Whole Again: Mindfulness and Resilience Through Kintsugi Wisdom

A microdose meditation to start the day with more mindfulness and resilience.

Today, we tap into one of the most powerful words in the English language: And.

You can now download my Pause Breathe Reflect App with Microdose EQ for FREE on Apple’s App Store or Google Play. Discover how to spend less time on your phone and more time on things that bring you joy. Also, find the support you need to navigate today’s uncertainty with more calm and grace.

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We can also connect on LinkedIn.

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The Whole Again Podcast: Mindfulness and Resilience through Kinstugi Wisdom airs every Monday, Wednesday and Friday with Pause Breathe Reflect Microdose Meditations, Growth Mindset and Mindfulness Tips, to help us transform our scars into healing and resilience.

And between May and October, I'm sharing a new series I'm calling: A Perfectly Imperfect Union. It's about connecting with every day folks as they reflect on America at 250. Conversations will air every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

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In the latest episode of A Perfectly Imperfect Union, I travel to The Peace Garden State and connect with Angela Arntz.

We discuss how America's greatest strength is possibility: the idea that you can take a risk, change direction, and become someone different than where you started.

Angela makes the case for something she thinks we've forgotten how to do: listening to understand someone instead of just waiting for our turn to respond. You don't have to agree with someone to hear them, and that distinction might be the whole ballgame.

Her question for you and our next guest is:

If there were one person in the US you'd love to meet, who would it be?

You can now download my Pause Breathe Reflect App with Microdose EQ for FREE on Apple’s App Store or Google Play. Discover how to spend less time on your phone and more time on things that bring you joy. Also, find the support you need to navigate today’s uncertainty with more calm and grace.

Receive a FREE copy of my book: “My Last Bad Day Shift.”

We can also connect on LinkedIn.

Subscribe to be sure you don’t miss any of the micro-meditations, wellness tips, and guidance that I publish every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 7:11 am.

What do a splinted finger and a fifteen-year-old fingernail groove have to do with your health?

More than you'd think.

In this episode, I share tip number 38 in his year-long series celebrating the 25th anniversary of my last bad day, and it comes straight from personal experience.

A small groove in his fingernail that he first noticed nearly two decades ago slowly grew more pronounced, and after finally committing this year to solve it, surgery revealed a ganglion cyst around his knuckle.

Now recovering with his hand in a splint, I'm pausing, breathing and reflecting on what happens when we put off the small stuff, especially us guys, who tend to rub some dirt on it and deal with things later.

His takeaway: if you don't spend time on your wellness, you'll be forced to spend time on your illness.

Discover how to scroll less and live more by taking my Free Smartphone Wellness Audit by clicking phone.

Did you know that stickers are wonderful visual cues to help you create healthy habits? You can get one of my free Pause Breathe Reflect sticker by clicking sticker.

To discover more and sign up for My RIPPLE EFFECT newsletter by clicking Ripple Effect.

We can also connect on LinkedIn. or at [email protected]

Subscribe to be sure you don’t miss any of the micro-meditations, wellness tips, and guidance that I publish every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 7:11 am. 

If you feel you need more mental health support, please contact NAMI. 

With Whole Again: A Fresh Approach to Healing, Growth & Resilience after Physical Trauma through Kintsugi Mindfulness listeners explore resilience through personal stories of trauma, scars, and injury while learning to overcome PTSD, imposter syndrome, self-doubt, and perfectionism with self-compassion, self-love, and self-worth. Through insightful discussions on stress management, mindfulness practices, and digital wellness, the show offers practical tools like breathwork, micro-dose meditation, grounding techniques, visualization, and daily affirmations for anxiety relief and stress relief. Inspired by the art of kintsugi, the podcast embraces healing as a process of transformation, encouraging a shift in perspective from worry and being overwhelmed to gratitude and personal growth. By exploring the mind-body connection, micro-dosing strategies for emotional well-being, and holistic approaches to self-care, this podcast empowers listeners to cultivate emotional resilience and live with greater balance and intention.

In the latest episode of A Perfectly Imperfect Union, I stay in Maine to connect with my very first Chief Love Officer, Mia Kyricos.

Mia built her career on a simple bet: that love, the highest form of positivity, can be a real business strategy, not just a nice idea.

Mia's family story runs straight through the American promise.

