Untangle, The Podcast From Meditation Studio

Today’s guest is the amazing Parker J Palmer. At age 82, he is one of the wisest souls I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet. It’s our luck that he’s written 10 books that share so much of this wisdom with heart, vulnerability, and authenticity. When I read his work, I know that we are all connected as humans, that we all are both whole and broken at the same time. He is a writer, speaker, activist, poet, founder, and Senior Partner Emeritus of the Center for Courage & Renewal. He has reached millions worldwide through his books, including the best-selling Healing the Heart of Democracy, Let Your Life Speak, The Courage to Teach, and A Hidden Wholeness. His latest bestseller is On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity, and Getting Old, which is what we discuss today. I devoured this book on my last birthday, feeling the weight of age and time passing. It was like wrapping myself up in a warm blanket. He also holds a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California at Berkeley and 13 honorary doctora

4X NYT best-selling author, the hilarious and poignant AJ Jacobs, spent a year following every commandment in the Bible, to see what would happen. He then dove deep into gratitude by traveling around the globe to thank every person who had helped produce his morning coffee. In an incredibly interesting conversation, he shares his witty and profound insights from these experiments, and also teaches us what it takes to accomplish the things we want in our own lives, and gives us techniques we can use to motivate ourselves towards our goals. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today’s guest is writer, singer, songwriter and teacher, Marisa Handler. Marisa is the author of the memoir, Loyal to The Sky, and is a longtime spiritual practitioner and teacher in the Insight Meditation tradition. She’s also a Facilitator of The Work of Byron Katie. Marisa teaches creativity, meditation, and transformation at places like Stanford University, Spirit Rock Meditation Center, and California Institute of Integral Studies. Today we talk about her 9-month program called Live Your Creative Genius: Birth Your Most Brilliant Work where she integrates creativity, art, meditation, spirituality, and community. She shares how we can let go of old ways of creating, identify resistance and blocks that get in our way, open up a clear channel for our creative energy and vision all while finding and expressing our true creative voice. I especially like her ideas about confidence, trusting yourself as a creative, and knowing that what you have to say matters. You can find out more about her one-on-one coach

In the perfect Zen antidote to new year’s resolutions and planning and striving, Zen priest Rev Angel Kyodo Williams shows us the simplicity of returning to the self. To our enoughness. To the present moment. To our multiple and ever-changing purposes. To the joy that unfolds from just being, not doing, planning, or striving, and to the timelessness of the value of life- whatever year it is. This podcast offers a collective exhale to just be and take life as it is. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We’re so grateful for the gifts our experts share from their own personal experiences or from the work they do out in the world. We’ve learned tools to help with the grip of anxiety and uncertainty, how to cope with difficult feelings and emotions, and, maybe most importantly, how to be compassionate with ourselves and others. We need this now more than ever. We’ve also learned a lot about our brains and how how to get a better night's sleep and, perhaps, we have a greater understanding of all that it takes to be a human. it helps to know that there is a common humanity that we all share; that we all have a mix of joy and suffering in our lives. We wish you lots of love in the coming year, a measure of peace and tranquility, and, of course, fresh perspectives as you continue to live your very best life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Diana Winston is the Director of Mindfulness Education at UCLA's Mindful Awareness Research Center (MARC) and the author of several mindfulness books. In this interview, we talk about the importance of forgiveness in our lives and why carrying our anger or resentment around with us is like carrying hot coal. Dropping the hot coal can lead us to more freedom, openness, and joy. It doesn’t mean we have to condone or forget, but it is truly an act of self-compassion. It’s simply good for us and the practices she teaches can be really powerful. The first step, she says, is to have the willingness to even start working on forgiveness — whether it’s forgiving another person for hurting you, asking another person to forgive you, or, also extremely important, forgiving yourself. None of this is easy…but it can make a big difference in our own health and ease. Letting go of these difficult feelings is a great way to begin a new year filled with more open, positive, and productive energy. Learn more about your ad choi

Shannon Harvey is an award-winning Australian health journalist, author, and filmmaker. In her film (and now a book, My Year of Living Mindfully), Shannon committed to meditating every day for 365 days. She enlisted a team of top scientists from around the world to track everything from her stress hormones to her immune function to her cellular aging and gene expression to her subjective wellbeing. Overwhelmed with insomnia, autoimmune disease, and a family history of mental health issues, Shannon was highly motivated to find a way to address the challenges she faced, and those we all face with the growing epidemics of stress, anxiety, depression, and addiction. The results were surprising! She hopes that the film will spark meaningful conversations and help all of us feel more grounded and calm as we face the inevitable challenges of being human. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One of our most important podcasts ever, a riveting story that teaches us how to overcome our divides through respect, patience, and recognition of shared humanity. Daryl Davis is a black man who has gotten over 200 KKK clansmen to leave the KKK by becoming friends with them. Daryl tells incredible stories of these meetings and shares his powerful method for conversing with someone from another viewpoint. It is a snapshot of what is possible to achieve in our divided country, and a methodology we can all use to do it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From all of us at Untangle, Meditation Studio, and Muse, we wish you a Happy Thanksgiving! This special Morning Gratitude Practice is from our brand new Gratitude Collection in the app. We hope you’ll all take a moment to remember what you’re grateful for, what gives you joy, and what fills your love bucket. We wish you much happiness and love throughout all the upcoming holidays. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Shelly Tygielski is the author of the book 'Sit Down to Rise Up. How Radical Self- Care Can Change the World'. She’s the founder of the grassroots campaign called Pandemic of Love which is a mutual aid organization she created early on during the Covid pandemic…so that people could help one another. One person needs something; another gives something. Simple! Her organization has had more than 2 million peer-to-peer transactions, worth over $60 mm in donor/recipient transactions. Her mantra is…show up for yourself…with radical self-care and for others…in any way that you can. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Music has the power to move us deeply. Music can shift our energy on demand, organize our thoughts, stimulate our body to move, reset our emotional state, and allow us to pass through the day in a more relaxed harmonious manner. Using audio examples throughout the podcast, In this episode, we learn how to use it to its full potential with multi-platinum Hollywood composer and music expert Frank Fitzpatrick. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Ellen Hendriksen is a clinical psychologist whose focus is on helping millions of people calm their anxiety so they can be their authentic selves. She serves on the faculty at Boston University's Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders and is the author of the book we discuss today, How to Be Yourself: Quiet the Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety. In this episode, we talk about the fear of being judged or rejected, and how to manage our somewhat distorted (and often annoying) thoughts. We’ve heard this before…your thoughts are NOT always true. Ellen talks about many ways to quiet the inner chatter that takes us down a rabbit hole and prevents us from living life to its fullest. She shares how we can actually rewire our brains through our behavior and how to truly be our best. It’s not easy…but she has lots of small steps we can take. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Adrian Owen, a renowned neuroscientist, discovered that individuals in a persistent coma could still communicate- and he went one step further and listened to what they wanted to say. He’s also performed the largest sleep and cognition study in the world, and demonstrated why brain training apps are bunk, and what we can do to sleep better and improve our own conscious function. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Do you lie awake at night, unable to sleep? What if the entire process of sleep was easy, even enjoyable? Dr. Chris Winter, neurologist and sleep medicine specialist, shows us how to re-think a good night's sleep. He offers insights both for adults and for parents dealing with “poor sleeping” kids. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Robert Hammond is The Co-founder of Friends of the High Line…the organization that lead the effort to build an elevated park on an abandoned railway line in Manhattan. I was intrigued by his story and his ted talk and by the fact that he’s not that different from the rest of us, but had the passion and hutzpah to help turn an abandoned steel industrial structure with wildflowers into a world-class park and tourist attraction in NYC. He started by simply trying to preserve it and ended up raising over $300 mm to turn it into something incredibly unique to the city. This interview is about his personal story and, ultimately, how he also became a Vedic meditation teacher. You can visit the Highline in NYC from below 14th street all the way to 34th street on the west side. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sarah Stein Greenberg is the author of a new book called “Creative Acts for Curious People. How to Think, Create and Lead in Unconventional Ways’’. A quote from the book sums it up: “In an era of ambiguous, messy problems, as well as extraordinary opportunities for positive change, it’s vital to have both an inquisitive mind and the ability to act with intention. This book is filled with ways to build those skills with resilience, care, and confidence”. Sarah is the Executive Director of Stanford University’s d School or Design School. The tools and exercises in the book are a gift to the rest of us who’ve not yet had the opportunity to go through their programs designed to spark creativity, foster connection, and solve problems. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Epstein is a family physician, palliative care Dr., author, researcher, and teacher of communication and mindful practice in medicine. His book, Attending, Medicine, Mindfulness, and Humanity explores how the foundations of mindfulness can help clinicians expand their capacity to provide high-quality care, and how doctors, patients, and their families can more collaboratively and mindfully approach medical decisions. He shares how the practice of mindfulness in medicine helps support a deeper understanding and connection between clinicians and patients, how we can flourish and be more resilient in the midst of uncertain situations, and how healthcare professionals can more skillfully cope with the discomfort of ambiguity. He also discusses his hope that the human aspects of medicine can become at least as important as the technical aspects of the future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Could “energy healing” be real? Do phenomena like manifestation really work? If it does, could we possibly understand how? Dr. Shamini Jain, scientist, and clinician at UCSD, shares her amazing studies of the biofield, and the evidence she and other colleagues have that demonstrates that this might be more real than we thought. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Manifesting what you want in life is a tantalizing prospect. Danette May shares her amazing story of how her mindset, process, determination…. and some manifestation, made profound changes in her life. She shares her process of how to shift your own mind to manifest what you want. In the following episode, we explore what might be going on scientifically in the experience of manifestation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Toni Bernhard is an author who has written 4 books on issues related to coping with physical and emotional pain and illness. The book we discussed today is called “How to Be Sick. A Buddhist Inspired Guide for the Chronically Ill and Their Caregivers.” Her companion guide is an amazing resource of coping tools. Toni has been living with a viral infection for 20 years and, as such, lives with pain and fatigue every day. She was previously a Law Professor at UC Davis until her life took this unexpected turn. Her books share her personal story but are also compilations of the wisdom and tools that have helped her cope with the physical and emotional challenges she continues to face. I found her to be uplifting, graceful, honest, and wise as she shared how she has navigated and accepted her life journey…for better and for worse. You’ll hear how illness can be a metaphor for life and how we can all handle the mix of joys and sorrows that we inevitably face. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm