Explore every episode of the podcast Magic Thread Media

What happens when frustration is rising, but the conditions for reconciliation are there too? In this Drops of Light, Vish looks at the current Vedic astrology forecast and the tension between anger, wisdom, and diplomacy. With Mars stirring emotion and Jupiter, Venus, and Mercury supporting perspective and communication, he reflects on why this may be a meaningful window to revisit strained relationships, listen more carefully, and look for a path back toward harmony.

Get your Personal Karmic Blueprint Reading - https://www.vishchatterji.com/karmic-snapshot

About the Host:

Vish Chatterji is an executive coach, Vedic Astrology teacher, author, and former business executive who helps people bridge ancient wisdom with modern life. After a career spanning engineering, entrepreneurship, and corporate leadership, he now guides leaders, founders, and seekers toward greater clarity through the traditions of Yoga, Meditation, Ayurveda, Vedic Philosophy, and Jyotish, the ancient science of light.

Through his coaching practice, Head & Heart Insights, Vish combines practical business experience with timeless spiritual teachings, inviting people to lead and live with greater awareness, purpose, and presence. He is the author of The Business Casual Yogi and Astrology Decoded, and serves as a Faculty Coach and Educator with the Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute at UC Berkeley.

https://www.vishchatterji.com/

Today’s Edgewalker card explores how meaningful connection grows when we approach difference with curiosity rather than distance. By valuing the uniqueness of others and remaining open to unfamiliar perspectives, we create opportunities to bring out the best in one another.

Start your own journey of reflection, creativity, and intentional growth with the Create Magic at Work Journal or bring the wisdom of the Edgewalker mindset into your daily life with your own copy of the Edgewalker Card Deck. You can find both at https://magicthreadmedia.com/experience

What if the clutter surrounding you isn’t just taking up space, but also draining your time, attention, money, and ability to grow?

Amy sits down with simplicity expert and longtime professional organizer Miriam Ortiz y Pino to explore the deeper connection between physical clutter, digital overwhelm, financial habits, and the way entrepreneurs run their businesses. Miriam challenges the idea that organization is about buying prettier containers or finding the perfect productivity app. Instead, lasting change comes from understanding what you actually need, building systems around the way you live and work, and aligning your actions with your values.

Their conversation moves from money mindset and financial self-worth to decision fatigue, busy work, digital clutter, sustainable systems, and why doing more is rarely the answer. Miriam also explains why entrepreneurs need to stop waiting for the perfect solution, start paying attention to their numbers, and create businesses that support the lives they actually want.

The shift can start surprisingly small. One drawer. One decision. Ten intentional minutes. Because meaningful change doesn’t require fixing everything at once. It starts by creating enough space to choose what matters next.

Moments That Create Momentum:

1. The Cost of “For Now” – See how postponing small decisions can become physical clutter, digital overload, and unnecessary mental weight.
2. The System Comes Before the Container – Understand why another bin, app, or tool cannot solve a problem until you know what the system needs to do.
3. Money Follows What You Value – Explore how understanding your numbers can bring spending and business decisions closer to the life you actually want.
4. More Capacity Is Not More Freedom – The secret to actually save you more time utilizing technology.
5. Small Wins Build Capability – How making one clear decision can close a mental loop and make positive change feel more possible.

About our Guest:

Miriam Ortiz y Pino is a simplicity expert, Certified Professional Organizer, and Money Breakthrough Business Coach who helps busy, creative entrepreneurs connect organization, productivity, and money mindset. With more than 20 years of experience, she helps clients gain control of their time, space, and finances through flexible, practical systems that support their best work and a more satisfying life.

One of the first Certified Professional Organizers in the world and a NAPO instructor, Miriam’s work is rooted in helping people simplify what feels overwhelming, build wealth more intentionally, and create more room for what they truly want to do.

https://www.morethanorganized.net

https://www.facebook.com/morethanorganized/

https://www.instagram.com/moypmto/

https://www.youtube.com/user/MorethanOrganized

https://www.linkedin.com/in/miriamortizypino/

https://www.pinterest.com/moypmto

https://morethanorganized.substack.com

About Amy:

Amy Lynn Durham, known by her clients as the Corporate Mystic, is the founder of the Executive Coaching Firm, Create Magic At Work®, where they help leaders build workplaces rooted in creativity, collaboration, and fulfillment. A former corporate executive turned Executive Coach, Amy blends practical leadership strategies with spiritual intelligence to unlock human potential at work.

She’s a certified Executive Coach through UC Berkeley & the International Coaching Federation (ICF) In addition, Amy holds coaching certifications in Spiritual Intelligence (SQ21), the Edgewalker Profile, and the Archetypes of Change . In addition to being the host of the Create Magic At Work® podcast, Amy is the author of Create Magic At Work®, Creating Career Magic: A Daily Prompt Journal and the founder of Magic Thread Media™. Through her work, she inspires intentional leadership for thriving workplaces and lives where “magic” becomes reality.

Connect with Amy:

https://createmagicatwork.net/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/create-magic-at-work

https://www.facebook.com/112951637095427

https://www.instagram.com/createmagicatwork

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnEm4h3fUgaq8qgvZpz6dGg

Thanks for listening!

Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page.

Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!

Subscribe to the podcast

If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

Leave us an Apple Podcasts review

Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you are enjoying the show, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.

What if the thing creating distance in your relationship is also protecting you from getting closer?

As Kristien and Stijn return to the conversation about alcohol, Dr. Pavini begins asking a different question: what role is alcohol actually playing between them? For Stijn, drinking has become increasingly compulsive and mentally consuming. For Kristien, watching and worrying about it has become almost impossible to turn off.

Then Kristien shares something that changes the shape of the conversation. When she and Stijn first fell in love, she was using marijuana almost every day. He drank, she smoked, and together they could spend hours talking, laughing, and feeling connected. Her eventual sobriety brought freedom, but it also changed something they once shared.

As the session unfolds, the conversation moves beyond drinking itself into vulnerability, shame, caretaking, and what happens when one partner starts changing while the other is still finding their way. And in one tender exchange, Stijn is invited to consider something he rarely allows himself to see: the healing impact his love has had on Kristien.

What Begins to Surface

• When a shared habit becomes part of how a couple bonds
• The difference between caring for a partner and caretaking them
• What sobriety can change inside a relationship
• How shame can make it difficult to receive something good about yourself
• The loop between monitoring, hiding, and growing disconnection

This podcast focuses on relationship dynamics and is not intended to provide addiction treatment. If you or someone you love is struggling from the impact of untreated substance abuse, please seek support from qualified professionals who specialize in addiction.

If something major in your relationship needs to shift, Book a Free Clarity Call with Dr. Pavini at https://pavini.as.me/ to find out what's possible. On our call, we'll get clear on:

• What's actually happening right now
• What you're longing for instead
• Whether working together is the right fit
• One or two things you can start doing differently right now

You'll leave with clarity and a concrete next step.

About the Host:

Dr. Pavini Moray is a somatic coach and Relational Life Therapy practitioner with a PhD in Somatic Psychology. For more than 15 years, Pavini has worked with couples navigating relationship crisis, intimacy challenges, rupture, and repair. Their approach blends Relational Life Therapy, somatic work, and trauma-informed care to help couples understand the deeper patterns shaping how they connect, communicate, and love.

https://www.pavinimoray.com/

Musical Attribution: Original podcast music composed by Luke Djordjevic

Thanks for listening!

Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page.

Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!

Subscribe to the podcast

If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

Leave us an Apple Podcasts review

Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you are enjoying the show, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.

Between Worlds: Who Gets to Decide Who We Become?

What happens when you grow up with one culture at home and another one outside the front door? Who do you know yourself to be?

Today we are #LiveInTheHive with author and poet Parul L. Bhandari, a first-generation American, raised by Hindi-speaking Indian immigrant parents, and her story lives in that fascinating space between heritage and identity, expectation and possibility, belonging and becoming.

Her newest book is Good Brown Girls, poetry that opens up the intimate, sometimes tender and sometimes uncomfortable spaces where culture, family, womanhood, race, identity, desire, and belonging intersect.

Because what does it mean to be “Indian” when you were raised American? And what happens when the values, traditions, stories, and expectations you inherit from your family don’t always line up with the person you’re becoming?

We talk about what we inherit from our families—and what we choose to keep. We dig into the labels we carry, the identities we construct, and the sometimes uncomfortable process of figuring out which parts of ourselves are genuinely ours.

How do we honor where we come from without allowing it to dictate where we’re going?

Parul brings a perspective shaped by both her Indian heritage and her American upbringing, offering a nuanced look at what it means to navigate multiple cultural worlds—and ultimately, to become more fully yourself.

We talk about:

• Growing up “between” Indian and American cultures,
• What it means to be a first-generation American?
• The tension between cultural expectations and personal identity – how do you hold onto traditions from your culture of origin whilst also embracing the culture and customs of your new home.
• The duality of being both “modern” and “traditional,” which she witnessed her own parents grapple with.
• The edges of guilt – how is informed her biases.
• The preservation vs evolution of traditions.
• Living from our own values vs carrying the expectations of our ancestors.
• I read a couple of her poems – Parul shares her desire to help women to move forward, understanding that it it’s time to break some rules.
• What is Diwali? Parul’s Diwali children’s book is Shine a Light on Diwali: An American-Born, Indian-Heritage Family Celebrates the Festival of Lights, illustrated by Ali Cardenas. The story follows 2 brothers as they share how their U.S.-based Indian-American family celebrates Diwali—at home, at school, and in their community. A central idea is that they’ve developed their own family traditions, combining their Indian heritage with their American upbringing
• All this and much more.

About Parul L. Bhandari

Parul L. Bhandari is a Chicago-based author, tech entrepreneur, podcast host, and speaker who has never believed in doing just one thing. She is the founder of CustomerXSuccess, a fractional customer success consultancy for B2B SaaS companies, and the author of six books spanning children's literature, poetry, and business — including the Amazon bestselling Good Brown Girls and The Customer Success Talent Playbook.

Full bio, order books, and connect HERE.

@parul_bhandari_author

About Sandra Bargman

I help people find and express a more truthful presence through voice, storytelling, and deep listening.

My work draws on decades as a professinal actor, singer, director, coach, and as a spiritual counselor, bringing together vocal technique with emotional intelligence, mindfulness, breath and body awareness, and the transformative power of story.

My signature B.I.G. Approach explores Breath and Body, Intention, and Genuineness—because powerful communication isn't simply about what we say. It's about how fully we inhabit ourselves when we say it.

Whether I'm working one-on-one or with a group, my goal is not to teach people how to sound like someone else.

It's to help them hear themselves more clearly—and have the courage to let that voice be heard.

SandraBargman.com

MagicThreadMedia.com

@SandraBargman

Mentioned in this episode:

This show was brought to you in part by the Magic Thread Media Network. To learn more visit: https://magicthreadmedia.com/

Welcome to the next evolution of your podcast experience with Magic Thread Media.

Audio is just the beginning. We created these interactive experiences so you can connect deeper with your favorite shows, hosts, and personal development tools—taking the connection far beyond your earbuds.

Whether you tune in to Create Magic at Work, Circle's Edges, Finding Treasures in the Trash, Bending the Light, or any other show in our network, you can now engage directly with our host collective:

• Candle Lighting Rituals: Light a candle with Aaron on Circle's Edges
• Nature & Wellness Retreats: Join Cari for immersive, in-person community retreats in nature
• Astrology & Karma Readings: Receive your personalized karmic snapshot reading from Vish
• Guided Journaling: Reflect on your personal journey with weekly magic microdose prompts guided by Amy Lynn Durham

Explore Your Experience: Ready to move beyond passive listening and have an amazing, interactive experience?

Visit magicthreadmedia.com/experience to thread yourself in.

Today’s reflection explores how moments of solitude can create the clarity we need to move forward. By making space to go within, we can listen more closely to ourselves and consider the decisions that may bring greater harmony and peace of mind.

Start your own journey of reflection, creativity, and intentional growth with the Create Magic at Work Journal or bring the wisdom of the Edgewalker mindset into your daily life with your own copy of the Edgewalker Card Deck. You can find both at https://magicthreadmedia.com/experience

What if karma is not a cosmic punishment system, but a curriculum?

Vedic astrology approaches karma less like a courtroom and more like an accounting system. Every action carries a consequence, every pattern tells us something, and every lifetime presents a particular set of lessons. Vish explores how Jyotish, the Vedic science of illuminating the soul, helps us recognize the karmic terrain we are moving through and distinguish between what must be experienced and what may still be changed.

That distinction matters. Some karma is deeply fixed. Some requires sustained effort. Some can shift through relatively small changes in awareness and action. The Yoga Sutras offer a guiding principle: avoid the suffering that is yet to come. Spiritual practice, meditation, service, conscious choices, and traditional remedies become ways of participating in that process rather than simply enduring it.

The recurring relationship, the difficult family dynamic, the blocked area of life, or even the way we exchange value at work can become information.

Perhaps the deeper invitation of karma is not to ask, “Why is this happening to me?” but to become curious about what life is asking us to understand, metabolize, rebalance, and eventually move beyond.

Points of Light:

1. Karma Is Accounting, Not Judgment: Vedic wisdom reframes karma as the natural consequence of action rather than a system deciding whether we are good or bad.
2. Your Repeating Patterns Are Information: When the same relationship, conflict, or challenge continues returning, the unfinished lesson may matter more than the circumstances around it.
3. Not All Karma Has to Be Experienced the Hard Way: A karmic manager distinguishes between what is fixed, what requires sustained effort, and what may still be consciously modified.
4. Spiritual Practice Changes the Level Where the Pattern Lives: Meditation reaches beneath ordinary thought into the causal layer where Vish describes karmic conditioning as capable of being refined.
5. Your Life Is a Curriculum, Not a Courtroom: Challenges become clues to what the soul is here to learn, while free will determines how consciously we respond.

Get your Personal Karmic Blueprint Reading - https://www.vishchatterji.com/karmic-snapshot

About the Host:

Vish Chatterji is an executive coach, Vedic Astrology teacher, author, and former business executive who helps people bridge ancient wisdom with modern life. After a career spanning engineering, entrepreneurship, and corporate leadership, he now guides leaders, founders, and seekers toward greater clarity through the traditions of Yoga, Meditation, Ayurveda, Vedic Philosophy, and Jyotish, the ancient science of light.

Through his coaching practice, Head & Heart Insights, Vish combines practical business experience with timeless spiritual teachings, inviting people to lead and live with greater awareness, purpose, and presence. He is the author of The Business Casual Yogi and Astrology Decoded, and serves as a Faculty Coach and Educator with the Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute at UC Berkeley.

https://www.vishchatterji.com/

Thanks for listening!

Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page.

Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!

Subscribe to the podcast

If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

Leave us an Apple Podcasts review

Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you are enjoying the show, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.

Mentioned in this episode:

This show was brought to you in part by the Magic Thread Media Network. To learn more visit: https://magicthreadmedia.com/

What if your creativity knows something before you do?

In this month’s episode Rachel Efron’s asks her most provocative question yet: if dreams can reveal truths outside of our conscious understanding, can our creativity do the same? Inspired by an experience teaching dreamers in Delphi, Greece, Rachel explores the intimate relationship between dreaming and creating, and the associative state of mind they share.

Through neuroscience, personal stories, and the strange symbolic conversation between her own songs and dreams, Rachel considers what’s possible when we emphasize the connection between dreaming and creativity. She offers examples of dreams informing creative lives, and suggests that likewise, our creativity can inform our dreaming. She shares examples of her creative work being as prophetic as dreams: songs describing relationships and choices she had not yet experienced.

Rachel then invites listeners into a series of association exercises she created to move us beyond effortful thinking (“convergent thinking”) and toward the looser thinking of dreaming (“divergent thinking”). She teaches listeners how to begin developing a dictionary of symbols available to both your creativity and dreaming.

Sparks of Insight

• Creativity and dreaming share a mental process: divergent thinking.
• Dreaming is creativity practice; creativity is dreaming practice. Anytime we dream or create, we are deepening our relationship to both.
• If prophetic dreams are possible, what about prophetic creativity? A provocative exploration of whether a song, painting, or poem can sense what is still becoming.
• Effort is not always the fastest way forward. Stepping away from a problem and doing an “association journey” can lead us toward the small truths we need to make real progress.
• Rest creates a landing place for ideas. Sometimes what feels like lack of inspiration is really a lack of internal space for your plentiful new ideas.

Ready to discover your unique creative landscape?

Download the Muzi app at http://itunes.apple.com/app/id6739667782 to take the Creativity Assessment, and uncover your Spark profile. Then email your Spark to Rachel at rachel@rachelefron.com for a chance at a Spark Reading, where Rachel will offer personalized insight into what your creativity most needs from you right now.

About Rachel:

Rachel Efron is an Oakland-based songwriter, producer, and creativity coach. She's released four full-length albums of original songs, plus written for such legends as Narada Michael Walden and Journey. Rachel is a premier songwriting coach for songwriters across the world, and has over fifteen years experience helping artists, leaders, and teams find their voice.

In 2022, Rachel turned her methods into a comprehensive framework and groundbreaking app, Muzi, to help everyone —artists and non-artists alike—access greater creativity in their lives.

email: rachel@rachelefron.com

website: https://www.rachelefron.com/creativity

Download the Muzi app at http://itunes.apple.com/app/id6739667782

Thanks for listening!

Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page.

Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!

Subscribe to the podcast

If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

Leave us an Apple Podcasts review

Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you are enjoying the show, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.

Anger is not the problem. What matters is what happens next. In this Tiny Treasure, Cari explores anger as a natural, healthy emotion and looks at what may be underneath it: unmet needs, wounded pride, crossed boundaries, and the longing to feel seen and valued. She shares five simple, body-based ways to slow the energy of anger down, create space around it, and respond with greater clarity instead of slipping into aggression.

Because the goal is not to stop feeling anger. It is to stay connected to ourselves, and when possible, to one another, while we feel it.

Today’s Edgewalker card explores how integrity is shaped by the ongoing practice of knowing what we value and choosing to live in alignment with it. When our words, decisions, and behavior reflect those values, accountability becomes part of how we lead and live.\

Start your own journey of reflection, creativity, and intentional growth with the Create Magic at Work Journal or bring the wisdom of the Edgewalker mindset into your daily life with your own copy of the Edgewalker Card Deck. You can find both at https://magicthreadmedia.com/experience

What do we carry from the people who came before us? In this Drops of Light, Vish explores the Vedic tradition of honoring ancestors during the fortnight known as Pitri Paksha, a time for remembrance, offerings, and reflection on the patterns that move through a family lineage. He shares a simple ancestral ritual as a way to honor those who have passed and acknowledge the connection between past and present.

Get your Personal Karmic Blueprint Reading - https://www.vishchatterji.com/karmic-snapshot

About the Host:

Vish Chatterji is an executive coach, Vedic Astrology teacher, author, and former business executive who helps people bridge ancient wisdom with modern life. After a career spanning engineering, entrepreneurship, and corporate leadership, he now guides leaders, founders, and seekers toward greater clarity through the traditions of Yoga, Meditation, Ayurveda, Vedic Philosophy, and Jyotish, the ancient science of light.

Through his coaching practice, Head & Heart Insights, Vish combines practical business experience with timeless spiritual teachings, inviting people to lead and live with greater awareness, purpose, and presence. He is the author of The Business Casual Yogi and Astrology Decoded, and serves as a Faculty Coach and Educator with the Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute at UC Berkeley.

https://www.vishchatterji.com/

As Aaron prepares to enter the final three episodes of the season, he invites us to revisit Episode 004, “Origin Stories,” returning to the stories we inherit before exploring the longer, intergenerational arcs that shape our lives.

There are moments when a stranger’s story feels like a mirror, quietly revealing something we’ve carried for years without naming. In this episode, Aaron invites us into the layered terrain of family origin stories, where identity, belonging, and inherited narratives begin to take shape long before we have language for them. Through a deeply human encounter and a series of gentle questions, the conversation settles into the quiet realization that much of who we believe ourselves to be may not have been chosen at all. As the night unfolds, listeners are asked to sit with the stories they’ve lived, the roles they’ve carried, and the subtle edges where those inherited patterns begin to soften, shift, or ask for release.

Invitations to Consider:

• A powerful real-life encounter that opens the doorway into reflecting on human resilience and chosen identity
• How family origin stories shape identity, often before we are aware of it
• The role of belonging, attachment, and emotional conditioning in early development
• The hidden influence of family roles, myths, and power structures on adult life
• The possibility of rewriting inherited narratives and choosing new ways of being

Light a Candle With Me

A candle is part of my nighttime recording ritual, which makes Keap Candles a natural partner for Circles|Edges. If you’d like to bring the ritual into your own space, explore Keap through my affiliate link HERE

When you purchase through this link, Circles|Edges receives a modest commission at no additional cost to you, helping support the production of the show.

You are also invited to dive deeper with me and join our circle at https://www.circlesedges.org/

About Aaron:

Aaron Tabacco, PhD, has spent more than thirty years guiding people through growth and change, often in complex and high-stakes environments. He currently serves as the Director of Staff Experience at a major academic health sciences university. With a background spanning nursing, neuroscience, education, coaching, and mediation, his work centers on helping individuals and organizations navigate identity, connection, and transformation with greater clarity and care.

Known for his grounded presence and compassionate communication, Aaron works with students, clinicians, faculty, executives, and senior leaders across healthcare and other industries. His approach integrates relational depth, reflective practice, and a commitment to creating more humane, integrated ways of working and living. He works in San Francisco, California, and lives in Vancouver, Washington, where he continues a lifelong engagement with writing, music, and the landscapes of the Pacific Northwest alongside his husband and three adult sons.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaron-tabacco-phd-83359b9/

https://lucusgroup.com/home

https://substack.com/@aarontabacco?r=b5ap9&utm_medium=ios

https://www.youtube.com/@CirclesEdges

Email: aaron@circlesedges.org

Thanks for listening!

Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page.

Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!

Subscribe to the podcast

If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

Leave us an Apple Podcasts review

Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you are enjoying the show, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.

This show was brought to you in part by the Magic Thread Media Network. To learn more visit: https://magicthreadmedia.com/

What happens when trust is broken, love returns, but the rupture itself never really gets repaired?

After Kristien accidentally discovers a pile of wine bottles on Stijn's boat, she realizes an agreement between them has been broken. At first, she pushes away the shock. Then the pieces begin falling into place. The distance she had felt, the questions she had been asking herself, and the sense that something was wrong suddenly have an explanation.

As Kristien and Stijn retrace what happened next, Dr. Pavini Moray begins looking closely at how they move through conflict. Kristien gives herself permission to consider leaving, only to quickly reassure Stijn that she is staying. Stijn acknowledges the shame he feels, while Pavini invites him to consider the difference between shame and healthy remorse.

They reconnect. The love becomes tangible again. But underneath that reconnection is a harder question: did they actually repair the breach of trust, or did they simply find their way back to each other without fully addressing what happened?

As old fears, caretaking patterns, and the pull toward intimacy begin surfacing, Dr. Pavini watches for what each of them may be protecting the other from, and what that protection could be costing their relationship.

What Begins to Surface

• The difference between reconnecting and repairing broken trust
• What happens when shock gets pushed aside
• Reassuring your partner before fully tending to your own hurt
• Shame versus healthy remorse after breaking an agreement
• When love returns before the difficult conversation is finished

This podcast focuses on relationship dynamics and is not intended to provide addiction treatment. If you or someone you love is struggling from the impact of untreated substance abuse, please seek support from qualified professionals who specialize in addiction.

If something major in your relationship needs to shift, Book a Free Clarity Call with Dr. Pavini at https://pavini.as.me/ to find out what's possible. On our call, we'll get clear on:

• What's actually happening right now
• What you're longing for instead
• Whether working together is the right fit
• One or two things you can start doing differently right now

You'll leave with clarity and a concrete next step.

About the Host:

Dr. Pavini Moray is a somatic coach and Relational Life Therapy practitioner with a PhD in Somatic Psychology. For more than 15 years, Pavini has worked with couples navigating relationship crisis, intimacy challenges, rupture, and repair. Their approach blends Relational Life Therapy, somatic work, and trauma-informed care to help couples understand the deeper patterns shaping how they connect, communicate, and love.

https://www.pavinimoray.com/

Musical Attribution: Original podcast music composed by Luke Djordjevic

Thanks for listening!

Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page.

Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!

Subscribe to the podcast

If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

Leave us an Apple Podcasts review

Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you are enjoying the show, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.

What happens when alcohol stops feeling like something outside the relationship and begins to feel like a third person inside it?

At the beginning of Kristien and Stijn's journey, Dr. Pavini Moray starts by listening for what hurts, what each of them wants, and the patterns already shaping their connection. Kristien longs for more emotional and sexual intimacy without constantly monitoring Stijn's drinking. Stijn knows alcohol has become a problem, but he wants the space to understand it and make changes in his own way.

As they begin tracing their family histories, the conflict starts to look less like a disagreement about drinking and more like two very different responses to something deeply familiar. Both grew up around alcohol, emotional disconnection, and things that went largely unspoken.

When Kristien describes alcohol as “the mistress in the relationship,” a deeper question emerges: can they recognize what they inherited before those old patterns decide what happens next?

What Begins to Surface

• When alcohol starts taking up space inside the relationship
• The difference between wanting change and wanting control
• How family history shapes what feels normal in love
• Why emotional connection becomes tied to physical intimacy
• What happens when naming a problem is not the same as drawing a boundary

This podcast focuses on relationship dynamics and is not intended to provide addiction treatment. If you or someone you love is struggling from the impact of untreated substance abuse, please seek support from qualified professionals who specialize in addiction.

If something major in your relationship needs to shift, Book a Free Clarity Call with Dr. Pavini at https://pavini.as.me/ to find out what's possible. On our call, we'll get clear on:

• What's actually happening right now
• What you're longing for instead
• Whether working together is the right fit
• One or two things you can start doing differently right now

You'll leave with clarity and a concrete next step.

About the Host:

Dr. Pavini Moray is a somatic coach and Relational Life Therapy practitioner with a PhD in Somatic Psychology. For more than 15 years, Pavini has worked with couples navigating relationship crisis, intimacy challenges, rupture, and repair. Their approach blends Relational Life Therapy, somatic work, and trauma-informed care to help couples understand the deeper patterns shaping how they connect, communicate, and love.

https://www.pavinimoray.com/

Musical Attribution: Original podcast music composed by Luke Djordjevic

Thanks for listening!

Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page.

Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!

Subscribe to the podcast

If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

Leave us an Apple Podcasts review

Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you are enjoying the show, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.

Welcome to Salty Sweet, a podcast that takes you inside the real therapy sessions of one couple navigating intimacy, trust, drinking, betrayal, and the patterns shaping their relationship.

With Dr. Pavini Moray as their guide, you’ll hear what happens when the surface story gives way to what is really happening underneath, and what it takes to move toward greater honesty, connection, and intimacy.

Subscribe to Dr. Pavini's new podcast at https://salty-sweet.captivate.fm/listen

What if getting dressed is less about fashion and more about the relationship you have with yourself?

Our clothes communicate before we ever say a word. They can help us feel visible, confident, creative, and aligned with who we are becoming. They can also keep us connected to an older version of ourselves that no longer quite fits.

Amy and celebrity stylist and image consultant JenniLee explore personal style and confidence, authentic professional style, and why so many people have closets full of clothes while still feeling as though they have nothing to wear. JenniLee shares why the answer is often more styling, not more shopping, and how career changes, body changes, comfort habits, and old beliefs about clothing can shape the way we show up.

They also explore individuality in the workplace, JenniLee’s SPARK Method, the limitations of AI and personal styling, thoughtful travel wardrobes, and the growing possibilities of resale and vintage fashion.

Beneath all of it is a deeper invitation to become curious again. Getting dressed can be practical and professional without becoming another rule to follow. It can also be playful, intentional, kind, and deeply personal.

Sometimes creating magic at work begins before we ever walk out the door.

Take JenniLee’s Style Quiz to help you meet your style archetype and bring more of you into what you wear. https://www.jennileestylist.consulting/quiz

Moments That Create Momentum:

1. Style Is a Language – Explore what your clothes communicate not only to the people around you, but also back to yourself.
2. When Your Closet No Longer Fits Who You Are – Understand why career shifts, body changes, and old habits can make getting dressed feel unexpectedly difficult.
3. More Styling, Less Shopping – Learn how working differently with what you already own can reduce overwhelm and reconnect you with your personal style.
4. Professional Does Not Have to Mean Invisible – Discover how fit, color, and thoughtful details can help you show up credibly without dressing like everyone else.
5. Getting Dressed Can Be a Ritual – See how playfulness, creativity, and kindness can transform an everyday task into a more intentional way of showing up.

About the Guest:

JenniLee is a NYC-based fashion stylist and image consultant with over two decades of experience helping creatives and ambitious professionals dress with confidence, clarity, and intention. Her celebrity and editorial client list includes Scarlett Johansson, Chris Pratt, Lauryn Hill, Elton John, and One Direction, with work featured in Harper's Bazaar, Rolling Stone, InStyle, People, and Real Simple. She also appears regularly on morning shows like Good Morning Atlanta and Fox News Good Day New York as a style expert. JenniLee's philosophy is "More Styling, Less Shopping," and she helps her clients build wardrobes that align with who they're becoming, not just what's in their closet.

https://www.instagram.com/jennileestylist/

About Amy:

Amy Lynn Durham, known by her clients as the Corporate Mystic, is the founder of the Executive Coaching Firm, Create Magic At Work®, where they help leaders build workplaces rooted in creativity, collaboration, and fulfillment. A former corporate executive turned Executive Coach, Amy blends practical leadership strategies with spiritual intelligence to unlock human potential at work.

She’s a certified Executive Coach through UC Berkeley & the International Coaching Federation (ICF) In addition, Amy holds coaching certifications in Spiritual Intelligence (SQ21), the Edgewalker Profile, and the Archetypes of Change . In addition to being the host of the Create Magic At Work® podcast, Amy is the author of Create Magic At Work®, Creating Career Magic: A Daily Prompt Journal and the founder of Magic Thread Media™. Through her work, she inspires intentional leadership for thriving workplaces and lives where “magic” becomes reality.

Connect with Amy:

https://createmagicatwork.net/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/create-magic-at-work

https://www.facebook.com/112951637095427

https://www.instagram.com/createmagicatwork

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnEm4h3fUgaq8qgvZpz6dGg

Thanks for listening!

Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page.

Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!

Subscribe to the podcast

If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

Leave us an Apple Podcasts review

Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you are enjoying the show, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.

Welcome to Salty Sweet, a podcast that takes you inside the real therapy sessions of one couple navigating intimacy, trust, drinking, betrayal, and the patterns shaping their relationship.

With Dr. Pavini Moray as their guide, you’ll hear what happens when the surface story gives way to what is really happening underneath, and what it takes to move toward greater honesty, connection, and intimacy.

This podcast focuses on relationship dynamics and is not intended to provide addiction treatment. If you or someone you love is struggling from the impact of untreated substance abuse, please seek support from qualified professionals who specialize in addiction.

If something major in your relationship needs to shift, Book a Free Clarity Call with Dr. Pavini at https://pavini.as.me/ to find out what's possible. On our call, we'll get clear on:

• What's actually happening right now
• What you're longing for instead
• Whether working together is the right fit
• One or two things you can start doing differently right now

You'll leave with clarity and a concrete next step.

About the Host:

Dr. Pavini Moray is a somatic coach and Relational Life Therapy practitioner with a PhD in Somatic Psychology. For more than 15 years, Pavini has worked with couples navigating relationship crisis, intimacy challenges, rupture, and repair. Their approach blends Relational Life Therapy, somatic work, and trauma-informed care to help couples understand the deeper patterns shaping how they connect, communicate, and love.

https://www.pavinimoray.com/

Musical Attribution: Original podcast music composed by Luke Djordjevic

Thanks for listening!

Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page.

Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!

Subscribe to the podcast

If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

Leave us an Apple Podcasts review

Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you are enjoying the show, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.

It is easy to encounter frightening headlines about AI and assume the worst about where the future is heading. In this Drops of Light, Vish reflects on our tendency to give more attention to bad news and considers what changes when we make room for hope alongside legitimate concern. Rather than seeing ourselves as powerless observers, he invites us to remember the personal and collective agency we still have in shaping what comes next.

Get your Personal Karmic Blueprint Reading - https://www.vishchatterji.com/karmic-snapshot

About the Host:

Vish Chatterji is an executive coach, Vedic Astrology teacher, author, and former business executive who helps people bridge ancient wisdom with modern life. After a career spanning engineering, entrepreneurship, and corporate leadership, he now guides leaders, founders, and seekers toward greater clarity through the traditions of Yoga, Meditation, Ayurveda, Vedic Philosophy, and Jyotish, the ancient science of light.

Through his coaching practice, Head & Heart Insights, Vish combines practical business experience with timeless spiritual teachings, inviting people to lead and live with greater awareness, purpose, and presence. He is the author of The Business Casual Yogi and Astrology Decoded, and serves as a Faculty Coach and Educator with the Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute at UC Berkeley.

https://www.vishchatterji.com/

What happens when the truth you have been avoiding becomes the only way forward?

For Aaron Tabacco, PhD, that moment came in midlife, after years of trying to reconcile his identity, his faith, his marriage, and the family he loved deeply.

In this deeply human conversation, Cari and Aaron explore authenticity, self-acceptance, grief, family transformation, and the courage it takes to stop living inside a false story. Aaron shares how coming out as gay became not the destruction he feared, but the beginning of a profound healing journey for himself, his former wife, and their three sons.

Together they reflect on the need to be chosen, the hidden cost of abandoning ourselves, and what can happen when we begin to claim sovereignty over our own lives.

Aaron also shares how his family chose to rewrite the traditional story of divorce, creating their own rituals of release, commitment, and love.

Through the lens of executive coaching, emotional resilience, mental health, and personal growth, this episode asks what becomes possible when we stop turning away from the parts of ourselves that frighten us most.

Sometimes the path to safety begins with telling the truth.

And sometimes our deepest strength is waiting inside our greatest fear.

The Treasures in the Trash:

1. Being chosen can become a substitute for choosing ourselves – When our sense of worth depends on being seen, accepted, or selected by others, we can slowly disappear from our own lives.
2. The stories that keep us safe can eventually become the stories that keep us stuck – What once felt necessary for belonging may no longer reflect who we are or the life we are ready to live.
3. Telling the truth changes more than one life – Aaron discovered that hiding his suffering was not protecting his family because the pain he carried was already reaching the people he loved.
4. We are allowed to write a different ending – By refusing the traditional scripts around coming out and divorce, Aaron and his family created their own language for love, release, commitment, and belonging.
5. Our deepest fear may be holding our deepest strength – When we stop turning away from what frightens us and meet it with honesty, we may discover that the place we feared most is also where our freedom lives.

About Aaron:

Aaron Tabacco, PhD, has spent more than thirty years guiding people through growth and change, often in complex and high-stakes environments. He currently serves as the Director of Staff Experience at a major academic health sciences university. With a background spanning nursing, neuroscience, education, coaching, and mediation, his work centers on helping individuals and organizations navigate identity, connection, and transformation with greater clarity and care.

Known for his grounded presence and compassionate communication, Aaron works with students, clinicians, faculty, executives, and senior leaders across healthcare and other industries. His approach integrates relational depth, reflective practice, and a commitment to creating more humane, integrated ways of working and living. He works in San Francisco, California, and lives in Vancouver, Washington, where he continues a lifelong engagement with writing, music, and the landscapes of the Pacific Northwest alongside his husband and three adult sons.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaron-tabacco-phd-83359b9/

https://lucusgroup.com/home

https://substack.com/@aarontabacco?r=b5ap9&utm_medium=ios

https://www.youtube.com/@CirclesEdges

About Cari:

Cari Jacobs-Crovetto is an executive and leadership coach and the founder of Brave Directions, where she works with senior leaders and C-suite executives to strengthen interpersonal and team relationships, navigate conflict skillfully, and deepen self-awareness, influence, and confidence.

Before becoming a coach, Cari spent three decades in marketing and product leadership roles across Fortune 100 companies, media networks, consulting firms, and venture-backed startups. In 2019, she was named one of Forbes’ Top 50 Chief Marketing Officers.

