One thing that sets human beings apart from other living things is our ability to make up stories. It’s a gift, but when applied to our relationships, it can often be a curse.   When we have a disruption with a loved one or colleague, the stories we tell ourselves about that interaction create disconnection. In the absence of information, stories are how we fill in the blanks - unfortunately, those stories aren’t always kind to us.   All connection leaves us. We bypass our thinking brain, and we flashback to that child on the playground who felt unlovable and rejected when people didn’t pick them.   All human beings have these stories, and we’re all walking around with our not-right stories colliding. In those moments, how do we bring ourselves current, check in with ourselves and transition to a kinder story?   In this episode, we talk about how to navigate the moments where our past hurt self resurfaces, and how to come back to love, connection and play.   Almost always, in a kerfuffle, someone makes up a story, steps into that story unconsciously and out of direct relationship with the other person. -Katie Hendricks    Three Things You’ll Learn In This Episode    -Connect then communicate How do we step out of our story and back into connection with people?   -Coming home to your essence We weren’t always people with past hurts and not-right stories. How do we go back home to our true selves?    -Be like a whale When whales go deep and resurface, they are actually contributing to the circulation of the ecosystem. How do vulnerability and connection do the same thing for love and joy in the human ecosystem?

“What do you do?” “Look what’s happening with the weather.” “How are the kids?”   Canned and over-rehearsed small talk is what so many of us default to conversationally, but that’s where all connection and play go to die. What would happen if we allowed ourselves to drop into something deeper and just let the best nuggets emerge?   If we let it, a lot of meaning can come through the conversations we have, but we can’t smother it by keeping things on the surface.   We have to have the courage to deepen even the most mundane exchanges, and most importantly, let the conversations we have surprise us. How do we transform the way we have conversations? Why do we struggle to say what we really want to say (not what’s going on with the weather)?   In this episode, we share how to bring more depth and meaning to all our conversations.   Silence can also be a communication. We don’t have to put everything into words every minute because that effort gets us into an adrenaline cycle. -Katie Hendricks     Things You’ll Learn In This Episode   -Adrenaline conversations vs. nourishing conversations How do we have the kind of conversations that are so nourishing we forget to eat?   -Receive, resonate, respond  Oftentimes, people need permission to open up. How do we become that safe space?   -Allow space for you  How do we practice having deeper conversations in spaces so we don’t have to edit, rehearse or put on a front?    -Leaving a pause vs. interrupting  Why are most of us so uncomfortable with a moment of silence in our conversations?

A new season is a transition we’re all aware of. Time for warmer clothes, fall colors and pumpkin spice lattes. That’s not the only way change comes our way, though. There are transitions everywhere in our lives - from waking up everyday to moving from room to room.   When we go from place to place without being present, we risk leaving some of ourselves behind. We become a lot more like human pinball machines, and not well-located beings moving smoothly between spaces.   How do we give attention to how we’re moving from place to place? How do we stop using our bodies as vehicles to carry our heads and start integrating every aspect of our essence?   In this episode, we talk about transitioning without dislodging our bodies away from our brains. We talk about how to befriend fear and the power of a pause before a transition.  Three Things You’ll Learn In This Episode    -A baked-in response The template for how we make transitions is imprinted at birth. How do we become aware of our own framework for shifts?    -The power of a 2-minute pause  When we wake up in the morning, how do we make sure we leave our beds with our entire essence intact, instead of leaving parts of ourselves behind?   -The body doesn’t yell How do we distinguish the calm wisdom of the body from the frantic learned response of the brain? How do we allow what’s happening internally so we stop reacting in Godzilla mode?  

When we come on this planet, we all get these bodies to inhabit. Living in these bodies comes with its own baggage and that makes it hard for us to love ourselves and experience aliveness.   Our bodies, how we sustain them, and how we dress them can be a reflection of how we see ourselves, or the distorted image of what other people see and say. We can either be, play and love within our bodies or feel trapped and restricted by them.   How do we use fashion as a form of play and creation? How can we shift the relationship we have with the very bodies we live in?   In this episode, we talk about how our physical bodies relate to how we self-express, our relationships, and this world. Three Things You’ll Learn In This Episode  -It’s more than fashion What do the clothes we wear say about how we see ourselves in this world?    -Look different, feel different Losing weight forces us to rethink the relationship we have with our bodies. How do we process how we experience the world now? How can our self-image catch up with the image we see in the mirror?   -Love yourself with every bite How do we experience food as fuel and nourishment instead of a way to suppress negative feelings or punish ourselves?

Hurri-quakes, falling over, water spills on our outfits and other unexpected happenings. Why can’t things just go the way we want? Dealing with the unexpected is sort of like finding your legs during an earthquake. When what you think is solid starts moving, what you trust becomes unstable.  Our patterned response is to fight, control, anticipate and react. If we learn to go with what’s happening, we can sustain ourselves through the unexpected and fall with grace like Fred Astaire!  In this episode, we talk about the true opportunity - learning to expect the unexpected.    Three Things You’ll Learn In This Episode  Coherence, not control How do we flow with the river of the unexpected and stop trying to change its direction and velocity?  Accept that you’re part of nature In nature, everything is in movement all the time. Are we going against this when we expect the ground beneath us to remain the same?  The art of sustaining Our culture goes from creating to throwing things away at a rapid pace. How do we shift into tending to, caring for, repairing, and renewing?  

When life hits us with the unexpected, we all have our own trained responses. From fear to thinking it’s our fault, this takes us away from the point of it all - being fully in our lives.  Our culture teaches us messaging that doesn’t allow us to open up our hearts, in fact we’re trained to not feel at all. We have this expansive sensory apparatus available to us, but we don’t use it and that works against us. Can whole body thinking help us flow through the unexpected instead of being trapped in it?  How can we regulate the stuff that’s coming at us and respond to it? How do we use feeling instead of thinking to work through the unexpected?  In this episode, we talk about how to engage with things that don't go the way we planned.   Three Things You’ll Learn In This Episode  If I don’t move, I can’t learn We don’t think through our heads, we think through our bodies. How do we fully allow this, wiggling toes and all?   How to engage with constant changeAnother day, another new tech tool. How do we deal with this particular flavor of the unexpected?  Being is big enough for complexity Can two people have separate experiences and still be together?  

When we’re young, we respond to life with our whole bodies. As we grow, that liveliness gets trained out of us, leaving no room for the power of playfulness.  Being, playing, and loving are inextricably linked. We can’t experience aliveness without all 3, but our culture often misses this important link, and pain is needlessly prolonged.  There’s a better template for connection, not just with others, but with ourselves. In today’s episode, we introduce Be.Play.Love - a path to self-nourishment.  Three Things You’ll Learn In This Episode  The energetic nuzzleInstead of making an effort to be lovable, how do we learn to be ourselves in the presence of others? Discovery is so much richer than repeatingHow do we make more room for wonder in our lives? Locating your presence in a relationshipCan we shift conflict from who’s right and who’s wrong to allowing for different perspectives to exist?