Rick Hanson – Inspired New Horizons

Digging in & Getting to Work

The compelling metaphors of spring being a time of rebirth, new beginnings and growth are not lost on me. Every time I go for a walk in nature, I marvel at the seemingly slow process of a tiny bud pushing with all its might at the very tip of a fragile naked branch. Just a few days later, I discover that the tight bud has swelled and softened. And then later in the warmth of afternoon sunshine, voila — the bud has now unfurled and I see tiny green leaves.

Now the process begins again. The fragile pale green leaflets will grow over time and one day later this summer, they will actually provide shade for the ground cover that is the understory of this forest. In the fall, the seeds will drift downward and nestle into the soft compost beneath the understory – and next spring, those seeds will pop up and start the process anew.

I find myself wondering what has taken us so long to reframe our own personal growth in the same transformational way that we view springtime.

It is precisely why I have been encouraging us all to consider self discovery and personal growth in a dynamic new way. We are not only works in progress at every stage of our life, we are ever-growing, adapting and changing throughout our lifetimes. Much like the image of a majestic oak tree used to symbolize strength, stability, endurance and longevity, we too are ever growing.

Taking ownership of our personal growth over the course of our life changes everything. We no longer have to view our past history and adversities as impediments that uprooted us. We can more accurately see how the stories we have told ourselves about our lived experiences have often had a far greater impact on shaping us than the event itself.

As human beings, we are designed to make meaning out of the experiences in our lives. The root cause of our stunted personal growth is that we were only budding young authors during our most profound developmental stages – early childhood and adolescence.

We’ve heard it said over and over again: “change the narrative and it will change the way you see yourself.” This is one of the foundational principles that should be guiding our personal growth throughout our lifetimes. We need to become better storytellers and discerning meaning makers.

Many of the stories we tell ourselves have long roots going back to the first drafts we wrote when we were young. When we go back and revisit these stories with the intention of editing, updating and rewriting them, it is in essence pulling up the weeds and tangled vines — and revealing to ourselves just how much we’ve grown over time.

With a fresh perspective and a growth mindset, we can really dig in and get to work. We can become master gardeners for our self discovery and personal growth.

Re-imagining how we can repurpose what we have learned and discovered about ourselves over the years, helps us dig a little deeper into our raw material and use it wisely and with good intention.

Best selling authors frequently share that they “wrote the book they needed to read” or a well-known psychologist will confess that their “research” was actually “me-search.”

Taking a cue from these folks, we can begin to write the stories that shape us in the most transformational ways. We should not stay stuck in those old narratives that limit our potential.

A Trowel and a Notebook:

When my kids were teenagers, I would often ask them “What have you learned from this experience?” They were not huge fans of this parenting tool, for it required them to stop and think about their choices and the subsequent outcomes. It felt like hard work and they much preferred to be grounded than breaking ground.

I didn’t realize it then — but what I was intuitively trying to do was get them to “think on their own” and be able to make better decisions in the future when faced with similar (but much more consequential) events.

What I knew from my own lived experiences as a 40 year old mom was that a lack of self-reflection usually led to breakdowns. What I wanted for my teenaged kids were more “break throughs” in their self awareness and sense of agency.

“What have you learned from this experience?” was a trowel; an invitation to dig a little deeper into what motivated them to make certain choices and to step back and see if the outcome matched their values. Did their choices and behaviors help them get where they wanted to go in life?

I have a confession – I did not see this simple question as the meaningful tool it truly is when I was a middle-aged mom of fast growing teenaged boys. I just knew they needed something from me that they could take into adulthood as a guidepost for building the life they wanted. The life I hoped they would have; one that was a little less bumpy than my own had been.

Finding our footing and being grounded in mid-life is a super power and not a punishment. But we can only be “grounded” in our values if we have in fact done some serious self-reflection.

For the record, grounding my teenaged boys would not have had the same impact as making them reflect on their own life lesson in real time – just ask Dr. Becky Kennedy.

Today, thanks to Arthur C. Brooks and his book “Build the Life You Want”, I now have a greater awareness of the incredible value of asking ourselves “what have we learned from this experience.” It is the trowel we need in our personal growth toolbox.

Arthur Brooks tells us that whenever something in your life has unraveled, pull out a journal and write down what’s happening and how you feel about it. Come back a week later and write down how you are feeling about it now after some time has passed. Are you able to see a silver lining yet? He tells us to revisit a breakdown in a month, in 6 months and even a year later. Was there a breakthrough?

That old adage “time will tell” rings very true when we take Arthur’s advice to heart. What have we learned from that one heartbreaking experience or major adversity that has enriched our life or opened our eyes in entirely new ways? How has it shaped us?

It is this self-reflection, done over time, that helps us with fundamental building blocks for building a life we truly want. We tell ourselves stories to make meaning of our experiences. But the first draft of our stories is often fraught with too many emotional cliff notes. These jagged first drafts keep us stuck in the painful parts of our stories.

We need time for each experience to fully develop, just like a photo taken with an instamatic camera. It is over time, with edits and re-writes that we grow into what life had to teach us through our experiences. Arthur’s simple journaling exercise is how we plot our changes and observe our development.

Personal growth and self discovery is a process. Of course the events in our life have impact and shape us in ways that we may not even realize. Some of our best lessons have a very long germination period. Getting curious about how we are growing is a fresh new perspective to adopt.

Anyone who loves gardening will tell you that patience is a virtue when it comes to planting seeds, nurturing them and providing the right environment for them to survive and then thrive. This organic growing process is the one we want to emulate for ourselves and our life experiences. We can be much more proactive and intentional about how life events impact our personal growth. It requires patience with ourselves as well as the process.

The beauty in this shift in how we approach our personal growth and self discovery is that we can begin at any time. We can start small and work our way deeper into our library of life experiences for more insight and enrichment later.

Choose just one recent event in your life that felt like you might be breaking ground for something new to emerge.

Did a friend offer you a reframing for a struggle you are having and suddenly you saw a whole new path forward?

Maybe you stopped to realize that the same old approach to a recurring problem just isn’t working and you decided to change how you react and respond.

Were you facing a very difficult decision having to choose between two appealing opportunities? Were you able to feel your way intuitively into making the best choice for you at the time?

We get these little nudges for growth spurts almost daily. Anytime we can stop and do a little check-in about the stories we are telling ourselves, we are acting like skillful gardeners attending to our personal growth and self discovery.

Give This Some Thought:

Take some time to think about how telling yourself a different story would have impacted your emotions and experience over time by reflecting on a meaningful event in your life.

Ethan Kross, author of Shift, encourages us to ask family members and friends to help us see ourselves through their eyes.

My younger brother does this often for me when we talk about our childhood experiences. Where I see myself as a frightened ten year old, he saw me as a strong and courageous big sister who protected him. This fresh perspective helps me go back and edit a childhood experience with more context and nuance than I had access to as a kid.

Over the years, with his help, I have been able to see the tender shoots of my strengths pushing hard through a few childhood experiences, just the that tight little bud on my favorite tree. I was emerging; I just didn’t see it.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES:

Dr. Becky Kennedy’s parenting book is also helpful in understanding what gets in our own way when it comes to relationships and emotions. All too often we believe what we were told as kids and have made behaviors part of our identity. This book will free you up to see all that is Good Inside of you too.

This book is a game-changer. Instead of telling someone that what they are feeling or experiencing is wrong or not appropriate (which leads to telling ourselves unhelpful stories), we simply validate their true experience.

What Marcus Learned from His Mother May 9, 2025 In this episode, Ryan Holiday shares insights from the global pandemic experience that reshaped his life in profound ways. It is the tail end of this episode where he asks thought provoking questions that will help you rewrite better stories for your own life. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-daily-stoic/id1430315931?i=1000706718469

Architects of our Experiences

Surely you recall that childhood pleasure of a rainy day when mom or dad would drape blankets over couches and chairs, then stand back prepared to be amazed at what their creative little geniuses would do next. An ordinary living room suddenly transformed into a sensory wonderland that started with a simple blanket fort.

I came upon this sight a few days ago and marveled at the ingenuity of the little architects who began with a pint-sized castle that just kept morphing into something even grander with each “lightbulb” moment and the addition of another toy bin.

As the plans grew in size and complexity, there was a lot of trial and error. Shrieks of joyful delight filled the room as the framework collapsed and a new idea took shape from the rubble.

What a lesson to be learned from two small children actively engaged in an organic, evolving, complex and creative process. They were little architects of their playful experience.

Are you aware that we adults can become skillful architects of our own experiences?

