Donna Goldman, creator of Recipes 4 Survival and Director of The Refill Revolution, helps people build confidence in the kitchen while making more thoughtful use of food and resources. Her approach took shape after working on Peter Gabriel’s first North American WOMAD tour, when a simple breakfast prompted her to reconsider what it means to feel nourished. In this exclusive interview, Goldman shares how basic knife skills, familiar pantry staples, and a willingness to improvise can make home cooking more manageable. She also explores the connection between mindful meals, less waste, and the wider changes needed to make refill and reuse systems part of everyday shopping. Donna Goldman, Culinary Intuitive & Refill Revolution Director What first led you to see cooking as more than a practical skill and as a way to live more mindfully? What first led me to see cooking as something other than a practical skill and more as a way I could live more mindfully was when I had my first aha moment the morning after I finished working on Peter Gabriel’s first North American World of Music, Arts and Dance (WOMAD) tour and I made myself a simple breakfast of toast with peanut butter, spun honey, and a cup of tea at a friend’s place in the hills of Oakland, California, where I realized that, even though I was surrounded by catering and anything one would want was made available at the ready, I never felt satiated. Something was missing, and it wasn't simply about the food. That experience prompted me to look more closely at what it means to nourish ourselves and how our relationship with food affects our overall sense of well-being. This hunch became the catalyst for Recipes 4 Survival, Utilitarian Cooking and Much More, which began as a public access show on the Manhattan Neighborhood Network in April 1997. What started as an exploration of utilitarian cooking gradually grew into a broader philosophy: maintaining basic staples and cooking seasonally with organic ingredients could help hone one’s mindfulness practice and develop one’s intuition and creativity, building confidence not only in the kitchen but in everyday life. Cooking is a surefire way to ground oneself and come into the present moment. All our senses are engaged, which invites creativity and teaches us to trust our instincts. In other words, I feel a connection to the energy of unlimited potential, which I think of as channeling Source energy. I want people to discover that cooking isn’t merely another task on the daily list of things to do. It’s a mindfulness practice, an exercise in resourcefulness, and a way to nourish ourselves and others with greater intention. How do you help someone develop culinary intuition and trust their own instincts in the kitchen? I always begin a cooking session by encouraging my clients to engage all six of our senses, and maybe even more. We look, smell, listen, taste, and touch. I also explain that cooking is a much more creative venture than simply following a recipe. Recipes are valuable guidelines, but they rarely account for the realities of an individual cook’s skill level, attention span, equipment, nutritional knowledge, or personal preferences. These are just a few of the variables that can make following a recipe challenging. Once someone feels confident with a few basic knife skills, I’ve given them the fishing pole to go after whatever they wish. Every one of my clients experiences a shift in mindset after a knife skills lesson lasting an hour with me. As the familiar proverb suggests, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” That’s precisely what I want my Cutting Edge 101 and Kitchen Confidence workshops to offer: not just recipes to follow, but the practical skills and confidence to create meals independently, trust their instincts, and become resourceful in their own kitchens. My goal is not simply to teach someone what to cook, but to help them understand how to think in the kitchen. That independence is where culinary intuition begins. Where do you think modern convenience culture has most changed our relationship with food and cooking? I’m sorry to say it, but I see convenience culture going hand in hand with what I call the throwaway mentality, and I think it’s utterly unhealthy. When takeout and prepared, packaged meals become the norm, I worry that people lose their connection to the food they eat and confidence in their ability to feed themselves holistically. Cooking and grocery shopping can begin to feel like burdensome chores, when they can actually help us develop practical skills, creativity, and greater independence. An organized kitchen and a few reliable techniques can make home cooking surprisingly manageable, even in a small space with limited equipment. We don’t need elaborate meals. We need practical skills, flexible thinking, and a willingness to start where we are. What needs to change beyond individual habits for refill and reuse systems to become part of everyday consumer life? First off, meaningful change requires businesses to design containers and packaging to be refilled and reused. Large retail stores could dedicate space to refill stations that become vibrant community hubs, making reuse a convenient part of everyday shopping. Through my work as director of The Refill Revolution, I want to help advance a model in which people pay for the product they need rather than repeatedly paying for packaging that quickly becomes waste. Ultimately, the goal is to make reuse part of the infrastructure of everyday life, not an extra responsibility reserved for people who already have the time and resources to pursue it. What is one simple kitchen habit that can make someone both more resourceful and less wasteful? When I’m asked what a beginner habit could be to inspire mindful cooking, I typically respond with, “It’s great to know what YOUR arsenal of basic staples is.” Then, what’s in your fridge or freezer will guide your grocery shopping trip and really help to cut down on the overwhelm. Know what you have, and you’ll begin to see the possibilities. This way, when you see a dish or recipe that inspires you, you know you can give it a go with staples you feel comfortable working with. Instead of seeing staple vegetables, a jar of rice, or leftover grains as unrelated odds and ends, you know you can make something. Hearty vegetables and some fruits can make great soups. Changing up a dressing with tahini instead of Dijon can make a dish completely different. A stale baguette can become French toast just as easily and quickly as it can become pappa al pomodoro or Parmesan breadcrumbs for a great pasta dish. It also helps you shop more economically because you’re purchasing what you need rather than buying ingredients without a plan. I encourage people to think of recipes as flexible frameworks. Once you have basic knife skills and a few cooking techniques under your belt, you can adapt a dish to the ingredients you have available. Resourcefulness is about recognizing the value in what we have, using our creativity, and wasting less. How can home cooks reduce their reliance on packaged foods without making cooking feel complicated or restrictive? It’s funny: just as I started working on these interview questions, a New York magazine article titled “Eating Dinner in New York’s Prepared Food Boom” landed in my inbox and immediately grabbed my attention. The article described an influencer who treats shopping for prepared food as a hobby. I’ll spare you the gruesome details of this lengthy article, but this, combined with my natural disdain for feeding into the disposable, throwaway mentality of whatever generation happens to be trending, reinforces just how vital the message I want to share has become. The impetus for my latest iteration of Recipes 4 Survival, Mindful Meals & Sustainable Living, came from reading the ingredient labels on everything. Scary! Take breakfast cereals, for instance. Many contain added vitamins in the form of supplements I’d rather avoid. Now I make granola once a week. It takes about five minutes of active time to mix the ingredients and spread them on a tray, followed by roughly 20 minutes in the oven. I use natural ingredients that I can buy in bulk at a more economical price. Yes, cooking takes some time, but I believe your heart and soul are better served by spending that time this way than by running into a store for a packaged dinner in a throwaway container. Much of that packaging can remain in landfills for a long time, regardless of how compostable it may claim to be. Take hummus, for instance. Homemade hummus is so much tastier, takes very little effort, and uses wonderful, basic, nutritious staples. In about 20 minutes, you can have it made in your own home, with your music playing, feeling calm and clear, while avoiding another plastic container. Recipes 4 Survival, Mindful Meals & Sustainable Living is here to demonstrate that sustainable cooking has nothing to do with perfectionism. It’s about making thoughtful choices that work in real life. What does your philosophy of “cook more, spend less, and live mindfully” mean to you today? These three ideas, “cook more, spend less, and live mindfully,” are interconnected. Cooking more gives us greater control over what we eat, how we prepare it, and how we use the ingredients we purchase. Spending less is about getting more value from what we buy, reducing waste, and developing skills that make us less dependent on expensive convenience options. Living mindfully means paying attention to the consequences of our choices. Where did our food come from? Are we supporting farmers and producers whose practices align with our values? Are we buying more than we need? This philosophy is also about empowerment. Knowing how to feed yourself is a fundamental form of independence. When we become more resourceful in the kitchen, we can make choices that support our health, our finances, and the environment. We begin to recognize that ordinary routines can become opportunities for meaningful change. Through Recipes 4 Survival, I want “cook more, spend less, and live mindfully” to serve as a guiding philosophy people can put into practice every day. Mindful living doesn’t require perfection, a large kitchen, or an unlimited budget. It begins with awareness and grows through the everyday decisions we make. What is one change you hope people make in the way they eat, shop, or consume after encountering your work? I hope to inspire people to pause and ask themselves two simple questions before making a purchase: “Do I really need this?” and “Is there a more thoughtful way to meet that need?” This applies to more than food. I think about it when I see how easily we can fall into habitual spending. How many white shirts do I really need? Sometimes, the more meaningful choice is to use what we already have. When it comes to eating, rather than grabbing food to go, ordering takeout, or dining out, start simply. Make yourself eggs any style you like, starting with scrambled. Steam a sliced potato. Brew a cup of tea or coffee, and take your time enjoying it at home. These small acts of caring for yourself can make a surprising difference in how you feel about yourself and how you approach the rest of your day. Choosing groceries at a farmers market or a product without unnecessary packaging can also be a more thoughtful choice without sacrificing pleasure or quality. I recognize that not everyone has access to these options. I’m sharing possibilities, not prescribing a set of rules. My work brings together cooking, mindfulness, and sustainability because I see them as connected expressions of resourcefulness and independence. The kitchen is a wonderful place to begin: it’s tangible, familiar, and full of opportunities to make different choices every day. Ultimately, I hope people feel more capable and less overwhelmed. Whether they become more confident cooking for themselves, waste less food, spend more thoughtfully, or begin questioning our disposable culture, that’s meaningful progress. Individual actions matter, especially when they inspire others and help create demand for better systems. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Donna Goldman

Written by Madeleine Daleng Nyland, Founder & CEO of MAD Madeleine Daleng, a five-time Norwegian figure skating champion, now empowers people through rehabilitation, obesity coaching, and fitness training, blending insight from elite sport with a warm, practical approach. As the founder and CEO of MAD, she helps clients build strength, confidence, and sustainable habits that fit their everyday lives. Most of us have days when motivation comes naturally. We wake up energized, ready to tackle our tasks, exercise, and take on the world. Then there are the other days. Days when getting out of bed feels like a challenge. Days when work has been stressful, family life is demanding, or we simply feel drained. Maybe we've spent so much energy supporting others that there's very little left for ourselves. The reasons are endless, and that's exactly the point. Our fitness journey does not exist in isolation. It is deeply connected to everything happening in our lives. When life gets busy, stressful, or overwhelming, motivation is often one of the first things to disappear. That's why relying on motivation alone is rarely enough to create lasting habits. Yet interestingly, many people who maintain an active lifestyle don't do it because they feel motivated every day. They do it because they have found something they enjoy. The problem with chasing motivation There will always be days when we don't feel like working out. Sometimes resting is the right choice. Recovery is an important part of a healthy lifestyle. But more often than not, we're grateful when we do show up. Even if we adjust the workout, lower the intensity, or shorten the session, we usually finish feeling better than when we started. As a fitness professional, I hear this frequently: “Exercise just isn't for me.” Honestly, I understand why some people feel that way. Many have only experienced exercise through activities they didn't enjoy. If your only relationship with movement is forcing yourself through workouts you dislike, it's no surprise that motivation eventually disappears. Find your version of fitness Physical activity is recommended for everyone. However, there is no rule saying it has to look the same for everyone. This is where many people get stuck. They believe fitness means joining a gym, running long distances, or following someone else's idea of exercise. But finding a sustainable way to move starts with being honest with yourself. What do you actually enjoy? What makes you smile? What gives you energy rather than drains it? What creates positive experiences and memories? When your chosen activity provides these feelings, you're much more likely to continue even when motivation is low. That's where lasting success begins. My personal story In many ways, I was fortunate. I discovered my passion for movement at a young age. I tried many different activities, but nothing ever compared to figure skating. I loved the freedom, the artistry, the music, the constant opportunity to learn and improve, the performance aspect, the travel, and the sense of identity it gave me. It never felt like something I had to do. It felt like something I was. That passion eventually shaped my entire career. Movement, training, performance, health, and teaching became a natural part of my professional life. I'm not suggesting everyone needs to build a career around their chosen activity. But I do believe everyone deserves to experience the feeling of finding something that truly resonates with them. Joy creates consistency When motivation fades, we rely on memories. We remember how good we felt after a walk. We remember the laughter in a group fitness class. We remember the feeling of accomplishment after learning a new skill. These experiences become powerful tools that help us return when our enthusiasm temporarily disappears. That's why joy is not a luxury in fitness. It's a strategy. The more positive associations you can build around movement, the more sustainable your active lifestyle becomes. There are more options than you think The beautiful thing about physical activity is that there are almost endless possibilities. Maybe you'll love: Group fitness classes Yoga Walking Power walking Dance Orienteering Pickleball Rollerblading Paddling Geocaching Handball Dodgeball Or perhaps your activity has nothing to do with traditional fitness at all. It might be playing hide-and-seek with your children, organizing outdoor games with friends, or discovering new trails in nature. The goal isn't to find the “perfect” workout. The goal is to find movement that makes you want to come back. Final thoughts If you've struggled to stay motivated, perhaps motivation isn't the real problem. Perhaps you simply haven't found your thing yet. Because when movement brings joy, motivation becomes less important. When fitness becomes something you enjoy, it stops feeling like another task on your list and starts becoming a part of who you are. “The best workout isn't the one that burns the most calories. It's the one you'll still be doing five years from now.” Follow me on Instagram and visit my website for more info! Read more from Madeleine Daleng Nyland Madeleine Daleng Nyland, Founder & CEO of MAD Madeleine Daleng is a five‑time Norwegian figure skating champion who now channels her competitive drive into helping people rebuild strength, confidence, and health. With a background from the Norwegian School of Sports Science, she works across rehabilitation, obesity coaching, and fitness training. Her approach blends elite‑athlete discipline with warmth, humor, and real‑life understanding. As the founder and CEO of MAD, she supports clients through personal training, group fitness, and long‑term lifestyle change. She also inspires a wider audience through her YouTube channel, Madeleinedaleng_goodvibes.

