The Deeper Pulse with Candice Schutter

Candice sits down for a heart-to-heart with elder and dear friend, Katherine Howells. The two discuss how a moment of shared transparency in their bi-monthly book club sparked an ongoing conversation around resentment and feelings of invisibility. Katherine shares her story of growing up on a farm and how conventional gender roles shaped her choices as a wife and mother. She speaks openly about 44 years of marriage, and about how life as a stay-at-home mom often resulted in feelings of invisibility and a yearning for something more. After her children left home, Katherine's identity shifted as she began reclaiming her inner authority and revising her approach to life. She shares how this new way of being has impacted her personal relationships and her approach to self-expression; and she explains how, now that she has learned to embrace 'invisibility', she feels more clearly seen than ever before. Candice shares how she has been navigating her own mixed feelings when it comes to visibility. Together, they explore a variety of tools they use to tap into deeper awareness when faced with strong emotions and/or difficult choices in life. 

Referenced in this episode:

• Women Who Run With Wolves, by Clarissa Pinkola Estes
• Finding Meaning In The Second Half of Life, by James Hollis

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The stories and opinions shared in this episode are based on personal experience and are not intended to malign any individual, group, or organization.

Join The Deeper Pulse at Patreon for weekly bonus episodes + other exclusive bonus content. Follow The Deeper Pulse on IG @thedeeperpulse + @candiceschutter for more regular updates. 

Candice continues an inspiring dialogue with psychotherapist and friend, Erika Ruber. In part two, Erika offers insight into how each of us can consciously expand our ‘window of tolerance’ when emotions are high. She explains why and how a willingness to surrender to relaxation directly impacts our ability to find and sustain center, then explains what clinical research has revealed about shame and its effects on the body. Candice puts Erika on the spot about a recent Instagram post — involving a trip to Costco and a tiger track suit, yeah you read that right — and the two discuss why it’s so imperative to actively choose playfulness when life feels ho-hum-mundane or challenging. They discuss the critical difference between the top-down processing and bottom-up feeling of emotions, and examine how self-awareness helps us to live inside our values. Toward the end of the episode, Erika shares 3 Q’s that have the power to anchor us in authenticity and presence in any given moment, then the two wrap things up with an acknowledgement of how the painful moments in life create resilience and force us to source ourselves internally.

Erika Ruber offers a unique, integrative approach to health and wellness, combining her education in Clinical Social Work with extensive training in movement, dance, and mindfulness. As a psychotherapist, Erika combines a focus on integrating traditional talk therapy with whole body awareness, achieving effective results in helping people to recover, heal, and strengthen themselves and their relationships. As the founder of Emerge Movement, Erika combines mental health with movement, allowing participants to explore what emerges in body, mind, and emotion. Erika worked for years as an individual and group therapist at Morrison Child & Family Services Family Sexual Abuse Treatment Program. She has received training and certification in Sensorimotor psychotherapy, a body centered approach to trauma treatment.  She has developed and implemented a Body Mind wellness curriculum for middle schools and co-created the Mindful Parent and Caregiver Program with Mark Lilly, Founder of Street Yoga. This curriculum teaches everyday skills using movement, yoga, and mindfulness to decrease stress, increase self care, and live more powerfully as a parent and or clinician/social worker. Erika is happily married with two teenage kids in Portland, OR.  She loves being out in nature skiing, hiking, biking, paddling, and playing every chance she gets.

movinginsideout.com | Insta: @emerge.movement

Watch the Insta video of Erika & AJ

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The stories and opinions shared in this episode are based on personal experience and are not intended to malign any individual, group, or organization.

Join The Deeper Pulse at Patreon for weekly bonus episodes + other exclusive bonus content. Follow The Deeper Pulse on IG @thedeeperpulse + @candiceschutter for more regular updates. 

In the first episode of a two-part series, Candice sits down with long-time colleague and friend, Erika Ruber. Erika is a psychotherapist, movement facilitator, and trauma-informed educator. Together, they speak openly about the collective mental health challenges we now face, and Erika shares about the group and individual support she has been able to offer her clients throughout the pandemic. She speaks to the practical importance of movement and self-regulation, offering examples of how we can validate ourselves when we are faced with social isolation, existential dilemmas, and/or emotional triggers. Together they explore the subtle-yet-profound difference between ‘being seen’ and being visible in a world of social currency. As a breast cancer survivor, Erika shares about an intimate healing experience she had in Maui, and invites us to re-orient our selves toward embodied self-compassion as a practice. Candice opens up about how somatic therapy was a turning point in her own healing journey and how the power of emotional intelligence has been key to her mental health and healing. The episode wraps up with an example of a triggering moment in Erika's life and how she used the tools of mindfulness to re-orient and practice self-empathy; her story serves as the foundation for Part 2, which will feature a layman’s deep-dive into the nervous system and self-regulation. 

