The Practitioner's Heart: Practical Buddhist Wisdom for Therapists and Healthcare Professionals

In this solo reflective episode, I explore what happens when therapists grieve while continuing to hold space for the pain, trauma, and loss of others. As therapists, personal loss can still leave us feeling shattered, dysregulated, foggy, overwhelmed, and deeply human.

This episode is especially for therapists, counsellors, psychologists, social workers, and mental health practitioners who are carrying their own grief while supporting clients through theirs.

Through a Buddhist and trauma-informed lens, I reflect on how chanting the Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva Sutra — also known as the Dìzàng Sutra — rituals, community, supervision, parts work, and spiritual practice helped me slowly metabolise grief and transform pain into tenderness, compassion, and a renewed commitment to life.

It is a therapist-to-therapist conversation about grief, loss, impermanence, continuing bonds with our loved ones and Buddhist practice.

• Why therapists are not immune to grief and loss
• The pressure therapists may feel to “cope better”
• How personal grief can affect clinical work, concentration, emotional regulation, and capacity
• Why grief is not unethical, but unawareness of its impact can become risky
• The importance of supervision, workload adjustment, therapy, healing work, and community support
• How grief can feel especially intense for highly sensitive and neurodivergent therapists
• Buddhist teachings on impermanence, non-attachment, compassion, and death
• The role of Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva / Dìzàng Bodhisattva in grief, filial piety, and dedication of merit
• How chanting, ritual, rhythm, breath, and community can support nervous system regulation
• Continuing bonds with deceased parents and loved ones
• Grief as love meeting impermanence
• Transforming grief into compassion, values, and bodhisattva vows

May we remember that we are not outside the human condition. 

May love and compassion help us to remember the light in us. 

Connect with your host, Poh Gan

I’m an educational & developmental psychologist and board-approved supervisor specialising in neurodiversity-affirming care and cultural identity. Outside of work, I am a buddhist practitioner with a deep love in meditation and learning to walk the Bodhisattva path.

Instagram: the.blossoming.therapists
Website: www.blossomingtrueself.com.au 

If this episode resonated:

• Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
• Share with a colleague or friend in the Asian diaspora
• Tag us on Instagram with your reflections
• Subscribe for more conversations with therapists on application of Buddhist and contemplative wisdom in work and personal lives. 

Disclaimer:

The content discussed in this podcast is for inspiration and educational purposes only. It is not a substitute for therapy or clinical supervision, and our time together does not constitute a therapeutic relationship. Please seek professional support if you are in need.

Let us know what you took away from this conversation!

Bodhi Inner Path Circle is a contemplative membership community for therapists who long for a regular, supportive, spiritually grounded place to practise meditation, learn Buddha‑Dharma in reflective practice, and connect with dharma friends. It is currently open for enrolment! You're warmly invited to join us to start your cultivation and practice today! 

Support the show

Let us know what you took away from this conversation!

Bodhi Inner Path Circle is a contemplative membership community for therapists who long for a regular, supportive, spiritually grounded place to practise meditation, learn Buddha‑Dharma in reflective practice, and connect with dharma friends. It is currently open for enrolment! You're warmly invited to join us to start your cultivation and practice today! 

Support the show

In this solo episode, Poh shares insights from the first Bodhi Inner Path Circle reflective book club, where a small group of therapists gathered online to read and contemplate a chapter from Dynamics of the Mind by Reverend Ming-An Chen.

Although only three people were present, the circle held something deeply nourishing: connection, shared practice, loving kindness, and the relief that, “I am not alone on this path.”

This episode explores how Buddhist teachings on Buddha nature, consciousness, cause, conditions and effect, seeds of the mind, and pure awareness can speak directly to the inner life of therapists.

Poh reflects on how contemplative practice is not simply something therapists do outside of clinical work to “stay sane.” Rather, cultivating awareness may be one of the deepest forms of practitioner care, supporting therapists to sit with grief, rage, despair, trauma and suffering without becoming burdened by what they hold.

Through the lenses of Buddhist psychology, EMDR, Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), behaviourism and clinical supervision, this episode invites listeners to return to the spacious awareness beneath the roles, identities and inner critic stories that so often shape the therapist’s experience.