What if the very things we're doing to become healthier, happier, and more fulfilled are keeping us caught in the patterns we're trying to escape? After more than 30 years of working with thousands of individuals, somatic movement educator, Certified Rolfer®, author, and DAUR founder Judy Lynn began noticing something remarkable: even significant improvements in physical health didn't necessarily free people from familiar cycles of tension, fear, and struggle. That discovery changed the direction of her work and led to the creation of DAUR, where the focus shifts from fixing ourselves to recognizing the intelligence and freedom already within us. In this conversation, Judy challenges conventional ideas about healing, reveals what may be keeping us stuck, and explores what becomes possible when we stop fighting ourselves and begin living from a different place. Judy Lynn Koons, Founder of DAUR-Embodied Freedom Advocate What inspired you to create DAUR, and what does embodied freedom mean beyond the idea of simply feeling better? For more than 30 years, I've worked with people reclaiming their health, many of whom had been struggling with chronic conditions. We could make tremendous progress through nutrition and physical care, yet something often remained. Symptoms persisted, familiar patterns returned, and people continued struggling despite doing everything they believed was right. I returned to the golden threads of my Rolfing® and somatic movement education. I began recognizing how accumulated tension, beliefs, emotions, and protective patterns could influence our entire experience of life. I incorporated somatic movement, breath, and guided inquiry and witnessed people experiencing greater ease, less effort, and a different relationship with themselves. DAUR was born from that recognition. We're not simply physical bodies that need fixing. We're wholistic beings with an extraordinary capacity to reorganize when we stop interfering with our natural design. Embodied freedom? It's not an intellectual concept. It's something you live. It's being able to meet life without constantly going to war with what's happening. That doesn't mean you have to accept circumstances you want to change. It means you can change them without fighting yourself. Feeling better is a beautiful byproduct. Freedom is recognizing that you can return to your aligned center regardless of what life presents. After more than 30 years of working with the human body, what have you discovered about why people continue repeating patterns they consciously want to change? After working with thousands of people, I've found that we often focus on changing the behavior without recognizing what's underneath it. Fear of failure, fear of success, fear of being unsafe, and beliefs we've carried for decades can influence how we respond to life. Then we create what I call overlays: strategies, identities, and ways of managing ourselves so we don't have to experience what's underneath. Imagine carrying a backpack filled with rocks. Each rock represents something you've accumulated: a belief, a fear, or a meaning you've attached to an experience. Most approaches teach us how to rearrange those rocks so they're easier to carry. But the backpack is still just as heavy! At DAUR, we're interested in taking the rocks out. When we become present with what we've been carrying, we can begin recognizing what no longer belongs to us. We don't have to keep organizing our lives around it. Here's what I've witnessed: as those patterns loosen, people often find themselves responding differently without having to discipline themselves and force change. Freedom isn't becoming better at carrying the weight. It's discovering you don't have to carry it. How has your experience as a somatic movement educator and Certified Rolfer® shaped your understanding of the body's intelligence and the development of the DAUR Freedom Process? One of the most significant threads connecting my somatic movement education and Rolfing® training is breath. In the Rolfing Ten Series, the first session focuses on freeing the breath. In somatic movement, breath is also where we begin. There's a reason for that. Breathing influences how we move, organize ourselves, and experience our bodies. When we begin restoring natural movement through the ribs and sides of the body, we create more possibilities for the whole system to respond. Over time, I recognized that this same foundation applied beyond physical movement as well. When people stopped fighting their experience and became present with what they were actually feeling, something could shift. My colleague Jenny Campbell helped me recognize that I was already guiding people through a process I hadn't formally named. No matter what it is called, it still belongs to everyone because it is how we are designed. That became the DAUR Freedom Process: Find, Feel, Free, Allow. It's a simple framework that brings attention back to direct experience, allowing people to recognize and respond to patterns rather than continually managing them. I don't believe we've invented something new about human nature. We've simply brought language and structure to something inherently available. We're not teaching the body how to be intelligent. We're learning to stop overriding the intelligence already there. Why can the endless pursuit of healing, fixing, and personal improvement become the very thing that keeps people from experiencing freedom? Because the pursuit itself can become another way of telling ourselves something is wrong with us. We start looking outside ourselves for the next answer, the next practitioner, the next protocol, or the next breakthrough. Sometimes those resources are incredibly valuable. But when we're continually searching for something to complete us, we may be reinforcing the belief that we're incomplete. We become skilled at managing ourselves without ever questioning why we believe we need so much managing. At DAUR, we invite a different question. Instead of asking, “What else do I need to do to become whole?” ask, “What's getting in the way of expressing the wholeness that's already here?” That's a very different starting point. I believe each of us has an internal design, an aligned center, and our own way of expressing life. Nobody else can hand us those personal instructions. Guidance can be helpful, but ultimately we have to experience what's true for ourselves. That doesn't mean ignoring health concerns or refusing support. It means recognizing the difference between receiving care and making ourselves a lifelong problem to solve. My invitation is simple: stop making yourself an endless project. There's a life waiting to be lived. How do we recognize the difference between guidance that empowers us and guidance that gradually disconnects us from our own knowing? I think one of the most important distinctions is the difference between teaching and evoking. Teaching has its place. Sometimes we need information, professional expertise, or practical instruction. At DAUR, for example, we help people recognize how they're breathing and moving. But the deeper work is about evoking what's already within someone. Rather than telling people what their experience means or what they should do, we ask questions that invite them to discover their own answers. What are you noticing? Where do you feel that? What changes when you become present with it? What feels true for you? A skilled guide becomes a mirror rather than an authority over another person's life. We encourage people to notice their responses. Does the guidance create more clarity, discernment, and capacity? Or are they becoming increasingly dependent on someone else to interpret their experience? Discomfort isn't necessarily a sign that guidance is wrong. Most often, meeting uncomfortable patterns is part of becoming free. But ultimately, empowering guidance returns authority to the individual. I often say, “Don't take my word for it. Prove it to yourself.” The DAUR Freedom Process follows four movements: Find, Feel, Free, Allow. Can you walk us through how someone might experience this when caught in an old pattern, fear, or overwhelm? Let's say you're feeling overwhelmed. Your mind is racing, your shoulders are tight, and you're convinced there's too much to do. Rather than immediately trying to fix the situation, begin with “Find.” Where is the overwhelm showing up in your body? Perhaps there's pressure in your chest or tension in your stomach. Just notice what's actually happening. Then “Feel.” Allow yourself to experience those sensations without immediately going into a story, judging, analyzing, or assigning meaning. It isn't about getting rid of the discomfort. Sit with it. Bring your attention to it. As you become present, you may or may not recognize a belief underneath the overwhelm: “I have to do everything myself” or “If I stop, everything will fall apart.” “Free.” Bring gentle breath into the sides of your body and notice what changes. It's about allowing what you've been holding to loosen. You don't have to force a release. You're creating space for energy to move and homeostasis to happen. Then “Allow.” Notice what remains when you're no longer organizing yourself around that pattern. Instead, the body's intelligence gets to do the reorganizing, returning it to an optimal state. Perhaps there's clarity, a different choice, or simply more room to breathe. The process isn't about controlling your experience or guaranteeing that discomfort disappears. It's about becoming available to yourself again. For someone who has spent years overriding their body's signals, what is one simple way they can begin restoring trust in their body's intelligence? Start treating tension as information rather than immediately assuming something is wrong with you. “Let tension become your temple bell.” For the next day or two, every time you notice tension, use it as an invitation to pause. Maybe your jaw tightens during a conversation. Perhaps your shoulders rise when you open an email. Or your stomach contracts when you're thinking about money. Instead of immediately trying to change it, notice where the tension is. Place your hands on the sides of your ribs if that helps. Breathe gently through your nose, allowing movement into the sides of your body without forcing it. Stay present for a few minutes, then check in again. Has the sensation changed? Is there more space? Is something else asking for your attention? There doesn't have to be an immediate release. You're beginning a conversation with your body. That simple feedback loop helps you recognize the information your body is continually offering. Of course, persistent or unexplained physical symptoms deserve appropriate medical attention. But ordinary moments of tension can also become opportunities for greater awareness. Your body isn't the enemy. It's been communicating with you all along. In your book Spellbound No More, you explore the beliefs and conditioning that shape our experience of life. What belief have you personally had to question most deeply, and what changed when you did? One of the most significant beliefs I've had to question was that people could let me down. For a long time, I experienced that pattern repeatedly. Different people, different circumstances, yet somehow the same familiar experience. Eventually, I became willing to look at my own participation in it. At DAUR, we sometimes say, “Judge their ass off. You're judging anyway, and then you will have made it obvious enough to bring it home. That is where you can shift it.” It's a playful but powerful reminder to stop making someone else responsible for what's happening within us. When I brought that pattern home, I recognized how deeply I was carrying the expectation of being let down. It influenced what I anticipated, how I interpreted circumstances, and how I engaged with others. That recognition wasn't about excusing anyone else's behavior or blaming myself for their choices. It was about discovering where I still had the freedom to change my own experience. As I stopped organizing myself around that familiar expectation, my relationships began to feel different. I no longer needed to approach people through the lens of anticipated disappointment. Freedom wasn't getting everyone else to behave differently. It was recognizing what I was bringing into the relationship and becoming free to respond differently. What would you most want someone to recognize about themselves before they begin another healing journey, personal development program, or search for answers? I'd want them to recognize that what they're looking for may not be missing. We spend enormous amounts of time searching outside ourselves for someone to tell us who we are, what we should do, or how we should live. Along the way, we collect beliefs, identities, expectations, and instructions from parents, teachers, practitioners, culture, and countless other influences. Some serve us beautifully. Others become burdens we don't even recognize we're carrying. Eventually, those accumulated patterns can make it difficult to recognize our own internal guidance. At DAUR, we're not interested in giving people another identity to adopt. We're interested in helping them recognize what they've accumulated so they can experience what's underneath. That doesn't mean rejecting teachers, knowledge, or support. It means no longer handing over the authority to know yourself. We have a phrase: “Follow your feet.” It's an invitation to listen to your own internal direction rather than constantly trying to figure everything out through mental effort. Before beginning another journey of personal improvement, consider this: What if you aren't here to become someone else? What if you're here to finally live as yourself? You often speak about returning to our original design. What does that actually mean, and how might our lives change if we stopped organizing ourselves around what we believe is wrong with us? When I speak about original design, I'm referring to the living wisdom inherent in each of us. Our bodies have extraordinary capacities to breathe, move, adapt, and respond. Yet over time, we accumulate beliefs and protective patterns that influence how we experience ourselves and the world. We begin organizing our lives around what we fear, what we believe is missing, or what we've decided needs fixing. Eventually, those patterns can feel more familiar than our natural way of being. Returning to original design isn't about becoming some idealized version of ourselves. It's about recognizing what belongs to us innately and what we've accumulated along the way. I don't believe freedom looks identical for everyone. Each person has their own expression, direction, and way of participating in life. When we stop organizing ourselves around our perceived limitations, we have more energy available for living. We can make decisions with greater clarity, relate without so much defensiveness, and respond to life with less effort. Original design isn't a destination somewhere in the future. It's the intelligence of life already expressing itself through us, waiting to be recognized. We live in a culture increasingly focused on optimizing everything, from our health and productivity to our relationships. What if the next evolution of human potential isn't about becoming more, but allowing more of who we already are? I think that's exactly why we're here. Imagine carrying a backpack filled with 300 pounds of rocks. You'd probably be exhausted, irritable, and constantly focused on managing the weight. Now imagine setting that backpack down. How much energy would suddenly become available for living, creating, relating, and enjoying your life? That's how I see much of our human experience. We're carrying an enormous accumulation of beliefs, fears, judgments, and internal conflicts, often without recognizing how much energy they consume. Some of the most significant conflicts are subtle. We give our power away in small ways, look outside ourselves for permission, or fight circumstances we could meet differently. I value contrast. Sometimes experiencing struggle helps us recognize what freedom feels like. But I don't believe we need decades of suffering to earn the right to live freely. What becomes possible when we're no longer constantly at war with ourselves? I believe there's an extraordinary range of human potential available beyond what most of us currently experience. Perhaps our next evolution isn't about becoming more. It's about becoming available to more of life. DAUR is becoming more than a collection of programs. What is your larger vision for bringing embodied freedom into leadership, education, business, relationships, and communities? I often imagine a network of lighthouses around the world. Each lighthouse represents individuals and communities who are living from greater freedom and helping others find their way home to themselves. That's the larger vision for DAUR. Imagine what education might look like if we supported children in recognizing their internal guidance alongside developing knowledge and critical thinking. Or business environments where people could create and collaborate without so much fear, competition, and struggle. Imagine relationships where responsibility replaces blame and people no longer need to abandon themselves to belong. I see the Freedom Process as complementary to many approaches because it invites people to experience what they know rather than simply accumulate more information. My vision includes facilitators and practitioners who support others without creating dependency, communities that collaborate rather than compete, and individuals who recognize their own capacity to choose. I don't believe we need to abandon modern technology or knowledge. We can use those resources with greater awareness and discernment. When individuals become more available to themselves, they also become more available to one another. My vision is a world where freedom isn't something we're endlessly pursuing. It's something we're living, together. Closing reflection: If there were nothing left to fix about yourself, what might become possible in your life? I'd invite you to make that question personal. Don't worry about changing the whole world for a moment. Just look at your own life. If you weren't spending so much energy managing yourself, questioning yourself, or trying to become someone you believe you should be, what would you have room for? Would you create more? Rest more? Love more openly? Begin something you've been postponing? Perhaps you'd simply enjoy being alive without continually measuring your progress. That's the freedom I'm interested in. Not an abstract concept. Not another achievement. The freedom to actually live. When one person begins living with less internal conflict, that changes how they participate in their relationships, families, workplaces, and communities. That's how I see DAUR growing: one person recognizing their own freedom, then carrying that expression into the world. You don't have to wait until you've fixed everything to begin living. The question isn't, “Who do you need to become?” It's, “What becomes possible when you finally allow yourself to live?” What's possible? Follow me on Facebook and Instagram for more info! Read more from Judy Lynn Koons

Written by Charlotte Cheetham, Gut Health Coach Charlotte Cheetham is an expert gut health coach for menopausal women. She is the founder of Lifeinsights and aims to help all menopausal women, one by one, to heal their symptoms, which are preventing them from living a normal life. She has also written articles for Healthieyoo magazine about gut health, menopause, and psychobiotics. Have you ever walked into a meeting, opened your laptop, and suddenly struggled to remember what you were about to say? Perhaps you have read the same email three times without taking in a word. You know what you want to communicate, but finding the right words seems to take more effort than it used to. Then there is your stomach. You leave home feeling relatively comfortable, but by lunchtime, your waistband feels tight, your abdomen is swollen, and you are wondering whether you can get away with unbuttoning your trousers beneath your desk. You might find yourself avoiding fitted clothes, turning down invitations to eat out, or feeling increasingly self conscious about your appearance. If you are a woman over 40 experiencing both brain fog and bloating, you are certainly not alone. For many women, these symptoms emerge during perimenopause, a time when fluctuating hormones can coincide with changes in sleep, stress levels, digestion, and overall wellbeing. Yet the connection between what happens in your gut and what happens in your brain is often overlooked. Women may be told to eliminate certain foods to address their bloating, drink more water to improve their concentration, or simply accept that feeling different is part of getting older. But what if, instead of treating every symptom as a separate problem, we started looking at the bigger picture? Understanding the relationship between your gut, brain, hormones, and daily habits can be an important first step towards feeling more comfortable, focused, and confident again. The midlife body that suddenly feels unfamiliar For many professional women, their 40s are a demanding stage of life. They may be leading teams, managing businesses, caring for children, supporting ageing parents, and trying to maintain relationships, all while continuing to perform at work. They are often the people everyone else relies on. Then, seemingly without warning, their bodies begin behaving differently. Foods they have eaten for years appear to cause discomfort. Their stomach becomes distended as the day progresses. Their concentration feels less reliable, and a poor night's sleep can leave them struggling to function the following morning. It can be frustrating, particularly when they are accustomed to being organised, capable, and in control. There may also be an emotional cost. A woman who has always felt confident presenting to clients may start worrying about losing her train of thought. Someone who previously enjoyed social occasions might begin avoiding restaurants because she fears feeling bloated afterward. When these experiences occur together, they can create a cycle of discomfort, worry, and reduced confidence. It is important to recognise that these symptoms are real. They are not evidence of weakness, a lack of willpower, or an inability to cope. Nor should women automatically assume that every new symptom is caused by perimenopause. Instead, understanding the potential contributors can help women make more informed decisions about their health. What happens to your hormones during perimenopause? Perimenopause is the transition leading up to menopause. During this time, levels of oestrogen and progesterone fluctuate, and menstrual cycles may become less predictable. These hormonal changes can influence several aspects of wellbeing, including sleep, mood, body temperature, and cognitive function. Some women report difficulties with memory, concentration, and finding words during this stage of life. Others experience changes in digestion, abdominal discomfort, or bloating. However, the experience varies considerably between individuals. Not every woman will develop these symptoms, and hormones are not necessarily the sole explanation when they occur. Oestrogen has a range of effects throughout the body, including on the nervous system. Hormonal fluctuations may contribute to changes in cognitive function for some women, while night sweats, disrupted sleep, and increased stress can make concentration more difficult. Meanwhile, digestive symptoms can be influenced by several factors, including gut motility, constipation, food intolerances, changes in eating patterns, and the way the digestive system responds to stress. Hormonal changes may be part of this picture, but persistent bloating should not automatically be attributed to menopause. The important point is that midlife can involve several overlapping changes. Rather than searching for one explanation for everything, it is more useful to consider the different factors that might be contributing to your individual symptoms. Your gut and brain are in constant communication One of the most fascinating areas of gut health research is the gut brain axis. This describes the two way communication network connecting the gastrointestinal tract with the central nervous system. Your brain influences digestion, and signals from your digestive system can, in turn, affect how your brain processes information about the body. Several pathways are involved, including nerves, hormones, immune signalling, and substances produced by gut microbes. One important nerve in this communication network is the vagus nerve. It carries signals between the brain and internal organs, including parts of the digestive system. It plays a role in regulating functions such as digestive activity and communication between the gut and brain. This helps explain why stress can affect digestion and why digestive discomfort can influence how you feel emotionally. Think about the last time you felt anxious before an important presentation. You may have experienced butterflies in your stomach, nausea, or an urgent need to visit the toilet. Now consider the reverse situation. You have been experiencing uncomfortable bloating for several weeks, and every time you eat lunch, you start worrying about how your stomach will feel during your afternoon meetings. Your digestive symptoms can become a source of stress in their own right. The gut-brain axis helps us understand why digestive health and emotional wellbeing should not always be considered in isolation. However, it is important not to overstate the connection. The fact that the gut and brain communicate does not mean that bloating necessarily causes brain fog or that improving gut health will automatically resolve cognitive symptoms. Instead, it gives us another useful way to understand the complexity of the body and the importance of an individualised approach. Could your gut microbiome be part of the picture? Your gut is home to a vast community of microorganisms, collectively known as the gut microbiome. These microorganisms interact with the food you eat and participate in processes such as the fermentation of certain carbohydrates, the production of short chain fatty acids, and aspects of immune function. Research into the microbiome and its relationship with human health continues to develop. Scientists are investigating how gut microbes communicate with the nervous system, influence immune signalling, and interact with metabolic processes. There is also growing interest in the relationship between the microbiome, the gut-brain axis, and cognitive health. However, although these areas of research are promising, we do not yet have a simple explanation linking a particular microbiome pattern to brain fog during perimenopause. Nor can we assume that every woman experiencing bloating has an unhealthy microbiome that needs to be corrected. Bloating can occur for many reasons, including constipation, sensitivity to certain carbohydrates, swallowing air, digestive conditions, and changes in gut movement. The practical lesson is not that you need to buy a probiotic or take a collection of supplements. It is that your digestive symptoms deserve to be understood in context. Your food choices, bowel habits, lifestyle, medical history, and individual tolerance may all be relevant when deciding what to investigate next. The stress factor: When your working day becomes part of the problem Consider a typical day for a busy professional woman. She wakes up already thinking about her workload. She drinks coffee while getting ready, skips breakfast because she is short of time, and grabs something to eat between online meetings. She spends much of the day sitting at her desk, eats lunch quickly, and continues working while checking emails. By late afternoon, she feels exhausted. Her concentration has deteriorated, her stomach feels uncomfortable, and she is frustrated that she has achieved so little despite working constantly. Does this sound familiar? Stress is not necessarily the original cause of her symptoms, but it may be one of the factors influencing how she feels. The brain and digestive system respond to stress through interconnected nervous, hormonal, and behavioural pathways. Stress can influence digestive movement, gut sensitivity, and the experience of pain or discomfort. It can also affect appetite, sleep, and the habits that support digestive health. Some people become constipated when stressed, while others experience looser stools or abdominal discomfort. Stress may also make it harder to concentrate, particularly when combined with inadequate sleep and sustained mental demands. During perimenopause, when sleep disruption and other symptoms may already be present, these pressures can become particularly difficult to manage. This does not mean that women simply need to relax. Telling a busy woman to reduce stress without acknowledging her responsibilities is unlikely to be helpful. A more realistic approach is to identify small changes that can be incorporated into the life she already has. Could she protect ten minutes for lunch rather than eating while answering emails? Could she take a short walk between meetings? Could she establish a more consistent bedtime routine? These changes are not a cure for every digestive or cognitive symptom. However, they may support overall wellbeing and help reveal which factors are contributing to the problem. Why poor sleep can affect both your brain and your gut Have you ever noticed how much harder everything feels after a night of interrupted sleep? You may struggle to remember details, concentrate on a report, or remain patient during a difficult conversation. When you are tired, even straightforward tasks can require more effort. Sleep plays an important role in attention, memory, and emotional regulation. Insufficient or disrupted sleep can affect these functions, making brain fog feel more pronounced. During perimenopause, night sweats, hot flushes, mood changes, and other factors can interfere with sleep for some women. At the same time, digestive discomfort can make it harder to settle at night, while inadequate sleep may influence appetite, food choices, and other behaviours that affect digestive wellbeing. The relationship is complex, and the effects will vary from person to person. Nevertheless, sleep is worth examining when both brain fog and bloating are affecting your daily life. Instead of immediately assuming that you need a new supplement or a strict dietary plan, start by looking at your sleep patterns. Are you waking repeatedly during the night? Are hot flushes disturbing your rest? Do you regularly work late into the evening? Are digestive symptoms making you uncomfortable when you lie down? If sleep problems persist, particularly when accompanied by significant menopausal symptoms, speak to a healthcare professional about appropriate support. You do not have to accept ongoing exhaustion as an inevitable part of getting older. Why eliminating more foods is not always the answer When bloating becomes uncomfortable, it is natural to look for something you can change. You might remove gluten, stop eating dairy, avoid carbohydrates, or follow a restrictive diet you have discovered online. Initially, this can feel reassuring. You are taking action. But what happens when your symptoms continue? You may start removing more foods, becoming increasingly anxious about eating and worrying about whether anything is safe. For some women, unnecessary dietary restriction can make maintaining a balanced diet more difficult and add another source of stress to an already demanding life. There are situations in which dietary changes are appropriate. Certain foods can trigger symptoms in people with specific intolerances or digestive conditions, and a structured dietary intervention may be useful when guided by a suitably qualified professional. However, eliminating foods without understanding the reason for your symptoms can lead to unnecessary restrictions and confusion. A more considered starting point is to look for patterns. When does your bloating occur? Does it follow particular meals? Are you constipated? Do you eat quickly or consume large meals after going without food for much of the day? Are there symptoms that suggest you need medical assessment rather than further experimentation with your diet? Keeping a short food and symptom diary may help you identify patterns, although it should not become an exercise in obsessively monitoring everything you eat. The aim is not to create a longer list of forbidden foods. It is to understand your individual needs and make changes based on evidence, observation, and appropriate professional advice. 5 practical steps to start feeling more in control You do not need to overhaul your entire life to begin taking your symptoms seriously. Instead, start with a few manageable steps. Establish a more consistent eating routine: If your working day regularly involves coffee until lunchtime followed by a large meal eaten in a hurry, consider whether a more predictable meal pattern would suit you better. Include a variety of foods, such as vegetables, fruit, wholegrains where tolerated, protein sources, and healthy fats. Adjust your choices to your individual needs rather than following a one size fits all plan. Slow down when you eat: Eating quickly, particularly while distracted or under pressure, may contribute to swallowing more air and can make it harder to notice when you are comfortably satisfied. Where possible, sit down to eat, take your time, and give yourself a brief break from your screen. You do not need to turn every meal into a lengthy ritual. Even small changes can make eating feel less rushed. Pay attention to your bowel habits: Constipation is a common contributor to bloating. Notice whether you are opening your bowels regularly and comfortably. Adequate fluids, appropriate physical activity, and a gradual, individually tolerated increase in fibre may help support bowel function. If constipation persists or is accompanied by other concerning symptoms, seek medical advice rather than repeatedly trying dietary remedies. Build movement into your working day: You do not have to commit to an ambitious exercise programme to become more active. A short walk at lunchtime, standing up between meetings, or taking the stairs when practical can help interrupt long periods of sitting. Regular physical activity also supports general health and may help some people manage constipation. Choose activities that are realistic for your circumstances and appropriate for your health. Give your brain opportunities to recover: Constantly switching between emails, meetings, and competing responsibilities places demands on your attention. Try protecting short periods for focused work, taking breaks between demanding tasks, and creating a more consistent sleep routine. If brain fog is persistent, worsening, or affecting your ability to function, arrange a healthcare assessment rather than assuming that lifestyle changes alone will resolve it. These five steps are starting points, not a substitute for investigating ongoing symptoms. The aim is to move away from random experimentation and towards a more thoughtful approach. When should you seek medical advice? Although bloating and brain fog can occur during midlife, it is important not to dismiss persistent symptoms as simply part of getting older. New, frequent, or persistent bloating deserves medical assessment, particularly if it is accompanied by abdominal or pelvic pain, feeling full quickly, changes in appetite, or urinary symptoms. Seek prompt medical advice if you notice unexplained weight loss, blood in your stools, a persistent change in bowel habits, or other symptoms that concern you. Severe or sudden abdominal pain, especially with vomiting or an inability to pass stool or wind, may require urgent assessment. Brain fog also has multiple possible causes. Hormonal changes and sleep disruption may contribute, but so can conditions such as anaemia, thyroid disorders, medication effects, and other health problems. If your concentration or memory has changed noticeably, is worsening, or is interfering with work and everyday activities, speak to your GP. Do not assume that all symptoms are hormonal, and do not delay seeking help because you believe you should be able to manage them yourself. A healthcare professional can help determine whether investigations, treatment, or referral are appropriate. A different way to approach midlife gut health For many women, the most frustrating part of experiencing bloating and brain fog is the feeling that they have already tried everything. They have purchased supplements, downloaded meal plans, followed advice from social media, and attempted to eliminate foods. They may have experienced brief improvements, only for their symptoms to return. What is often missing is a structured way of understanding their individual circumstances. This means looking beyond the latest dietary trend and considering the wider picture: nutrition, bowel habits, movement, sleep, stress, hormonal changes, and the practical realities of everyday life. It also means recognising that women have different needs. A strategy that helps one woman may not work for another, and persistent symptoms may require medical investigation rather than further lifestyle experimentation. As a gut health coach, I believe that women deserve an approach that takes their experiences seriously, respects their individual circumstances, and helps them make realistic, informed changes. For a professional woman already balancing a demanding career and family responsibilities, another complicated programme may be the last thing she needs. She needs a way to understand her symptoms, identify appropriate next steps, and build habits that fit into her life. That is the thinking behind my BLOAT Reset Method, which brings together five pillars: Build, Fuel, Move, Adjust, and Thrive. The aim is to help women take a more considered approach to their gut health, make changes that are appropriate for their circumstances, and develop habits they can sustain. It is not about promising that every symptom will disappear or suggesting that all digestive problems can be solved through lifestyle changes. It is about helping women move away from guesswork and towards a clearer, more individualised approach to their wellbeing. You do not have to accept feeling unlike yourself If you are over 40 and struggling with both bloating and brain fog, it can be tempting to assume that this is simply what midlife feels like. You may tell yourself that you are too busy to address it, that you should be able to cope, or that you will investigate it when work and family life become less demanding. But your wellbeing matters now. You deserve to feel comfortable in your body, confident in your abilities, and supported in understanding what is happening to you. The relationship between your gut, brain, hormones, sleep, and stress offers a useful perspective on why these symptoms may occur together. It also reminds us that there is rarely one universal explanation or one solution that works for everyone. Start by paying attention to your symptoms, making realistic changes where appropriate, and seeking professional advice when you need it. You do not have to eliminate every food, buy every supplement, or transform your entire routine overnight. Sometimes the most valuable first step is to stop blaming yourself, look at the bigger picture, and begin asking better questions about your health. Because feeling unlike yourself should not be something you simply learn to tolerate. It is a reason to seek understanding, support, and a way forward that works for you. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Charlotte Cheetham Charlotte Cheetham, Gut Health Coach Charlotte Cheetham is an expert gut health coach for menopausal women. After suffering from an acute gut infection, she had to learn how to manage her gut health to prevent another massive flare-up. She has learned how to manage her nutritional needs to become healthy and happy during menopause. Her mission is to help as many women as possible manage their diet and lifestyle so they can also learn how to become healthy and happy again. References: Mayer, E. A., Tillisch, K. and Gupta, A. (2015). Gut/brain axis and the microbiota. Journal of Clinical Investigation, 125(3), 926–938. DOI: 10.1172/JCI76304 Metcalf, C. A. et al. (2023). Cognitive Problems in Perimenopause: A Review of Recent Evidence. Current Psychiatry Reports, 25, 501–511. DOI: 10.1007/s11920-023-01447-3 National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). Menopause: identification and management (NG23). Updated 15 April 2026. Disclaimer: This article is for general educational purposes and does not replace medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

Written by John Silva, Life Coach John Silva is the founder of Operator, a philosophy and coaching practice that helps high achievers return to their path through presence, energy, and self-love. As a fire lieutenant and transformational coach, he writes about awareness, identity, leadership, and living in alignment with who we truly are. Who are you when the demands of your roles fall quiet? Many of us answer by naming what we do, who depends on us, and what we have built: chief executive officer (CEO). Officer. Father. Husband. These are true parts of a life. They describe what we do. Who is experiencing it? In my first Brainz article, I explored why success does not guarantee fulfillment. This piece asks what lies beneath achievement: Who am I when there is nothing left to prove, protect, or provide? When the role becomes the self I understand the strength a role can give us. As a fire lieutenant, husband, and father, I know the pull to be capable, present, and responsible. These roles call forth qualities I value. A child grows more independent. A career shifts. A title disappears. When I measure myself only by what I do for others, change can feel like losing myself. If I am no longer needed in the same way, who am I? The role is real. Suffering begins when we mistake it for the whole of ourselves. An old question in many traditions The call to know ourselves appears in different forms across cultures. In Plato’s Charmides, Critias links the Delphic maxim “Know thyself” with knowledge of oneself. In the Indian Chāndogya Upanishad, Uddālaka teaches Śvetaketu “tat tvam asi,” often translated as “That thou art,” as part of an inquiry into the Self. In the Confucian Analects, Zengzi describes examining himself each day: whether he has been wholehearted with others, kept faith with friends, and made his learning his own. These teachings come from distinct traditions and do not make identical claims about the self. I hear their resonance in the call to look inward and examine how we are living. To me, “Know thyself” is a directive to experience this life fully: recognize what is true beneath the roles we play, then live from that truth. We have become skilled at performing, protecting, providing, and achieving. In that effort, it is easy to forget the being that allows us to experience life at all. A simple inquiry Knowing yourself begins in the quiet between demands. When the house settles or the workday ends, pause for a moment. Notice your breath. Notice how quickly the mind reaches for an answer it already knows: what you do, who counts on you, what you have achieved. Then ask: Who am I when no one needs anything from me? Let the answer wait. Stay with the awareness that is here before the next task begins. The inquiry can show us how much of our identity has been built around usefulness, competence, and approval. Living from your truth Knowing yourself can change how you approach your responsibilities. A father can love fully, an officer can lead with courage, and a husband can be present. The role becomes a way of expressing what is true in us. “Know thyself” asks us to see clearly through identities shaped by circumstance and expectation, then live from our deepest truth. We can remember who we are as we inhabit our roles with greater presence, without asking them to define the being who lives them. That is the return: the role remains, and we remember the being who plays it. Follow me on Facebook and Instagram for more info! Read more from John Silva John Silva, Life Coach John Silva is the founder of Operator, a philosophy and coaching practice that helps high achievers return to their path through presence, energy, and self-love. A fire lieutenant with years of experience leading under pressure, John believes our greatest breakthroughs begin by remembering who we truly are beneath the noise of modern life. His work bridges timeless wisdom with practical tools that cultivate clarity, resilience, and authentic performance. Through his writing and coaching, he challenges conventional ideas of success by showing that fulfillment is not something we chase. It is something we uncover. John is passionate about helping others reconnect with their innate potential, and his mission is simple: return to your path.