Her mother immigrated from Greece as a child with nothing but the clothes on her back, and her grandmother spent her whole life revering what it meant to become a citizen here.

That history shapes how Mia sees the country now: not through politics, but through diplomacy in the everyday sense- how we treat each other. Her wish for America isn't a policy fix. It's a return to basic human decorum, the kind where disagreeing with someone doesn't mean you stop treating them with dignity.

And her question for you and our next guest is:

If you could meet and connect with one person in this country, who would it be and why?

Share your thoughts in the comments and share this episode with someone you love.

You can now download my Pause Breathe Reflect App with Microdose EQ for FREE on Apple’s App Store or Google Play. Discover how to spend less time on your phone and more time on things that bring you joy. Also, find the support you need to navigate today’s uncertainty with more calm and grace.

Receive a FREE copy of my book: “My Last Bad Day Shift.”

We can also connect on LinkedIn.

Subscribe to be sure you don’t miss any of the micro-meditations, wellness tips, and guidance that I publish every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 7:11 am.

What does saying "yes" actually cost you if there's nothing after it?

As I continue diving into season 4 of Ted Lasso, this question can help us strengthen our resilience and mindfulness practices.

In this episode, Alice is mid-transformation, working her way out of what Michael calls the messy middle. She's been told to lean into the power of "yes," but tries it on like an allergic reaction, saying yes to everyone and everything with no boundaries at all.

That's not resilience. It's passive surrender. It's Ted and Beard who help her find the missing piece: not yes on its own, but "yes, and."

Yes, this is real. And here's what I'm going to do about it.

Discover how to scroll less and live more by taking my Free Smartphone Wellness Audit by clicking phone.

Did you know that stickers are wonderful visual cues to help you create healthy habits? You can get one of my free Pause Breathe Reflect sticker by clicking sticker.

To discover more and sign up for My RIPPLE EFFECT newsletter by clicking Ripple Effect.

We can also connect on LinkedIn. or at [email protected]

Subscribe to be sure you don’t miss any of the micro-meditations, wellness tips, and guidance that I publish every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 7:11 am. 

If you feel you need more mental health support, please contact NAMI. 

With Whole Again: A Fresh Approach to Healing, Growth & Resilience after Physical Trauma through Kintsugi Mindfulness listeners explore resilience through personal stories of trauma, scars, and injury while learning to overcome PTSD, imposter syndrome, self-doubt, and perfectionism with self-compassion, self-love, and self-worth. Through insightful discussions on stress management, mindfulness practices, and digital wellness, the show offers practical tools like breathwork, micro-dose meditation, grounding techniques, visualization, and daily affirmations for anxiety relief and stress relief. Inspired by the art of kintsugi, the podcast embraces healing as a process of transformation, encouraging a shift in perspective from worry and being overwhelmed to gratitude and personal growth. By exploring the mind-body connection, micro-dosing strategies for emotional well-being, and holistic approaches to self-care, this podcast empowers listeners to cultivate emotional resilience and live with greater balance and intention.

In the latest episode of A Perfectly Imperfect Union, I travel to the Vacationland State to visit with Jack Wilson.

We talk about how you only really understand freedom once you've lived outside this country and come back.

Jack doesn't think the divide we're in is unfixable. He thinks it's a communication problem, not a values problem. We've got more ways to talk to each other than any generation before us, and somehow we're worse at it. He pushes back on the idea that disagreement has to mean disrespect, and he means it.

His challenge lands hard: stop being an armchair quarterback and start having the honest, in-person conversation instead.

Discover more about him and his unbreakable mindset on this website.

His question for you and our next guest is:

What's one thing you could do today, just one, that benefits more than yourself?

Share your thoughts in the comments and share this episode with someone you love.

You can now download my Pause Breathe Reflect App with Microdose EQ for FREE on Apple’s App Store or Google Play. Discover how to spend less time on your phone and more time on things that bring you joy. Also, find the support you need to navigate today’s uncertainty with more calm and grace.

Receive a FREE copy of my book: “My Last Bad Day Shift.”

We can also connect on LinkedIn.

Subscribe to be sure you don’t miss any of the micro-meditations, wellness tips, and guidance that I publish every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 7:11 am.

It's just 10 breaths. An intentional way to start the day for more mindfulness and resilience.

Join me most Mondays and Fridays for live practices to start and end your week in community.

You can now download my Pause Breathe Reflect App with Microdose EQ for FREE on Apple’s App Store or Google Play. Discover how to spend less time on your phone and more time on things that bring you joy. Also, find the support you need to navigate today’s uncertainty with more calm and grace.

Receive a FREE copy of my book: “My Last Bad Day Shift.”

We can also connect on LinkedIn.

Subscribe to be sure you don’t miss any of the micro-meditations, wellness tips, and guidance that I publish every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 7:11 am.

In the latest episode of A Perfectly Imperfect Union, I travel to The Mountain State, cue up the John Denver, to connect with poet Vincent Caruso.

We talk about whether or not we've been measuring success in America by all the wrong things

He's watched teachers pay out of pocket for their classrooms and nurses burn out while CEOs and athletes get treated like heroes, and he thinks our money priorities are simply out of whack.

Vince's story is one that many Americans have experienced and it's a story worth listening to.

You can connect with him on LinkedIn.

And his question for you and our next guest is:

What is the end game of the American experiment?

Do you believe utopias are even possible, and if not, what's the compromise?

You can now download my Pause Breathe Reflect App with Microdose EQ for FREE on Apple’s App Store or Google Play. Discover how to spend less time on your phone and more time on things that bring you joy. Also, find the support you need to navigate today’s uncertainty with more calm and grace.

Receive a FREE copy of my book: “My Last Bad Day Shift.”

We can also connect on LinkedIn.

Subscribe to be sure you don’t miss any of the micro-meditations, wellness tips, and guidance that I publish every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 7:11 am.

Can doing something less than perfect actually be the better choice?

That's the question behind this week's tip, number 37 in the 25 Lessons in 25 Years series. It starts with a line from Anne-Marie Bonneau, "The Zero-Waste Chef," who said back in 2019, "We don't need a handful of people doing zero waste perfectly. We need millions of people doing it imperfectly."

Michael takes that idea and runs it through a memory from 1997, when he and his wife stood in line at the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa for the first time -- supposedly the world's most perfect painting.

Watching total strangers react to it in wildly different ways became proof that perfection is entirely in the eye of the beholder. From there, Michael connects the dots to his own healing journey, a Mark Twain line about continuous improvement beating delayed perfection, and why showing up "perfectly imperfect," day after day, moves you forward.

You can now download my Pause Breathe Reflect App with Microdose EQ for FREE on Apple’s App Store or Google Play. Discover how to spend less time on your phone and more time on things that bring you joy. Also, find the support you need to navigate today’s uncertainty with more calm and grace.

Receive a FREE copy of my book: “My Last Bad Day Shift.”

We can also connect on LinkedIn.

Subscribe to be sure you don’t miss any of the micro-meditations, wellness tips, and guidance that I publish every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 7:11 am.

The Whole Again Podcast: Mindfulness and Resilience through Kinstugi Wisdom airs every Monday, Wednesday and Friday with Pause Breathe Reflect Microdose Meditations, Growth Mindset and Mindfulness Tips, to help us transform our scars into healing and resilience.

And between May and October, I'm sharing a new series I'm calling: A Perfectly Imperfect Union. It's about connecting with every day folks as they reflect on America at 250. Conversations will air every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

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On this episode of A Perfectly Imperfect Union, I travel to the Pelican State and connect with Joshua Jones, a rising senior studying marketing at LSU.

Joshua's take on America starts with persistence: the idea that progress means creating space in places never built with him in mind. He talks openly about being a young African American man navigating rooms that didn't always have room for him.

His Kintsugi wish for the country is education, the equitable kind that took him from community college to LSU, because he believes it's what teaches people to think critically, check their own bias, and actually hear each other again.

And his question for you and our next guest:

What advice would you give the Founding Fathers, knowing what America is dealing with today?

You can now download my Pause Breathe Reflect App with Microdose EQ for FREE on Apple’s App Store or Google Play. Discover how to spend less time on your phone and more time on things that bring you joy. Also, find the support you need to navigate today’s uncertainty with more calm and grace.

Receive a FREE copy of my book: “My Last Bad Day Shift.”

We can also connect on LinkedIn.

Subscribe to be sure you don’t miss any of the micro-meditations, wellness tips, and guidance that I publish every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 7:11 am.