Raise your hand if you've ever been in that "I have a million things to do and there is not enough time to finish them but I must get them done so I must rush but rushing won't get me anywhere because it only brings me stress so I should probably slow down and take a break but I can't because I have a million things to do that must get done" trance. And then you keep going until your body or mind forces you to stop. 

 

That was a mouthful. Or a 'keyboard full' rather, since I typed it and didn't actually say it. I can't see who is raising their hand, or if anyone actually raised their hand while reading that. But I would place a bet that most people have probably been in the above trance. I've been there many times. It doesn't feel good. Your body and mind are moving a million times faster than you can process. Maybe it's because you've filled your plate with too much and set a time period for completion that is unrealistic. Maybe it's because you're running from trauma, emotions, or unpleasant/foreign feelings. When you're feeling like this, you know you've been here before. You know it probably won't lead anywhere good. But you continue on because you know no other way.

Breaks? Rest? Stopping? Feeling? What the hell are those foreign things?

 

Like I said, I've been in that warp speed busy get-everything-done-while-running-from-everything-toward-nothing zone enough to realize that it doesn't lead anywhere good for me. I would always find myself deep in the zone because I didn't know how to interject in the cycle and stop it. Instead, I was usually alerted when it was too late - a physical crash from exhaustion, or a mental crash in the form of a panic attack.

With the help of a new friend on a work trip up in the mountains of Colorado, I think I may have developed another way. The few times I put it into practice, it worked. It's not easy, but it seems to work...at least for me. I tell the story of it's development in this episode, along and a recent story where I applied it with success.

 

Connect with me:

[email protected]

www.ashleyrothstein.com

IG/Twitter: @ashrothstein

 

I love hearing from you people! Send me an email with your thoughts, personal experiences, insights, or hell…what you had for lunch.

I did something I was really scared of at work. By pushing past a powerful manifestation of fear, I was rewarded with growth and insight. Listen in for the full story. Maybe you will feel encouraged to push past your fear barriers. It's hard to do something that you resist. It feels unnatural, horrible and it really, really sucks. But maybe that 'something,' while not comfortable or pleasant, is what the highest and best part of you is calling you to do. And you just have to get past the 'suck' to see it.

Connect with me:

Email: [email protected] IG/Twitter: @ashrothstein www.ashleyrothstein.com

love hearing from you people! Send me an email with your thoughts, personal experiences, insights, or hell…what you had for lunch. Who's going to be the one that actually does the latter? And I wait…

Binge eating is my vice, and has been for quite some time. I've been through countless iterations of trial and error with diet, feeling great with some ways of eating, and not so great with others. I eat good, wholesome food, but my psychology around food needs some serious work. With all of the years of flip flopping with different diets and integrating the rapidly changing/new information about diet/health that I've learned over the years, I've conditioned myself deep into the 'dieting mindset.' In this episode, I talk about a recent bout of experimentation with a new 'reset diet' that uncovered a large piece of the puzzle I had been missing for many years: the cycle of restricting-binging-shame, and the realization that binge eating and emotional eating are two different things. These realizations help shed light on this vicious cycle I've been in. Now I feel a little less unstuck and have something new to work on. Hopefully if you're dealing with similar things (even if it's not food-related), this episode will help 'unstick' you a bit too.

Connect with me: IG/Twitter: @ashrothstein www.ashleyrothstein.com Think you would be a good fit for the podcast? Send me an email with your story. [email protected]

Or send me an email with anything..your thoughts, your experiences, what you had for lunch. I love hearing from you people!

Connect with me: IG/Twitter: @ashrothstein www.ashleyrothstein.com Think you would be a good fit for the podcast? Send me an email with your story. [email protected]

Or send me an email with anything..your thoughts, your experiences, what you had for lunch. I love hearing from you people!

World-renowned hypnotherapist Danna Pycher is trailblazing a new form of healing that bridges science and spirituality. Her goal is to bring hypnosis mainstream as a way for everyone to have the ability to access it because we all seem to be in overload lately.

