Kate Mageau is a therapist, author, and toxic-relationship survivor who joins me to talk candidly about the mechanics of abuse, the long arc of healing, and what it takes to rebuild self-trust without losing tenderness or hope.

Together we map the patterns that keep people stuck—gaslighting, shame spirals, trauma bonds, and the cycle of violence—and practice simple ways to move from analysis paralysis to clear decision-making. We focus on safety planning, overcoming hesitation, and mindfulness in daily life so that recovery becomes a lived reality rather than a distant idea.

Kate Mageau, LMHC, ADHD-CCSP, is a therapist, author, and toxic relationship survivor. Rose Colored Glasses teaches about toxic relationships through story, with psychological explanations after every chapter. The Healing from Toxic Relationships workbook teaches the mechanisms of abuse in more detail, and provides thoughtful journal prompts and coping tools. Kate Mageau is available for coaching worldwide, for ADHD, writing memoirs and self-publishing, starting businesses, and career coaching. https://www.katemageau.com/

Her book Rose Colored Glasses releases October 2 (one week after this episode airs). You can find it here: https://a.co/d/8U7owlG

Content note: This episode contains discussions of intimate partner violence and abuse. If you need support, the Domestic Violence Hotline is 800-799-SAFE (7233) and https://thehotline.org

Thank you for listening with care. May this conversation meet you where you are and help you take the next small, courageous step. 🕊️

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Hesitation can feel holy—like you’re safeguarding a perfect outcome—but it often becomes a kind of living death. This episode wrestles with wobbling (that anxious, double-minded stall) and what it takes to move with trust anyway.

From Einstein’s bicycle to the Matrix Oracle, from a boot-camp tower to a spouse’s one-line koan, momentum itself begins to clarify the road. Planning is wisdom; paralysis is not. Early-episode experiments, an AI-editing spiral, awkward first dates, a career crossroads, even Mario’s autoscroll levels—each scene becomes the same invitation: from hesitation to wholehearted action.

Along the way we explore analysis paralysis vs. presence, the courage to “cut off” competing options so a real choice can live, a generosity that doesn’t need applause, and the strange way death—remembered honestly—sharpens what matters now.

Across traditions, the counsel converges: James warns about the divided mind; the Gita points to action without clinging to results; Lao Tzu cautions against overfilling the cup; Alan Watts reminds us that security is a story we tell our breath. Different voices, same current—move, and balance finds you.

The turning point is simple and stubborn: sit when you sit, walk when you walk, and stop wobbling. Decide, move, and let the course-corrections meet you in motion.

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One afternoon in California, Diane Buehler quietly buckled her four young children into the car and left home for good—fleeing ten years of domestic abuse. In this special episode (the first with a guest on Standing Nowhere), host Jacob sits down with his mother, Diane, to hear how she not only survived those violent years but went on to raise five kids alone with unshakeable faith.

Picture Diane as a young mother standing over a crib in the dark, one gentle hand resting on her sleeping baby’s head as she whispers, “Dear God, please watch them throughout their lives.” That humble nighttime prayer sustained her through chaos and pain. From simple childhood memories of ice-skating on frozen ponds and showing pigs at county fairs, to long days of work and worry as a single mom, Diane learned to find a quiet strength in the everyday moments of grace.

Together, Diane and Jacob explore the hard-won lessons of her journey — resilience in the face of fear, the power of a mother’s love, the decision to finally walk away from abuse, and the deep well of forgiveness that awaited on the other side. She speaks candidly about the years it took to rebuild: nights of tears and doubt, welfare lines and thrift store bargains, and the bold leap of faith that led her to earn a master’s degree while raising four kids on her own.

Yet even more inspiring is what came after survival: the healing. Today, Diane can honestly say she forgives the very man who hurt her. In her words, “some things look hopeless, but it’s not hopeless. You must beg God to hear your prayer. And he does hear it.” Through all the flames she walked through, she kept a spirit of compassion alive — a testament to grace that challenges and uplifts everyone listening.

This heartfelt conversation ends with a special scripture blessing from the Book of Isaiah: “When you walk through fire, you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.” Those ancient words echo through Diane’s life story, reminding us that even in our darkest trials we are never alone. In the end, Diane Buehler’s journey shines with a simple promise: no matter how fierce the fire, love and faith will carry us through.