• The joy and tenderness of gathering in an online Buddhist reflective book club
• Why Sangha and community matter, especially for therapists in rural or isolated areas
• The meaning of Buddha nature and pure, pristine awareness
• The Buddhist teaching of cause, conditions and effect
• How “what gets watered grows” connects with behaviourism, reinforcement and neuropsychology
• The metaphor of the mind as a garden
• How anxiety spirals and inner critic patterns become strengthened over time
• Why no mental pattern is a life sentence
• The resonance between Buddhist psychology and EMDR memory reprocessing
• How traumatic memories can be understood as seeds ripening when conditions arise
• The connection between Buddha nature and our innate healing capacity
• Why therapist presence is not self-indulgence, but a clinical responsibility
• Links between Buddhist awareness, ACT’s observing self and IFS Self energy
• The therapist’s inner critic and the clinging to “I, me and mine”
• How burnout can be intensified by attachment to identity, perfectionism and the need to fix
• The difference between “I am anxious” and “anxiety is here”
• How cultivating pure awareness can soften burnout, self-doubt and over-identification
• A gentle practice invitation: asking, “What is aware of this thought?”

This episode is especially for:

• Psychologists, therapists, counsellors and mental health practitioners
• Buddhist practitioners integrating Dharma with clinical work
• Therapists seeking Sangha, community and reflective practice
• Rural and regional practitioners feeling spiritually or professionally isolated
• EMDR, ACT, IFS and trauma-informed clinicians
• Early career psychologists navigating self-doubt and inner criticism
• Practitioners interested in burnout prevention and contemplative self-care
• Anyone curious about Buddhist psychology, pure awareness and the therapist’s inner life

Connect with your host, Poh Gan

I’m an educational & developmental psychologist and board-approved supervisor specialising in neurodiversity-affirming care and cultural identity. Outside of work, I am a buddhist practitioner with a deep love in meditation and learning to walk the Bodhisattva path.
Instagram: the.blossoming.therapists
Website: www.blossomingtrueself.com.au 

If this episode resonated:

• Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
• Share with a colleague or friend in the Asian diaspora
• Tag us on Instagram with your reflections
• Subscribe for more conversations with therapists on application of Buddhist and contemplative wisdom in work and personal lives. 

Disclaimer:

The content discussed in this podcast is for inspiration and educational purposes only. It is not a substitute for therapy or clinical supervision, and our time together does not constitute a therapeutic relationship. Please seek professional support if you are in need.

Let us know what you took away from this conversation!

Bodhi Inner Path Circle is a contemplative membership community for therapists who long for a regular, supportive, spiritually grounded place to practise meditation, learn Buddha‑Dharma in reflective practice, and connect with dharma friends. It is currently open for enrolment! You're warmly invited to join us to start your cultivation and practice today! 

Support the show

In this rich and heartfelt conversation, I sit down with Dr Bee Lim — clinical psychologist, accredited EMDR practitioner, author of Welcome Home: Healing Trauma and Reclaiming Wholeness, and co‑founder of Mind Health Collective.
Together, we explore the emotional landscapes of trauma, cultural identity, intergenerational stories, contemplative practice, and the parts of ourselves we abandon in order to survive.

Whether you are a therapist, psychologist, Asian diaspora practitioner, or someone navigating belonging and healing, this episode offers wisdom, validation, and gentle grounding.

In this episode, we explore:
• Why Bee wrote Welcome Home and how the four animal characters were chosen
• Intergenerational Trauma in the Asian diaspora and the “silence”
• Cultural identity, migration, and the pressure to constantly “prove yourself”
• The concept of cultural dissociation and how therapists lose parts of themselves during Western clinical training
• How to practice culturally responsive therapy without pathologising culture
• IFS‑informed parts work through an Asian lens
• The wolf part: anger, silencing, and reclaiming agency
• The crane part: intellectualising, observing, dissociating from the body
• How contemplative practice supports therapists to return to themselves
• Grief, gardening, and the slow rituals that reconnect us to the body
• How we can become “future ancestors” who pass on emotional wealth
• What it means to be “enough” in a culture of survival and striving

