What if care is an act of radical imagination?

What part of me wants to care—and be cared for?

What if care is not just a task… but a portal into presence and deep listening… into the art of living—and dying—well.

Drop into your senses with Micheline to spark imagination and renewal in complex times. 

Credits:

Written & Produced by Micheline Berry

Soundscape & Sound Editing by Miguel Rivera

Opening Music by Domonic Dean Breaux

Michelle Woo and Tony Patrick continue their heartfelt conversations with Sonya Dolan, the COO and a co-founder of Mettle Health.

• Caring for the caretaker

• Art as a means of opening up difficult conversations
• The role of the senses, deep listening, play and spontaneity in palliative care
• Creativity as a space of being 

About our guest: Sonya Dolan is the co-founder of Mettle Health, an online platform dedicated to offering personalized, holistic consultations to patients and caregivers navigating the complex emotional, practical, and existential challenges associated with serious illness, death, and grief.

Sonya’s career in hospice and palliative care was shaped by the loss of her mother. This, combined with her role as a caregiver, profoundly shaped her professional path. After transitioning from event management to hospice administration, she worked closely with clinicians, patients, and families to deliver comprehensive programs, logistical support, and customer care. Her hospice work also introduced her to her co-founder BJ Miller, and palliative care, and the rest is history. 

Her extensive experience in caring for those navigating illness and death, coupled with her journey as a breast cancer survivor, has provided Sonya with a deep understanding of both the strengths and limitations of the healthcare system. She is particularly committed to working with empathy and compassion, learning from clinicians, and recognizing the essential role of heart-centered care in improving the patient and caregiver experience.

For more information about today’s episode, visit: 

www.sole.house

www.mettlehealth.com

IG: @schooloflivedexperience

Together we explore the art of care and why it is important.
Navigating serious, acute or chronic health issues for yourself or someone you’re caring for can be a challenge. Mettle Health can help address immediate needs or help you plan for, and navigate, the road ahead. Book a free 20-min consultation to learn more

A recap of our conversatio with BJ Miller with Miguel Rivera.

Compilation, Editing and Sound Design: Miguel Rivera

Music: Domonic Dean Breaux

Welcome back to Season 2 of SOLEFUL: The Art of Care!

In this opening episode, Michelle Woo and Tony Patrick sit down with BJ Miller, Co-Founder of Mettle Health. Together they explore:

*How can art and imagination prepare us for life and death?

*The role imagination plays in providing care and showing up in the world?

*What is Death? If death is not the end, what remains after someone has died? 

About our Guest: Dr. BJ Miller is a longtime Hospice and Palliative Medicine physician and educator. He is a co-founder of Mettle Health, an online service created to provide personalized, holistic consultations for any patient or caregiver who needs help navigating the practical, emotional and existential issues that come with serious illness and disability. 

Led by his own near-death experiences as a patient, BJ advocates for the roles of our senses, community and presence in designing a better ending. His interests are in working across disciplines to affect broad based culture change, cultivating a civic model for aging and dying, and furthering the message that suffering, illness and dying are fundamental and intrinsic aspects of life.

For more information about today’s episode, visit: 

www.sole.house

www.mettlehealth.com

IG: @schooloflivedexperience

IG: @mettle_health

Navigating serious, acute or chronic health issues for yourself or someone you’re caring for can be a challenge. Mettle Health can help address immediate needs or help you plan for, and navigate, the road ahead. Book a free 20-min consultation to learn more

Welcome back to SOLEFUL - an immersive podcast brought to you by the School of Lived Experience (SOLE). Join Tony Patrick and Michelle Woo on a journey and exploration of renewal through art, conversation, and practice inspired by lived experiences. We’re so excited to embark on our 2nd season with our friends from Mettle Health - a team of artists, designers, clinicians, and caregivers dedicated to holistic, imaginative care - to explore none other than the art of care. 

Through intimate interviews with some of today’s luminaries in art, technology and healthcare, we’ll talk about imagination, play, and how death can bring us closer to life. 

So please join us February 20th our launch of Season 2 SOLEFUL- "The Art of Care" where the SOLE will explore the spectrums of creativity, care, life, death, and everything in between. 

SOLEFUL was created by Tony Patrick, Michelle Woo, Micheline Berry and Miguel Rivera. It was sponsored and executive produced by For Freedoms - an artist-led organization dedicated to increasing civic engagement through art and collaboration. 

For more information, please visit www.forfreedoms.org.

This ambient soundscape is composed of original elemental recordings, music and sound design derived from Somatic Journey Episode 5 - Ether.

Sound Design by Miguel Rivera & Micheline Berry with original music by Jordan Hansell / Geometrae.

SOLEFUL hosts Michelle Woo & Tony Patrick are joined by Season 1 collaborators Micheline Berry and Miguel Rivera to end the year in a moving reflection and conversation. Join us as we dive deep into:

-Birth and Death as a ‘cycle of life’ continuum

-Presencing death for the first time

-Ether as an alive, sensitive space

-The need to celebrate death as a ritual process of transformation

-The challenge we all face stepping off the hamster wheel of over-working 

-Working with the voice of the “inner critic” vs. the voice of the “inner benefactor”

-Mitigation of suffering through ritual markers of belonging and inter-relationship

And the wishes and aspirational futures for 2024 from all four of us. Happy New Year!!!

Michelle Woo & Tony Patrick welcome back Miguel Rivera and Micheline Berry for our final episode of the Somatic Journey series. 

Today in Part 1 we explore the ephemeral element, Ether, as the potent space and silence that radically includes the cosmos and our creativity alike. 

Our meditation is an invitation to slow down and become the silence that is listening, creating space around the density of our own thoughts, feelings and emotions. 

Produced by Micheline Berry

Edited and Sound Design by Miguel Rivera & Micheline Berry

Mix and Mastering by Rick Santizo

Original music on this episode by Jordan Hansell / Geometrae Studio

Original Theme Music by David Ralicke

I love you, Lillian (November 21, 1933-October 19, 2023)

Words by Michelle Woo

Sound design by Micheline Berry

Music by Domonic Dean Breaux

Ambient soundscapes composed of original elemental recordings, music, and sound design derived from Somatic Journey Episode 4. Sound Design by Miguel Rivera.