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Anger is a blazing fire—blinding, burning, all-consuming. Within its flames is a chance to wake up with mindfulness and compassion and see ourselves more clearly.

Picture a moment of calm—fresh off a morning meditation—shattered when another driver cuts you off with your kids in the backseat. One heartbeat you're serene; the next, you're slamming the brakes and seeing red. Or imagine working 60-hour weeks delivering food, only to get a $1 tip that stings with injustice. In these everyday moments, anger ignites before we even realize it, testing the limits of our patience and presence.

In this episode, we explore anger from all sides: how it arises and blinds us, how it can be an organic part of life, and how it can become a profound teacher. Core themes of anger, mindfulness, compassion, and trust weave through personal stories and reflections. What do we do with our rage at unfair bosses, reckless drivers, or even our own family? Can we hold that fiery frustration with awareness and transform it into something else?

Ancient wisdom across traditions lights the way. Kabir, a 15th-century mystic, warns that anger is “the fire that burns the house you live in while you wave your fists at the neighbor.” The Buddha likens holding onto anger to grasping a hot coal — you're the one who gets burned. And Thich Nhat Hanh gently reminds us that as soon as we truly understand our anger, "the anger will transform itself into compassion." These insights, along with teachings from Rumi, Jesus, and Zen masters, are woven throughout the conversation.

Raw and real personal stories bring these teachings to life. A harrowing road rage incident becomes a wake-up call, and a shattered video game controller still hangs on the wall as a reminder of rage left unchecked. We hear how burnout and injustice pushed one man to a violent breaking point, and how even then, empathy and forgiveness begin to surface. Conflict — on the road, at home, in society — gradually gives way to understanding. Again and again, anger is met with a choice: feed the flames or cool them with compassion.

This journey moves from the heat of anger to the cool waters of mindfulness and mercy. By the end, what starts as stories of frustration and fury evolves into reflections on forgiveness, presence, and even gratitude for the hardest lessons. The episode closes with a gentle blessing of release: may we all be free from anger, and may all beings live with ease.

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What happens when effort becomes a trap—when we mistake striving for strength, control for care? As one old hymn puts it: ‘Lay your deadly doing down—down at Jesus’ feet.’

From the exhaustion of gig work to the pressure of parenting, from trying to meditate “perfectly” to just trying to pay rent—this is a real-time reflection on burnout, surrender, and the strange freedom that comes when you loosen your grip. I talk about raising my son Trent, quitting habits, and missing him after he left home. About sales jobs that drained the soul. About delivery apps, long hours, and that haunting moment when I wondered if it would be easier not to exist.

But in that low, I found a spark—what the Buddhists call virya, spiritual energy born from the ashes of striving. I speak about wu-wei, the Taoist art of not forcing, and how I try to bring that into everything: from meditation to Overwatch to pretending I’m a hostage while my son plays Batman.

Along the way, I weave stories from the Buddha, the Bhagavad Gita, Psalm 46, the Tao Te Ching, and that one quote from Gandalf that always gets me. I share a terrifying childhood dream, the moment I first “woke up” to mindfulness at Taco Bell, and the bittersweet beauty of learning to parent better with each child.

This isn’t a guide to doing nothing. It’s about doing what you must with clarity, not compulsion. Showing up fully—and letting the rest fall where it may.

So if you're tired of pushing, if you're caught between too tight and too loose, this episode is for you. May it remind you to breathe. To notice. To return.

“When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.” 🕊️ 

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“Live in the nowhere that you come from, even though you have an address here.” Rumi’s words echo through this gentle exploration of stillness amidst chaos. In a noisy sushi bar on a Friday night, Jacob quietly drafts an episode about silence — an irony that becomes an invitation into deeper presence.

He shares how daily spiritual practice has become his lifeline. As a gig worker and father stretched thin by extreme hours, financial strain, and heartache, Jacob finds solace each morning in a simple ritual of sitting in stillness. When life feels overwhelming — a broken-down car, the pang of missing his young son, the pull of old habits — returning to the breath carries him when his mind can’t. In these moments, letting go isn’t defeat but a subtle act of trust.