Erika Ruber offers a unique, integrative approach to health and wellness, combining her education in Clinical Social Work with extensive training in movement, dance, and mindfulness. As a psychotherapist, Erika combines a focus on integrating traditional talk therapy with whole body awareness, achieving effective results in helping people to recover, heal, and strengthen themselves and their relationships. As the founder of Emerge Movement, Erika combines mental health with movement, allowing participants to explore what emerges in body, mind, and emotion. Erika worked for years as an individual and group therapist at Morrison Child & Family Services Family Sexual Abuse Treatment Program. She has received training and certification in Sensorimotor psychotherapy, a body centered approach to trauma treatment.  She has developed and implemented a Body Mind wellness curriculum for middle schools and co-created the Mindful Parent and Caregiver Program with Mark Lilly, Founder of Street Yoga. This curriculum teaches everyday skills using movement, yoga, and mindfulness to decrease stress, increase self care, and live more powerfully as a parent and or clinician/social worker. Erika is happily married with two teenage kids in Portland, OR.  She loves being out in nature skiing, hiking, biking, paddling, and playing every chance she gets.

More About Erika:  movinginsideout.com | @emerge.movement


DONATE to SUPPORT efforts in UKRAINE:  projecthope.org | sunflowerofpeace.com |  razomforukraine.org 

Support the show

The stories and opinions shared in this episode are based on personal experience and are not intended to malign any individual, group, or organization.

Join The Deeper Pulse at Patreon for weekly bonus episodes + other exclusive bonus content. Follow The Deeper Pulse on IG @thedeeperpulse + @candiceschutter for more regular updates. 

Candice sits down with grad-school friend, nonprofit director, and addictions specialist, Niles Comer. Niles shares his personal story of trauma and loss, and opens up about his lifelong journey of addiction recovery. He describes how he has learned to 'live from his scars rather than his wounds’ and shares why transparency is so critical to sobriety. Niles shares the statistical realities of addiction rates in a post-pandemic world; then together, they discuss the essential, and often complex, interplay between inner authority and community, agreeing that they are equally essential to the path of healing. Candice unpacks how her early years of personal empowerment crossed over into spiritual bypassing, and how she learned (often the hard way) the fundamental difference between positive psychology and toxic positivity. Niles chimes in as they discuss how the industries of self-help and wellness very often leave people feeling less equipped and more isolated than ever.  This episode contains some intimate shares [trigger warning for abuse survivors] and also lots and lots of shared laughter. It's a full-spectrum experience & a must-hear for anyone who is striving to embrace the fullness (and messiness) of their humanity.

Niles Comer has spent his life working for and alongside those at the margins of society – the addicted, the homeless, the disenfranchised. His professional experiences include CEO, nonprofit director, addictions counselor, HIV/AIDS case manager, recovery center manager, trainer/educator, community development specialist, and social entrepreneur. Niles has over 30 years of personal and professional experience with addiction and recovery, mental health, trauma, homelessness, spiritual development, community renewal, and the impacts of poverty. He is currently the Director of Roanoke Valley Collective Response, a regional collaborative of 200 agencies responding to the ongoing rise of addiction rates in Southwestern Virginia whose mission is “to build, sustain, and support communities by responding to addiction and promoting recovery and wellness.” 

Support the show

The stories and opinions shared in this episode are based on personal experience and are not intended to malign any individual, group, or organization.

Join The Deeper Pulse at Patreon for weekly bonus episodes + other exclusive bonus content. Follow The Deeper Pulse on IG @thedeeperpulse + @candiceschutter for more regular updates. 

Candice & Sylvia pick up where they left off last week, reflecting on what twenty years of friendship has taught them about love, especially during hard times. Inspired by the wisdom of bell hooks, they explore an expansive definition of love, and Sylvia speaks about where her capacity to offer compassionate support may have originated. She speaks transparently, and somewhat tearfully, about how the knowledge that we are loved can carry us through life's darkest moments. Together, Sylvia and Candice get fired up about how love is often 'sold' to us as a commodity and the pressures to produce/perform in a capitalist society. And the episode wraps up with a conversation on menopause filled with all sorts of hilarity and laughter. Headaches and hotflashes aside, if you sometimes grow tired of tempering yourself to squeeze yourself inside of other people’s expectations, this episode may be for you.

CHAPTERS
 1:28 — bell hooks defines love
 12:36 — Friendship can rewrite history
 18:50— Embracing the darkness as authenticity
 24:33 — Love is not for sale
 35:19 — Self-love & sobriety
 41:47 — Productivity, Presentation, & an alternative
 44:13 — Menopause; all the fire we never spent
 50:07 — Taking the label

Referenced in this episode:

• All About Love: New Visions, by bell hook

Support the show

The stories and opinions shared in this episode are based on personal experience and are not intended to malign any individual, group, or organization.

Join The Deeper Pulse at Patreon for weekly bonus episodes + other exclusive bonus content. Follow The Deeper Pulse on IG @thedeeperpulse + @candiceschutter for more regular updates. 

We are shifting gears in 2022, and Candice is inviting you into her inner circle. In Episode 18, she introduces you to her closest friend and confidant, Sylvia Bueno, for a two-part series where they dive into the joys & pains of friendship, transparency, and wholehearted connection. In Part 1, Sylvia makes room as Candice unpacks an honest & ass-kicking ah-hah that inspired her to re-imagine the format of the TDP podcast moving forward.

Sylvia recaps the courageous feedback she offered Candice about her experience as a friend and listener, and the two talk about how it landed in light of Candice's struggle with Imposter Syndrome. Candice details how she was able to complete the project (and minimize vulnerability) while recording the first seventeen episodes, and she offers a peek into what she calls 'high talk’ and her theory into how&why so many personal growth purveyors so often use it to armor up and guard against emotional exposure. Together, they explore the cost of high talk when it comes to preserving authenticity and forging deep connection. 


If you share Candice's pesky habit of filtering out the grittier parts of your humanity (aka: if you're used to putting on a 'good' face), this episode just might speak directly to your heart.

CHAPTERS
6:08 — Why of the new format?
8:40 — “That’s not you.”
16:25 — Minimizing risk, at what cost?
19:48 — How Sy & I met
23:44 — What is ‘High-Talk’?
28:09 — Self-doubt & Fitting in
33:02 — Invitation for reflection
35:41 — Teaser: Part 2 with Sylvia

Support the show

The stories and opinions shared in this episode are based on personal experience and are not intended to malign any individual, group, or organization.

Join The Deeper Pulse at Patreon for weekly bonus episodes + other exclusive bonus content. Follow The Deeper Pulse on IG @thedeeperpulse + @candiceschutter for more regular updates. 

Omigoodness, y'all... it appears as though we've done it... reached the end of our exploration of the 7 keys of courageous self-expression! In the final episode of the long-running series, we get more practical than ever. Candice has spent nearly two decades consumed by a curiosity: Why is it that some people are so capable of creating meaningful change (aka: movement) in their lives, while others continually struggle to find traction? It was at least in part, her desire to find an answer to this question that led her to pursue a Master's degree in Social Impact. Now fresh out of grad school, she shares some potent takeaways from her postgraduate research on human agency and social change - weaving together personal stories, data, and scholarly research to help you identify some of the barriers that might be standing between YOU and the changes you seek to make in your own life and in the world at large. This episode is recommended for anyone experiencing feelings of stuckness &/or for those who hope to re-imagine a more pluralistic society; one that prioritizes equity and universal access to the internal and external tools necessary to create meaningful change.

CHAPTERS
0:42 - Cold Pressor Task (story)
6:43 - Agency Arena #1
9:46 - Mental health
14:54 - Meditation & mindfulness
16:50 - Pea Green Sofa (story)
18:48 - Agency Arena #2
22:36 - Belonging & why it matters so damn much
25:38 - Class Mobility (story)
28:09 - Agency Arena #3
30:28 - The convenience of “self-help”
36:53 - Agency Arena #4
39:23 - Choice & moral intuition

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The stories and opinions shared in this episode are based on personal experience and are not intended to malign any individual, group, or organization.

Join The Deeper Pulse at Patreon for weekly bonus episodes + other exclusive bonus content. Follow The Deeper Pulse on IG @thedeeperpulse + @candiceschutter for more regular updates. 

We have reached the final key of courageous self-expression, and it’s a doozy. In Part 1 of a two-part series on agency, we're going to explore what keeps us moving in life and why it is we get stuck. Candice reviews the first six keys. Then she walks you through the five facets of human agency and explains how a deficit in any one of these areas can erode agency over time. We explore why choice is so damn complicated and how motivation is rarely as simple as finding the energy to do the thing. As usual, honest stories bring the content to life. Candice shares how insecurity led to a perpetual loss of agency in her life & how she eventually found the will to move as an independent entity. This episode is a great place to start if you're feeling stuck or unsure of your next move. And, it lays the foundation for the next & final episode in our long-running series on self-expression where Candice will reveal the illuminating results of her post-graduate research on human agency. You won't wanna miss it!