Cari brings together decades of operating experience with more than 45 years of Buddhist meditation study and practice, integrating deep inner work with practical leadership development.

She facilitates the renowned Interpersonal Dynamics (“Touchy Feely”) course at Stanford Graduate School of Business where she also coaches grad school students, leads meditation classes and leadership workshops, and hosts the podcast Finding Treasures in the Trash.

Her mantra: Fierce Heart — where compassion meets bold, badass leadership.

https://www.bravedirections.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/carisf/

https://www.instagram.com/cari_bravedirections/

Thanks for listening!

Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page.

Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!

Subscribe to the podcast

If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

Leave us an Apple Podcasts review

Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you are enjoying the show, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.

Mentioned in this episode:

This show was brought to you in part by the Magic Thread Media Network. To learn more visit: https://magicthreadmedia.com/

Today’s reflection explores how meaningful partnerships are strengthened through support, trust, and reciprocity. When we become intentional about the relationships surrounding our work, we can create greater harmony while finding a healthier balance between giving and receiving.

Start your own journey of reflection, creativity, and intentional growth with the Create Magic at Work Journal or bring the wisdom of the Edgewalker mindset into your daily life with your own copy of the Edgewalker Card Deck. You can find both at https://magicthreadmedia.com/experience

What happens to trust when power is used without empathy, and what does it take to rebuild it?

David, a longtime friend of Mark’s who, carrying his story privately since his youth, brings a deeply reflective perspective shaped by faith, compassion, and a lifelong commitment to treating others with kindness and respect. Through his experience of bullying, disbelief, and an authority figure who refused to hear his truth, the conversation expands into a larger exploration of how people wound one another, how power can distort truth, and why being believed matters so deeply. Mark, David, and Amy examine the lasting impact of broken trust, the courage required to acknowledge harm, and the surprising power of a sincere apology. At its heart, this is a conversation about the choices we make after being hurt: whether pain hardens us or deepens our capacity for compassion, whether forgiveness can coexist with accountability, and how dialogue, kindness, and self-reflection can help restore human connection.

The Choreography Of A Connection:

1. When Power Overrides Truth – David’s story reveals how quickly trust can fracture when someone with authority decides what is true before genuinely listening.
2. The Lasting Cost Of Bullying – Bullying emerges not simply as cruel behavior, but as an abuse of power capable of shaping belonging, self-trust, and human potential long after the moment has passed.
3. Why Being Believed Matters – The conversation explores the profound human need to have our experience acknowledged, especially when fear, hierarchy, or unequal power has taken away our voice.
4. The Repair Inside “I’m Sorry” – A sincere apology cannot undo harm, but David’s experience shows how acknowledgment can begin changing the meaning and emotional weight of what happened.
5. Choosing What We Become After Hurt – Forgiveness, kindness, and self-reflection become ways of interrupting the cycle of harm rather than allowing pain to determine how we treat others.

Ready to strengthen the human side of leadership? Explore the Berkeley Institute for Human Connection and discover programs designed to help leaders build trust, communicate authentically, navigate difficult conversations, and create stronger teams.

Learn more at https://bihc.org/

About the Host:

Dr. Mark Rittenberg is a Distinguished Teaching Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley Haas School of Business, specializing in leadership communication and interpersonal dynamics. He is known for helping individuals and organizations develop authentic leadership presence through human connection and dialogue.

With over three decades of global experience, he has worked with Fortune 100 companies, government institutions, and international organizations. He is also the founder of the Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute, where he trains leaders and executive coaches from around the world.

At the heart of his work is a simple but powerful belief: leadership is rooted in love, expressed through presence, dialogue, and the courage to remain in human connection.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-rittenberg-bb90214/

Thanks for listening!

Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page.

Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!

Subscribe to the podcast

If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

Leave us an Apple Podcasts review

Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you are enjoying the show, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.

Mentioned in this episode:

This show was brought to you in part by the Magic Thread Media Network. To learn more visit: https://magicthreadmedia.com/

What happens when the job everyone assumes is becoming obsolete is actually where some of the most human work is happening?

Middle managers live between pressure and people. They translate expectations from above, absorb problems before senior leaders ever see them, and help teams move through conflict, uncertainty, and burnout. Much of that work is invisible until it stops happening.

Amy and Doug Barna explore what leadership looks like as AI becomes increasingly capable of handling coordination, reporting, and other technical tasks that once defined management. Doug argues that this shift does not make human leadership less important. It exposes the part of leadership technology cannot simply automate: understanding what motivates a particular person, noticing emotion, listening closely, building trust, and staying present when a conversation becomes uncomfortable.

The discussion also reframes the skills we often call “soft.” Active listening, social awareness, empathy, and relationship management are not decorative additions to leadership. They are the capacities that allow someone to lead people rather than simply manage information.

As technology becomes better at organizing the work, the question becomes more human, not less. Who can still read the room, recognize the person inside the performance, and help people stay connected when pressure pulls them apart?

Moments That Create Momentum:

1. The Invisible Work Between the Layers – Explore why middle managers often carry the human side of leadership that others do not see.
2. When AI Removes the Administrative Work – Discover why empathy, trust, and relationship skills may matter even more as technology takes on more technical tasks.
3. People Tell You What Motivates Them – Learn how listening closely to concerns and frustrations can reveal what someone actually needs from their leader.
4. Presence Changes Difficult Conversations – Understand how shifting attention away from your own discomfort can help create more trust and connection.
5. The Skills We Carry Beyond Work – See how stronger listening, awareness, and compassion can influence not only teams, but relationships and communities too.

About the Guest:

Doug Barna is a Team Building and Leadership Coach with Acclaimed Summit, LLC. With over 20 years of experience as a project leader and people manager, Doug has dedicated over a decade to studying psychology and organizational behavior, honing the soft skills that are crucial for effective leadership. Doug’s not just another coach; he’s the compassionate mentor he wished he had so many years ago, bridging the gap between a scientific mind and an empathetic approach. In this quest for clarity and connection, Doug developed strategies that cut through superficial tactics and dive into the foundational elements that work.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dougbarna/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dougbarna

About Amy:

Amy Lynn Durham, known by her clients as the Corporate Mystic, is the founder of the Executive Coaching Firm, Create Magic At Work®, where they help leaders build workplaces rooted in creativity, collaboration, and fulfillment. A former corporate executive turned Executive Coach, Amy blends practical leadership strategies with spiritual intelligence to unlock human potential at work.

She’s a certified Executive Coach through UC Berkeley & the International Coaching Federation (ICF) In addition, Amy holds coaching certifications in Spiritual Intelligence (SQ21), the Edgewalker Profile, and the Archetypes of Change . In addition to being the host of the Create Magic At Work® podcast, Amy is the author of Create Magic At Work®, Creating Career Magic: A Daily Prompt Journal and the founder of Magic Thread Media™. Through her work, she inspires intentional leadership for thriving workplaces and lives where “magic” becomes reality.

Connect with Amy:

https://createmagicatwork.net/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/create-magic-at-work

https://www.facebook.com/112951637095427

https://www.instagram.com/createmagicatwork

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnEm4h3fUgaq8qgvZpz6dGg

Thanks for listening!

Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page.

Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!

Subscribe to the podcast

If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

Leave us an Apple Podcasts review

Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you are enjoying the show, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.

What if dreaming is one of the oldest technologies we have for accessing consciousness?

What do we do when the usual ways of making sense of our lives stop working?

And what might we discover at the edge between what we know and what we don't?

Today we are #LIVEINTHEHIVE with Lynda Samphire, an Intuitive and transformational Guide who explores that very territory through dreamwork, plant medicine, embodiment, breath, and nervous system regulation.

So today, we're stepping to the edge—and asking:

How do we learn to trust ourselves in the liminal spaces between waking and dreaming, between certainty and mystery, and between the Self we think we are and the one we are becoming?

Moments to Ponder…

• The power of labeling vs. the contemplation of identity.
• The conditioning of “Find a career and stick with it” vs. the evolution of “what I do” into “who I am.”
• Humans craving 3D life adventures in order to experience consciousness.
• Lynda shares how discovering her underlying grief revealed itself through functioning anxiety and depression—and became the doorway into her work with nervous system intelligence.
• What is the Sovereign Edge?
• Dreamwork as a spiritual technology: sleep is medicine, and dreams are the original journey.
• Where do dreams, nervous system intelligence, and plant medicine intersect?
• Lynda’s Dream Decoder app, which provides dream readings as if you were sitting with her in person.
• Lynda shares an easy dreamwork practice.
• Lynda shares her relationship with plant medicine and how she guides her clients in their use of plant medicine.
• SoulRoot Earth—her newly created online plant medicine store and retreat center.
• In our Off the Edge questions, Lynda shares something she has never shared in an interview EVER. And she’ll be back on the show to share more deeply about it.

·All this and so much more…

About Lynda Samphire

At the heart of Lynda’s work lies a deep respect for each thought, emotion, and experience.

She honors them as sacred invitations to grow and evolve.

Her purpose is to guide others with compassion and presence as they travel inward, cultivating awareness and connection with their true selves. She holds a safe and nurturing space for these sacred processes so stress can release, creativity can blossom, and a unique path to wholeness can unfold.

Her offerings are for those who feel called to open their hearts and minds, to evolve, and to welcome a higher vibrational way of living. They are an invitation to explore the depths of the soul, gain clarity amid life’s complexities, and tune into the wisdom within each experience.

Lynda provides intentional pathways for transformation and growth through microdosing, breathwork, sleep and dreamwork, guided meditations, light language, and more—in one-on-one and group settings, immersive retreats, and through online courses.

Connect with Lynda HERE.

@lynda.weavercarrougher

@lyndasamphire

@lyndawsamphire

About Sandra Bargman

I help people find and express a more truthful presence through voice, storytelling, and deep listening.

My work draws on decades as a professinal actor, singer, director, coach, and as a spiritual counselor, bringing together vocal technique with emotional intelligence, mindfulness, breath and body awareness, and the transformative power of story.

My signature B.I.G. Approach explores Breath and Body, Intention, and Genuineness—because powerful communication isn't simply about what we say. It's about how fully we inhabit ourselves when we say it.

Whether I'm working one-on-one or with a group, my goal is not to teach people how to sound like someone else.

It's to help them hear themselves more clearly—and have the courage to let that voice be heard.

Continue the Conversation

If this episode resonates with you, I'd love to hear from you.

Connect with Sandra HERE.

@SandraBargman

@SandraAmazon

www.MagicThreadMedia.com

Mentioned in this episode:

This show was brought to you in part by the Magic Thread Media Network. To learn more visit: https://magicthreadmedia.com/

Today’s Edgewalker card explores how self-awareness deepens when we become intentional about where we seek inspiration and guidance. By tuning into something beyond ourselves, we create space to better understand our thoughts, values, and the way we move through the world.

Start your own journey of reflection, creativity, and intentional growth with the Create Magic at Work Journal or bring the wisdom of the Edgewalker mindset into your daily life with your own copy of the Edgewalker Card Deck. You can find both at https://magicthreadmedia.com/experience

What happens when artificial intelligence becomes capable of doing more for us, but the most important work of being human still cannot be delegated?

After returning from an AI and consciousness retreat at a yoga ashram in Germany, Vish considers this rapidly changing technology through the lens of Vedic wisdom. The question is not simply whether AI is good or bad. It is whether the way we use it moves us toward greater consciousness or further away from it.

At the center of that inquiry is Viveka, the Sanskrit concept of discernment. As generated information becomes more convincing and technology increasingly influences what we see, think, and choose, Vish suggests that spiritual practice becomes more relevant, not less. Meditation, pranayama, yoga, and contemplation strengthen the inner awareness needed to recognize what supports us and what pulls us away from ourselves.

The same question extends to Dharma. Does the technology support the deeper purpose of your life, or does it create greater distraction, dependency, and suffering? AI may search, organize, teach, automate, and create space. But it cannot meditate for us. It cannot pray for us. It cannot live our Dharma.

Perhaps that is the deeper invitation. Use technology to quiet the clutter, while remembering that consciousness itself remains our responsibility.

Points of Light:

1. Viveka Becomes More Important as Reality Gets Harder to Read — Vedic discernment offers an inner compass when information alone can no longer tell us what deserves our trust.
2. The Real Question Is Whether AI Supports Your Dharma — Technology becomes a spiritual question when we ask whether its use aligns us with deeper purpose or creates greater suffering.
3. AI Can Create Space, but It Cannot Do the Practice — A machine may organize our lives, but meditation, pranayama, yoga, service, and spiritual responsibility remain distinctly human work.
4. Ancient Wisdom Gives Modern Technology a Boundary — Vedic philosophy shifts the question from what AI is capable of doing to what we consciously choose to delegate.
5. Less Cognitive Clutter Can Create More Room for the Divine — The promise of efficiency becomes meaningful when reclaimed space allows greater presence, silence, relationship, and receptivity to deeper wisdom.

Get your Personal Karmic Blueprint Reading - https://www.vishchatterji.com/karmic-snapshot

About the Host:

Vish Chatterji is an executive coach, Vedic Astrology teacher, author, and former business executive who helps people bridge ancient wisdom with modern life. After a career spanning engineering, entrepreneurship, and corporate leadership, he now guides leaders, founders, and seekers toward greater clarity through the traditions of Yoga, Meditation, Ayurveda, Vedic Philosophy, and Jyotish, the ancient science of light.

Through his coaching practice, Head & Heart Insights, Vish combines practical business experience with timeless spiritual teachings, inviting people to lead and live with greater awareness, purpose, and presence. He is the author of The Business Casual Yogi and Astrology Decoded, and serves as a Faculty Coach and Educator with the Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute at UC Berkeley.

https://www.vishchatterji.com/

Thanks for listening!

Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page.

Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!

Subscribe to the podcast

If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

Leave us an Apple Podcasts review

Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you are enjoying the show, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.

Mentioned in this episode:

This show was brought to you in part by the Magic Thread Media Network. To learn more visit: https://magicthreadmedia.com/

What if the life you keep working toward is already asking to be noticed?

For high achievers, happiness can become conditional. The next promotion. The next revenue goal. The end of the chaotic month. Peace is always waiting somewhere beyond the next finish line, while the finish line keeps moving.

Amy Lynn Durham and Michele Phillips explore the emotional cost of conditional happiness, high achiever burnout, and a culture that has normalized running on adrenaline instead of alignment. Michele does not ask ambitious people to stop wanting more. She asks a more uncomfortable question: can you still feel satisfaction with where you are while remaining open to what comes next?

Their conversation moves through happiness habits, personal energy, comparison, daily rituals, and the small resets that help leaders return to center when pressure takes over. It also examines the difference between appearing happy and being honest with yourself about what you actually feel.

Inner peace is not a permanent destination. Neither is happiness. Both require a relationship with attention, values, and the stories we repeatedly tell ourselves.

Maybe the goal is not to stop achieving. Maybe it is to stop requiring the next achievement to prove that this life is finally enough.

Moments That Create Momentum:

1. When Happiness Keeps Moving With the Finish Line – Explore how tying fulfillment to the next achievement can leave high performers constantly striving without ever fully arriving.
2. Running on Adrenaline Instead of Alignment – Discover why urgency and pressure can feel productive while quietly disconnecting leaders from their body, values, and internal sense of direction.
3. The Difference Between Looking Fine and Feeling Aligned – Understand why performing happiness for others is different from ignoring your own emotions and disconnecting from what is actually happening inside.
4. A Full Life Is Not a Full Calendar – See how constant activity can become proof of success, while slowing down reveals whether those experiences actually reflect what matters to you.
5. The Story You Repeat Becomes the Outcome You Expect – Hear how changing the language you use about yourself can shift attention from old limitations toward more conscious possibilities.

About the Guest:

Michele Phillips is a celebrated leadership coach, keynote speaker, and author of two books, the award-winning Happiness is a Habit - Simple Daily Rituals that Increase Energy, Improve Wellbeing and Add Joy to Every Day, and her brand new book, Energize Your Happiness - Tap into Your Personal Energy and Shape Your Destiny. This transformative new book blends neuroscience, behavioral psychology, and spiritual wisdom to help people elevate their energy and shape their destiny.

With more than 25 years of experience working with Fortune 500 companies, Michele has inspired thousands to create motivating beliefs, powerful habits, and lives filled with purpose.

She is the founder of Key Performance, a sought-after consultant known for her “Write Your Outcome” methodology, and host of the podcast by the same name. Michele has a Master's degree from Fordham University in Organizational Development, and is a certified practitioner of Positive Psychology and emotional intelligence.

She wrote Energize Your Happiness to help people build the energy for change.

She hosts Write Your Outcome podcast to help people raise their consciousness.

She works with organizations to create more conscious leaders and individual contributors.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michele-phillips-9409707

https://www.instagram.com

https://www.facebook.com/Happinessisahabitaway

Today’s reflection explores how financial success can grow from intentional decisions, thoughtful leadership, and clearly defined goals. By considering where we direct our support and attention, we create space for greater confidence and possibility around our finances.

Start your own journey of reflection, creativity, and intentional growth with the Create Magic at Work Journal or bring the wisdom of the Edgewalker mindset into your daily life with your own copy of the Edgewalker Card Deck. You can find both at https://magicthreadmedia.com/experience

There are moments when the patterns of a life begin to feel less like repetition and more like an invitation.

Join Aaron as he turns toward rituals and rites, asking what happens when the customs, ceremonies, and remembrances we inherit meet the person we are becoming. Through reflections on identity and belonging, uncertainty, and the quiet human need to mark change, he considers how ritual can hold both grief and possibility without requiring one to erase the other. The conversation moves gently into life transitions that do not always come with language, witnesses, or ceremonies of their own, and asks whether some thresholds must be created rather than discovered. Along the way, Aaron invites a kind of mindful reflection on the stories we continue to inhabit, the ones that may have grown too small, and the forms of remembrance that might help us meet change with greater presence.

Invitations to Consider:

• How recurring intersections of time and place become rituals, rites, and remembrances that help human beings create meaning.
• The possibility that ritual responds to uncertainty not simply by creating certainty, but by helping us understand who we are.
• Aaron’s experience of creating a “release and transformation ceremony” when an important life transition had no existing ritual that felt adequate.
• The tension between inherited practices and chosen ones, including the question of when a meaningful tradition becomes an empty performance.
• The ways certain transitions, losses, beginnings, or parts of ourselves may go unwitnessed, and what it means to notice them more fully.

Light a Candle With Me

A candle is part of my nighttime recording ritual, which makes Keap Candles a natural partner for Circles|Edges. If you’d like to bring the ritual into your own space, explore Keap through my affiliate link HERE

When you purchase through this link, Circles|Edges receives a modest commission at no additional cost to you, helping support the production of the show.

You are also invited to dive deeper with me and join our circle at https://www.circlesedges.org/

About Aaron:

Aaron Tabacco, PhD, has spent more than thirty years guiding people through growth and change, often in complex and high-stakes environments. He currently serves as the Director of Staff Experience at a major academic health sciences university. With a background spanning nursing, neuroscience, education, coaching, and mediation, his work centers on helping individuals and organizations navigate identity, connection, and transformation with greater clarity and care.

Known for his grounded presence and compassionate communication, Aaron works with students, clinicians, faculty, executives, and senior leaders across healthcare and other industries. His approach integrates relational depth, reflective practice, and a commitment to creating more humane, integrated ways of working and living. He works in San Francisco, California, and lives in Vancouver, Washington, where he continues a lifelong engagement with writing, music, and the landscapes of the Pacific Northwest alongside his husband and three adult sons.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaron-tabacco-phd-83359b9/

https://lucusgroup.com/home

https://substack.com/@aarontabacco?r=b5ap9&utm_medium=ios

https://www.youtube.com/@CirclesEdges

Email: aaron@circlesedges.org

Thanks for listening!

Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page.

Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!

Subscribe to the podcast

If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

Leave us an Apple Podcasts review

Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you are enjoying the show, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.

This show was brought to you in part by the Magic Thread Media Network. To learn more visit: https://magicthreadmedia.com/

What happens when the advice meant to help us succeed slowly teaches us to distrust our own voice?

This episode is a replay of a fantastic conversation I had with Amy Lynn Durham, founder of Create Magic At Work and Magic Thread Media. The conversation aired on HER hit podcast Create Magic at Work back in June. And I’ll tell you, this one really hit a nerve with her listeners so I knew I had to share it on The Edge of Everyday.

For years, women have been given advice about how to sound more confident, more authoritative, more professional, more “executive.” We’re told to eliminate filler words, avoid vocal fry, speak with more certainty, temper our emotions, stop saying “Does that make sense?” and learn how to project power.

But who decided what powerful sounds like?

And what happens when the qualities that make someone thoughtful, collaborative, emotionally intelligent, relational, or genuinely curious are interpreted as signs of weakness rather than strength?

In this conversation, we unpack the hidden assumptions behind executive presence and the double standards that can shape how credibility and authority are perceived. We explore the subtle ways we learn to soften, edit, second-guess, or even abandon parts of ourselves in order to be heard.

We also look at what can happen when we stop treating presence as a performance.

Because authentic presence isn't simply about speaking louder or taking up more space. Sometimes it lives in a breath. A pause. A story. A moment of silence. The willingness to let yourself be seen before you have perfectly rehearsed what you're going to say.

And sometimes the most powerful thing we can do isn't learn to sound more powerful.

It's trust our own voice enough to use it.

Moments That Create Momentum

1. Fixing Women—or Fixing the Room?

Why does communication advice so often focus on changing women rather than examining the environments in which women are being evaluated?

2. When Authenticity Gets Mistaken for Weakness

What happens when collaboration, emotional intelligence, vulnerability, and relational language are interpreted differently depending on who is speaking?

3. The Hidden Cost of Second-Guessing Yourself

From “Does that make sense?” to carefully editing our words, tone, and emotions, we explore the subtle ways self-doubt can become part of our communication.

4. Silence Is Part of the Voice

Presence isn't always about speaking faster, louder, or more often. Sometimes confidence sounds like a thoughtful pause—and the willingness not to fill every silence.

5. The Stories We’re Afraid to Tell

The experiences we minimize, hide, or dismiss can sometimes contain the very stories that help us understand who we are and what we have to say.

6. Presence Beyond Performance

Breath, body, intention, mindfulness, storytelling, and genuine connection can create trust and influence without requiring us to become someone we're not.

About Amy Lynn Durham

Amy Lynn Durham, known to her clients as the Corporate Mystic, is the founder of Create Magic At Work®, an executive coaching firm helping leaders build workplaces rooted in creativity, collaboration, and fulfillment.

A former corporate executive turned Executive Coach, Amy blends practical leadership strategies with spiritual intelligence to unlock human potential at work. She is certified through UC Berkeley and the International Coaching Federation (ICF), with additional certifications in Spiritual Intelligence (SQ21), the Edgewalker Profile, and Archetypes of Change.

Amy is also the host of the Create Magic At Work® podcast, author of Create Magic At Work® and Creating Career Magic: A Daily Prompt Journal, and founder of Magic Thread Media™.

Through her work, Amy inspires intentional leadership—and helps people create thriving workplaces and lives where “magic” becomes reality.

Connect with Amy:

https://createmagicatwork.net/

LinkedIn: Create Magic At Work

Facebook: Create Magic At Work

Instagram: @createmagicatwork

YouTube: @createmagicatwork

About Sandra Bargman

I help people find and express a more truthful presence through voice, storytelling, and deep listening.

My work draws on decades as a professinal actor, singer, director, coach, and as a spiritual counselor, bringing together vocal technique with emotional intelligence, mindfulness, breath and body awareness, and the transformative power of story.

My signature B.I.G. Approach explores Breath and Body, Intention, and Genuineness—because powerful communication isn't simply about what we say. It's about how fully we inhabit ourselves when we say it.

Whether I'm working one-on-one or with a group, my goal is not to teach people how to sound like someone else.

It's to help them hear themselves more clearly—and have the courage to let that voice be heard.

Continue the Conversation

If this episode resonates with you, I'd love to hear from you.

What have you been told about the way you should speak, lead, or show up?

And what might change if, instead of asking “How can I sound more powerful?”, you began asking:

“What would it sound like to trust myself?”

Listen to more conversations about voice, identity, story, presence, and the questions that live at the edge of everyday life on The Edge of Everyday.

Mentioned in this episode:

This show was brought to you in part by the Magic Thread Media Network. To learn more visit: https://magicthreadmedia.com/

What happens when taking care of someone else slowly requires you to disappear from your own life?

Family caregiving rarely arrives according to plan. A diagnosis changes. A parent declines. A spouse becomes dependent. Roles reverse, schedules collapse, and someone quietly becomes responsible for another human being twenty-four hours a day.

Amy and Monica Vest Wheeler explore the realities behind caregiver burnout, unpaid caregiving responsibilities, and the pressure to keep performing at work while privately carrying grief, medical decisions, and exhaustion. For many working caregivers, the strain is not only emotional. It can affect income, career stability, health, and the ability to remain in the workforce at all.

Monica challenges the assumption that families should simply absorb this responsibility without consequence. The conversation turns toward workplace support for caregivers, the limitations of rigid bereavement and leave policies, and why flexible work for caregivers can be an act of both humanity and good leadership.

Support can also begin closer to home. Another family member learns the care routine. Someone finally says what is really happening. A caregiver stops answering “fine” and allows another person to help carry the weight.

Caregiving can be an expression of extraordinary love. But love does not make a person limitless. Sustainable care requires us to protect the life of the person receiving care without sacrificing the life of the person providing it.

Moments That Create Momentum:

1. When the Caregiver Becomes Invisible – Explore how responsibility for another person can consume so much emotional and physical energy that the caregiver’s own needs quietly disappear.
2. The Workplace Mask Caregivers Learn to Wear – Understand why employees may appear composed and productive while privately managing grief, medical crises, and round-the-clock caregiving responsibilities.
3. Why Flexibility Is More Than an Employee Perk – Discover how small adjustments to schedules or work location can help organizations retain experienced employees instead of losing them to caregiving demands.
4. The Cost of Keeping Caregiving a Family Secret – See how shame, privacy, and poor communication can leave one person carrying responsibilities that could be shared across family, friends, and community.
5. Your Life Is Just as Worthy as the Person You’re Caring For – Hear why caregiving cannot require complete self-erasure, and how protecting the caregiver may ultimately protect the person receiving care too.

About the Guest:

Monica Vest Wheeler speaks with heart, humor, and hard-earned wisdom, helping caregivers, families, and communities navigate some of life’s most difficult moments. Her work is rooted in lived experience, including hundreds of interviews, volunteer work at more than 180 stroke and brain injury camps nationwide, facilitating hundreds of support and discussion groups, personal caregiving journeys, and her own openness about mental health. She has written more than a dozen books on Peoria, Illinois, history, along with five books exploring health, grief, and the emotional realities families face during catastrophic life events.

As a writer and presenter, Monica is unafraid to address the questions many people avoid. She brings truth, warmth, humor, and practical clarity to conversations about caregiving, grief, communication, and emotional survival. Her work gives caregivers permission to ask for help without shame, encourages patients and survivors to express what they are experiencing, and reinforces one of the lessons she has seen repeatedly: families who communicate are more likely to stay connected through crisis rather than fall apart.

https://www.monicavestwheeler.com

https://www.facebook.com/monicavestwheeler

https://www.linkedin.com/in/monicavestwheeler/

About Amy:

Amy Lynn Durham, known by her clients as the Corporate Mystic, is the founder of the Executive Coaching Firm, Create Magic At Work®, where they help leaders build workplaces rooted in creativity, collaboration, and fulfillment. A former corporate executive turned Executive Coach, Amy blends practical leadership strategies with spiritual intelligence to unlock human potential at work.

She’s a certified Executive Coach through UC Berkeley & the International Coaching Federation (ICF) In addition, Amy holds coaching certifications in Spiritual Intelligence (SQ21), the Edgewalker Profile, and the Archetypes of Change . In addition to being the host of the Create Magic At Work® podcast, Amy is the author of Create Magic At Work®, Creating Career Magic: A Daily Prompt Journal and the founder of Magic Thread Media™. Through her work, she inspires intentional leadership for thriving workplaces and lives where “magic” becomes reality.

Connect with Amy:

https://createmagicatwork.net/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/create-magic-at-work

https://www.facebook.com/112951637095427

https://www.instagram.com/createmagicatwork

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnEm4h3fUgaq8qgvZpz6dGg

Thanks for listening!

Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page.

Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!

Subscribe to the podcast

If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

Leave us an Apple Podcasts review

Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you are enjoying the show, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.

The deepest lessons in leadership may come from people who never asked to be called leaders. Through stories of mothers whose sacrifice changed the lives of their children, Dr. Mark explores what empathy looks like when it becomes action: standing by someone, creating possibility from scarcity, offering forgiveness, and choosing human connection over fear. From a Department of Energy leader transformed after publicly honoring his mother, to a South African mother working extra houses so her son could travel to Florence, to a museum guard whose simple invitation brought strangers together, these stories reveal leadership as an expression of love, connection, empathy, and forgiveness.

The Choreography Of A Connection:

• The Leadership Story We Carry – A reluctant leader discovers that acknowledging the sacrifice behind his own life can open the door to an entirely different way of leading.
• From Scarcity to Abundance – Public recognition and human connection help one executive confront the fear that had quietly shaped his decisions and relationships.
• The Unsung Sacrifice of Mothers – Stories across cultures reveal how devotion expressed without titles or recognition can alter the trajectory of another person's life.
• Forgiveness as Leadership – Moving forward becomes possible when leaders are willing to forgive themselves, seek forgiveness from others, and release the identities built around past mistakes.
• Love as a Daily Practice – Empathy becomes tangible through simple questions, acknowledgment, kindness, and the willingness to understand what another person genuinely needs.

Ready to strengthen the human side of leadership? Explore the Berkeley Institute for Human Connection and discover programs designed to help leaders build trust, communicate authentically, navigate difficult conversations, and create stronger teams.

Learn more at https://bihc.org/

About the Host:

Dr. Mark Rittenberg is a Distinguished Teaching Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley Haas School of Business, specializing in leadership communication and interpersonal dynamics. He is known for helping individuals and organizations develop authentic leadership presence through human connection and dialogue.

With over three decades of global experience, he has worked with Fortune 100 companies, government institutions, and international organizations. He is also the founder of the Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute, where he trains leaders and executive coaches from around the world.

At the heart of his work is a simple but powerful belief: leadership is rooted in love, expressed through presence, dialogue, and the courage to remain in human connection.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-rittenberg-bb90214/

Thanks for listening!

Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page.

Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!

Subscribe to the podcast

If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

Leave us an Apple Podcasts review

Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you are enjoying the show, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.

Mentioned in this episode:

This show was brought to you in part by the Magic Thread Media Network. To learn more visit: https://magicthreadmedia.com/

What if courage in creativity has nothing to do with feeling brave and everything to do with being willing to be unmistakably yourself?

In this latest episode of The Spark Sessions: Resourcing for Creativity, Rachel begins with a song she did not want to write. After forcing herself through three lifeless love songs, she finally surrendered to the one that felt too personal, too strange, and too exposing. It became the work that carried the most truth.

That experience opens a deeper exploration of creative courage, one of the five essential resources for creativity. Rachel challenges the belief that we need confidence before we create, reframing courage as the fortitude to make what is ours even when self-doubt is loud. She offers a surprising way to relate to the inner critic, not as proof that the work is wrong, but as a possible sign that something meaningful is at stake. From there, perfectionism comes into focus as another subtle force that can make creativity smaller, safer, and less alive.

With reflections on identity, risk, mistakes, and creative relationships, this episode asks a more intimate question: what becomes possible when we stop trying to make the right thing and give ourselves permission to make the thing that is truly ours?

Ready to discover your unique creative landscape?

Download the Muzi app at http://itunes.apple.com/app/id6739667782 to take the Creativity Assessment, and uncover your Spark profile. Then email your Spark to Rachel at rachel@rachelefron.com for a chance at a Spark Reading, where Rachel will offer personalized insight into what your creativity most needs from you right now.

Sparks of Insight:

• Creative courage is not confidence. It is the willingness to make what is yours, even when you feel uncertain, exposed, or afraid.
• The song Rachel did not want to write, and what finally surrendering to it revealed about the work that carries real creative urgency.
• Your inner critic may become loudest when the work actually matters. A different way to understand the voice that tells you to pull back.
• Perfection can quietly eclipse artistry. When avoiding mistakes becomes the goal, creativity begins to lose its risk, play, and aliveness.
• A creative courage practice designed to reconnect you with what is uniquely yours to make, including the quirks, experiences, and perspectives only you can bring.

About Rachel:

Rachel Efron is an Oakland-based songwriter, producer, and creativity coach. She's released four full-length albums of original songs, plus written for such legends as Narada Michael Walden and Journey. Rachel is a premier songwriting coach for songwriters across the world, and has over fifteen years experience helping artists, leaders, and teams find their voice.

In 2022, Rachel turned her methods into a comprehensive framework and groundbreaking app, Muzi, to help everyone —artists and non-artists alike—access greater creativity in their lives.

email: rachel@rachelefron.com

website: https://www.rachelefron.com/creativity-coach-1

Download the Muzi app at http://itunes.apple.com/app/id6739667782

Thanks for listening!

Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page.

Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!

Subscribe to the podcast

If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

Leave us an Apple Podcasts review

Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you are enjoying the show, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.

Today’s Edgewalker card explores how the future is shaped by more than careful planning alone. When we remain open to both practical insight and intuitive guidance, we begin to recognize possibilities that invite us to create what has not yet come into view.

Start your own journey of reflection, creativity, and intentional growth with the Create Magic at Work Journal or bring the wisdom of the Edgewalker mindset into your daily life with your own copy of the Edgewalker Card Deck. You can find both at https://magicthreadmedia.com/experience

What if the moments when your life stops making sense aren't interruptions in your path - but the very things pointing you toward it?

There is a Sanskrit word for the experience of having the world you thought was solid suddenly crack open: samvega.

It can happen when something falls apart. But it can also happen when everything goes according to plan. You get the title. The money. The relationship. The thing you were certain would make you happy - and a quieter voice inside asks: Is this it?

Vish Chatterji knows these moments well.

As a young man, Vish had a clear picture of success: America, achievement, the powerful executive in the suit. And he got there. But along the way came moments that punctured the story he had been living - moments of disappointment, disillusionment and unexpected redirection.

In this conversation, Cari and Vish explore what happens when we stop treating those moments as problems to solve and begin asking what they might be here to show us.

They talk about how easily achievement can become a way of outrunning deeper questions; why high performers are particularly good at overriding the signals that something needs our attention; and why there may not be one dramatic awakening that changes everything. Instead, Vish suggests, a life may be shaped by a series of samvega moments - each one nudging us a little closer to who we are becoming.

They also explore an important paradox: listening to the deeper voice doesn't necessarily mean abandoning the life you've built. Sometimes we needed every chapter. The invitation is to learn how to witness ourselves while we are living it - to participate fully without becoming so consumed by the race that we can no longer hear ourselves.

And sometimes, the treasure that emerges from the trash isn't something new at all. It is a part of ourselves that has quietly been there all along, waiting for us to recognize its value.

Because the question may not be simply, How do I get out of this?

It may be: What is this here to teach me?

The Treasures in the Trash

1. Samvega is the moment the old story stops working. It is the disillusionment that comes when something punctures the world we thought was predictable and secure. It can feel like everything has gone to trash - and that may be precisely where something true becomes visible.
2. We are remarkably good at outrunning what we don't want to know. Another promotion. Another goal. More money. A new purchase. Staying busy can keep us from confronting the uncomfortable question underneath all the striving: Is the life I'm building actually the life I want to be living?
3. There may not be one big awakening. Vish describes life as a series of samvega moments - small and large encounters with disappointment, discomfort and disillusionment that gradually redirect us. The question is whether we notice them or simply return to the status quo.
4. Listening doesn't always mean leaving. Not every moment of disillusionment is an instruction to quit the job, end the relationship or reinvent your life. Sometimes we need the chapter we are living. Spiritual practice gives us the capacity to step outside the momentum long enough to witness ourselves inside it.
5. The treasure may have been with you all along. Long before Vish became a coach or studied Vedic astrology, meditation, yoga and his Indian spiritual heritage were quietly accompanying his more conventional ambitions. Eventually, what had seemed like separate parts of his life began to reveal themselves as one path.
6. Pain can contain a question. Vish closes the conversation with a different way of meeting difficult moments: rather than asking only how to make the hurt stop, step back and ask, What is the bigger picture? What is the context of this hurt? What is its purpose? What am I being asked to learn?

