Boost Happiness & Lower Stress In 30 Days

Did you know that you can actually train your brain to have more joyful, positive thoughts? This can have a lasting, positive impact on your neurology. Today’s fireside chat talks about neuroplasticity and how you can rewire your brain to experience greater joy and fulfillment in your life, no matter the circumstances. The fireside chat is a companion audio that goes along with the guided meditations to deepen your understanding of each topic.

Today’s guided meditation will support you in savoring even more joy in your daily life by focusing on the good. You'll practice four steps to take in the good, based in neuroscience. First, you'll help positive events become positve experiences. Second, you'll savor the experience by extending it through time and space. Third, you'll practice soaking it into your brain, heart, and every cell of your body. And fourth, you'll fill the hurt with love by sensing this positive experience is going down deep into old wounds and hurt places inside you and soothing them.

Today’s fireside chat will teach you how to use your breath to activate the parasympathetic nervous system. This parasympathetic breathing technique will cause you to feel relaxed, peaceful, and calm. It’s super easy, and you can do this technique anywhere in less than a minute! As Rick Hanson says, "Unfortunately, our modern go-go-go culture pushes people into sympathetic nervous system overdrive with few opportunities for sustained parasympathetic recovery." Tomorrow's guided meditation will help you cultivate parasympathetic recovery.

Today’s guided meditation will support you in practicing the technique you learned about yesterday. You’ll be using your breath to relax as you activate the parasympathetic nervous system. The parasympathetic nervous system conserves energy in your body and is responsible for ongoing, mellow, steady-state activity. The feeling of it is relaxation, often with a sense of contentment.

In today’s fireside chat, you’ll learn PhD Kristin Neff’s cutting-edge research on self-compassion which includes how to turn your inner critic into your inner coach, the surprising negative consequences of self-esteem (Hint: it has to do with narcissism), why self-compassion is a more effective and lasting solution than self-esteem and how to cultivate a more compassionate inner voice.

Today’s guided meditation is one of my favorite practices. Have you noticed there’s a voice inside your head, and it’s not always nice? We all have an inner critic telling us we’re not good enough, we’ll never make it, we don’t look good. When things get tough, it’s tempting to give up and cave in to that critical voice. The antidote to this inner self-flagellation is self-compassion. After today’s meditation, you’ll know that you are not alone in your struggles, and that you are loved.

We’ve all been there - lying in bed at night with your mind racing, thinking of all the things you didn’t get done that day or all the things you still need to get done tomorrow. Ruminating or getting stuck in a cycle of worry is exhausting. Sometimes, worry can show up disguised as “planning”, but it isn’t productive or useful. In today’s fireside chat, you’ll learn why the physiological impact of ruminating is so destructive and how you can get out of the worry cycle with greater ease.

Today’s guided meditation will help you lower anxiety and stop the worry cycle. You’ll learn to be more gentle with your thoughts as you give yourself permission, just for this little while, to simply relax. After the practice, you'll feel a sense of calm and ease.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have more energy? In this fireside chat, you’ll assess your current energy level and get clear on what you need to prioritize to increase it. Sleep, nutrition, the people around you - there are always ways to improve your energy. Most of the time, we know what we need to do and yet we don’t do it. Today, you’ll learn a technique to improve energy on demand and gain new insights into what’s preventing you from optimizing your current energy.

Today’s guided meditation will help you increase your energy, so you can show up as your biggest, brightest self.

Today, you’ll be learning research-backed tools to improve focus and increase productivity. During this fireside chat, you’ll learn my favorite productivity tool, along with some tips and tricks to be focused and present with those you love.

Whether you’re constantly distracted at work or with your kids, today’s focusing technique will help you harness your awareness and channel it towards those things that matter most to you. This guided practice, inspired by Robert Fritz, will help you improve concentration and feel increased aliveness and a sense of calm and balance.

Research has shown those who practice gratitude tend to be happier and less depressed. As you experience positive emotions like gratitude and compassion, your awareness broadens and your creativity and problem-solving capacities will increase, making you more effective at whatever you choose to do. As Jack Kornfield says, “If we see the world as sacred, which is an expression of the spiritual life, then gratitude follows immediately and naturally.”

In today’s meditation, we are turning our attention inward, focusing on cultivating gratitude. Today’s practice will help you feel deeply grateful for all the good things you have in your life. Use this practice to let go of stress and feel greater joy, inner peace, and a deep appreciation for all that you are, all that you have and all that you are in the process of becoming.

We live in a busy culture where people are running a million miles a minute and only a few of us take the time to pause and ask, “What is it I really want?” Clarity doesn’t magically appear. You must cultivate it. If you want to be thoughtful about planning the next phase of your life, so that it’s fulfilling and meaningful for you and your loved ones, you’ll appreciate today’s fireside chat and tomorrow’s guided meditation! Today, you’ll learn how to clarify your ideal vision, set inspiring goals, tune into a deeper wisdom that knows the “right” path for you, create a three-year vision for your life, and get inspired about the possibilities for you moving forward.

