The Adult Chair Podcast with Michelle Chalfant

If you're a regular listener, you know how much I love meditation. While most of us don't actually have a regular meditation practice, that doesn't mean a regular practice isn't something to aspire to. This week on the show, we talk plainly about why meditation can be such an important role in your emotional and physiological health. We have a number of recommendations for apps that can help you get started, suggestions for treating yourself well as you begin to integrate mediation in your life each day, and of course, I invite you to review and download my own guided meditations, available for free for you to use in your journey into The Adult Chair!

Links & Notes

• Guided Meditations with Michelle
• Thunderspace for iOS
• Heartmath

Your life is a revolving door. You date the same people. You report to the same bosses. Over and over again, in spite of the effort you're making to change your life, you find that you're stuck in the patterns that have defined you and now you want to get out.

This week on the show, we're talking about those patterns, and how you can take steps to own them, control them, and break them in favor of a new and more empowered YOU. First, you have to learn where they come from, and that can be the hardest lesson of all. Take that step today!

Don't forget to register for my next intensive! Coming next month in Nashville! We've got people coming from all over the country and YOU should be there!

Links & Notes

• Spring Intensive — Register Now!

Navigating the murky waters of middle school can be tough on a kid. But navigating the murky waters of parenting a middle schooler can be even tougher! Today on The Adult Chair, our middle school maven Michelle Icard joins us to talk about how middle school has changed since we had to face it (and how it hasn't!). From social skills to hormones to technology to the parental relationship, Michelle has some fantastic insights that will help you keep a strong relationship with your middle schooler!

About Michelle Icard

Michelle Icard is the author of Middle School Makeover: Improving The Way You and Your Child Experience The Middle School Years, recognized by Publisher's Weekly as outstanding in its genre. She is a member of the TODAY Show parenting team and NBC's Education Nation. Michelle is also a contributor to the Washington Post OnParenting section and Your Teen Magazine. In addition, her work has been featured in The Chicago Tribune, The Christian Science Monitor, Redbook, Time, People Magazine, and A Mighty Girl. Michelle's social leadership programs, Athena's Path & Hero's Pursuit, have been implemented at schools across the country.

Links & Notes

• MichelleIcard.com
• Middle School Makeover: Improving The Way You and Your Child Experience the Middle School Years by Michelle Icard
• Follow Michelle on Twitter
• Like Middle School Relief on Facebook
• Join Michelle's Private Parenting Group on Facebook

We cover our feelings with numbing agents. Food. Alcohol. Work. The drive of our adolescent chair tells us that if we only had something to fill these holes in our lives, we'd be better, so we eat more, drink more, work more. Maybe we get married or have a child, always expecting that this next great thing will heal us. But the holes keep growing, and as soon as we stop for bit, stop covering up, we feel the sadness, loneliness, emptiness that fills us.

Today's conversation comes thanks to the closed Facebook group and the wonderful members there sharing their own experience feeling sad, lonely and empty. Today we're talking about how to heal it, how to move through it from the inside out, and how to count on your own inner child as your guide.

The baggage we bring with us to adulthood can be stunningly resilient. Relationships with our family, friends, and mentors have a staying power far beyond our conscious memories. Lisa A. Romano is a Certified Life Coach who specializes in mentoring adult children of alcoholics who are seeking to move beyond their painful pasts. She is also a bestselling author, radio show host, and speaker. Her latest book "Codependent Now What — It's not you, it's your programming" is available now, all of which makes her the perfect guest to join us today to talk about her experience freeing herself from her own childhood programming, and how her work today serves to help others do the same.

Links & Notes

• LisaARomano.com
• Find Lisa on YouTube
• Lisa Romano on Blog Talk Radio
• Books by Lisa Romano

As humans, we feel things deeply. Many of us cope with those feelings — particularly the negative ones — with some sort of numbing agent like food, or booze, or anything to minimize the impact of those feelings in our daily lives. But what do we do with those feelings and emotions get stuck? What do we do when we start to get baked in that shape of grief? This week on the show we're talking all about the practice of moving with and through our emotions, and share the key strategies you can use to face your fears without resorting to escape!

The journey of The Adult Chair is not one of a destination, but rather an understanding. This week on the show, we talk about the confusion that can come to those who expect to live in their adult all the time, the frustration that comes with you feel like you finally understand what it feels like to sit in your Adult Chair, only to experience being snapped back into your Adolescent Chair thanks to your environment. Here's the trick: it's impossible to live in your Adult Chair all the time, but today we're going to tell you why!

Today on the show, Ross Rosenberg joins us to talk about narcissism and codependence. The concepts are tied together, says Ross, and he spends much of his work helping others understand this spectrum through his concept of "self-love deficit disorder." He joins us to share the roots of narcissism, how narcissists present in relationships, and even delves into tools for protecting ourselves when we are engaging with pathological narcissists in our lives.

Ross Rosenberg, is a counselor, trainer, and author of the best-selling book, The Human Magnet Syndrome. He's also a prolific YouTube creator — his videos have been viewed over five million times! He's trained around the world and is regularly featured on national TV and radio. You can find him blogging for The Huffington Post, PsychCentral.com and TheGoodMenProject.com.

Links & Notes

• Gaslighting Is Everywhere — A Webinar with Ross Rosenberg February 25, 2017
• About Ross Rosenberg
• TheHumanMagnetSyndrome.com
• Advanced Clinical Trainers
• Ross Rosenberg on YouTube
• Ross Rosenberg on Facebook
• Ross Rosenberg on Twitter
• Ross Rosenberg on LinkedIn

What's life like in the Adult Chair?

Hi everyone! I felt really inspired today when I was in the shower and I decided to record my inspiration while I got ready this morning. Please excuse the banging around I was doing as I didn't know at the time that I would launch this to the group but it was such great information, I decided to share it with you.

I hear people say to me that they were in their Adult Chair all day today until something happened and they moved chairs. That's really hard to do and in this audio I explain why. I also explain what life is like and isn't like in the Adult Chair. Have a listen as it's only 10 minutes. Let me know what you think! Xoxo Michelle

We're nothing but love, and we don't have to do anything to get it, for it is within.