Whole Again: Mindfulness and Resilience Through Kintsugi Wisdom

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 does true tolerance actually look like, and are we anywhere close to it?

In the latest episode of A Perfectly Imperfect Union, I travel back to my old stomping grounds, Our Nation's Capitol, to connect with Tiffany Rider. She's an emergency medicine PA turned health policy writer with infectious energy.

She believes tolerance is at an all-time low in America. She also believes freedom here, imperfect as it is, is still unmatched anywhere she's lived.

Tiffany shares what the emergency room taught her about connection: no one asks who you voted for before saving your life. We also talk about her Cajun French family, how they punished her for speaking their own language as a kid, and why she thinks real tolerance means respecting other people's choices even when you disagree with them.

Before you go, Tiffany has a great question for you and our next guest:

If you really knew me, what would you know about me?

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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Can a team of guarded strangers ever really trust each other?

In this installment of Whole Again's Ted Lasso series, I dig into what's really holding the Lady Greyhounds back. It's not talent. It's not effort. It's trust.

As Dr. Fieldstone puts it: "A team is simply a collection of guarded strangers until they believe they are safe to fail in front of one another."

And trust gets built in reps, in the "figurative gym," in tiny unscripted moments.

Michael turns the episode into four practices you can start using today:

1. Recognize your control mechanisms as survival tactics
2. Offer up micro-moments that create psychological safety for someone else
3. Practice collective responsibility over blame
4. Anchor yourself in self-trust

Watch (or rewatch) Episode 4 through the lens of trust.

What's one small, unscripted moment when someone did something that made you trust them more?

Drop it in the comments and share this episode with your favorite Ted Lasso fan.

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 Silver State to connect with Kate Quay.

Kate believes freedom is the simplest answer to what America means to her. She also believes that answer gets complicated fast, because freedom has never been equally distributed.

She shares how leaving the Bay Area's political homogeneity for Reno's purple streets actually made her feel more connected, not less. And why detaching people from their politics might be what heals us.

To connect with Kate, you can find her on LinkedIn and her website.

And her question for you and our next guest is: How do you find joy in your life?

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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Who's sitting at your table?

In this Monday microdose meditation from Whole Again, I walk you through a visualization I return to often. You picture that table. You fill it with the people who genuinely love you. Then you invite your higher self to sit down. Then your higher power, however you define it.

And you ask each one the same question: do you love me?

It sounds simple. It isn't always easy to sit with the answer. But once that room is full — full of people, full of your own wiser self, full of whatever you call the bigger thing — a different question opens up: what do they need to tell you right now? What do you most need to hear?

This practice reminds us that we're rarely as alone as our hardest moments convince us we are. Support surrounds us, even the support we forget to ask for.

This episode is a microdose meditation from my Pause, Breathe, Reflect app — free on the App Store and Google Play, with over 700 meditations if this one resonates.

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's one small step you can take today to honor your health?

Francesca is originally from Madagascar and has called Rhode Island home for the past 12 years. She's the founder of an organization doing healing work on two continents, work born out of her own story as a survivor of verbal, emotional, and psychological violence.

She sees the American Dream as the idea that your past doesn't have to define your future.

If you've ever wondered whether healing a family relationship is even possible, or what it actually takes to break a cycle, this episode is for you.

You can connect with her on LinkedIn and her website.

And her question for you and our next guest is:

What is one thing you can do for your health today?

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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What would you do if someone else were beating you up?

You'd fight back. You'd get out of the situation. You wouldn't just stand there and take it.

So why do we let ourselves get away with it?

In this Growth Mindset Tip, part of his 25th Anniversary of his Last Bad Day series, Michael O'Brien shares Tip 34: stop beating yourself up.

We're quick to defend ourselves against cruelty from others. But when it comes to the voice inside our own heads, the one telling us we're too much or not enough, we let it run the show. That self-critical conversation isn't harmless background noise. It's actively holding us back from the ripple effect we're capable of creating.

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 Peace Garden State and connect with Peter Schott.

Peter is a Kintsugi artist, community builder, and North Dakota native who spent nine years running a monthly potluck that brought together 50 to 250 people at a time.

He shares how he found Kintsugi through a book on the Enneagram and eventually traveled to Tokyo for a 12-day master class with a traditional Japanese artist.

And in true perfectly imperfect fashion, his answer for the place that makes him feel most alive isn't a mountain or a coastline. It's the Walmart parking lot, where he sees the full, messy, beautiful spectrum of who we are as a country.

To connect with Peter, you can find him on LinkedIn and Substack.

His question for you and our next guest is:

What's something that sparks joy for you, beyond your kids, your work, or your hobbies?

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 does it take to keep getting the most out of something you love, right up until it ends?

That's the question running through this week's Whole Again as Michael dives into Episode 3 of Ted Lasso Season 4, part of his ongoing weekly recap series.

In this solo monologue, Michael pulls back the curtain on why he's spending several weeks unpacking the final season one theme at a time, not to spoil the show, but to mine it for the mindfulness lessons hiding inside it. This episode's theme is Take a Chance on Me.

Three new players join the Lady Greyhounds, each one simply asking for the opportunity to prove what they're capable of, and Michael connects that hunger to something universal: the first date, the job application, the promotion nobody thought you were ready for.

He also gets honest about a harder thread running through the season, the uneven playing field in women's sports, and why the discomfort some viewers feel watching that storyline is exactly the kind of tension mindfulness asks us to sit with rather than dismiss.

As a girl dad, longtime sponsor of a women's cycling team, and co-author of a book on allyship, Michael brings real stakes to the conversation about who gets a chance and who has to fight twice as hard for the same one.

Michael ties it all back to Kintsugi. Taking a chance on someone, even someone with a checkered past, is what makes golden repair possible in the first place. Sweep the broken pieces into the trash too quickly, and there's no gold left to add.

By the end, he leaves you with a challenge: look around your own life this week and ask who's on the sidelines waiting for a shot, and whether you're willing to be the one who says yes.

Before you go, celebrate your scars as golden symbols of your strength and resilience. And don't forget to have fun storming the castle.

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 would it take to truly see someone else's humanity, even when it's easier not to?

In the latest episode of A Perfectly Imperfect Union, I travel to The Pelican State of Louisiana to connect with David Robinson-Morris as a hurricane came to shore.

David founded The Reimagination and the Center for the Human Spirit and Radical Reimagining. (I just love this).

He talks about America as a paradox, a promise not yet fulfilled, and why he believes the real work ahead is repairing our inability to see one another's humanity. When asked what he'd need to give up that he loves in order for us to unite, his answer was simple and hard: the idea that we are separate.

His question for you and our next guest is: As you imagine America in its next 50 years, what kind of future would you create where everyone, not just some of us, can truly flourish?

You can discover more about him here: https://www.reimaginelution.com/

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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What does it take to simply be?

That's the invitation at the heart of this week's microdose meditation, a short practice designed to help you drop into the present moment before the busyness of the week pulls you in a hundred directions.

Michael guides you through a simple, grounding practice from the Pause, Breathe, Reflect app. It's not about doing anything more. It's about giving yourself permission to just be, to notice the breath, a sensation in the body, or a sound in the distance, and to rest your attention there the way a puppy rests its chin on your thigh, quietly seeking connection.

And when your mind wanders off, as minds do, you're invited to come back without judgment, because that's simply what it means to be human.

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.