Whole Again: Mindfulness and Resilience Through Kintsugi Wisdom

Can you actually rush your way to resilience, or does healing only happen once you're willing to sit in the mess?

Welcome to episode six of season 4 and the messy middle.

Jamie's back, and he's still, with love, a bit of a prick. Roy's nursing an injury and some relationship drama. Coach Beard is having an identity crisis. Ted and Michelle are working through the wreckage of divorce. And Alice looks like she's being quietly set up for the biggest Kintsugi moment of the whole season.

If you're expecting the usual warm, fluffy Ted Lasso energy, this isn't that episode. But through the lens of resilience, it might be one of the best episodes of the series.

Michael walks through why the messy middle, not the tidy comeback, is where the real work happens, using Joseph Campbell's hero's journey and the Thich Nhat Hanh teaching "no mud, no lotus" to unpack what's actually going on beneath the surface of this episode.

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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In the latest episode of A Perfectly Imperfect Union, I travel to The Dominion State and connect with Katy Talento.

Katie's mission is to pull medicine back from what she calls the "corporatocracy" and return it to a true healing built on real food, sleep, sunlight, movement, and connection.

She shares how she was "brutally vicious" to herself inside her own head, and the years of work it took to build radical self-acceptance, which she now calls the greatest gift she can give her family. Once you stop attacking yourself, she says, it's so much easier to stop attacking everyone else.

You can connect with Katy on LinkedIn and AllBetter Health.

And her next question for you and our next guest is:

Of the 10 items in the Bill of Rights, which one matters most, and why?

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.

A simple way to welcome the day.

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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In the latest episode of A Perfectly Imperfect Union, I travel to the Tar Heel State to speak with Madhavi Parikh.

She left India in 1988 for an arranged marriage and built a life and a career around helping people heal.

We talk about assimilating into the Bible Belt as a new immigrant, why she believes people who lash out are usually offloading their own pain, and the day she realized she was turning into the kind of parent she never wanted to be.

That moment led her to meditation, and years later she landed on the insight that changed how she saw herself: the word hole is literally part of the word whole. Real kindness, she says, starts with accepting our own fractured pieces before we can extend it to anyone else.

You can connect with her on LinkedIn.

And her question for you and our next guest is:

What do you do to spread or increase kindness in the world?

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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Where were you twenty-five years ago today?

Michael was in a rehab session at the Kessler Institute in West Orange, New Jersey, when he overheard a therapist mention a plane hitting the Twin Towers. He called his wife and told her to turn on the TV—it didn't matter what channel.

In this episode of Whole Again, Michael revisits September 11, 2001 through the lens of Rumi's poem "The Guest House," and the grief, shock, and unexpected gratitude that arrived that morning like uninvited guests. But this episode isn't only about remembering. It's about what we've let ourselves forget, and the one thing Michael says we've never really talked about in twenty-five years of "never forget": forgiveness.

This is the heart of tip #36.

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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In the latest episode of A Perfectly Imperfectly Union, I travel to the Big Sky State to connect with Carrie Haney.

I love Carrie's grounded energy, and I know you will as well.

She is a meditation and yoga teacher who left a fast-paced marketing career behind to live a slower, more intentional life, currently based in Montana and traveling the country seasonally in her bus.

She talks about the fracture she sees in America: how deeply we've been programmed into fast, demanding lifestyles that our bodies were never built for.

Her prescription isn't complicated: take the full hour for lunch, stop multitasking, take real vacations, and give yourself back the time technology promised but never delivered.

And she makes the case that connection shows up in unexpected places like the Olympics, a Taylor Swift concert, even a "designation day" like National Meditation Day. Really anywhere people set aside their differences long enough to feel something together.

Her question for you and our next guest is: What is one of the most important moments in your life story so far, and where did it happen?

Share your thoughts in the comments and share this episode with someone you love and who could also benefit from slowing down.

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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What if the fastest way to build trust with your team is to let them see you at your most embarrassed?

That's the question at the center of this week's Ted Lasso recap, where Michael unpacks episode five of the show's final season through the lens of vulnerability.

When the Lady Greyhounds fall apart in the first half against Chelsea, Alice calls the team an embarrassment and Ted, instead of deflecting or defending, leans right into the word. He opens up to his players about his divorce, his dating life, and why he eats hot dogs alone, reframing embarrassment not as a fatal flaw but as a defense mechanism that keeps us small.

Press play to hear how one halftime hot dog story became a masterclass in leadership, trust, and the golden repair of our own imperfections.

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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In the latest episode of A Perfectly Imperfect Union, I travel to the "Live Free or Die" State to connect with Celia Jarest, host of the podcast Sunflowers: Grow Through What You Go Through and a single mom of three.

We talk about fear and how it shapes almost everything we do, whether we notice it or not. She traces her own healing back to naming her complex PTSD and realizing just how much fear was running the show in her life. Her answer isn't more armor. It's grace, compassion, and boundaries, starting with ourselves.

We also get into New Hampshire's spirit, the shifting politics of a state where people move for the freedom and then try to change the values, and why she finds some of her deepest connection to fellow Americans not in New Hampshire's quiet but in Massachusetts, where she works alongside people from all over the world.

You can connect with Celia on LinkedIn.

Her question for you and our next guest is:

What is a piece of yourself that you will not back down from and will defend and fight for?

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.

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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This Monday's microdose meditation helps you rise up. Drawing on an image as old as it is simple, a mighty oak, rooted deep so its branches can reach high, I'll guide you through a short breath practice built around one mantra: rooting, to rise. Inhale rooting, exhale to rise, until strength and stability start to feel less like something you chase and more like something already underneath you.

It's a quick reset, not a big commitment. A few grounded breaths before the week gets loud.

Find it, along with 700+ other microdose meditations, free on the Pause Breathe Reflect app (Apple App Store and Google Play).

If it grounded you even a little, share it with a friend who could use some rooting today too.

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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What if the biggest regret people carry isn't something they did, but a road trip they never took?

In the latest episode of A Perfectly Imperfect Union, I travel to The Mount Rushmore State to connect with Jeffrey Gould on this question.

Jeffrey believes America is a story worth telling, one built on possibility rather than perfection. He also believes we've forgotten how to tell it, trading gratitude for outrage because outrage gets more clicks.

He shares what 700 funerals have taught him about regret, and why the road trip is almost always the thing people wish they'd taken. We also get into South Dakota's particular brand of curiosity, the kind that starts with "where you from" and ends in finding someone you both know.

Please connect with Jeffrey via his website or LinkedIn.

And his question(S) for you and our next guest are: 1) Have you been to South Dakota, and 2) what's the best piece of advice you've ever gotten?

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.