The Adult Chair Podcast with Michelle Chalfant

Suffering comes from the Adolescent Chair. That's the part of us that creates stories to fill in the holes in our daily narrative, and that's where we unintentionally find ourselves getting stuck with intrusive thoughts and spirals that lead us right to Suffering Island! This week, we're talking all about how to get off the boat, and take control of our own stories by living in our Adult Chair's fact and truth!

The victim is powerless. They feel sorry for themselves. They see the world as one of fault and innocence, black and white. They believe others are against them. We run into these people all the time, and may not see it at first, but these trigger phrases become clear. If you're saying these things, you may be in the pattern yourself: it's time to take responsibility, and end your journey into the victim mentality! This week on the show we talk about what you might be doing if you're in the role of the victim and I've got some great strategies to help you lift yourself RIGHT OUT of it!

Over 30 years ago, we started hearing about positive psychology as a field of study in psychology. Gratitude, optimism, forgiveness, happiness, and compassion were studied in comparison to attention traditionally paid to so-called negative psychology including mental illness, stress, trauma, addiction, and so on. What they found was that positive psychology had powerful effects on our health and not only mental and emotional health. The research found positive connections to physical, emotional, and even spiritual health. Over the years, we've learned that gratitude is one of the most powerful traits of those living an emotionally healthy life. Today on the show we're talking about the power of gratitude in your life and how you can build a daily practice of grace yourself!

Links & Notes

• "Forget Big Change, Start with a Tiny Habit" — BJ Fogg at TEDxFremont
• Power vs. Force: The Hidden Determinants of Human Behavior by David R. Hawkins

Never considered yourself much of a journaler? I get it. I've heard all the reasons, too. Not enough time. Not sure what to write. Can't keep up with it. I did it once a while ago and didn't see any results. The list goes on and on and on!

But for those who have managed to get over the hump, who have conquered the perils of the blank page, they know that the benefits of introspection through journaling are as deep as they are broad. You can heal yourself, build a relationship with your inner child through rich dialog, connect with your past and better understand your place in the world, all through a daily practice of conscientious meditation.

That's why, in addition to our conversation about journaling on the podcast today, I'm thrilled to be hosting a month of conversations on journaling in The Adult Chair private Facebook group in our 30-Day Journaling Challenge! Join the group and sign up for the mailing list and I'll send you daily prompts throughout November to keep your journaling practice inspired!

Links & Notes

• Moleskine Notebooks
• Apple Pencil
• iPad Pro
• GoodNotes
• Day One — A Simple and Elegant Journal for iPhone, iPad, and Mac

Many of us have a fragile relationship with our self-esteem. Even those who wear a brave face may be struggling inside, fighting negative self-talk and our history of lack of validation. Today, we're talking about reprogramming, new language that can help you see yourself in a new light. This is a doorway you'll open to connect to something bigger, deeper than yourself, and realign your relationship to your experiences as just that: experiences, and nothing more.

Since meditation is such a key component to this work, make sure to check out my guided meditation, Accessing Your Inner Child over on YouTube. Even better, download the Insight Timer on iOS or Android and follow me as I build out my library of meditations there. It's become one of my very favorite apps and I'm thrilled that people are getting such great use out of my meditations — and those of all the other great teachers in their directory!

Links & Notes

• Get Insight Timer for iOS or Android
• Michelle Chalfant — InsightTimer

Ready for better relationships in your life? Perhaps you crave deeper connections, healthier relationships with better communication? In today's show, I talk about how to do just that. Most of us weren't taught how to have healthy relationships, but today we discuss how to change all of that and create healthy relationships from the Adult Chair.

Does your life ever feel just plain turbulent? Your relationships are off center, you're questioning your most important decisions, you're full of anxiety and stress ... I know I do! That's why I have to talk to you today! I'm reflecting on two areas of turbulence in my own life — in my marriage, and my family — and I'm so excited about it because it gives me the chance to share how I count on The Adult Chair to bring calm skies, presence in my emotions, and the open door of change in the air ahead of me!

We're nearing the end of our series on relationships and for our next-to-last episode, we have one of our favorite people on the hook to answer some of your best and most personal questions about your long-term relationships, marriages, and the intimacy you are seeking within them! Katie Hendricks has been a pioneer in body intelligence and conscious loving for over forty years. She is the co-author of twelve books, including the best-selling Conscious Loving Ever After: How to Create Thriving Relationships at Midlife and Beyond. She co-founded the Spiritual Cinema Circle and the virtual Body Intelligence Summit and has traveled over one million air miles as the ambassador for the work that she and her husband Gay Hendricks have developed together.

Links & Notes

• Hearts In True Harmony
• About Katie Hendricks
• Conscious Loving Ever After: How to Create Thriving Relationships at Midlife and Beyond by Katie and Gay Hendricks

So many of us have no idea how to feel our emotions. For a variety of reasons, we are simply just not in touch with them, or even cut ourselves off from feeling them, (unless they are happy emotions.) There is great power in feeling our emotions and in this special DriveTime Download, I give you three easy tips on how to begin to feel your emotions and open up to a whole new world as a special response to our Facebook Private Group members and the rich discussion they're having right now!

Of course, I hope this is useful to everyone! But, if you'd like a little more context, make sure to send us a request to join the group and get ready to dig in on your own Adult Chair journey!

Links & Notes

• Meditations with Michelle
• Meditations with Michelle — YouTube Channel
• Meditations with Michelle — The Inner Child Meditation

We all want that one manual for parenting teens but where is it? What do we do when we find out our teen has been drinking, using drugs, or vaping? For parents, this can be triggering and scary! Our goal is to learn to parent from a healthy place, and that's when we learn to parent from our Adult Chair. This means we stay present, we respond vs react, we set healthy boundaries and have honest (and sometimes tough) conversations with our kids to keep them safe through their teen years. In this conversation with Dr. James Wellborn, we gain some new and valuable tools on how to parent from a healthy place while our teens test, push boundaries, and experiment, from high school and into a healthy adulthood.

Links & Notes

• Dr. James Wellborn