About the Guest

Vish Chatterji is an executive coach, Vedic astrology teacher, author, and former business executive whose work bridges ancient wisdom and modern life.

Before moving into coaching and teaching, Vish built a career across engineering, corporate leadership, technology and entrepreneurship. Throughout those years, however, another thread ran alongside his professional life: a longstanding practice of yoga and meditation and an evolving relationship with the wisdom traditions of his Indian heritage.

Today, through his coaching practice, Head & Heart Insights, Vish brings together practical leadership experience with teachings from yoga, meditation, Ayurveda, Vedic philosophy and Jyotish, or Vedic astrology. His work invites leaders and seekers to listen more deeply to their own inner wisdom and to understand the larger patterns unfolding in their lives.

He is the author of The Business Casual Yogi and Astrology Decoded, host of the podcast Bending the Light, and a Faculty Coach and Educator with the Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute at UC Berkeley.

Website: https://www.vishchatterji.com/

Personal Karmic Blueprint Reading: https://www.vishchatterji.com/karmic-snapshot

About Cari:

Cari Jacobs-Crovetto is an executive and leadership coach and the founder of Brave Directions, where she works with senior leaders and C-suite executives to strengthen interpersonal and team relationships, navigate conflict skillfully, and deepen self-awareness, influence, and confidence.

Before becoming a coach, Cari spent three decades in marketing and product leadership roles across Fortune 100 companies, media networks, consulting firms, and venture-backed startups. In 2019, she was named one of Forbes’ Top 50 Chief Marketing Officers.

Cari brings together decades of operating experience with more than 45 years of Buddhist meditation study and practice, integrating deep inner work with practical leadership development.

She facilitates the renowned Interpersonal Dynamics (“Touchy Feely”) course at Stanford Graduate School of Business where she also coaches grad school students, leads meditation classes and leadership workshops, and hosts the podcast Finding Treasures in the Trash.

Her mantra: Fierce Heart — where compassion meets bold, badass leadership.

https://www.bravedirections.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/carisf/

https://www.instagram.com/cari_bravedirections/

Thanks for listening!

Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page.

Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!

Subscribe to the podcast

If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

Leave us an Apple Podcasts review

Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you are enjoying the show, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.

Mentioned in this episode:

This show was brought to you in part by the Magic Thread Media Network. To learn more visit: https://magicthreadmedia.com/

Today’s reflection explores how success becomes more meaningful when we define it for ourselves. By celebrating our achievements and welcoming abundance in all its forms, we create space for a life that feels both fulfilling and deeply aligned.

Start your own journey of reflection, creativity, and intentional growth with the Create Magic at Work Journal or bring the wisdom of the Edgewalker mindset into your daily life with your own copy of the Edgewalker Card Deck. You can find both at https://magicthreadmedia.com/experience

Have you ever wondered whether the numbers around you carry meaning beyond their practical use? In this Drops of Light, Vish explores the Vedic connection between numbers and planetary energies, from birth dates and addresses to the nine numbers we encounter every day.

Get your Personal Karmic Blueprint Reading - https://www.vishchatterji.com/karmic-snapshot

About the Host:

Vish Chatterji is an executive coach, Vedic Astrology teacher, author, and former business executive who helps people bridge ancient wisdom with modern life. After a career spanning engineering, entrepreneurship, and corporate leadership, he now guides leaders, founders, and seekers toward greater clarity through the traditions of Yoga, Meditation, Ayurveda, Vedic Philosophy, and Jyotish, the ancient science of light.

Through his coaching practice, Head & Heart Insights, Vish combines practical business experience with timeless spiritual teachings, inviting people to lead and live with greater awareness, purpose, and presence. He is the author of The Business Casual Yogi and Astrology Decoded, and serves as a Faculty Coach and Educator with the Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute at UC Berkeley.

https://www.vishchatterji.com/

What happens when work rooted in service slowly disconnects you from the very values that called you to it?

For leaders working inside humanitarian crises, nonprofits, healthcare, education, business, and other demanding systems, exhaustion can become more than physical. Margie Buchanan-Smith calls it “soul weary,” the feeling of dragging yourself from one demand to the next while losing contact with purpose.

Amy, Margie, and Dr. Margaret Benefiel, explore what it takes to stay human when need is immense, resources are shrinking, and systems increasingly reward compliance, metrics, and upward accountability. Margie brings the reality of decades in humanitarian leadership. Margaret brings a spiritual lens to organizational life, asking how leaders can draw on inner resources when systemic dysfunction cannot simply be worked around.

Replenishment emerges not as escape from responsibility, but as part of how responsibility is sustained. So do values alignment, contemplative practice, community, and the willingness to take thoughtful risks.

The work does not become less urgent when a leader pauses. Sometimes the pause restores the ability to see clearly. A breath, five quiet minutes, or an honest question about whose rules we are following can reconnect leadership with the people, purpose, and inner knowing that made the work matter in the first place.

Moments That Create Momentum:

1. When Compliance Pulls Leaders Away From Purpose – Explore how an intense focus on reporting, accountability, and organizational requirements can disconnect leaders from the people they serve and the values that brought them to the work.
2. What It Means to Become Soul Weary – Understand how sustained pressure in purpose-driven work can slowly deplete a leader’s inner resources, and why burnout can become a signal that something deeper needs attention.
3. Leading From the Inside Out – Discover why creating even a few minutes of space for reflection can help leaders reconnect with their values, balance soul and ego, and respond from a more grounded place.
4. When Success Measures Lose the Human Being – See how an overreliance on metrics, bureaucracy, and traditional definitions of success can obscure the well-being of both leaders and the people their organizations exist to serve.
5. The Difference Between Thoughtful Risk and Recklessness – Hear why trying to eliminate uncertainty can keep leaders trapped in old ways of working, while carefully judged risks create space for new possibilities to emerge.

Learn about The Soul of Leadership experience here: https://www.executivesoul.com/soulofleadership.html

About the Guests:

Margaret Benefiel, Ph.D., founder and CEO of Executive Soul, directs the Soul of Leadership program, which has been offered on four continents over the past 14 years. Over 3,000 executives, managers, and other leaders have participated in her seminars and programs. She has served as Chair of the Academy of Management's Management, Spirituality, and Religion Group, and is currently Vice President of the Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality. She served as Executive Director of the Shalem Institute for over 10 years, has served as Co-chair of the Christian Spirituality Program Unit of the American Academy of Religion, and has held various leadership roles in Spiritual Directors International. Author of Soul at Work, The Soul of a Leader, and Crisis Leadership, and co-editor of The Soul of Supervision, The Soul of Higher Education, Soul Food, and Hidden in Plain Sight, Dr. Benefiel has also written for The Leadership Quarterly, Management Communication Quarterly, Managerial Finance, Journal of Organizational Change Management, Organization, Personal Excellence, Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, America, Presence, The Way, Studies in Spirituality, Radical Grace, and Faith at Work. She lives with her husband in Greenbelt, MD. and enjoys hiking, cycling, reading novels, and scuba diving in her free time.

https://www.facebook.com/people/Executive-Soul/100057597423603/#

https://x.com/executivesoul

https://executivesoulblog.wordpress.com/

https://www.pinterest.com/executivesoul/

Margie Buchanan-Smith has been working in a range of different leadership roles in the humanitarian aid sector for over 30 years, with a current focus on the crisis in Sudan. She has conducted and published research on models of excellence in value-driven humanitarian leadership across the globe. She co-facilitates the Soul of Leadership programme in the UK with Margaret Benefiel. Margie works as an independent consultant, facilitator and coach. As a well-published policy researcher, she is a Senior Research Associate with ODI Global, a Visiting Fellow at the Feinstein Center of Tufts University, and a Fellow of the Rift Valley Institute.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/margie-buchanan-smith-2905a01/

About Amy:

Amy Lynn Durham, known by her clients as the Corporate Mystic, is the founder of the Executive Coaching Firm, Create Magic At Work®, where they help leaders build workplaces rooted in creativity, collaboration, and fulfillment. A former corporate executive turned Executive Coach, Amy blends practical leadership strategies with spiritual intelligence to unlock human potential at work.

She’s a certified Executive Coach through UC Berkeley & the International Coaching Federation (ICF) In addition, Amy holds coaching certifications in Spiritual Intelligence (SQ21), the Edgewalker Profile, and the Archetypes of Change . In addition to being the host of the Create Magic At Work® podcast, Amy is the author of Create Magic At Work®, Creating Career Magic: A Daily Prompt Journal and the founder of Magic Thread Media™. Through her work, she inspires intentional leadership for thriving workplaces and lives where “magic” becomes reality.

Connect with Amy:

https://createmagicatwork.net/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/create-magic-at-work

https://www.facebook.com/112951637095427

https://www.instagram.com/createmagicatwork

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnEm4h3fUgaq8qgvZpz6dGg

Thanks for listening!

Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page.

Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!

Subscribe to the podcast

If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

Leave us an Apple Podcasts review

Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you are enjoying the show, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.

What if marketing—something so many of us resist—isn't really about selling at all, but about helping people recognize themselves in a story that speaks to their hopes, to their fears, and to their longings?

Today, we're talking about Story—story with a capital "S." Not simply storytelling as a communication skill, but Story as the invisible thread that shapes our identities, our relationships, our businesses, and the way we move through the world.

We are #LiveInTheHive with Paul Furiga, founder of Capital S Story. For decades, Paul has helped leaders, organizations, and entrepreneurs discover that beneath every successful message is something far more profound: a story that reveals not only what we do, but why it matters.

In this episode…

• Since the beginning of time, storytelling is encoded in the human experience. “The Storyteller” held a revered position in tribal society, entrusted with recording the experiences and lessons of life. What then is the relationship between Storytelling and Identity?
• What is the importance of telling an authentic story in business, both individually and organizationally?
• The word authentic gets thrown around a LOT. Paul weighs in with his experiential definition.
• How has marketing evolved, and what has the role of storytelling played in this evolution?
• What is the capital S story? And what fundamental questions does it answer?
• Archetypal stories. What are they and how can they be used to engage an audience?
• How do companies lose VS evolve their stories?
• How can we move from hiding behind a polished narrative into sharing a dynamic, real story?
• Paul shares some very unexpected FUN FACTS from his storytelling legacy.
• What is the ONE word – for YOU – that describes Leadership? Paul and I shares ours.
• So many stories! So much more...

Find Paul HERE.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulfuriga/

Come see me, Sandra Bargman, at Magic Thread Media for a conversation about how we might work together.

And please, don’t forget to leave a review at Apple Podcasts!

My website HERE.

#AuthenticStorytelling #CapitalSStory #LeadershipStorytelling #BusinessStorytelling #MarketingThroughStorytelling #StoryDrivenMarketing #TheEdgeofEverydayPodcast #MagicThreadMedia

Mentioned in this episode:

This show was brought to you in part by the Magic Thread Media Network. To learn more visit: https://magicthreadmedia.com/

Today’s Edgewalker card explores how playfulness is more than a moment of escape. It is a way of approaching life with curiosity, creativity, and perspective, allowing lightness to open possibilities that seriousness alone often cannot.

Start your own journey of reflection, creativity, and intentional growth with the Create Magic at Work Journal or bring the wisdom of the Edgewalker mindset into your daily life with your own copy of the Edgewalker Card Deck. You can find both at https://magicthreadmedia.com/experience

Why does a week have seven days? In this Drops of Light, Vish explores the Vedic connection between the days of the week and the seven visible planets, revealing how each day carries a different quality. From courage on Tuesday to wisdom on Thursday, the week becomes an invitation to notice the rhythms already woven into everyday life.