It’s true — and the beauty of it is, we can tap into the creativity and positive outcomes that comes so easily to kids, by using our brains and bodies in a powerful new way.

Just imagine being able to construct experiences and supporting emotions that more consistently align with your goals and big aspirations. Fewer self-made obstacles, more smooth sailing.

Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett is breaking new ground in the science of emotion – overturning long-standing beliefs that our emotions are universal, automatic and hard-wired in different regions of the brain. Instead, we actually “construct” an instance of emotion through a remarkable interplay of our brain, body and our culture.

Anyone who has ever experienced a strong emotional trigger from an event that happened decades ago, has some appreciation for how quickly this remarkable interplay coalesces. It’s no wonder we believe it’s automatic and has become hard-wired into our systems.

And yet, we also know that it is possible to “re-wire” our brains and release old emotional triggers – freeing us from being snagged by that old experience over and over again. The neuroplasticity of our brains enables us to re-organize our old connections in new and improved ways.

This rewiring process is analogous to children reorganizing their fort framework to become something more useful for an even more incredible structural masterpiece.

It turns out that becoming “architects of our emotions and experiences” it is not as big a stretch that we once believed. How remarkable is that?

Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett is gifted at making this new concept readily accessible to all of us. There are three key components that we need to know more about when it comes to curating our architectural tool bag: body budget, emotional granularity and cultivating more current, diverse experiences.

Today’s post is the first in a three part series about becoming skillful architects of our experiences. Prepare to be amazed at the role our body budget plays in our emotional reactions to life.

Body Budget

A major part of becoming skilled architects of our experiences involves mastering our emotions. We erroneously believe that our emotions that are the first system to get activated — and we have to “manage” those strong emotions in order to respond effectively to our circumstances. But this is not the case.

What actually happens first is that our brains are estimating what’s in our tank and predicting how much of our inner resources are going to be required to meet the present moment. It would be analogous to us hopping in our car for a big road trip and looking at the gas gauge to determine how far we can get before refueling.

Our brains are only 2% of our body weight, but they use 20% of the oxygen we consume and 20% of the energy we consume. What our brains and bodies need in order to have a balanced body budget are consistent quality sleep, hydration, good nutrition and movement, i.e. regular exercise.

We are learning so much more than we ever knew about the importance of consistent quality sleep for our optimum brain health. Even while we are sleeping, our brain is storing and categorizing information, cleaning and purging, updating and rejuvenating. We are even cognizant of the disruption that caffeine and alcohol has on our sleep cycles and the integral neural processes that occur only during sleep.

The benefits of good nutrition, hydration and regular exercise are irrefutable. But while we know these components are needed, we often forget that we are also draining our resources throughout the day and should pay attention to when we need a break, should take a walk, or grab a healthy snack. How often are we literally running on fumes?

Let’s just pause here for a minute and think about the amount of time we devote to charging our phones, making sure we have 5g network and cooling it off if we get a heat warning. What if we were to become as knowledgeable about our brains which are operating 24/7 for us – and often without any awareness of the drain on our inner resources?

All this time that we believed we were at the mercy of our emotions, we may simply be attempting to function optimally on an empty fuel tank. Very often what we are “feeling” is not an emotion, but rather an indicator that our body budget is out of balance.

Since our brains are lightening fast at the estimation and prediction process, they get our body ready for a response that might include an increased heart rate, shallow breathing, or release of chemicals and hormones such as adrenaline or cortisol. We “feel” these sensations and “assign” an emotion to it. We might tell ourselves we feel scared, angry, anxious, uncertain, elated or surprised.

We’ve been doing this for most of our lives without a second thought, so it has become second nature to associate an emotion with whatever we are sensing in our bodies. Once we assign an emotion, we are off to the races – and often unconsciously,

Since our brains are prediction machines, it will quickly run through our historical database to find past events that simulate what we are feeling in the present moment. This complex retrieval system is on auto pilot most of the time; we are unconsciously running an algorithm that reviews our personal history looking for matches.

After the match is made, our amazing brain has one more remarkable feature — it runs a prediction error model. This is the brain’s way of giving us the opportunity to discard old data and replace it with newer, more appropriate data that suits the current situation.

For the record, we often bypass or override this integral prediction error process. If it “feels” like a past experience, we pull the “all systems go” switch. This is how we’ve forged our “go to” behavioral patterns and protective armor. Without a moment’s hesitation, we assign an emotion, recall a past similar experience and jump into a memorized and familiar reactive pattern.

When we are pivoting to becoming architects of our experiences, we can start to pay more attention to both predictions and prediction errors. We can take the time to see if we are simply relying on an old database that no longer serves us well. This is how we “re-wire” those old outgrown behavioral patterns and replace them with new responses better suited to our lives today.

If the first brain system to get activated is simply an assessment of internal resources that are needed for the present situation, then we can start paying attention to body budget first and emotional responses second. This is a game-changing pivot in both mindfulness and self awareness. Think of this as a little “self check-in”. Are you resourced internally? Have you assigned an emotion and if so, does it feel appropriate to the current situation?

If we can make the distinction that our body budget is actually causing us to be under-resourced and not some big emotional reactions, we can begin to dis-engage from strong emotional triggers and respond with more cognitive skills.

We think that emotional regulation is really hard and that changing our old behavioral patterns is even harder, but Dr. Barrett’s research is showing us that we just might have been making things much more challenging for ourselves all along by not understanding the role body budget plays.

It is the very reason that we have “variation” in our moods, emotional states and our ability to think clearly. Dr. Barrett offers us a welcome sigh of relief — it turns out that “variation” is the norm.

There are times when we do feel in control, cognitively and emotionally. We meet even the most stressful moments calmly, with a good sense of humor, a healthy acceptance of reality. We can even help others calm down and self-regulate when we feel this way.

Then there are times when we are short-tempered, can overreact to the smallest of events, or work ourselves into a state of frenzy. We set off a chain reaction of emotional reactions in others and things can escalate quickly.

Variation is the norm. And now we know what might be the real cause — a body budget deficit.

We get notifications throughout our busy day from our brains and bodies about what is needed to keep us running optimally. We even have terms we’ve created to diagnose our body budget deficits – such as hangry, brain fog, getting on our last nerve and no bandwidth. But unlike the ding of a notification from our phone, we often ignore the alerts we are getting from our brain about our own energy drain.

We frequently overlook the small investments we can be making all throughout the day to keep our body budget in balance. We may start with a full tank in the morning after a good night’s rest, a tall glass of water and a healthy breakfast; but we are going to begin to drain our body budget resources as the day goes on. Exercising, staying hydrated, making healthy choices for snacks and meals, taking breaks, getting outdoors, and unplugging from our devices are just a few of the multitude of ways we can restock our inner resources.

The biggest paradigm shift in understanding how we “make our emotions” is coming from a deep understanding of the role our body budget plays in our daily lives.

Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett is a pioneer in her fields of neuroscience and psychology – and she is helping us to get very savvy about our incredible, complex brain and body systems. If we take better care of ourselves, and pay attention to our body budget, this whole business of emotional regulation might just get a whole lot easier.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES:

Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett will captivate you with her compelling Ted Talk about how emotions are made. Click this link to listen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gks6ceq4eQ&t=140s

Check out this episode of the Huberman Lab podcast where Dr Lisa Feldman Barrett is Andrew’s guest to discuss How to Understand Emotions https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/huberman-lab/id1545953110?i=1000631446646

Constant Companion

Vulnerability is a fine precision tool that drills small openings in our armor, our fears and our awareness. A series of tiny. little openings allowing light to fall into the “what matters most” center of our being. It is the continual “breaking open” process that nourishes our life.

The very word “vulnerability” conjures up images so far from the truth of its strength, courage and tenacity. Against all odds, it is our vulnerability that protects us most and often is the jettison force needed to take action. Vulnerability is a constant life companion.

Vulnerability whispers in your ear when you are crying, heartbroken and empty. Vulnerability whispers that you don’t need to stay any longer. Vulnerability says “I will help you pack.”

Vulnerability reaches into your heart and makes space for your newborn as you craddle him in your arms, so tiny and fragile. Vulnerability places gifts of patience, resilience and resourcefulness you’ve never known possible in that heart space. You will operate on too little sleep and a deep well of love for many years. Vulnerability is your constant companion and your reservoir as you parent for the rest of your life.