Written by Tara Polley, Realtor & Television Host Tara Polley is a Telly Award-winning television host, media strategist, and national speaker with 25+ years of experience in luxury real estate, branding, and storytelling. She helps professionals grow their visibility with clarity, creativity, and an upcoming TEDx Talk on purposeful leadership. The most expensive advice I have ever followed came from me, to me, at 2 a.m. It was delivered with total confidence and zero data. It involved a calendar organized by color, a vow to wake up at 5, and a plan to simply handle everything myself. I was wildly committed. I was also wrong. If you have ever lain awake redesigning your career in your head while the rest of the house slept, you and I need no introduction. Your calendar is full, your inbox is overflowing, and if someone asked how much of it is building your future, you would need a minute. Possibly a snack. After 25 years in luxury real estate, a television series, and a growing number of stages, here is what I know about high achievers. We are rarely short on effort. We are short on perspective. I started in real estate with four young children at home, and that season taught me something I still use every day. Being capable gets you through the week. Being supported changes the next five years. The pain points nobody puts in a LinkedIn post The view from the top is lonely. The more you accomplish, the fewer people tell you the truth. Your team needs you to be confident, your family needs you to be fine, and your competitors are certainly not sending notes. Busy is not the same as building. You can run at full speed for a year and look up to find you have been polishing someone else’s priorities. A calendar full of meetings is not a strategy. It is a very organized way to be tired. The playbook keeps changing. Clients find and vet professionals differently than they did even two years ago, artificial intelligence (AI) is rewriting what “doing your homework” looks like, and the tactics that worked in 2019 are now collectibles. Learning all of this alone, between everything else on your plate, is slow. You are good, and almost nobody knows it. I speak to high achievers about this all the time. The quiet ones are often the most talented and the least visible. Excellence that no one can see does not compound. What a great coach actually does Coaching is not a pep talk with an invoice. At its best, it does five things that are very hard to do for yourself. Holds up the mirror. A coach spots patterns you cannot see from inside your own head, like the deal you keep sabotaging or the offer you keep underpricing. Turns “someday” into a date. Ideas are free. A coach asks what you will do by Friday and then, annoyingly, asks again on Monday. Shortens the learning curve. A good coach has watched many people make the mistake you are about to make and can save you the tuition by saying, “I would not do that.” Keeps you accountable. Accountability is just a friend with a calendar and no fear of you. Builds confidence on evidence. Real confidence is not a mood. It is a record of promises you made to yourself and kept, and a coach helps you build that record. How to choose a coach (without hiring a guru in a rented car) Choosing a coach is a big decision, so here is the checklist I would use if I were hiring one tomorrow. They have done it themselves. Look for someone who has built something close to what you want, in a world close to yours. Theory is lovely. Scar tissue is better. My own coach is a good example, and I will introduce him below. They ask more than they tell. A great coach gets you to your own best answers. If every session is a monologue, you have bought a podcast at a premium price. They are willing to disagree with you. Chemistry matters, but a coach who agrees with everything you say is an expensive mirror that only shows your good side. They define success up front. You should leave the first conversation knowing the goal, the process, the timeline, and how you will both know it is working. They are honest about fit. The best coaches turn people away. If someone says yes to everyone, ask what they are actually selling. Their own work is visible. A coach should be able to point to a real, verifiable body of work. Look at how they show up in the world, because it tells you how they will show up for you. You leave the conversation sharper. After your first call, do you feel lighter, clearer, and a little uncomfortable in a useful way? Trust that. Red flags: Guaranteed income, pressure to sign today, the same program for everyone, and any promise that sounds like an ad for weight loss. If they guarantee you will earn seven figures in thirty days, check whether the Lamborghini in their photos is a rental. Why coaching matters more in a changing world When the ground is stable, you can get by on instinct and habit. When tools, markets, and client expectations shift every few months, you need a thinking partner who helps you filter the noise, test your ideas quickly, and decide what to ignore. A coach is not another source of information. You already have more information than you could read in ten lifetimes. A coach helps you decide what to do with it. There is also the matter of visibility. In a world where clients, employers, and even AI tools are constantly sizing up who is credible, the professionals who get chosen are the ones who have clearly, confidently, and consistently put their expertise in front of people. That is a skill, and like most skills, it is learned faster with someone in your corner. My side of the table I have sat on both sides of this. I have been coached, and I coach. Being coached taught me how much faster I move with a sharp outside perspective and a deadline. Coaching others has taught me that the problem is rarely talent. It is usually a matter of finding clarity, building confidence, and following through, and those can all be developed. My own coach is a living example of that first checklist point. Tyler Mount is my personal real estate and media coach, and he’s been my mentor as I’ve stepped into my own coaching journey. I’ve learned from the best. As the owner of Henry Street Creative, he worked with Ryan Serhant as a brand strategy and digital marketing consultant, and his team has partnered with Spencer Rascoff, Pacaso, and the National Broadcasting Company (NBC). He is also a theatrical producer who has won a Tony Award. His direct, unconventional approach has helped agents and business owners take control of their businesses, and he has seen what builds an empire. He will tell you exactly what does not. His experience in both real estate and media is the reason he has been the right coach for me. Because he has built brands in both worlds, he has helped me elevate those two specific areas of my own business, and it is the clearest proof I know of why you should choose a coach whose experience matches the ground you want to cover. Being coached so well changed how I show up on the other side of the table. The questions at the heart of my own coaching are probably ones you have asked yourself. How do I turn my screen time into real business? How do I reach the next level in this industry without ever compromising my integrity? How do I get seen by the right people without turning into someone I do not recognize? Those are the conversations I have with television hosts, real estate agents, and ambitious professionals, and the answer almost always comes down to three things: a brand that is unmistakably yours, visibility you use on purpose, and ethics you never negotiate. Those threads come together on stage, too. As a national keynote speaker, I teach this same material in my signature talk, “The Confidence Conspiracy,” which is written for high achievers who are underusing the visibility and platforms they already have. Coaching lets me go deep with one person. Keynoting lets me start the conversation with a whole room. The breakthroughs tend to be refreshingly practical: an offer finally clarified, a message rewritten, an overdue conversation finally scheduled. Nothing mystical. Just a person who is better supported, making better decisions sooner. 5 questions to ask yourself before you hire anyone What do I want to be true twelve months from now? What am I tolerating that I know I should not be? Who currently tells me the truth, and how often do I listen? What would I try if I were not worried about looking silly? Am I willing to be coachable, which means hearing something I did not order? The bottom line The most successful people I know ask for help early and often, and they treat it as strategy rather than an admission. They stopped taking advice from the 2 a.m. version of themselves a long time ago. If you are curious whether coaching could move your career or business forward, I would love to talk. You can find me here. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Tara Polley Tara Polley, Realtor & Television Host Tara Polley is a Telly Award-winning television host, media strategist, and national speaker with 25+ years of experience in storytelling, branding, and luxury real estate. As a host on The American Dream TV, an Emmy-nominated lifestyle show, she brings California Wine Country to a national audience through cinematic, narrative-driven content. Tara has a TEDx Talk upcoming and is known for her dynamic keynote appearances that blend emotional intelligence with actionable strategy. As a proven thought leader, she helps professionals amplify their message, lead with integrity and authenticity, and build meaningful visibility across media platforms.

Looking to make your next getaway more affordable without sacrificing the experience? Our expert panelists share their best travel tips for saving money on flights, accommodations, food, and more, so you can enjoy your vacation while staying within budget. Expert Panelists 1. Rethink how you move The key to saving money on vacation is to rethink how you move and where you stay. I’m a huge fan of boutique hotels and train travel because both give you comfort without the inflated price tag. If you can take the train, get the suite – you’ll have a bed, Wi-Fi, a shower, a private toilet, room to move, and a scenic route for a fraction of what flying and a chain hotel would cost. You meet people when you want to and buy privacy when you need it, which makes the experience feel intentional instead of chaotic. Boutique hotels also give you cultural access, local partnerships, and the basics you actually need without paying for amenities you won’t use. While big brands like Hilton have their perks, the hidden gems in a city often give you a richer experience and a much friendlier bill. When I have the time, this is my favorite way to travel because it saves money and immerses you in the heart of the place you’re visiting. Dr. Ari McGrew, Founder, Business Psychologist 2. Keep your money local Adventure and destination travel do not have to come with a hefty price tag. In fact, some of the wildest and most unforgettable adventures are the most sustainable. Think hiking panoramic ridgelines, kayaking along glassy waterways, cycling through colorful regional towns, camping under a sky full of stars, and wandering vast national parks, all on a surprisingly small budget. Swap expensive tours for public transport, shared rides, and shoulder-season travel to cut costs and your carbon footprint in one go. Choose local guides, family-run stays, and independent regional businesses to keep your money in the community while unlocking stories, tips, and experiences most people never see. Pack smart with reusable essentials, prep a stash of organic snacks, and travel light so you can move freely and skip unnecessary purchases. At its core, adventure and destination travel are about throwing yourself into nature, welcoming the unexpected, and leaving every place a little better than you found it. When you travel with intention, you stretch your budget, shrink your footprint, and discover that the greatest adventures and destinations are not found in expensive choices but in simple, responsible travel. Paula Rose Castronova, Global Sustainability Voice 3. Travel smart, not hard Traveling doesn’t have to be expensive. With a little planning and local knowledge, you can enjoy your trip while staying within your budget. One of the best ways to save money is by knowing someone who lives in the area you’re visiting. Locals often know the best places to shop, eat, and explore, and they can help you find local prices instead of paying inflated tourist rates. If you’re traveling to a country where a different language is spoken, learning a few basic phrases can make a big difference. Being able to communicate shows respect for the local culture and can make it easier to negotiate prices, ask for recommendations, and navigate your destination with confidence. Finally, if you’re staying for several days or longer, consider shopping at local grocery stores instead of eating fast food or dining out for every meal. Preparing some of your own meals can significantly reduce your expenses while also giving you the opportunity to experience local products and flavors. Smart planning and embracing the local culture can help you save money and make your vacation even more enjoyable. Ryan Phillips, Entrepreneur, Model & Fitness Trainer 4. Choose experiences over attractions One of the easiest ways to save money while traveling is to stop trying to do everything. Many vacations become exhausting and expensive because people pack every day with activities, tours, reservations, and attractions. Before your trip, decide what experiences matter most and build your travel around those instead of filling every available hour. Leave space for wandering, discovering local neighborhoods, sitting in a café, watching a sunset, or having an unplanned conversation with someone new. These moments are often the ones people remember years later, and they usually cost little or nothing. When you travel with intention rather than obligation, you spend less, feel less rushed, and return home with richer memories and a deeper sense of fulfillment. Dr. Kapil and Rupali Apshankar, Award-Winning Board-Certified Clinical Hypnotists | Board-Certified Coaches 5. Budget before you book Saving money on your next vacation starts with planning ahead and comparing prices for flights, accommodations, and activities before booking. Traveling during off-peak seasons and being flexible with your travel dates can often lead to significant savings. Set a realistic budget, prioritize the experiences that matter most, and look for free or low-cost attractions at your destination. Try tracking your travel expenses with a budgeting app so you can stay within your limits while still enjoying your trip. Dr. Yujia Zhu, Social Entrepreneur, Author, Executive Coach

Written by Phetso Ntsowe, Leadership Strategist Phetso Ntsowe is a leadership strategist redefining how high-performing women lead, focusing on clarity, self-trust, and disciplined decision-making rather than confidence alone. Drawing on her background in banking and risk management, she brings a structured, practical approach to helping women navigate complexity and pursue purposeful growth. A woman can be dependable at work, attentive to her family and committed to her responsibilities while repeatedly postponing something that matters deeply to her. As I prepare to lead The Incredible Journey™ in 2027, I am thinking about five practices that help women move from recognising their intentions to giving them sustained attention. 1. Give your goals definition My work in banking and coaching has made me think carefully about the relationship between delivering for others and following through for ourselves. At work, a commitment often comes with a deadline, a meeting and someone expecting an update. Our personal goals may have none of those things. They can remain important without receiving a definite place in our calendar. Name what matters now When I think about intentional living, I begin with the choices that give a goal meaning. “I want to grow” expresses a desire, but it leaves considerable room for uncertainty. Growth could mean applying for a leadership position, making a business more sustainable, protecting time for wellbeing, or becoming more deliberate about family relationships. I would first ask: What would be meaningfully different if this goal progressed? I also want to know whose expectations the goal serves. A goal can sound impressive and still have little connection to the life a woman wants. Clarity includes permission to reconsider it. Choose evidence of progress Once the goal has meaning, I would ask what progress might look like over the next month. A woman considering a career move could identify the work she wants to do and arrange one informed conversation. A business owner might examine why enquiries are not becoming paying clients before investing in another marketing campaign. The purpose is to give the ambition enough definition that an action becomes possible. Before asking a woman to try harder, I want to understand what is happening between her intention and her next action. Sometimes the available time and resources genuinely do not support the plan. Sometimes pursuing it means facing a decision she has been avoiding. 2. Make room for feedback Sometimes I have enough information to recognise my options, yet I remain uncertain about how to interpret them. Another article or course may add knowledge without resolving the decision. A thoughtful conversation can help me examine the assumptions I have stopped noticing. Bring a specific question Consider a woman who believes that pursuing an opportunity would be selfish because others depend on her. A useful conversation would explore her actual responsibilities, the resources available, and what she believes she must keep doing herself. It would also examine the consequences of leaving her own ambition unattended. I would encourage her to bring a specific question into that conversation. “How could I make room for this opportunity while meeting my responsibilities?” gives others something practical to explore. She can explain what she’s considered, where she feels uncertain, and what perspective would help. Welcome challenge with care I value peers who can offer encouragement and ask difficult questions with care. Agreement alone gives us little opportunity to examine our thinking. Equally, challenge without understanding can leave someone feeling judged rather than supported. The quality of the room matters. Members need to listen before offering suggestions, respect boundaries and recognise that another woman’s circumstances may differ from their own. I would measure a useful conversation partly by what happens afterward: does the person leave with a clearer question, a decision to explore or a practical next step? 3. Turn accountability into learning I want accountability to help a woman understand her behaviour, including when she does not do what she intended. An accountability partner can support that reflection without becoming responsible for her progress. She remains responsible for her actions. Review what actually happened If a woman returns to a progress review without completing an action, there is something to explore. Was the action too large? Was the timing unrealistic? Did another responsibility take priority? Did uncertainty emerge when she began? Those questions create an opportunity to adjust the plan. Repeatedly asking whether a task is finished gives us less information. Research supports the value of reviewing progress. A meta-analysis by Benjamin Harkin and colleagues found that interventions encouraging people to monitor progress improved goal attainment on average. That finding supports checking what is happening between setting a goal and pursuing it. It does not guarantee any individual outcome. Choose the next action For my approach, I want the review to be specific: what did I intend, what happened, what did I learn, and what will I do next? A next step may need to become smaller or more realistic. It may require a conversation or an adjustment to another commitment before it can happen. I would agree to a regular progress review rather than rely on remembering to reconnect. The conversation should leave room for honest answers. If someone feels she must present a successful version of her week, the partnership loses the information that could make it useful. 4. Recognise progress while building I believe celebration deserves a place within the work itself. When attention stays fixed on the unfinished goal, meaningful changes can pass unnoticed. A woman may have handled a difficult conversation more directly, protected an agreed boundary or returned to a practice after an interruption. Notice the changes Those actions give her something concrete to recognise. They can also help her see what is starting to work. I would ask her to identify a choice she made differently this month and explain why it mattered. The answer may reveal progress that a list of completed tasks would miss. I want celebration to remain honest. It can acknowledge effort while leaving room to assess results. It can recognise a decision that brought greater clarity, including stopping something that no longer fits. Connect planning with reflection This is why clarity, consistency, celebration and community belong together in my work. Clarity gives action direction. Consistency creates opportunities to learn through practice. Celebration helps us notice movement. Community offers perspective and companionship through that process. The Stay Incredible Planner supports this by connecting goals with daily choices and reflection. Its value depends on how we use it: as a record we return to, examine, and adjust. I want the plan to remain connected to the reality of a woman’s life, including her capacity and changing priorities. 5. Give change sustained attention I am interested in what becomes possible when women have time to apply what they learn and return with the reality of that experience. A conversation can create insight. The following weeks reveal what it takes to act on it. That is where competing demands, uncertainty and established habits become visible. Build a consistent rhythm A practical starting point is to choose one goal, schedule time to act, and decide when to review it. I would also identify someone who can help me think honestly about what happens. Support becomes more useful when we know when we will return to the conversation. I want a coaching experience that keeps us working at the point where insight meets everyday life. That thinking has shaped the new direction of The Incredible Journey™. From January to December 2027, I will coach thirty women in two consistent groups of fifteen. Learn through shared experience Each group will meet online twice a month: one session for coaching and learning, and another for focused hot seat conversations. Eight modules will provide the learning structure, with accountability partnerships and weekly progress reviews supporting practice between sessions. A hot seat gives a participant dedicated time to bring a challenge or decision into the room. I will guide the coaching, while peers contribute relevant experience and perspectives. The participant will choose her next step and reflect on what follows. I am welcoming women across careers and business ownership who are curious about what they can achieve in twelve months and willing to participate consistently. Give your intentions space When I speak about legacy, I think about the contribution a woman makes through her life and work. That includes how she leads, what she builds, the relationships she nurtures and the choices she practises. Those contributions deserve attention while she is making them. I cannot promise what anyone’s life will look like after twelve months. I can create a structured experience where goals receive sustained attention, decisions can be examined, and progress can be reviewed with care. For a reader considering her next year, I would start with one question: What matters enough to receive regular attention? Applications for The Incredible Journey™ 2027 are now open for women ready to make that commitment. Follow me on Facebook and LinkedIn for more info! Read more from Phetso Ntsowe Phetso Ntsowe, Leadership Strategist Phetso Ntsowe is a leadership strategist focused on helping high-performing women build self-trust and lead with clarity. With a background in banking and risk management, she brings a structured, practical approach to personal leadership and decision-making. Her work centres on redefining leadership through alignment, discipline, and intentional growth. Through her writing, speaking, and coaching, she helps women move beyond achievement towards purposeful leadership in their personal and professional lives.

Written by Andrew Houn, Acupuncture for Health and Longevity Dr. Andrew Houn is a doctor of acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine, professor, and founder of the award-winning Beyond Acupuncture in Dana Point, California, providing acupuncture services to Laguna Niguel, Dana Point, and Laguna Beach. He specializes in pain management, longevity, fertility support, women's health, and stress management. Have you ever noticed your shoulders tightening when you're stressed? Lost your appetite because you were worried? Or struggled to sleep because your mind wouldn't stop racing? These aren't coincidences. Our thoughts and emotions can influence everything from muscle tension and digestion to sleep and overall well-being. In fact, a 2020 study from Queen's University estimated that the average person experiences approximately 6,200 thoughts every day. Imagine how many of those thoughts involve worrying about tomorrow, replaying yesterday's conversations, or imagining things that might go wrong. What many people don't realize is that our emotions don't just affect our minds. They can affect our bodies, too. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has recognized this connection between mind and body for thousands of years. In Chinese medicine, five major organ systems are traditionally associated with different emotions. Here's what they can teach us about maintaining better health. 1. The liver, anger, stress, and frustration Have you ever been so frustrated that your neck and shoulders became tense or you developed a headache? In Chinese medicine, the liver is responsible for maintaining the smooth flow of qi, often translated as vital energy. When stress, anger, or frustration builds up, it may contribute to a traditional pattern known as liver qi stagnation. Common symptoms include headaches, muscle tension, irritability, digestive discomfort, and difficulty sleeping. Modern medicine also recognizes that chronic stress can contribute to muscle tension, digestive problems, and sleep disturbances. What you can do: Regular exercise, stretching, deep breathing, and taking breaks from stressful situations can help release tension and support emotional balance. 2. The spleen, worry and overthinking Have you ever worried about something so much that you lost your appetite or felt completely exhausted? In Chinese medicine, excessive worry and overthinking are associated with the spleen, which traditionally plays an important role in digestion and energy production. This pattern may involve bloating, fatigue, poor appetite, difficulty concentrating, and mental exhaustion. Constantly replaying problems in our minds can also make it harder to relax and enjoy the present moment. What you can do: Practice mindfulness, maintain regular eating habits, and give yourself permission to take a break from overthinking. Sometimes, writing down your worries can help you see them more clearly. 3. The lungs, grief and sadness Grief can be one of the most physically exhausting emotions we experience. When we're grieving, we may notice changes in our breathing, tightness in the chest, fatigue, or a feeling of heaviness. Traditional Chinese medicine associates grief and sadness with the lungs. This connection reflects the traditional understanding that emotional experiences and physical symptoms often occur together. What you can do: Allow yourself time to process grief, practice gentle breathing exercises, spend time outdoors, and seek support from people you trust. 4. The kidneys, fear and insecurity Fear is a natural emotion that helps protect us from danger. But living in a constant state of fear, uncertainty, or insecurity can leave us feeling exhausted and overwhelmed. In Chinese medicine, fear is traditionally associated with the kidneys, which are considered the foundation of vitality and resilience. People experiencing persistent fear may feel constantly on edge, have difficulty relaxing, or struggle with fatigue. What you can do: Create routines that provide stability, prioritize quality sleep, practice grounding techniques, and focus on what you can control rather than what you cannot. 5. The heart, anxiety, restlessness, and emotional balance Have you ever been so anxious or excited that your heart started racing? In Chinese medicine, the heart is believed to house the shen, often translated as the mind or spirit. When the shen is disturbed, symptoms traditionally associated with this disturbance may include anxiety, racing thoughts, restlessness, and insomnia. This is why Chinese medicine often considers emotional well-being when addressing sleep problems. What you can do: Practice meditation, reduce overstimulation before bedtime, maintain a consistent sleep schedule, and make time for activities that bring you peace. In TCM, these five organ systems describe traditional functional relationships and do not correspond directly to the anatomical organs of Western medicine. The mind and body are constantly communicating, and emotions play a role One of the most important principles of Chinese medicine is that everything is connected. Stress can interfere with sleep. Poor sleep can make us more emotionally reactive. Anxiety can affect digestion. Physical discomfort can create additional stress. Before long, we can find ourselves caught in a cycle where emotional and physical symptoms reinforce each other. The mind influences the body, and the body influences the mind. Understanding this connection can help us recognize the importance of emotional well-being as part of overall health. How acupuncture can help restore balance Many patients seek acupuncture because of physical pain, only to discover that they also feel calmer and more relaxed after treatment. Some notice improved sleep, reduced muscle tension, or a greater sense of well-being. Research suggests that acupuncture can influence the autonomic nervous system, which regulates our body's stress responses. A 2023 systematic review and meta-analysis found changes in heart rate variability consistent with increased parasympathetic activity following acupuncture compared with sham acupuncture. The parasympathetic nervous system is commonly called the “rest and digest” system, associated with relaxation and recovery. This may help explain why some patients feel deeply relaxed during acupuncture, sometimes even falling asleep on the treatment table. In Chinese medicine, acupuncture and herbal medicine are traditionally used to address patterns involving both physical and emotional symptoms. 3 acupressure points to help you relax You can also try these simple acupressure points at home. Apply gentle pressure for approximately 30 to 60 seconds while breathing slowly. Yin Tang, between the eyebrows: Traditionally used to calm the mind and encourage relaxation. Pericardium 6 (PC6), Neiguan, inner forearm: Located approximately three finger widths above the wrist crease, between two tendons. Traditionally used for nausea and emotional tension. Ear Shen Men, upper inner ear: Traditionally used to encourage relaxation and emotional balance. These points offer a simple way to pause, breathe, and give yourself a moment of calm during a busy day. Taking care of your mind is taking care of your body We spend so much time thinking about what we eat, how much we exercise, and which supplements we should take. But how often do we consider the emotional environment we create within ourselves? Taking care of your emotional health doesn't mean pretending to be happy all the time. It means recognizing when stress, worry, anger, fear, or sadness begins affecting your well-being and taking steps to restore balance. Sometimes, small changes such as getting better sleep, practicing mindfulness, exercising regularly, or simply taking a few deep breaths can make a meaningful difference. Finding balance at Beyond Acupuncture At Beyond Acupuncture in Dana Point, California, we provide personalized acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine services to residents of Laguna Niguel, Dana Point, Laguna Beach, and surrounding Orange County communities. Visit BeyondAcupuncture.com to explore Chinese herbal medicine products for a variety of health concerns, learn more about our services, or schedule an acupuncture appointment. Your mind is talking to your body every day. The question is: Are you listening? Follow me on Instagram and visit my website for more info! Read more from Andrew Houn Andrew Houn, Acupuncture for Health and Longevity Dr. Andrew Houn is a doctor of acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine (DACCHM), professor, and founder of the award-winning Beyond Acupuncture in Dana Point, California. His clinic serves Laguna Niguel, Dana Point, and Laguna Beach with acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine. His specialties include pain management, longevity, fertility support, women's health, digestive disorders, neurological conditions, stress management, and post-surgical recovery. He earned his doctorate from Pacific College of Health and Science and a master's degree from South Baylo University, where he teaches. He also holds degrees from Johns Hopkins University and UC Berkeley, studied at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and worked at UC Irvine Medical Center.

Written by Akira D. Olsen, Bilingual & Bicultural Licensed Clinical Psychologist Dr. Akira D. Olsen is a licensed clinical psychologist, founder and CEO of Journey Health, and recipient of Influencer Magazine UK’s 2026 Humanitarian of the Year Award. She specializes in anxiety, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), trauma, and mental wellbeing, combining therapy grounded in evidence with Eastern mindfulness to support clients worldwide. It’s 11:47 pm. You’re in bed, phone in hand, rereading a Slack message from your manager for the fourth time. “Can we chat tomorrow?” No context. No emoji. Just that. Now your brain is writing the whole script. You’re getting let go. You messed up the deck. They’ve been unhappy with you for months, and you missed every sign. Meanwhile, a former classmate is touring her new house on Instagram, and your group chat is still waiting on your brunch reply. Nothing has actually happened. But your attention is gone, and so is your sleep. If that sounds familiar, here’s something I want you to hold onto: A thought showing up in your head is not an invitation you have to accept. After more than 25 years as a clinical psychologist, I believe one of life’s most useful skills right now is what I call attention fitness: noticing where your attention goes, catching when it stops helping you, and choosing where to put it instead. This isn’t toxic positivity. It isn’t “just don’t think about it.” It’s building a better relationship with your own mind the way you’d build strength at the gym: with reps, not perfection. The 2 feeds you’re always scrolling You already know the outside feed: notifications, news alerts, email, the endless scroll, everyone’s opinions. But there’s a second feed most of us never log out of: the one inside our heads. Criticizing yourself. Rehearsing a conversation that hasn’t happened. Replaying one that did. “What if” on loop. Attention fitness works on both. The outside feed: What’s competing for your focus Being fully in a conversation instead of checking your phone intermittently Staying with a task while notifications keep pinging Catching the moment a scroll turns into comparison Deciding which information actually earns your time This isn’t a digital detox lecture. Social media can be where you learn, create, find community, and keep friendships alive across time zones. The question isn’t whether you use it. It’s whether you’re choosing or just reacting to whatever loads next. The inside feed: Your thoughts, feelings, and running commentary You can put your phone in another room and still be completely somewhere else. You’re at dinner with someone you love, mentally revisiting yesterday’s disagreement. You’re on a run, but you’re actually in Monday’s meeting. You’re finally resting, but a voice keeps telling you you should be doing something productive. Fitness for the inside feed means noticing these moments without automatically getting pulled in. Sometimes it means turning toward a feeling with curiosity and compassion. Sometimes it means recognizing that another lap around the same worry won’t get you anywhere. Mental fitness isn’t about ignoring your inner world. It’s about learning to move through it more flexibly. Noticing a thought versus following it You finally sit down to work on the thing: the side project, the application, the deadline. Then your brain serves up yesterday’s awkward moment. “What did she mean by that?” “Was I too much?” “Maybe they don’t actually like me.” Ten minutes later, you haven’t written a word. You’ve been in a conversation that isn’t happening. The original thought lasted maybe two seconds. What kept it going was the attention you kept feeding it. Psychology has names for the skill of stepping back. Metacognitive awareness means noticing your mental activity instead of being swallowed by it. Cognitive defusion, a core process in acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), means relating to thoughts as thoughts, not as facts, orders, or predictions. In real life, it sounds like this: “I’m going to fail” becomes “I’m noticing I’m having the thought that I might fail.” Same thought. Different relationship. That small bit of distance is where your choice lives. You can acknowledge a thought without letting it decide what you do next. This isn’t about dismissing real problems. Some thoughts carry useful information and deserve reflection, planning, or action. The skill is telling the difference between thinking that moves you forward and loops that keep you stuck. What a sword taught me about my mind I grew up in Japan practicing kendo, the Japanese martial art often called “the way of the sword.” People assume it’s all technique. It isn’t. Kendo is also about timing, awareness, and staying steady under pressure, with someone standing right in front of you, waiting for your mistake. In those moments, the biggest threat often wasn’t my opponent. It was my own head. Fear of messing up. Overanalyzing every move they made. Getting stuck in what I expected to happen instead of what was actually happening. What kendo kept teaching me was simple: come back to now. Japanese martial traditions have a concept called mushin (無心), often translated as “no mind”: acting without excessive mental interference. It doesn’t mean an empty head. It means not getting trapped by every thought that shows up. I see a meaningful parallel between mushin and modern psychological approaches that emphasize awareness of the present moment and a flexible relationship with thoughts. They aren’t the same thing, but they point in the same direction: The goal isn’t to stop thinking. It’s to stop letting every thought interrupt your life. Kendo also taught me that losing focus isn’t failure. Everyone drifts. The real skill is noticing and coming back, again and again. What the research actually says I want to be straight with you here, because the wellness internet loves to overpromise. Notifications cost more than you think. A 2015 experiment by Stothart and colleagues found that simply receiving a phone notification disrupted performance on a task demanding attention, even when people didn’t pick up the phone. The buzz alone was enough. We often don’t notice when our minds wander. Work by Schooler and colleagues highlights meta-awareness: realizing what your mind is doing. That moment of catching yourself is exactly what gives you the chance to redirect. Attention may be trainable, modestly. A 2024 meta-analysis by Zainal and Newman pooled 111 randomized controlled trials with 9,538 participants. It found small to moderate improvements in several cognitive outcomes after interventions based on mindfulness, including some measures of attention and cognitive control. However, a 2021 meta-analysis by Yakobi and colleagues found relatively small benefits for attention and executive control in healthy adults. The honest takeaway: these skills seem to respond to practice, but no one should promise you a brand new brain in two weeks. One more transparency note: attention fitness is an educational framework I developed from existing research. It is not a separately validated clinical treatment. The attention reset in 60 seconds You don’t need an hour of meditation or a silent retreat. You need one minute and a little honesty. Try this the next time you catch yourself spiraling, doomscrolling, or rereading that message. Notice: Where is my attention right now? (20 seconds) Pause. Is it on what you’re doing? Stuck in a memory? Living in a future that hasn’t happened? Reacting to something you just saw online? Just notice. No judgment for drifting. Drifting is what minds do. Name: What am I experiencing? (20 seconds) Label it. “I’m replaying that conversation.” “I’m comparing myself to someone online.” “I’m worrying about tomorrow.” “I’m feeling anxious.” “That’s my inner critic again.” Naming it helps you see it as something happening in your mind, not something that has to run your next move. Redirect: What deserves my attention now? (20 seconds) Maybe it’s the task in front of you. The person you’re with. Three slow breaths. A short walk. Or one concrete step on a real problem. Let the original thought stay in the background. You’re just not handing it the mic. When your mind wanders again, and it will, notice and come back. The goal isn’t perfect focus. It’s getting faster at returning. This exercise is an educational tool, not a clinically validated standalone intervention or a substitute for mental health care. 3 small habits that add up Before you open an app, ask: “Why am I here?” To message a friend? Look something up? Take a planned break? Or are you reaching for your phone because you’re bored, anxious, or avoiding something? Nothing is wrong with a scroll break. The point is choosing it on purpose. Leave one thought on read. When your brain asks, “What if they don’t like me?” check whether the thought calls for action or is just inviting another round of guessing. Sometimes you can let uncertainty sit without solving it. Try: “Maybe I don’t need to figure this out right now.” Then go back to something that matters. Give one ordinary moment your full attention. For one minute, eat without scrolling. Listen without drafting your reply. Walk without a podcast and actually notice your street. This isn’t about doing it perfectly. It’s about getting your reps in. You don’t have to control every thought Here’s what concerns me about a lot of personal improvement culture: the pressure to optimize everything. The perfect morning routine. The perfect mindset. Zero negativity. Always becoming your “best self.” That’s exhausting, and it isn’t how wellbeing works. Fighting uncomfortable thoughts and feelings can actually make them louder. A more flexible approach: notice what’s happening, respond with compassion, and choose what gets your attention and your action. Sometimes that means sitting with sadness. Sometimes it means listening to anxiety because it’s pointing at something real. Sometimes it means reaching out for support. Sometimes it means recognizing that one more round of overthinking won’t move you forward. Attention fitness isn’t about caring less or feeling less. It’s about choosing more. Where your attention goes, your life tends to follow. Hours spent replaying one painful conversation are hours you don’t spend with the people and things you love. Time lost to comparison is time away from your own values and progress. In my book, The Journey to Self, I write about building a kind, supportive relationship with yourself. Attention fitness is one way to practice it, because caring for yourself isn’t only about what you think and feel. It’s also about how you respond to your own mind. So the next time a thought shows up uninvited, ask: “Does this need my attention right now?” If yes, meet it with curiosity and care. If not, you’re allowed to leave it on read. Your mind will keep sending messages. You don’t have to answer every one. Your turn: What’s the thought you keep replying to, the one that shows up at 11 p.m. or right before something important? Try the attention reset in 60 seconds with it today. Then tell me what you noticed in the Journey Health Mental Fitness Community, where I share practical mental fitness exercises you can actually use. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Akira D. Olsen Akira D. Olsen, Bilingual & Bicultural Licensed Clinical Psychologist Dr. Akira D. Olsen is a licensed clinical psychologist, a 2026 Humanitarian of the Year recipient from Influencer Magazine UK, and a 2024 Marquis Who’s Who honoree, recognized for her leadership in youth, family, and mental health care informed by trauma. As founder and chief executive officer of Journey Health and WARM Education, she integrates therapies grounded in evidence with Eastern mindfulness and holistic practices to create a deeply human, culturally grounded approach to healing. With over two decades of experience across community mental health, medical settings, schools, and private practice, she supports diverse clients ranging from adolescents and families to professionals, creatives, and global leaders. Her mission is to make psychological support accessible, compassionate, and transformative for people seeking meaningful growth and lasting wellbeing. References: Stothart, C., Mitchum, A., & Yehnert, C. (2015). The attentional cost of receiving a cell phone notification. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 41(4), 893 to 897. Schooler, J. W., Smallwood, J., Christoff, K., Handy, T. C., Reichle, E. D., & Sayette, M. A. (2011). Meta-awareness, perceptual decoupling, and the wandering mind. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 15(7), 319 to 326. Zainal, N. H., & Newman, M. G. (2024). Mindfulness enhances cognitive functioning: A meta-analysis of 111 randomized controlled trials. Health Psychology Review, 18(2), 369 to 395. Yakobi, O., Smilek, D., & Danckert, J. (2021). The effects of mindfulness meditation on attention, executive control and working memory in healthy adults: A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 45, 543 to 560.