Who this episode is for:
• Therapists and psychologists seeking culturally responsive frameworks
• EMDR, IFS, ACT, and trauma‑informed practitioners
• Asian diaspora therapists and clients navigating identity + belonging
• First‑generation migrants healing intergenerational narratives
• Readers of Welcome Home and those curious about parts work
• Anyone longing for a gentler relationship with themselves

About Dr Bee Lim
Dr Bee Lim is a clinical psychologist and accredited EMDR practitioner whose work centres trauma, identity, displacement, and cultural lineage. Born in Malaysia, trained in New Zealand, and now based in Sydney, she integrates clinical rigour with culturally attuned, trauma‑informed care.

She is the author of Welcome Home, co‑founder of Mind Health Collective, and founder of BeTuned, a therapeutic game‑based platform.

Learn more at:
Meet the four parts of you. Take Dr Bee Lim's free Homecoming Profile: homecoming.drbeelim.com

Then come home to the full story in her book, Welcome Home: drbeelim.com/welcomehome

Follow Bee on Instagram

Resources mentioned:
• When Culture Looks Like Pathology: Understanding Cultural Dissociation in Diaspora Clients Webinar (mentioned)

Connect with your host, Poh Gan
I’m an educational & developmental psychologist and board-approved supervisor specialising in neurodiversity-affirming care and cultural identity. Outside of work, I am a buddhist practitioner with a deep love in meditation and learning to walk the Bodhisattva path.
Instagram: the.blossoming.therapists
Website: www.blossomingtrueself.com.au 

If this episode resonated:

• Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
• Share with a colleague or friend in the Asian diaspora
• Tag us on Instagram with your reflections
• Subscribe for more conversations with therapists on application of Buddhist and contemplative wisdom in work and personal lives. 

Disclaimer:

The content discussed in this podcast is for inspiration and educational purposes only. It is not a substitute for therapy or clinical supervision, and our time together does not constitute a therapeutic relationship. Please seek professional support if you are in need.

Let us know what you took away from this conversation!

Bodhi Inner Path Circle is a contemplative membership community for therapists who long for a regular, supportive, spiritually grounded place to practise meditation, learn Buddha‑Dharma in reflective practice, and connect with dharma friends. It is currently open for enrolment! You're warmly invited to join us to start your cultivation and practice today! 

Support the show

In this episode of The Practitioner’s Heart, we explore the powerful difference between cognitive insight and embodied clarity — and why this distinction matters so deeply for therapists, psychologists, counsellors, social workers, and all helping professionals.

As modern practitioners, we are trained to analyse, understand, formulate, and conceptualise. Yet many of us still struggle with the same patterns our clients face: overthinking, emotional exhaustion, nervous system activation, analysis paralysis, and the familiar “I know what to do… but I just can’t do it.”

This episode offers a gentle, practical, and dharma-informed understanding of why insight alone isn’t enough — and how therapists can cultivate the embodied presence we long for in our personal lives and clinical work.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• the difference between knowing and seeing clearly
• why insight doesn’t regulate the nervous system (and what does)
• how habitual tendencies (7th consciousness) shape our reactions
• common therapist patterns: perfectionism, overfunctioning, people‑pleasing, self-sacrifice
• how clinging, aversion, and preferences influence our clinical presence
• what embodied clarity looks like in the therapy room
• how to work with the thinking mind without getting caught in it
• Buddhist psychology on habit force, mind karma, and innate Buddha nature
• simple ways to return to spacious awareness throughout your day
• how meditation, breath, and moment‑to‑moment noticing soften reactivity

This episode is especially helpful if you feel mentally “busy,” emotionally overloaded after sessions, or disconnected from your inner stillness — even though you know all the things you’re “supposed to do.”