Vulnerability embraces you and holds space for you alone for days, as you absorb the diagnosis. Vulnerability sits patiently as you tumble through an emotional vortex without judgment. Vulnerability listens to unspoken words, watches in silence as you envision all possible and impossible scenarios. Vulnerability hugs you when you have made your decision days later. Vulnerability becomes your invisible strength partner on your journey no matter the outcome.

Vulnerability sits with you weighing the pros and cons of pursuing a bigger dream. Vulnerability views the sacrifices, the risks, the rewards, the long hours and renewed sense of purpose. Vulnerability rarely misses a detail in the complex decision making process and still offers a nudge to seize the moments. Vulnerability smiles with you as you take that first step forward into a long-time dream.

Vulnerability never leaves your side when you are fraught with worry over a loved one though you cannot change a thing. Vulnerability listens to your heart, your fears, your prayers. Vulnerability helps you discover new depths of your love and faith.

Vulnerability urges you to call a trusted friend when you are falling apart.

Vulnerability reminds you it is ok to ask for help or state a boundary. Vulnerability holds your hand while you hold your breath waiting for a response or a reaction.

Vulnerability will wash into every corner of your very being when you fall in love — with your partner, with your grandchild, or with a passion. You will learn more about yourself than you ever knew possible.

Vulnerability’s best friend is courage. Vulnerability drills those little openings to break free of what holds us back and courage pulls us into a different direction, or back into life, or launches us on a growth spurt.

People who live wholeheartedly lives have come to understand that vulnerability is a strength for it opens our hearts to ourselves and to each other. Vulnerability enables us to get in touch with our deeper human emotional connection. Vulnerability makes no promises about rosy outcomes or happy endings but it invites and encourages us to not let fear hold us back from love and belonging or from pursuing dreams and passions.

The most valuable lesson that vulnerability taught me was that my heart can be broken but not irreparably. My heart will expand in all the places that it was broken and my capacity to love and be loved will grow exponentially. Love is a renewable source of hope, inspiration, comfort, peace and joy. Vulnerability encourages me to go bravely forward for there remains much to be learned from all of life’s experiences.

Evolving or Revolving?

There has been a golden thread running through my recent conversations with good friends that has really lifted my spirits in the most astounding way. What I am marveling at is this beautiful paradox of acceptance and awareness. As we reflect on our past, we recognize and accept that we were doing the best we could with what we had, or knew, in that moment in time. Now we possess better tools, wisdom borne from experience, and a reconnection with our most authentic selves.

The gift of old friendships is that we remind each other of the younger version of ourselves — and the magnetic attributes of our personality that became the bond of our lifelong friendship…..long before they got camoflaged or diluted by life. The treasure in new friendships is finding common ground through our life stories that help us see ourselves in others. In both cases, we can extend a helping hand and encouragement to help others evolve. As Maya Angelou so wisely expressed – “Forgive yourself for not knowing what you didn’t know before you learned it.”

I have long believed that those who have overcome adversities in life and became good role models for perseverance, resilience and positivity were such guiding lights to all of us. These beacons of hope are not just those who have attained celebrity status or reside in in our history books, they walk among us. They are our family and friends who are survivors and thrivers.

I recently listened to Brene Brown’s podcast with Dr. Edith Eger and found myself captivated by her observation that we are either “evolving” or “revolving”. Dr. Eger is a 93 year old inspirational dynamo, a Holocaust survivor, who drew on her personal life experiences in her career as a clinical psychologist to help others free themselves from the prison of their own minds. Just last fall, she published her latest book, The Gift: 12 Lessons to Save Your Life. What I love most about her short, yet oh so impactful book, are the questions she poses in each chapter that really stop you in your tracks and make you take a good hard look in the mirror. Questions like: “would you like to be married to you? You can’t heal what you can’t feel. Are you evolving or revolving?”

In her first book, The Choice, Dr. Eger wrote an inspirational book of overcoming the trauma of her Holocaust experience and healing the pain associated with it. She truly believes her purpose is to provide encouragement and support to help others overcome trauma and live a meaningful enriched life. In this second book, she expands on her message of healing and “provides a hands on guide that gently encourages us to change the thoughts and behaviors that keeps us imprisoned in the past.”

One silver lining that has arisen from the uncertainty and upheaval of 2020, is the deepening of friendships. My friends and I have leaned in, opened up and found so much help and hope amongst each other. Not surprisingly, it has unearthed a lot of the messaging we received from our past experiences that informs our decisions and lives as we go forward.