 CHAPTERS
 0:48 - Six key review
 4:58 - Exit Plan (story)
 8:50 - What is agency?
 11:31 - Choice
 21:06 - Motivation
 27:26 - Capacity
 33:28 - Support
36:38 - Surrender

Support the show

The stories and opinions shared in this episode are based on personal experience and are not intended to malign any individual, group, or organization.

Join The Deeper Pulse at Patreon for weekly bonus episodes + other exclusive bonus content. Follow The Deeper Pulse on IG @thedeeperpulse + @candiceschutter for more regular updates. 

In the second episode in a two-part series on integrity, Candice tells you about some of the teachers who shaped her passions early on in life, painting a very vivid picture of sex-ed class with her college professor Dr. Dennis Dailey, a trailblazing agent of social change. We illuminate the paradox at the heart of the symbolic self - the fear of being seen and the fear of going unnoticed. What does it take to rise above self-consciousness? True belonging... only thing is, the definition might surprise you.

When we think of social movements, we most often envision massive political uprisings, collective fists raised an allegiance to a cause and fired up organizers with megaphones speaking truth to power. And yet, collective politics is shaped by intrapsychic forces, by how we each internalize and translate our experience of the world through our own unique lens. Candice invites you into a more holistic expression of purpose, using personal stories to illustrate the difference between job, duty, and calling. Rising consciousness (aka ‘wokeness’) is both a personal and social endeavor that raises collective consciousness through perpetual curiosity, applied self-awareness, and shared accountability. Integrity reminds us - the global wake-up call begins within.

CHAPTERS
5:47 - Dr. Dailey (story)
13:08 - Social movements
14:39- The symbolic self
17:45 - Purpose - job, duty, calling
21:12 - Never Satisfied (story)
25:56 - One Of Those People (story)
28:50 - True belonging
29:52 - To the heart of the matter

Referenced in this episode:

• Spiral Dynamics, by Christopher C. Cowan and Don Edward Beck
• Fear of a Black President, by Ta-Nehisi Coates
• Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, by Isabel Wilkerson
• We Can Do Hard Things Podcast
• Man's Search For Meaning, Viktor Frankl
• Live Talk, James Hollis

Support the show

The stories and opinions shared in this episode are based on personal experience and are not intended to malign any individual, group, or organization.

Join The Deeper Pulse at Patreon for weekly bonus episodes + other exclusive bonus content. Follow The Deeper Pulse on IG @thedeeperpulse + @candiceschutter for more regular updates. 

Integrity is so much more than ‘walking your talk’ in active demonstration of your values. It is integration with ALL that life has to offer. In this episode, we explore integrity as an internal compass and pluralistic embodiment of connection. When we are willing to step outside of our personal identities, we mature emotionally and grow into trans-rational understanding - a worldview that is connective and universally accepting.

Candice shares more personal stories, sharing about some times in her life when stepping into integrity meant risking security and belonging in favor of the gravitas within. This episode will help you reconnect with grittiness, grace, and your very own center of gravity. Explore how to better navigate dissonance and find the answer to the question: Is this a growth edge or a story I can no longer fit inside? Change is humbling and shedding identities can feel wildly unsettling, especially when you choose to express wholeness rather than play a part in a divisive norm. In the end, there is no greater service to the whole of life than an integral way of being. Integrity is an active acceptance that enables you to love (and live) more freely. 

CHAPTERS
0:48 - Legless (story)
5:18 - A star is born
10:43 - Integrity vs. identity
16:38 - Campus Payphone (story)
24:00 - Integral theory
32:15 - 2 types of dissonance
33:53 - Let It Stand (story)
35:44 - The empty husk
37:18 - Tragic optimism

Referenced in this episode:

• We Can Do Hard Things Podcast, Glennon Doyle
• Integral Theory, Ken Wilber
• James Hollis, various sources
• Article: The Opposite of Toxic Positivity, by Scott Barry Kaufman

Support the show

The stories and opinions shared in this episode are based on personal experience and are not intended to malign any individual, group, or organization.

Join The Deeper Pulse at Patreon for weekly bonus episodes + other exclusive bonus content. Follow The Deeper Pulse on IG @thedeeperpulse + @candiceschutter for more regular updates.