We touched upon some fascinating concepts: "show" hypnotists (are they real?), how hypnotism works on a neurological and practical level, chronic disease and if it's really just a disease of the mind, resisting spirituality even though it keeps coming to find you, how we can be more childlike/playful/creative despite the overarching expectations and demands of the workforce, shifting from a state of empty self talk to self talk we believe, repressed memories, regression therapy, not taking "no" for an answer, and so much more.

This is a deep dive into the mind. I don't know about you, but I can't get enough. Enjoy.

Connect with me: IG/Twitter: @ashrothstein www.ashleyrothstein.com Think you would be a good fit for the podcast? Send me an email with your story. [email protected]   Connect with Danna: IG: @mindcoaching Learn about her services, workshops, recorded hypnosis sessions, and more: www.dannapycher.com

 

In this episode, I talk about an amazing personal experience: completely lifting my own brain fog (that would typically spiral out of control and have me out of commission for the entire day, if not longer) in a matter of minutes. Listen to episode #014 first to gain some context around the brain retraining steps I reference.

Connect with me: IG/Twitter: @ashrothstein www.ashleyrothstein.com Think you would be a good fit for the podcast? Send me an email with your story. [email protected]

In this episode, I talk about the profound developments I've been experiencing in my own life with brain retraining and rewiring my limbic system, and how I'm restructuring old brain patterns away from anxiety, depression, chronic fatigue, panic attacks, and more, while creating new ones to support gratitude and mindfulness.

Connect with me: IG/Twitter: @ashrothstein www.ashleyrothstein.com Think you would be a good fit for the podcast? Send me an email with your story. [email protected]

Roxan McDonald is a writer, teacher, workshop facilitator, coach, public speaker, and creator of @spiritual_af. She currently leads writing and personal development retreats and co-teaches with poet Ellen Bass, author of The Courage to Heal, at 1440 Multiversity and Esalen Institute.   Roxan is the author of the inspirational decks Spiritual AF and Grateful AF published by Knock Knock Inc, where she brings her own wit and unique style to gratitude and self-help. Her short stories, memoir excerpts, and poetry have been published in The Porter Gulch Review.   Roxan got sober when she was fifteen years old and currently has 28 years of recovery. She was in the inaugural class of the world's first and longest running clean and sober high school (this was fascinating to hear about!), and after graduating, Roxan went on to become the director of the school. She spent fourteen years working on the front lines of addiction and trauma recovery. If you deal with addiction, vices, or unproductive obsessive behavior, there are serious gems for you in this episode.   I was humbled and floored hearing her talk about her own addiction and recovery – the gratitude she has for her vices was amazing and birthed an entirely new perspective (for me) around relapses and the psychology of addiction.   She shares an incredibly touching story about her near-death experience on a river – there's way more to it, but I'll just leave it at that for now. It had me nearly speechless so I don't want to ruin it or do it an injustice by spoiling any part of it.   Connect with me: IG/Twitter: @ashrothstein www.ashleyrothstein.com Think you would be a good fit for the podcast? Send me an email with your story. [email protected]   Connect with Roxan: IG: @spiritual_af Facebook: Spiritual AF Upcoming speaking event: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-space-4-grace-womens-storytelling-event-tickets-60088417073 Upcoming retreat: https://mexchicretreats.regfox.com/spirtual-af Her decks: https://knockknockstuff.com/pages/search-results-page?q=af+decks

Travis Warner has a Bachelor's Degree in Forensic and Investigative Science (emphasis in Crime Scene Investigation) and a Master's Degree in Geology (emphasis in petroleum Geology), both from West Virginia University. He was a research/development reservoir geologist for an oil and gas company for 7 years (microscopy, organic geochemistry, spectroscopy), was laid off after a corporate acquisition, climbed cell phone towers for 7 months while he job-hunted, and as of mid-March 2019, he is now an energy analyst and contractor for the US Dept. of Energy. He co-founded Steel City Slackers - a Pittsburgh-based nonprofit that advocates slacklining in Pittsburgh. He has an insane passion for slacklining, unicycling, walking on stilts, and pretty much balancing on anything an everything he can find…which brings me to why I had him on the podcast.   When I think about who I want to bring on the podcast as a guest, I've been noticing a common theme – I love talking to people who don't live a life the average person does. This signifies a person who is following their own inner voice instead of the herd. And I think so many of us are trying to find this space within ourselves (I know I am). To touch that space in another person, ask questions, and figure out how others reach it, will hopefully bring us closer to finding that space within ourselves.

Travis radiates this. He is a passionate geologist by day, and climbs and balances on tall shit whenever he can.

We opened with talking about geology (if you're sitting there wondering what the hell a geologist even does, you are not alone; that was 100% me before this episode). It was cool to hear about rocks. I was actually more interested in the industry than I thought I would be.

When we got into his experience with tower climbing, he talked about hives up on the towers and how the bees are literally high – you can poke them, they don't sting you, and birds gobble them up without a fight. Quite bizarre and sad. He spoke on the perspective of being hundreds of feet up in the air – what a rainbow looks like, how a 4 ft. tall buzzard can just fly up to you, how the rain sounds, and what it's like to see a co-worker pee on your boss. Yup, you read that right.

The stuff about high-lining was thrilling. For you visual folks, it's venturing up to an opening in nature at height (picture a canyon), securing a line from one side to the other, and crossing it by balancing and walking across the line. Holy f. I asked him a question about the "goal" of high lining. He embraces the entire process – from scouting out the space, to securing the line, to gearing up, to getting into the right mental space to cross. It was refreshing to hear from a person who enjoys the process of something as opposed to just rushing through the process to accomplish an end goal. Applicable meditation skills.

I hope you enjoy listening to Travis just as much as I enjoyed talking to him.

  Watch this podcast: https://youtu.be/OABB-Akd9sM   Connect with me: IG/Twitter: @ashrothstein www.ashleyrothstein.com Think you would be a good fit for the podcast? Send me an email with your story. [email protected]   Connect with Travis: IG: @30microns, @steelcityslackers Steel City Slackers: www.steelcityslackers.com

Death is one of these taboo things – we don't really want to think about it or hear about it, but then we're like wait…I want to hear, or I want to see. We pull away from it and are drawn to it simultaneously.

Death and curiosity go together, at least for me. I find myself existential often, thinking about how life is finite and how it will end for all of us. Death is the great equalizer, as I always say. Not one of us gets out of this life alive. So, who better than a mortician, a person around dead bodies 24/7, to speak to about death?

So many things from this conversation blew my mind - from water cremation vs. fire cremation and how water cremation is 90% better in regards to energy efficiency compared to fire cremation (fascinating), how you can be turned into soil after you die (so interesting), how getting turned into a tree may not be the best option, and how donating your body to science is not all it's cracked up to be if you don't do proper research.

Melissa told a story about her picking up the body of a woman who was her age (who had died suddenly of a stroke) and how that sent her into the most vicious panic attack she has ever had.

I learned, through chatting with her this entire episode, how important it is to talk about our plan for our bodies after death BEFORE we actually die, or are even near death. We have to talk about this stuff. It makes so many things easier for so many people in the process, especially for our loved ones. And kids. Melissa does a lot of talks at schools and said that kids are surprisingly very open to talk about this stuff because they haven't been indoctrinated or conditioned (depends on kid, sure) yet. They're quite curious and open-minded, so it's so crucial that we feed them good, useful information about death and not fearful information. Kids usually just pick up their parents thoughts or fears around death if it's never talked about.

This woman has an insane amount of passion around death education and she has an impressive laundry list of accomplishments – appearing on other podcasts, in the newspaper, other articles, working on a few documentaries, and as of late, she has been writing her first book that should be published soon. She has a huge following on social media, where she frequently posts real-life photos of the process (with family permission of course) on her Instagram stories. You can tell she really loves what she does and it just radiates from her. I had a lot of fun talking to her.

So, tap into that morbid curiosity (we all have it!), buckle up, and tune in.

Watch this podcast: https://youtu.be/8a3s5SYrbqA

Connect with me: IG/Twitter: @ashrothstein www.ashleyrothstein.com Think you would be a good fit for the podcast? Send me an email with your story. [email protected]

Connect with Melissa: IG: @mod_mortician

Facebook: The Modern Mortician

Melissa's website: www.themodernmortician.com (where you can find resources to learn more about your options and other ways to connect with Melissa)

Melissa's Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/shop/TheModernMortician

Melissa's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheModernMortician