In this follow-up on the recent episode “How Relationships Reveal Us”, Alexa joins Joe and Brett to dive deeper into the premise that we’re all attracted to the partners who trigger us the best. We discuss how trigger and attraction are related and how avoiding the feelings underneath our triggers can produce relationship dynamics that last for years if left unexamined. Learn to recognize and welcome your own triggers as well as those of a partner, finding the empowerment to draw boundaries and share desires from a place of kindness.
Tag: personal development
Episode 59 — How Relationships Reveal Us — Relationships Series #1
Brett and Joe address curiosities from listeners about how to approach relationships in a healthy way, riffing on the observation that we find ourselves attracted to the people who most perfectly hook into our triggers, traumas, and projections. Seeing this pattern as a feature rather than a bug, relationships become a vessel for deep healing and personal growth.
Episode 56 — The Anatomy of Shame – Emotion Series #8
Joe and Brett examine shame as the conditioned outline of our identity, sharing tools to deconstruct and melt it on an intellectual, emotional, and somatic level. “All we’re doing here is freeing the blocking of emotions by feeling into our body and creating love where there was abandonment.”
Episode 55 — How Do I Trust Myself? (Coaching Session)
Joe coaches a course participant through an exploration of self-trust. Beginning with an intellectual question about conflicted inner parts, our guest embraces the underlying emotional experience and touches the essence of who she is.
Episode 54 — The Upright Apology: Accountability Without Shame
Apologies are commonly associated with shame, power games, or beliefs about who’s right and who’s wrong. In this episode, we talk about the freedom to be had in making apologies without shame and in full ownership of our experience. “When you make an apology that’s upright, that’s empowered, it feels fantastic. You feel strength in it. You feel responsible. You feel empowered.”
Episode 53 — Emile DeWeaver — Life After Murder: On Fear, Freedom, and Identity
At the age of eighteen — just before the birth of his child — Emile began serving a life sentence for murder. In this episode, Emile tells us how he came to face the fear that drove him to kill a man, and which followed him into prison. He shares how he learned to love himself and see through an identity that might have otherwise imprisoned him in yet another manner. After finding inner freedom, Emile eventually wrote his way out from behind bars as well: his sentence was commuted in 2017 after serving twenty-one years, a testament to his journey and transformation. “I am under no illusions, right? I cannot make amends to the man I killed. I cannot make amends to his family. I still need to be a north star, right? In my world, in my life. So I can spend my time hating myself, [or] I could spend my time helping to create a world where little kids don’t kill other little kids.”
Episode 52 — When the Story Falls Apart: How Beliefs and Emotions Interact
Beneath the stories we tell are emotions waiting to be felt. In this episode, we talk about how our stories and emotions interact and how feeling our emotions can help us find deeper stories. “If you allow the emotions to move you, your stories change, period. Every time.”
Episode 51 — Will Chesney — Reintegrating as a Combat Veteran, Surviving a Traumatic Brain Injury and Transcending an Old Identity
Will Chesney found identity and purpose as a Navy SEAL, one of the military’s most elite teams, where he was required to perform calmly and effectively under the most extreme circumstances. However, years of neurological and psychological trauma left Will in a very dark place. Unable to do what he loved most or connect effectively with others, he turned to drinking and isolation. After hitting rock bottom, a friend reached out and invited Will to join him on a journey of self-discovery that allowed him to tap into his resilience and get himself back on his feet. Tune in as we learn what Will did to find healing and meaning in life after war. Will served in the U.S. Naval Special Warfare Development Group as an operator and a dog handler in the Osama Bin Laden raid. He was awarded a Silver Star and Purple Heart for his bravery. “I woke up and it was me again at one point during the weekend. I know I was a SEAL and everybody always says, “Oh, we can’t relate to what you’ve gone through.” But everybody has trauma. Every life is good but life’s hard sometimes. Everybody deals with trauma no matter…
Episode 50 — Connection: A State Beyond States
We talk a lot about connection in this podcast — connection with ourselves, our emotions, our relationships and with the world around us. It’s essentially what we’re pointing to in every topic we discuss. In today’s episode, we talk about why that is, and how orienting toward connection in all aspects of our lives facilitates sustained expansion, increases our capacity, and puts us in touch with something bigger than ourselves.
Episode 49 — Joe Sanok — Living on the Road, Opening to Heartbreak and Parenting as a Single Dad
In Episode 49, Brett interviews Joe Sanok, a business consultant and productivity researcher who, until recently, lived full-time in a camper with his wife and children. When he and his wife decided to uncouple, it changed both Joe’s and his children’s lives in a big way. Learn how Joe used his meditation practice and other self-exploration tools to allow his world to unfold beautifully through surrender to reality as it was rather than clinging to what he thought it should be. Joe’s latest book is “Thursday is the New Friday,” a book about the four-day work week. He’s also the host of the Practice of the Practice podcast. “As soon as the sun came up at 5:30, I was wide awake. And so to say, I’m awake, what can I do to ground myself to be the dad I want to be? To be the person I want to be? To be the business owner I want to be? My strongest meditation practice started then and it came from a place of need rather than a place of, ‘I should be doing this.'”