How often Children Laugh compared to Adults (Children laugh about 400 times per day, adults only about 18 times per day) according to Heggie BA. The Healing Power of Laughter. J Hosp Med. 2019 May;14(5):320. doi: 10.12788/jhm.3205. PMID: 31042145; PMCID: PMC6609137.

Study: Power of touch in neonatal babies (many articles available). One example: To have and to hold: Effect of physical contact on infants and their caregivers by Ann Bigelow. (Bigelow AE, Williams LR. To have and to hold: Effects of physical contact on infants and their caregivers. Infant Behav Dev. 2020 Nov;61:101494. doi: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2020.101494. Epub 2020 Sep 20. PMID: 32966905; PMCID: PMC7502223.)

Mindful Mavens is produced in partnership with MadeLife (our amazing recording space) and Facilitated Wellness (where Steph & Anja both treat clients), both located in Boulder, Colorado.

For more information, check them out at
http://madelife.com
http://facwellness.com

Find Mindful Mavens on Facebook and Instagram @‌mindful.mavens, email us at [email protected] or leave us a voice message at speakpipe.com/mindfulmavens, we’d LOVE to hear your voice!

Music: “Into The Forest” by LesFM

Perspectives on self-care and how we show up as our best selves.

Life will throw you curve balls, and will throw those you love their own tough situations. How we handle them, and manage our own frustrations shows more about who we are and what we're made of than anything else. Join Steph and Anja as they navigate these challenging topics with as much grace and humor as they can.

body work hack: schedule once a month on the date of your birth (11th of every month, for example) for some type of self-care, body work, etc.

bell hooks (quoted on Sharon Salzberg’s social media): “one of the mighty illusions in our culture is that all pain is a negation of worthiness; that the real chosen people, the real worthy people, are the people that are most free from pain.” G.K. Chesterton quote: It is possible to skim the surface of life without being profoundly touched by anything, but it is not very rewarding….(can’t find the full quote so if someone has it and wants to share we would be grateful).

Elizabeth Gilbert quote: “the women I love and admire for their strength and grace did not get that way because shit worked out. They got that way because shit went wrong, and they handled it. They handled it in a thousand different ways on a thousand different days, but they handled it. Those women are my superheroes.”

Jujitsu reference- rough interpretation is to take what force/challenge is coming at you and flowing with it rather than squaring off against it/offering resistance.

Movie inspirations: Kung Fu Panda (all 3), The Whale, A Man Called Otto, About Time

Nelson Mandela quote: Don’t judge me by my successes. Judge me by how many times I have fallen down and gotten back up again.”

When failure is not part of the vocabulary, but rather showing up with curiosity, which then can foster creativity rather than judgement.

Mindful Mavens is produced in partnership with MadeLife (our amazing recording space) and Facilitated Wellness (where Steph & Anja both treat clients), both located in Boulder, Colorado.

For more information, check them out at
http://madelife.com
http://facwellness.com

Find Mindful Mavens on Facebook and Instagram @‌mindful.mavens, email us at [email protected] or leave us a voice message at speakpipe.com/mindfulmavens, we’d LOVE to hear your voice!

Music: “Into The Forest” by LesFM

Wisdom seekers, humor mongers, perfectly imperfect celebrants of the human condition, Steph & Anja are friends and long-time wellness-oriented bodywork therapists. We explore light and love, dis-ease and vibrant aliveness, and everything in between.

If you’d like to share your thoughts, we can be reached at [email protected], speakpipe.com/mindfulmavens, or on FB/Insta @mindful.mavens

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