Woven throughout are glimmers of wisdom from many paths. Jacob recalls Jesus’s Beatitudes in their original Aramaic, revealing hidden layers of meaning (meekness as humble gentleness, sorrow as sacred openness). He leans on Meister Eckhart’s reminder that “there is nothing so much like God as silence,” and finds validation in a Pixar film’s lesson that embracing sadness is a step toward healing. From the Dalai Lama’s logic (“if you can fix it, why worry? If you can’t, why worry?”) to Chuang Tzu’s archer who loses his ease when a prize is at stake, the message is clear: our frantic striving only divides us from our natural skill, our innate peace.

At the heart of it all is Jacob’s hard-won understanding that surrender is a strength, not a weakness. He speaks candidly about being “cracked open” by despair — a moment when continuing to exist felt harder than not. That breaking point became a breakthrough: an entry into a life of practice, where love and stillness are two sides of the same coin. Through tears in meditation at 3 AM, through accepting help from friends and strangers when pride would have resisted, he discovers a powerful truth: when we finally release our tight control, we make room for grace.

This episode is a warm companion for anyone feeling adrift. It’s a reminder that you are not a separate mistake of the universe — you are an intelligent part of an intelligent whole. In the intimate, compassionate style of Standing Nowhere, Jacob extends a hand: inviting us to sit in silence each day, to trust the whisper of the soul, and to find that unshakable “nowhere” within. Come as you are, tears and all, and know that in this shared stillness, you’re already home. 🕊️

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“The greatest teacher, failure is.” — Yoda 🕊️ (Just as a wise Master once said, failure can be our teacher.)

In this soulful episode, Jacob turns the grind of everyday life into a spiritual lesson. Standing Nowhere Episode 8 finds our host delivering groceries in 115°F heat—underpaid and sweating—yet whispering “thank you” for the moment. It’s a true story of finding gratitude in the grind: an everyday DoorDash delivery becomes a practice of presence and stillness. Jacob embraces what is, discovering a reverence for being even when life feels “off track.”

This episode flows like a compassionate conversation about self-forgiveness, failure, stillness, and growth. Jacob opens up about feeling he “screwed up” by not following a traditional path—from leaving school early to raising a family on gig work. His vulnerable reflections on parenting and self-doubt will resonate with anyone who judges themselves harshly. Instead of hiding these “failures,” he leans in and asks, “Can I be a spacious presence for that feeling of failure?” He learns to hold his mistakes with the same gentle awareness he offers others. Mistakes aren’t final; they’re teachers in disguise.

Throughout the episode, Jacob weaves wisdom from Jesus, Lao Tzu, and the Buddha into lived experience. A verse about “fearing the Lord” becomes a meditation on reverence for existence (Yahweh—to be). Yoda reminds us that failure teaches more than success. St. John of the Cross’s Dark Night of the Soul illuminates how our darkest times can birth our brightest growth. From the Tao Te Ching, he shares the quiet paradox of contentment—an invitation to loosen our grip on success/failure and rest in what is.

One moment, anger melts into compassion. When a stressed McDonald’s manager snaps at him, Jacob feels the flare inside, recalls the Buddha’s warning that anger’s tip is honeyed and its root is poison, and chooses grace. He walks away calm—thanked by onlookers for how he handled it. The point lands: we can practice love and compassion anywhere—whether with an impatient boss, a stranger who cuts us off, or the people we find hardest to forgive.

The emotional heart is a tender story of forgiving his father after a painful childhood memory. Rather than carry bitterness, Jacob looks beneath the behavior to the wounds that shaped it, choosing to break the cycle with understanding. He extends that same compassion to himself while wrestling with habits, sleeplessness, and the stop-start nature of change. Spiritual growth, he reminds us, isn’t a straight line—it’s a humble practice of presence, gratitude, and beginning again.

Whether you’re burned out by the rat race, wrestling with self-judgment, or longing to let go, Episode 8 offers a warm, grounded companion. Jacob’s poetic yet down-to-earth style makes big truths accessible: failure can be a teacher, forgiveness a doorway, and compassion a daily practice. Tune in for a gentle guide to reverence, stillness, and love—right in the middle of real life.

“The supreme good is like water—it nourishes all things without trying to.” — Lao Tzu
 May we meet each moment with reverence. 🕊️ 

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Welcome to a journey beyond the music – Episode 7 of Standing Nowhere invites you into a deep spiritual reflection inspired by Avenged Sevenfold’s album Life Is But a Dream…. Host Jacob doesn’t just review the album; he dives into the human condition it illuminates. Track by track, he explores how life’s frantic “machine gun” pace can spur a search for meaning when the script starts to lose flavor. Even if you’ve never heard the album, you’ll find universal threads – from burnout and midlife awakenings to the timeless quest for inner peace when the material world loses its shine. (You don’t need to be a metal fan to feel what’s happening underneath the noise.)