It's important to dedicate time and space for inspiration and reflection. Today, you’ll be guided through a process to create a three year vision for your life and expand what you believe is possible. What are you waiting for? Your future self is waiting for you under a moonlit sky…

Fear and self-doubt are a natural part of progress. Learning to let go of fear and self-doubt is a critical life skill. No one ever accomplished anything truly amazing without facing their fears. If you want to have greater meaning and fulfillment, learning how to overcome your fear is vital. In today’s fireside chat, you’ll learn that while your fear might continue to crash the party, it doesn’t have to play hostess.

Fear can stop you from taking a chance, falling in love, asking for a promotion, and putting yourself in the spotlight. In short, fear can stop you from living your greatest life. Today you will be taught a gentle practice to befriend and release your fears and doubts, so you can get on living the life of your dreams.

Forgiveness is not always easy to cultivate and yet it is a necessary part of our healing and ability to come back into wholeness with ourselves. When we hold onto a wound or a hurt from someone else, the pain stays with us. When we’re able to release the past and forgive others, and ourselves, we are set free. In today’s fireside chat, I share a deeply personal and raw story about my own experience with forgiveness.

In Buddhist psychology, forgiveness is understood as a way to end suffering; to bring dignity and harmony to our life. Forgiveness is fundamentally for our own sake, for our own mental health. It is a way to let go of the pain we carry. In today's meditative and forgiveness practice, we start by recognizing that we have all betrayed and hurt others, just as we have knowingly or unknowingly been harmed by them. It is inevitable in this human realm. By extending and receiving forgiveness, we can begin to experience redemption from our past.

Grasping or clinging to something you desperately want leads to suffering. Resisting what you don’t want also leads to suffering. How can we surrender and allow things to happen, while also taking action to steer our lives toward our desires? That’s what we’ll be talking about today. In today’s fireside chat, you’ll learn ways to open yourself to greater wisdom and guidance. I will also talk about how my daughter’s food poisoning gave me an important lesson and why clinging and resisting are two sides of the same coin (hint: both lead to suffering). We will also learn a mantra you can use to let go of control and help us trust that the Universe has your back.

This morning meditation practice will help you connect with your inner guidance as you ask, “What would you have me do today? Where would you have me go? What would you have me say and to whom?” You’ll learn a process to Surrender, Allow, and Trust (S.A.T.) the Universe or God to move in you, as you, and through you. After listening to this practice, you’ll be more connected to your intuition and better able to accept and surrender to life’s circumstances. You’ll also cultivate a deeper trust that the Universe has your back and that good things are coming your way.

Today, you’ll be learning how to increase confidence by letting go of “should” and connecting with your inner source. Do you second-guess your inner impulses? Have you ignored what you wanted in favor of what’s popular or chosen the approval of others over your own needs? That’s okay. We’ve all done that. You can make a different choice to honor and follow your truth in any situation, big or small, and today’s talk will help you do just that.

Today’s guided meditation will support you in trusting your deeper knowing and living with greater clarity and conviction. We were conditioned from a young age to please other people. This need to be liked is part of our wiring as human beings and is a basic survival mechanism. Yet, over time, it can erode your sense of self. Today’s practice will help you come home to yourself and your truth.

Have you ever loved a child or an animal so much that it physically hurt? If you’re a parent, it’s part of the territory. That’s what I call fierce love. Today and tomorrow you'll be practicing loving yourself fiercely. Loving kindness practice has been shown to reduce migraines, quiet the inner critical voice, reduce depressive symptoms, improve self-compassion, and increase positive emotions up to three months post intervention. Studies have also shown that regularly practicing loving kindness can strengthen your capacity for empathy and improve relationships. Tomorrow, you'll be receiving all these benefits and more during the guided meditation.

Today's practice was designed to cultivate loving kindness towards ourselves, those around us and close to us, and all sentient beings everywhere. Give yourself the love you deserve and desire with today’s guided practice.

Do you ever wish you could wave a magic wand and redo the past? Often, when we feel pain in our current life, it’s because something has reminded us of an unhealed wound from the past. We want the people in our current lives to fill these holes and help us feel better. The good news is that you are capable of offering yourself the healing you most need.

Today’s guided practice will help you revisit a painful experience from your past, and write a new script. You'll be visiting your inner child and allowing him or her to release painful energy. Then,you'll go to a healing, cozy place where you are loved and accepted unconditionally. This is a powerful healing practice that you can use anytime you want to comfort yourself and heal past wounds.

In today’s fireside chat, you’ll learn some of the most cutting-edge research that demonstrates our ability to influence not only our brains, but our genetics, DNA, and physical healing with our thoughts and beliefs. Epigenetics has now shown that we can turn different genes off and on, and we can impact our genetic structure by modifying how we see ourselves and what we believe. It’s wild stuff.

Today’s guided meditation was taught to me by energy healer Elizabeth Furest. In this practice, you’ll learn how to zap unhelpful neurons in your brain, and build new neural pathways to expand love, kindness, humor, and whatever value you like! I’ve been going back to this practice so often that I wanted to share it with you all today.