What we explore from Buddhist psychology:

• the 7th consciousness and the habitual mind
• the mechanics of clinging, comparing, grasping, and avoidance
• how practice helps us recognise and soften our mind’s conditioning
• returning to the “clear water” beneath the glitter
• remembering our innate Buddha nature in daily life and clinical work

For therapists craving deeper spiritual practice:

If you’re longing to integrate Buddhist wisdom beyond theory — in a way that supports your nervous system, your clarity, and your presence with clients — I invite you to explore the Bodhi Inner Path Circle, now open for enrollment.

It’s a contemplative community for therapists and healthcare workers who want to practice meditation, cultivate embodied clarity, and reconnect with inner stillness.

✨ Join the Bodhi Inner Path Circle

About your host

I’m Poh Gan — psychologist, Buddhist practitioner, parent of two, and fellow human with a busy mind and a deep love for collective awakening. This podcast offers practical Buddhist wisdom for therapists and healthcare workers navigating modern life with compassionate hearts.

🌿 If this episode supported you:

• Share it with a colleague
• Leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
• Subscribe so you never miss an episode

Your support helps this growing community reach other practitioners who need these teachings.

Let us know what you took away from this conversation!

Bodhi Inner Path Circle is a contemplative membership community for therapists who long for a regular, supportive, spiritually grounded place to practise meditation, learn Buddha‑Dharma in reflective practice, and connect with dharma friends. It is currently open for enrolment! You're warmly invited to join us to start your cultivation and practice today! 

Support the show

In this reflective and heartfelt episode, host Poh Gan explores a question many modern therapists quietly hold: How do we stay grounded, wise, and spiritually aligned in a world increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence?

As AI tools become woven into our clinical work, personal lives, and even our contemplative practice, Poh invites us to pause and consider what makes us uniquely human — our consciousness, our lived experience, our vulnerability, our capacity for awakening, and our shared journey through suffering and healing.

Drawing from Buddhist psychology, her own lived experience as a therapist with a busy, neurodivergent mind, and teachings from her master, Poh offers a compassionate inquiry into the promises and pitfalls of AI. She gently guides us back to the core human capacities that cannot be automated: presence, embodiment, attention, and deep wisdom that emerges only through lived experience.

This episode is a call to slow down, return to stillness, and reconnect with what truly matters — for ourselves, our clients, and our collective awakening.

In This Episode, We Explore:

• How AI tools are shaping the lives and workflows of therapists
• The illusion of productivity and why “fast output” isn’t the same as wisdom
• Why therapists may feel spiritually or emotionally “off” when relying heavily on AI
• How attention — our most precious spiritual resource — is being affected
• The difference between knowledge (which AI can provide) and wisdom (which it cannot)
• Why lived experience, embodiment, and awakening are uniquely human
• The psychological, existential, and spiritual questions arising in the AI era
• How community, co‑regulation, and shared practice protect us from isolation
• What it means to course‑correct and realign with our values
• Gentle, practical guidance for staying grounded amidst rapid technological change

Key Takeaways

• AI can enhance efficiency but cannot replace lived experience, consciousness, or awakening.
• Attention is your most sacred resource. Protect it fiercely.
• Slowness is a radical spiritual practice in an age of acceleration.
• Your imperfect human voice matters more than polished AI‑generated content.
• Community is medicine. Practising together supports wisdom, resilience, and connection.
• Wisdom emerges through direct experience, not from predictable AI patterns.
• Our spiritual work remains the same: understanding the mind, reducing suffering, and walking toward awakening.

Five Tips to Stay Grounded in the AI Era

1. Protect your attention — create boundaries with technology.
2. Reconnect with your body — regulate your nervous system daily.
3. Choose depth over speed — value process, not just output.
4. Stay anchored in community — gather with fellow practitioners.
5. Remember that AI does not have spiritual essence and consciousness and thus cannot have awakening like us. 

Connect With Poh

• Instagram: @the.blossoming.therapists
• Join the Bodhi Inner Path Circle
• www.blossomingtrueself.com.au

Let us know what you took away from this conversation!

Bodhi Inner Path Circle is a contemplative membership community for therapists who long for a regular, supportive, spiritually grounded place to practise meditation, learn Buddha‑Dharma in reflective practice, and connect with dharma friends. It is currently open for enrolment! You're warmly invited to join us to start your cultivation and practice today! 

Support the show

In this episode of The Practitioner’s Heart, we explore one of the most powerful – and often misunderstood – sources of support for therapists: dharma friendship.

Whether you call it spiritual friendship, kalyāṇamitta, fa lü, or simply “wise companions,” having people who share your aspiration for awakening can transform your personal and professional life.

Drawing from 22 years of practice in the Australia Buddhist Bliss Culture Mission, Poh shares how dharma friends and the bodhisattva path have carried her through distraction, burnout, emotional overwhelm, and the everyday challenges of being a therapist in the modern world.

You’ll hear about:

• what “dharma friendship” truly means in Buddhist tradition
• why therapists need spiritual companionship to stay grounded
• how community protects us from burnout, isolation, and overwhelm
• the role of Sangha and community, shared intention, and steady practice
• why awakening and bodhisattva path is a long, lived process. It does not happen overnight
• how we inspire one another through compassion, clarity, and ethical living
• the importance of having a nurturing “nursery” for your Bodhi sprout
• why so many therapists feel spiritually alone — and how online dharma community fills the gap
• the deep nourishment that comes from practising with people who “get you”
• how Buddhist wisdom enriches process‑based therapies like ACT

Poh also introduces the Bodhi Inner Path Circle, a contemplative membership community for therapists who long for a regular, supportive, spiritually grounded place to practise, study Buddha‑Dharma, and reconnect with their inner refuge.

We meet every fortnight from July — and the founding member rate is just $55/month.

Join the waitlist now

This episode is for you if:
• you’re a therapist or healer or health professional feeling spiritually isolated
• you struggle to maintain a consistent meditation practice
• you crave deeper conversations about meaning and awakening
• you want support integrating Buddhist wisdom into your daily life and clinical practice
• you’re longing for community, clarity, and steady inner refuge
• you want to walk the bodhisattva path or at least curious about it

May you find dharma friends who nourish your heart and support your awakening.

Let us know what you took away from this conversation!

Bodhi Inner Path Circle is a contemplative membership community for therapists who long for a regular, supportive, spiritually grounded place to practise meditation, learn Buddha‑Dharma in reflective practice, and connect with dharma friends. It is currently open for enrolment! You're warmly invited to join us to start your cultivation and practice today! 

Support the show

In this episode, Poh explores how Buddhist practice can support therapists in cultivating secure attachment within themselves — and how this inner steadiness naturally supports nervous system regulation, compassionate presence, and therapeutic effectiveness.

As therapists, we often become the emotional anchor for others while quietly carrying our own stress, attachment wounds, self-doubt, or emotional fatigue beneath the surface. In this conversation, Poh gently reflects on the intersection of Buddhist wisdom, attachment science, ACT, and nervous system regulation — offering a grounded pathway back to clarity, connection, and inner refuge.

Through Dharma-informed reflections and practical insight, Poh explores how contemplative practice can soften our clinging to identity, perfectionism, and performance, while helping us embody a more spacious, compassionate, and regulated way of being with ourselves and others.

In this episode, Poh explores:

• What secure attachment means for therapists and helping professionals
• The difference between non-attachment and emotional avoidance
• How Buddhist practice strengthens emotional safety, steadiness, and connection
• Why clinging to identity and “being the perfect therapist” creates suffering
• ACT concepts such as self-as-context and spacious awareness
• The relationship between Buddha nature, wholeness, and inner refuge
• How chanting, coherent breathing, meditation, and mantra support nervous system regulation
• Buddhist practices that support co-regulation and ventral vagal grounding
• How therapist presence itself can become healing and regulating for clients
• Interconnectedness, shared humanity, and compassionate relating

Join the Bodhi Inner Path Circle

If you’ve been longing for a contemplative space to slow down, reconnect, and practise alongside like-hearted therapists and dharma friends, the Bodhi Inner Path Circle may be a nourishing home for you.