Mysticism and music intertwine in this episode. Jacob draws on Buddhist and Christian insights – Alan Watts’s humor, Ram Dass’s wisdom, Osho’s zen, Thich Nhat Hanh’s poetry, Lao Tzu’s paradoxes, and the esoteric Gospel of Thomas – to shed light on the album’s themes of ego death, illusion, and divine unity. He discusses the failures of consumerism and “late-stage capitalism” with compassion rather than preachiness, showing how endless desires leave us spiritually empty. It’s a heartfelt look at how letting go of ego and the grind can feel like free-falling into something new. Jacob’s style is poetic yet down-to-earth, making profound concepts accessible without self-help platitudes. Long-time listeners will recognize the familiar thread of mysticism and human experience, while new listeners are warmly invited into the conversation.

The emotional peak comes with a pause on the song “Cosmic.” Jacob calls it “love set to music,” the jewel at the center of the album’s lotus. Here, the podcast becomes a shared sacred space. As listener testimonials about “Cosmic” are read, you might feel chills: one fan thanks the band for a song so beautiful it’s being saved for her final moments; another finds solace in it after personal loss. Jacob himself can’t hold back tears as he reflects on love, loss, and unity. In a powerful moment, he reads “Please Call Me By My True Names,” Thich Nhat Hanh’s famous poem – voice cracking – to honor interbeing (how our joys and sorrows are inseparably one). It’s a tearful, transcendent highlight that captures what Standing Nowhere is all about: sitting with life’s mystery, feeling everything, and realizing we’re deeply connected.

Whether you’re a fan of Avenged Sevenfold, a spiritual seeker, or simply burned out by life’s rat race, this episode offers a refreshingly honest and heartfelt experience. Jacob balances philosophy with story, silence with laughter, and heavy truths with light wit. New and returning listeners alike will find something to love – be it the rich album insights or the gentle reminders of our shared humanity. Tune in for a cosmic ride that just might leave you with goosebumps, a few tears, and a rekindled sense of wonder at the dream we call life.

Fair Use Notice: This episode includes short excerpts from Life Is But a Dream… by Avenged Sevenfold, used under fair use for commentary, reflection, and education. Rights remain with the original copyright holders (Section…).

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“Everything that has the nature to arise… has the nature to pass away.” — The Buddha

In this deeply honest episode, Jacob shares the emotional aftermath of car trouble, financial pressure, and fatherhood as his son steps into adulthood. With humor, heartbreak, and wisdom drawn from Buddhism, the Bible, and beyond, he explores the theme of impermanence—how everything we cling to, from stability to identity to love itself, will one day dissolve like breath on a mirror.

You’ll hear reflections from Ecclesiastes, the teachings of Jesus, Vipassana meditation, and a hilarious metaphorical lesson from a clumsy bricklayer who just wouldn’t let go of the rope. Jacob also performs a powerful excerpt from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (“It’s Only a Paper Moon”) that touches on trauma, avoidance, and learning to re-engage with life.
 🎥 Watch the original DS9 scene

This episode isn’t about despair. It’s about learning to live more vividly because things change. To let go—not in defeat, but in freedom.

Content warning: Includes vulnerable reflections on financial stress and emotional overwhelm. If you're struggling, please reach out or join the Discord. You're not alone. 

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What if your life didn’t need to be fixed—but simply witnessed?

In this episode, Jacob shares a vulnerable story about his car failing at the worst moment, old fears flaring up, and the strange stillness that followed. Through parenting, pressure, and frozen pizza, he explores how peace isn't something we create—it's something we notice when we stop fighting for control.

You’ll hear reflections from Psalm 23, the Tao Te Ching, Star Wars, and a powerful teaching from the Buddha on breaking habits through awareness—not shame. But maybe the most moving moment comes from Mr. Rogers, who reminds us that sometimes the greatest gift we can offer… is silence.

This is a meditation on trusting the moment, letting go of force, and discovering that even when life falls apart, the water can still clear—if we have the patience to wait.

🕊️

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