Written by Kath Roberts, Coach, Colour Teacher & Author Kath is a systems coach and international teacher of colour therapy. She unlocks innate potential in individuals and groups by bringing together what we know, who we are, and then ultimately what we do. Recognising that brilliance isn't just in our heads, but emerges from the integration of intellectual, emotional, and spiritual intelligence. You don't choose colour. Not really. You might think you do, selecting a paint shade for the living room, reaching for that particular top on a morning when everything else feels wrong, finding yourself inexplicably drawn to the turquoise bottle on a shelf. But if you slow down and pay attention, you'll notice something more interesting than preference. You'll notice that colour is choosing you, reflecting back something that is alive in your system, something your conscious mind may not yet have words for. This is not a new idea. Many ancient cultures understood colour as a carrier of meaning, a force with its own frequency, a bridge between the visible and the invisible. What is new, and what makes this genuinely exciting, is that modern neuroscience is beginning to confirm, in measurable terms, what those traditions always knew: colour is not decoration. It is communication. The science of colour and the brain Colour begins as light: wavelengths of electromagnetic energy hitting the retina and being converted into electrical signals that travel through the brain's visual pathways. But what happens next is far more complex and fascinating than simple perception. Research by Gilles Vandewalle and colleagues at the University of Liège used fMRI to examine brain responses to brief exposures to monochromatic light during a working memory task. In one study of 15 participants, blue light (473 nanometres), compared with green light, increased activity in the left hippocampus, right amygdala, and left thalamus at light onset. During the task, blue light, compared with violet light, increased activity in the left middle frontal gyrus, left thalamus, and brainstem. These findings show that wavelength can modulate brain activity. They do not establish that personal colour preferences have fixed emotional meanings or reveal a person's psychological state. Further studies using EEG have detected measurable differences in brain activity in response to colour stimuli within milliseconds. This shows that visual processing begins rapidly, but it does not show that colour preferences reveal unconscious preoccupations. Your nervous system begins processing colour before you form a conscious opinion about what you are seeing. The body, as we explored in an earlier article, Why Your Body Knows Before Your Mind Does, always knows first. Within the Colour Mirrors approach, your attraction to certain colours and your aversion to others are interpreted as carrying information. Real information. About your current state, your unconscious preoccupations, the themes that are alive in your system right now. Colour as a mirror The Colour Mirrors system, developed by Melissie Jolly, offers an interpretive approach to colour. Rather than assigning fixed meanings to colours, it treats colour as a living mirror, a reflection of what is present in the person selecting it, at this moment, in this chapter of their life. When a client selects their bottles from the Colour Mirrors range, they are not making aesthetic choices. They are responding from somewhere beneath the thinking mind. The bottles they are drawn toward may reflect the qualities, gifts, and themes they are actively living or actively longing for. The bottles they instinctively avoid may hold exactly what they are most resistant to seeing. And the most revealing bottles of all are often the ones that provoke a strong, visceral reaction, not attraction or repulsion exactly, but something more charged. A discomfort that has information in it. A pull that feels almost uncomfortable in its intensity. In my experience of working with colour over many years, the bottle a client reaches for first is rarely random. It is almost always pointing directly at the heart of what they most need to understand. The colours we avoid If you want to understand yourself, don't just notice what you love. Notice what you cannot stand. We all have colours we find difficult, shades we dismiss as ugly, garish, or simply 'not for me'. These responses feel entirely personal and entirely reasonable. They may also be doorways. A client who cannot bear yellow, the colour of the solar plexus, of personal power, of the bright, unapologetic self, may be someone who learned early that being too visible was dangerous. Someone who diminished their light to stay safe in a system that couldn't hold it. A client who recoils from red, the colour of the root, of the physical, of vitality and the right to be here, fully, in a body, in a life, may be someone who has spent years floating above their own existence, more comfortable in the world of ideas than in the full-blooded reality of being alive. A client who avoids pink, the colour of love received, of self-worth, of the softness that comes when we know we are enough, may be someone who finds receiving almost unbearable, who gives endlessly and deflects every attempt to be seen and cherished in return. None of this is a diagnosis. It is inquiry. An invitation to curiosity. The colour doesn't tell you who you are. It invites you to look at what you might be carrying. The colours we cannot get enough of Equally revealing are the colours that feel like coming home. The ones you surround yourself with. The ones you reach for again and again, in your clothes, your home, the objects you choose to keep close. These colours are not simply pleasing to you. They are feeding something. Reflecting something. Often, they are showing you the qualities you are most actively cultivating, or the frequencies you are most hungry for, the things your soul is reaching toward even when your mind hasn't caught up. Someone deeply drawn to green, particularly the rich, settled greens of old growth woodland, is often someone in a profound process of healing. Returning to themselves. Finding their roots again after a long time away from what is true. Green, in colour therapy as in nature, is the colour of the heart, of growth that comes from the inside out, steady and unhurried as a tree. Someone magnetised by deep violet or gold is often someone whose spiritual life is central, even if they have no language for it yet. Someone whose gifts extend beyond the conventional, who senses more than they can explain, and who is beginning, tentatively, or boldly, to trust that. Someone who keeps returning to orange, the colour of creativity and joy and the sheer delight of being alive, is often someone in the early stages of remembering what play feels like. Recovering something that was educated or conditioned out of them, the spontaneous, expressive, alive version of themselves that got quieter over the years of becoming responsible and sensible. Colour and the systemic field In the previous article, we explored how family systems carry patterns, loyalties, and unresolved stories across generations. Colour therapy intersects with this systemic understanding in ways that consistently astonish me. When a client selects a bottle and we begin to explore what it is reflecting, we very often find ourselves entering territory that is not simply personal. A colour that speaks of exclusion may be pointing to an ancestor who was cut off from the family. A colour that speaks of unresolved grief may be carrying a loss that predates the client by a generation or two. A colour that speaks of the longing to be seen may be echoing someone else's silenced voice. The field knows. The body knows. Colour gives it a language precise enough to work with. This is why I often find that a single colour session can open conversations and seismic shifts that months of more conventional coaching have not touched. Not because colour is magic, though it can certainly feel that way. But because it bypasses the defending, explaining, rationalising mind and speaks directly to the part of a person that already knows what is true. The soul oversees choosing! A simple colour inquiry You don't need a set of Colour Mirrors bottles to begin exploring your relationship with colour. Start simply. Look around the space you are in right now. What colours are present? Which ones feel nourishing, and which ones feel deadening? Which ones are absent, and does their absence tell you anything? Then think about the colours you are wearing most often at the moment. Not what you 'should' wear or what suits you in a conventional sense. What are you actually reaching for? What does that colour carry for you? And if you could add one colour to your life right now, one you are not currently surrounded by but feel drawn toward, what would it be? What does that colour mean to you? What quality of it are you hungry for? These are not trivial questions. Colour is one of the most immediate and honest languages available to us. It doesn't care about the story you tell yourself. It simply reflects what is true. The invitation is to start listening. Ready to work with colour? Whether through a one-to-one Colour Mirrors session, a Soul Path Reading, or a deeper coaching journey, working with colour is one of the most direct routes I know to the truth of who you are, beneath the roles, the conditioning, and the stories you have been carrying. Your colours are already talking. The question is whether you are ready to hear what they are saying. Explore all ways to work with me here. Follow me on Facebook and Instagram for more info! Read more from Kath Roberts Kath Roberts, Coach, Colour Teacher & Author Kath Roberts is an international colour therapist, systems coach, and author who bridges the business world with the metaphysical to facilitate profound transformation. With over 37 years of work experience across leadership, sales, and consultancy with a focus on cultivating talent, she uses colour, systemic coaching, and nature-based practices to help conscious leaders and creative entrepreneurs align with their soul's purpose. She creates space and the appropriate structure so transformation moves from the inside out with ease and grace.

Written by Juna Ting-Wei Chang, Forest Therapy Guide Juna Ting-Wei Chang is a forest therapy guide and founder of Shinrin-Yoku Taiwan, specialising in evidence-based forest therapy and Shinrin-yoku. She supports individuals and organisations in slowing down and gently returning their attention to themselves and the more-than-human world through nature. Why your brain works differently the moment you step under the trees, and what cortisol, attention, an ancient love of living things, a Japanese village landscape, and the threshold between worlds have to do with it. Cross the first hundred meters of a forest trail and something quietly shifts. Not in the trees, but in you. Breathing slows, the gaze softens, and the mental tabs you’ve held open all day start closing on their own. Participants often ask me the same question: Why does my brain feel so different out here? It deserves a real answer. In Relational Forest Therapy™, the approach I practice through the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy (ANFT), we say that the forest is the therapist and guides open the door. But a door only matters if something real waits on the other side. So let’s look at what science, and a few older ideas, say is waiting there. Your attention is tired, the forest is built to rest it Psychologists Rachel and Stephen Kaplan called the problem directed attention fatigue. Every notification you ignore, and every decision you make, asks your brain to suppress distractions and stay on task. That effortful focus is a limited resource, and modern life drains it all day long. Their Attention Restoration Theory proposes that natural settings let it recharge because they hold our attention gently and without effort. They named this soft fascination: moving leaves, shifting light, running water, birdsong. Things worth noticing that demand nothing back. A city street or a screen does the opposite, grabbing your attention and refusing to let go. The Kaplans also described what makes a place restorative: a sense of being away, to the extent that it feels like a whole world, gentle fascination, and compatibility with what you need. A forest walk checks all four. Researchers still debate how precisely the theory can be tested, but studies have repeatedly found that people perform better on cognitive tasks after time in nature. Your body hears it first: The cortisol story Cortisol is your body’s main stress hormone, and it’s a useful window into what a forest does to you. In field experiments across 24 forests in Japan, researchers sent 280 young adults to walk in forest and city settings. The forest groups showed lower cortisol, slower pulse, and lower blood pressure, along with more parasympathetic activity (your rest and recover mode) and less sympathetic activity (your fight-or-flight mode). To be fair, the evidence isn’t perfectly uniform. Some studies find weaker effects on cortisol or blood pressure. But reviews and meta-analyses keep pointing in the same direction: lower stress markers, a calmer heart rate, and less tension, anxiety, and low mood after forest bathing. Your mind follows: The loop loosens Rumination is the mental replay button: the same worries, the same self-criticism, round and round. In a 2015 Stanford study, 38 adults took a 90-minute walk in either a natural setting or beside a busy road. Only the nature walkers reported less rumination, and their brain scans showed reduced activity in the subgenual prefrontal cortex, a region linked to that kind of negative self-focused thinking. Why does it work? Three older ideas Biophilia. In his 1984 book Biophilia, biologist E. O. Wilson popularized the idea that humans carry an innate tendency to focus on life and lifelike processes. We spent nearly all of our history inside living systems, and cities are a blink in evolutionary time. Honesty matters here: biophilia remains a hypothesis, and Wilson himself said hard evidence was still early. But whether the pull is inherited, learned, or both, most of us feel it. Relational Forest Therapy takes the next step, from affinity to relationship: a two-way exchange rather than a one-way pull. Satoyama. In Japanese, sato means village and yama means hill or forest. Satoyama describes a mosaic of woodland, farmland, ponds, and grassland where people and nature shape each other over generations. Villagers once coppiced trees and gathered fallen leaves for the fields, and in return, the landscape gave food, fuel, and shelter. Satoyama landscapes cover nearly 40% of Japan. I find it a helpful picture of what we invite on a walk: not the forest as scenery, and not as wilderness we only visit, but as a partner in a reciprocal relationship. The liminal world. Liminal comes from the Latin limen, meaning threshold. In 1909, anthropologist Arnold van Gennep described rites of passage in three phases: separation, a middle phase, and return. Victor Turner later called that middle phase “betwixt and between”: you’re no longer who you were, and not yet who you’re becoming. A forest walk borrows that shape. You cross a threshold, leave your roles and schedules behind, and enter a space where the usual rules loosen. It’s why a guide’s work is to open a door. A threshold is where the journey inward begins. What shifts in the body Stress hormones settle: lower cortisol compared with city environments. The heart calms: slower pulse and lower blood pressure. The nervous system rebalances: more rest and recovery activity, less fight-or-flight. Immune support (emerging): early research links tree compounds called phytoncides to higher natural killer cell activity. What shifts in the mind Attention restores: effortful focus rests while soft fascination takes over. Rumination quiets: fewer looping, self-critical thoughts. Tension and low mood ease: lower anxiety and heaviness after time in the forest. Belonging returns: a felt sense of kinship with the living world and a new perspective on your own life. The trip within Nothing about this is magic, and that’s what I love about it. Attention restored. Stress chemistry settling. Loops of thought loosening. An old affinity remembered, a reciprocal relationship offered, a threshold crossed. We do not hand you a new brain. We invite you to notice what yours was built for, and the forest does the rest. If you’re ready to embark, the door is open. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Juna Ting-Wei Chang Juna Ting-Wei Chang, Forest Therapy Guide Juna Ting-Wei Chang is a forest therapy guide and founder of Shinrin-Yoku Taiwan, now part of Green Shower. She is the first Taiwanese guide certified by the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy (ANFT) and also holds the Taiwan Forest Therapist Certificate. With a background in languages, cross-cultural experience, and landscape and recreation management, Juna brings science, tradition, and lived experience together in a warm, grounded way. Her work supports individuals, organisations, and international groups in cultivating emotional resilience, presence, and sustainable wellbeing through nature-based practices. References: Bratman, G. N., Hamilton, J. P., Hahn, K. S., Daily, G. C., & Gross, J. J. (2015). Nature experience reduces rumination and subgenual prefrontal cortex activation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(28), 8567–8572. Kaplan, R., & Kaplan, S. (1989). The experience of nature: A psychological perspective. Cambridge University Press Park, B. J., Tsunetsugu, Y., Kasetani, T., Kagawa, T., & Miyazaki, Y. (2010). The physiological effects of Shinrin-yoku (taking in the forest atmosphere or forest bathing): Evidence from field experiments in 24 forests across Japan. Environmental Health and Preventive Medicine, 15(1), 18–26. Turner, V. (1969). The ritual process: Structure and anti-structure. Aldine Publishing. Van Gennep, A. (1960). The rites of passage (M. B. Vizedom & G. L. Caffee, Trans.). University of Chicago Press. (Original work published 1909). Wilson, E. O. (1984). Biophilia. Harvard University Press.