Beginning July 2026, this monthly membership community includes:

• Fortnightly meditation and contemplative practice
• Dharma-informed book club gatherings
• Gentle Buddhist teachings tailored for therapists
• A moderated practitioner community away from social media
• Support for nervous system regulation, reflection, and spiritual practice

Founding Member Offer: $55/month

Join the waitlist: https://blossomingtrueself.com.au/communitywaitlist

Connect & Support the Podcast

If this episode resonated with you, please consider sharing it with a colleague or leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Your support helps this contemplative community reach more therapists and helping professionals seeking grounded, sustainable practice.

A Gentle Reminder

This podcast is for education and inspiration purposes only. It is not a substitute for therapy, supervision, psychological care, or clinical advice.

Let us know what you took away from this conversation!

Bodhi Inner Path Circle is a contemplative membership community for therapists who long for a regular, supportive, spiritually grounded place to practise meditation, learn Buddha‑Dharma in reflective practice, and connect with dharma friends. It is currently open for enrolment! You're warmly invited to join us to start your cultivation and practice today! 

Support the show

In Part 2 of my deeply nourishing conversation with Dr. Hayley D. Quinn, we turn toward the realities so many therapists, psychologists, and helping professionals quietly carry: burnout, self‑neglect, emotional labour, and the pressure to keep going even when our bodies and hearts are exhausted.

In this grounded and compassionate dialogue, Hayley shares her lived experience of profound burnout, how she rebuilt her life from the inside out, and how she now supports others to create sustainable, values‑aligned ways of working.

Together, we explore:

• The hidden patterns of self‑neglect common in caring professions
• Why therapists often disconnect from their own needs
• Burnout as a systemic, not personal, failing
• How late‑identified neurodivergence (autism + ADHD) transformed Hayley’s understanding of energy, pacing, and wellbeing
• What sustainable work looks like for neurodivergent clinicians and helpers
• Why compassionate self‑relationship is essential for avoiding burnout
• Practical strategies for working in ways that honour your nervous system
• Allowing yourself to redefine success, productivity, and worth
• Building a life and career that fits you, rather than forcing yourself to fit the profession

This episode is validating, honest, and deeply supportive — especially if you have ever felt tired, overwhelmed, or quietly depleted while continuing to care for everyone else.

Hayley speaks with clarity and warmth about returning to your inner wisdom, listening to the signals of your body, and creating a life aligned with your values, your neurotype, and your wellbeing.

About Our Guest - Dr Hayley D Quinn, mindset and wellbeing coach

Dr Hayley D Quinn is a mindset and wellbeing coach, speaker, trainer and former clinical psychologist. She is a late-identified proud Autistic woman with ADHD. Hayley is the author of From Self-Neglect to Self-Compassion: A compassionate guide to creating a thriving life. She is the host of the Welcome to Self® podcast and past president of Compassionate Mind Australia. Combining clinical expertise, Compassion Focused Therapy training and lived experience to help people prevent burnout, prioritise wellbeing and create thriving lives and businesses that feel meaningful and purposeful.

Resources & Links:

1. Learn more about Hayley's work https://drhayleydquinn.com/

2. Buy Hayley's book, From Self-Neglect to Self-Compassion: A Compassionate Guide to Creating a Thriving Life. 

3. Follow Hayley on Instagram

Disclaimer:

The content discussed in this podcast is for inspiration and educational purposes only. It is not a substitute for therapy or clinical supervision, and our time together does not constitute a therapeutic relationship. Please seek professional support if you are in need.

Let us know what you took away from this conversation!

Bodhi Inner Path Circle is a contemplative membership community for therapists who long for a regular, supportive, spiritually grounded place to practise meditation, learn Buddha‑Dharma in reflective practice, and connect with dharma friends. It is currently open for enrolment! You're warmly invited to join us to start your cultivation and practice today! 

Support the show

In this spacious and nourishing episode of The Practitioner’s Heart, Poh sits down with Dr. Hayley D. Quinn — mindset and wellbeing coach, former clinical psychologist, author of From Self‑Neglect to Self‑Compassion, autistic/ADHD woman, and one of the most compassionate humans you will meet.

This conversation unfolds like a heartfelt offering — exploring joy, identity, compassion, and what it means to live from our inner wisdom. 

