In many parts of the world, people are starting to move into vacation mode. Children are wrapping up the school year, dreaming of lazier summer months. Along with them, we adults might be looking forward to a slower pace too, to getting away from the everyday to relax or travel. Yet, planning and going on vacations can involve its own busyness, leaving us longing for home again, relishing it's comforts just a little more when we return. So today we look at why the idea of home is so important to us and how it grounds us in ways big and small. See full transcript here.

Photo credit: Scott Webb

There are times in our lives that feel like lulls - valleys between busier peaks of activity. Those periods might leave us feeling bored, searching for busyness again. Yet, such lulls can be a precious time to reflect on our experiences. And we don't even need to wait for life to present us with these opportunities for stillness. We can, in fact, carve out a little bit of time to pause and consider all that has happened in a given day or week or month. It's easy to just keep moving forward on autopilot from one experience to the next. But without stopping to integrate those experiences into our inner world, we often fail to realize what they have taught us and how they shape our personalities. So here are a few simple ways to make sense of the impact of our daily lives on ourselves and others. See full transcript here.

Photo Credit: Krists Luhaers

Across time and cultures, humans have always loved a good story, filled with themes of adventure, love, and good against evil. Even today we seem to enjoy drama, whether its in modern day books and movies, political scandals or celebrity gossip. But when it comes to our own lives, drama can be draining and hold us back from doing constructive, positive things.

Being human means that difficult patches throughout life are inevitable and sometimes teach us a lot. Change, loss, and pain, are all intertwined into each life. Yet with some awareness, we can see that many dramas are avoidable if we pick our battles skillfully. So what are some ways to stop stirring up our own dramas? See full transcript here.

Photo credit: Zachary Kadolph

Now that my own children are growing up, I find myself nostalgically observing babies and toddlers I see. I am always amazed, and a little jealous frankly, of their ability to be in the moment. In their world, everything happens right now. Whatever they are experiencing - joy, sadness, hunger, sleepiness - takes over and they remain blissfully unconcerned with past or future.

Of course, we can't continue to function like this for very long. And before we know it we hit our teens and adulthood, complete with insidious habits - like regretting the unchangeable past and fearing the uncertain future. We begin to look back and wonder how we got here. Could we have done some things differently? Or worse, we look at the road ahead and wait for our lives to really begin. See full transcript here.

As modern humans, we seem intent on keeping busy. But where in all this hustle and bustle can we find time to care for ourselves? While we hear a lot about self-care these days, it can feel like yet another thing we have to do! But with a little creative thinking and by expanding our definition of self-care, it doesn't have to be. So let's explore some ways of nourishing ourselves amidst our busyness. See full transcript here.

Photo Credit: Maddi Bazzocco

If you're a Beatles fan like me, you might remember the song with the lyrics 'all the lonely people, where do they all come from, where do they all belong?' (titled Elanor Rigby). It has the simple yet beautiful musical arrangement that the band is famous for. But more than that it gets to the heart of a ubiquitous human emotion - loneliness. Since virtually everyone experiences it, loneliness warrants a closer look. If we can understand it better we can find ways to manage this feeling when it inevitably hits. See full transcript here.

Everyday many of us deal with reams of emails, texts, documents and media that can overwhelm our brains.  So keeping track of all this content has become an entire field in and of itself.  This is certainly true for organizations large and small .  But it's also a real challenge on a personal level.  How can we manage and decipher what information is useful?  How do we separate sense from nonsense?  And more importantly does any of it make us more effective or creative?  Here are some things to consider as we grapple with these questions. See full transcript here.

Photo Credit: Rachel Gorjestani

Often, in the early morning hours, when my house and the world around me are quiet, I notice how full my mind is with different voices.  Not literally, but in the sense that many ideas and opinions from conversations, reading and other media are floating around through my mind.  Perhaps you notice this too if you are an early riser, or in the silence at night or simply during that rare quiet moment in your day.  If we pay close attention during these times, we might realize two things - that the majority of our thoughts are recurring and that they are not necessarily our own but rather shaped by our external lives.  So how, amidst all the soundbites, news feeds and data out there, can we learn to find our own voice, to decipher our own thinking from the rest of the world? Here are a few ways that have worked for me. See full transcript here.

Photo Credit: Ryk Naves

With all the recent layoff announcements in the media - especially from major companies like Google, Amazon and Microsoft - it's a good time to think about how much our work defines us.  After all, the majority of us have to take part in this thing called work.  It is our livelihood, allowing us to provide for ourselves and our loved ones.  So it's natural that what we do starts to seep into who we are.  But what happens when that work changes or is taken away from us - because of layoffs or health issues or retirement?  Who are we without our jobs and the potential status and money that comes with them?  See full transcript here.

Photo Credit: Ian Dooley

Well it's February again and with Valentine's Day becoming a worldwide festival, many people are thinking of romantic relationships.  Maybe you took the day to celebrate with someone special or you cringed at its commercial nature and moved on.  Either way, its a good day to pause and think about all the relationships in our lives, romantic or otherwise.  Being social creatures, relationships are a core part of being human.  They are at once exasperating and nourishing. Undoubtedly complex, because each person is complex.  So let's explore why we need relationships at all and how to make the best of them. See full transcript here.

Photo Credit: Aung Soe Min