My friends and I are embracing an “evolving” mantra as we go forward in our lives. We take with us the hard-earned lessons that life has taught us and we are owning the blind spots and old reactive behavior patterns that no longer serve us well. We support each other in this evolution, because it does require a lot of hindsight, insight, hard work and new practices. Oddly enough, for many of my female friends it also requires getting very comfortable with setting boundaries. This is probably the one area where we offer to each other the greatest encouragement.

Dr. Edith Eger offers a touchstone for those of us who struggle with speaking our truth when someone crosses a boundary that is rooted in our core values. She teaches that freedom is having choices. We have the choice to say “no” and we have the choice to say “this response or behavior is not helpful to me”. We can free ourselves from the unconscious choice to ignore bad behavior or poor emotional regulation from others. Dr. Eger makes clear that we sacrifice and suffer when we accept the unacceptable. She encourages us to find our personal empowerment and break free. It is our choice. When she shared that fear and love cannot co-exist, it really resonated with me. We think of love as soft and mushy but it just the opposite– it is the super glue of life. Love is supported with accountability and trust. It forges a strong foundation for all our relationships. We shouldn’t be afraid to tell those who love us what we truly need to heal, to survive and to evolve.

Fear of repercussion kept me from holding boundaries many times in my life. But that fear also meant that I made a lot of sacrifices and suppressed my true self to either please others or avoid their disapproval. The path of least resistance was not the path to happiness or wholehearted, authentic living. How can we possibly be the best version of our true selves if we are operating from fear?

My friends and I have been having some really good discussions about fear and about the power of perspective and reframing things. As we hold ourselves in both awareness of our own behavioral patterns and a renewed accountability to change our responses, we realize that we have more empathy and clarity for others. I do believe that this is one of the greatest insights we gain from our own personal growth work. It truly enables us to “walk in another’s shoes”. We gain a better understanding of other’s “soft spots” and “trigger points”. We can respect that their history has created these bruises, not us. We can then choose to find a more caring approach for challenging discussions. Imagine how it would feel if someone took great care to understand the root cause of your deepest emotional wounds.

In her book, Dr. Eger offers some incredible real-life examples of people who have endured major adversities and chose to shift their perspective to see the silver linings and the gifts that can be found even in our darkest moments.

Here is Dr. Eger’s inspiration for shifting our perspectives:

“What a beautiful reminder that the things that interrupt our lives, that stop us in our tracks, can also be catalysts for the emerging self, tools that show us a new way to be, that endow us with new vision. That is why I say that in every crisis, there is a transition. Awful things happen, and they hurt like hell. And these devastating experiences are also opportunities to regroup and decide what we want for our lives. When we choose to respond to what’s happened by moving forward and discovering our freedom to, we release ourselves from the prison of victimhood.” —From the Gift: 12 Lessons to Save Your Life

It’s been cathartic for my friends and I to share our personal stories and hard life experiences that helped us evolve and discover something new about ourselves. Many of us have had similar experiences such as the death of a beloved spouse, a divorce, a job loss, being single moms, and cancer.

It is in the shared stories of our grief and recovery that we find footholds for our own journeys in life. Over this past week, I have heard so many touching stories from friends about the words of encouragement that they have given to others, or the space that they held sacred for others in the deepest grief. They are offering to others what they themselves would have most appreciated in their dark moments. And they are doing it better than ever because of their conscious personal growth work.

A meaningful benefit of doing any self-discovery and personal growth work is that you will be a source of encouragement and hope for others who are also seeking to “evolve” through their all their life experiences. Life happens….how we respond is our choice and our strength.

Recommended Resources:

A special credit goes to my son in law, Ted Larsen, for the t-shirt image I used in this blog post today — when I saw him wearing this shirt recently, it brought a huge smile to my face.

Filled with empathy, insight, and humor, The Gift captures the vulnerability and common challenges we all face and provides encouragement and advice for breaking out of our personal prisons to find healing and enjoy life. (excerpted from Amazon.com)

https://brenebrown.com/podcast/brene-with-dr-edith-eger-on-recognizing-the-choices-and-gifts-in-our-lives/

Being Well Podcast with Dr. Rick Hanson and Forrest Hanson How To Change for Good https://www.facebook.com/rickhansonphd/posts/1869119006584107

Maria Shriver’s Sunday Paper: The Power of You