In Part 1, we explore:

• How Hayley finds joy in simplicity, relationships, and everyday moments
• Her courageous decision to step away from the protected title of “clinical psychologist” after 20 years
• The deep identity work required to let go of a long‑held professional self
• How neurodivergence (autism + ADHD) shaped her understanding of energy, work, and sustainable wellbeing
• What a compassionate relationship with oneself actually looks like in daily life
• Practical tools from Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT)
• Becoming your own fondest friend, greatest cheerleader, and wisest inner guide
• How checking in with ourselves mirrors how we care for those we love

This is a gentle, heartfelt episode for therapists, psychologists, healthcare workers, and spiritual seekers wanting to deepen self‑compassion, reconnect with their inner wisdom, and live in alignment with their wise compassionate Self.

Part 2 will be released next week, exploring burnout, self‑neglect, and building sustainable, neurodiversity‑affirming ways of working.

About Our Guest - Dr Hayley D Quinn, mindset and wellbeing coach

Dr Hayley D Quinn is a mindset and wellbeing coach, speaker, trainer and former clinical psychologist. She is a late-identified proud Autistic woman with ADHD. Hayley is the author of From Self-Neglect to Self-Compassion: A compassionate guide to creating a thriving life. She is the host of the Welcome to Self® podcast and past president of Compassionate Mind Australia. Combining clinical expertise, Compassion Focused Therapy training and lived experience to help people prevent burnout, prioritise wellbeing and create thriving lives and businesses that feel meaningful and purposeful.

Resources & Links:

1. Learn more about Hayley's work https://drhayleydquinn.com/

2. Buy Hayley's book, From Self-Neglect to Self-Compassion: A Compassionate Guide to Creating a Thriving Life. 

3. Follow Hayley on Instagram

Disclaimer:

The content discussed in this podcast is for inspiration and educational purposes only. It is not a substitute for therapy or clinical supervision, and our time together does not constitute a therapeutic relationship. Please seek professional support if you are in need.

Let us know what you took away from this conversation!

Bodhi Inner Path Circle is a contemplative membership community for therapists who long for a regular, supportive, spiritually grounded place to practise meditation, learn Buddha‑Dharma in reflective practice, and connect with dharma friends. It is currently open for enrolment! You're warmly invited to join us to start your cultivation and practice today! 

Support the show

In this episode, we explore one of the Four Immeasurables that feels profoundly essential for the world we’re living in right now: equanimity.

As global instability, the war in the Middle East, and the ongoing energy crisis ripple through our collective nervous system, many therapists are finding themselves holding their clients’ fears while carrying their own. This episode offers a grounded, embodied, and Buddhist‑informed way to meet these turbulent times without collapsing, shutting down, or absorbing everything you’re witnessing.

I walk you through:

• Why our nervous systems are more reactive right now
• How over‑empathy and vicarious anxiety show up in sessions
• The difference between equanimity, indifference, and spiritual bypassing
• The ocean metaphor: how to drop beneath the surface turbulence
• Understanding non‑attachment (and how it differs from avoidant attachment)
• How clear understanding of impermanence can soften urgency and reduce reactivity
• The “tablespoon of salt” metaphor from my teacher
• Expanding our internal landscape
• The 20% Anchor Practice — a real‑time tool for staying grounded with clients
• How equanimity protects against burnout, moral distress, and compassion fatigue
• Gentle mantras for returning to steady presence

This is an episode for therapists and health practitioners who are deeply feeling the world right now.

It’s a reminder that equanimity is a practice—one that grows each time you return to your breath, your body, and the truth that everything is impermanent.

Disclaimer:

The content discussed in this podcast is for inspiration and educational purposes only. It is not a substitute for therapy or clinical supervision, and our time together does not constitute a therapeutic relationship. Please seek professional support if you are in need.

Let us know what you took away from this conversation!

Bodhi Inner Path Circle is a contemplative membership community for therapists who long for a regular, supportive, spiritually grounded place to practise meditation, learn Buddha‑Dharma in reflective practice, and connect with dharma friends. It is currently open for enrolment! You're warmly invited to join us to start your cultivation and practice today! 

Support the show