Get your Personal Karmic Blueprint Reading - https://www.vishchatterji.com/karmic-snapshot

About the Host:

Vish Chatterji is an executive coach, Vedic Astrology teacher, author, and former business executive who helps people bridge ancient wisdom with modern life. After a career spanning engineering, entrepreneurship, and corporate leadership, he now guides leaders, founders, and seekers toward greater clarity through the traditions of Yoga, Meditation, Ayurveda, Vedic Philosophy, and Jyotish, the ancient science of light.

Through his coaching practice, Head & Heart Insights, Vish combines practical business experience with timeless spiritual teachings, inviting people to lead and live with greater awareness, purpose, and presence. He is the author of The Business Casual Yogi and Astrology Decoded, and serves as a Faculty Coach and Educator with the Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute at UC Berkeley.

https://www.vishchatterji.com/

There are seasons when time seems generous, opening around us with enough room to notice where we are, and others when every hour feels like pressure. In this quiet exploration of our relationship with time, Aaron moves between memory, philosophy, family, and the rhythms of the body to consider how deeply our stories about time shape the way we inhabit a life. From the measured world of chronos to the rarer invitation of kairos moments, the conversation asks what happens when presence becomes more important than the clock. Along the way, experiences of time anxiety, childhood shame, parenthood, work, aging, and life seasons gently surface a larger question: how much of what we believe about being early, late, ready, behind, or successful was inherited rather than discovered for ourselves? This is an episode for settling into the present without pretending calendars and obligations disappear, and for noticing the moments that quietly ask whether we are willing to meet our lives as they are unfolding.

Invitations to Consider:

1. When time becomes companion or oppressor. Aaron contrasts two formative memories, holding his infant son and confronting an unfinished seventh-grade assignment, to explore how the same experience of time can deepen presence or become entangled with fear and shame.
2. The stories beneath the clock. The episode considers not only seconds, minutes, and hours, but inherited agreements about workweeks, weekends, deadlines, age, achievement, retirement, and when life is supposedly meant to happen.
3. Chronos and kairos. Ancient Greek understandings of measured time and the “ripe moment” offer another way of noticing opportunities that cannot always be scheduled or recovered.
4. The places we hide behind time. “Not yet,” “I’m not ready,” and “it’s too late” become invitations to examine whether time is genuinely the obstacle or whether it sometimes protects us from fear, uncertainty, or possible disapproval.
5. Living according to seasons. Aaron reflects on the contrast between productivity-centered calendars and the natural cycles of rest, growth, strength, harvest, dormancy, aging, and renewal that shape human life.

Light a Candle With Me

A candle is part of my nighttime recording ritual, which makes Keap Candles a natural partner for Circles|Edges. If you’d like to bring the ritual into your own space, explore Keap through my affiliate link HERE

When you purchase through this link, Circles|Edges receives a modest commission at no additional cost to you, helping support the production of the show.

You are also invited to dive deeper with me and join our circle at https://www.circlesedges.org/

About Aaron:

Aaron Tabacco, PhD, has spent more than thirty years guiding people through growth and change, often in complex and high-stakes environments. He currently serves as the Director of Staff Experience at a major academic health sciences university. With a background spanning nursing, neuroscience, education, coaching, and mediation, his work centers on helping individuals and organizations navigate identity, connection, and transformation with greater clarity and care.

Known for his grounded presence and compassionate communication, Aaron works with students, clinicians, faculty, executives, and senior leaders across healthcare and other industries. His approach integrates relational depth, reflective practice, and a commitment to creating more humane, integrated ways of working and living. He works in San Francisco, California, and lives in Vancouver, Washington, where he continues a lifelong engagement with writing, music, and the landscapes of the Pacific Northwest alongside his husband and three adult sons.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaron-tabacco-phd-83359b9/

https://lucusgroup.com/home

https://substack.com/@aarontabacco?r=b5ap9&utm_medium=ios

https://www.youtube.com/@CirclesEdges

Email: aaron@circlesedges.org

Thanks for listening!

Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page.

Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!

Subscribe to the podcast

If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

Leave us an Apple Podcasts review

Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you are enjoying the show, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.

This show was brought to you in part by the Magic Thread Media Network. To learn more visit: https://magicthreadmedia.com/

Why do successful men still struggle with burnout, anger, disconnection, and feeling unfulfilled?

Amy sits down with men’s high performance coach Pat Smith to explore why professional achievement, physical fitness, and financial success do not necessarily create emotional well-being. Pat shares why many business problems are actually personal patterns showing up at work, and how perfectionism, grief, shame, pressure, and survival strategies can quietly shape the way men lead.

Together they explore emotional intelligence for men, the shift from positional power to relational leadership, and why emotional awareness can become a form of strength rather than weakness. The conversation moves through high performance without burnout, emotional regulation at work, psychological safety, masculine identity, accountability, vulnerability, and the importance of creating spaces where men can speak honestly without blame or shame.

By the end, what emerges is a broader definition of strength. Sustainable success is not about having everything under control. It is about developing the self-awareness, emotional ownership, and relational capacity to lead yourself and others with greater trust, connection, and resilience.

Moments That Create Momentum:

1. When Business Problems Are Really Personal Problems – Explore how perfectionism, performance anxiety, and unresolved experiences can follow leaders into the workplace disguised as professional challenges.

2. The Shift From Positional Power to Relational Leadership – Discover why getting results through hierarchy and authority can create disconnection, while relationships, trust, and emotional intelligence strengthen leadership.

3. The Leadership Mask That Becomes Exhausting to Wear – Understand why trying to appear as though you have everything together can drain leaders and keep their teams from experiencing who they really are.

4. What Emotional Strength Actually Looks Like – Hear why accessing sadness, fear, frustration, and other emotions is not weakness, and how learning to move through them can build resilience.

5. Taking Back the Reins of Your Emotional Life – See how changing language from blame to ownership can help leaders stop giving other people and circumstances control over how they think, feel, and respond.

About the Guest:

Pat Smith is a men’s high performance coach who helps men become wildly successful professionally without losing themselves in the process. Over the past four years, he’s coached Fortune 500 executives, pro athletes, celebrity actors, business owners, top sales professionals, and men in many other leadership roles. His work is shaped by his own background in corporate sales with Fortune 1000 companies, along with his continued education under Dr. Joe Dispenza during his time as a corporate trainer for NeuroChangeSolutions.

IG - https://www.instagram.com/patsmithwellness/

LI - https://www.linkedin.com/in/patsmithwellness/

Skool - https://www.skool.com/success-squad/about

About Amy:

Amy Lynn Durham, known by her clients as the Corporate Mystic, is the founder of the Executive Coaching Firm, Create Magic At Work®, where they help leaders build workplaces rooted in creativity, collaboration, and fulfillment. A former corporate executive turned Executive Coach, Amy blends practical leadership strategies with spiritual intelligence to unlock human potential at work.

She’s a certified Executive Coach through UC Berkeley & the International Coaching Federation (ICF) In addition, Amy holds coaching certifications in Spiritual Intelligence (SQ21), the Edgewalker Profile, and the Archetypes of Change . In addition to being the host of the Create Magic At Work® podcast, Amy is the author of Create Magic At Work®, Creating Career Magic: A Daily Prompt Journal and the founder of Magic Thread Media™. Through her work, she inspires intentional leadership for thriving workplaces and lives where “magic” becomes reality.

Connect with Amy:

https://createmagicatwork.net/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/create-magic-at-work

https://www.facebook.com/112951637095427

https://www.instagram.com/createmagicatwork

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnEm4h3fUgaq8qgvZpz6dGg

Thanks for listening!

Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page.

Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!

Subscribe to the podcast

If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

Leave us an Apple Podcasts review

Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you are enjoying the show, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.

Today’s reflection explores how productivity is about more than accomplishing tasks. When we celebrate the achievements of others and prioritize work that brings us energy and purpose, productivity becomes a source of fulfillment rather than obligation.

Start your own journey of reflection, creativity, and intentional growth with the Create Magic at Work Journal or bring the wisdom of the Edgewalker mindset into your daily life with your own copy of the Edgewalker Card Deck. You can find both at https://magicthreadmedia.com/experience

What happens when the future you spent decades building finally arrives, only to ask you to become less of yourself?

Purpose is often treated like a hidden sentence we must uncover. Find the right career, name the perfect calling, and everything will fall into place. But that expectation can turn an intimate human question into another performance problem. It can also make a successful life feel like evidence of failure when fulfillment does not follow achievement.

This reflection offers a broader perspective through the Vedic aims of life: dharma, artha, kama, and moksha. Financial stability matters. Joy matters. The body, family, society, and spiritual life matter. Inner calling matters too, but it does not exist apart from everything that sustains it.

A painful corporate turning point reveals the difference between reaching the next level and remaining aligned with one’s nature. Yet leaving the company does not produce an immediate, perfect answer. The deeper path emerges gradually through mentors, disappointments, repeated patterns, and the work that makes time seem to disappear.

Perhaps purpose is not something we solve once. It may be something we learn to notice. The question becomes less about finding one ideal profession and more about recognizing the clues that have been quietly following us all along.

Points of Light:

1. Purpose Is Larger Than a Profession: We often search for one defining calling while overlooking the many ways meaning is created through work, relationships, joy, responsibility, and spiritual awareness.
2. Misalignment Often Appears as Discomfort: The moments that unsettle us may reveal where achievement has begun to pull us away from our nature, values, and deeper sense of integrity.
3. Leaving Creates Space, Not Certainty: Walking away from what no longer fits does not immediately reveal the next path, but it can make honest reflection possible.
4. Meaningful Work Takes More Than One Form: A job may provide stability while purpose is expressed through mentorship, creativity, service, spiritual practice, or the relationships we choose to honor.
5. Calling Reveals Itself Through Attention: The meetings we protect, the work that absorbs us, and the roles others naturally trust us to hold may already contain clues to our deeper purpose.

Get your Personal Karmic Blueprint Reading - https://www.vishchatterji.com/karmic-snapshot

About the Host:

Vish Chatterji is an executive coach, Vedic Astrology teacher, author, and former business executive who helps people bridge ancient wisdom with modern life. After a career spanning engineering, entrepreneurship, and corporate leadership, he now guides leaders, founders, and seekers toward greater clarity through the traditions of Yoga, Meditation, Ayurveda, Vedic Philosophy, and Jyotish, the ancient science of light.

Through his coaching practice, Head & Heart Insights, Vish combines practical business experience with timeless spiritual teachings, inviting people to lead and live with greater awareness, purpose, and presence. He is the author of The Business Casual Yogi and Astrology Decoded, and serves as a Faculty Coach and Educator with the Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute at UC Berkeley.

https://www.vishchatterji.com/

Thanks for listening!

Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page.

Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!

Subscribe to the podcast

If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

Leave us an Apple Podcasts review

Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you are enjoying the show, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.

Mentioned in this episode:

This show was brought to you in part by the Magic Thread Media Network. To learn more visit: https://magicthreadmedia.com/

Today, we are #LiveInTheHive with Dr Pavini Moray to explore the powerful intersections of embodiment, ancestry, ritual, and belonging.

In a culture that teaches us to think our way through life, Pavini invites us to listen to something older, something wiser—the intelligence of the body. Their work bridges somatic psychology, trauma healing, consent, leadership, and ancestral practice, reminding us that healing isn't simply an individual journey. It ripples backward through our lineage and forward to those who will come after us.

Their newest book, Tending the Bones, offers a thirteen-month journey through ritual, embodiment, and ancestral connection, asking not only how we heal ourselves, but how we become good ancestors.

So today we'll explore questions like: What do our bodies remember that our minds have forgotten? Can ritual become a language of healing? And what does it mean to belong—not just to ourselves, but to generations past and generations yet to come?

In this episode….

• “My identities are shortcuts for other people.”
• Their former podcast, Bespoken Bones, is now on Magic Thread Media. https://bespoken-bones-podcast.captivate.fm/episodes
• Pavini shares the story behind the choice of the title, Tending The Bones, for their latest book?
• How do we remember who we are? The Body - What have we forgotten? The Ancestors -What have we inherited? The Ritual - How do we remember? The Future - What legacy are we creating?
• What is Somatic Psychology and how is it woven into their work?
• What is the relationship of Memory + Embodiment? How do memories live in the body?
• How does Pavini utilize ritual alongside ancestral work with their clients?
• Resource: Daniel Foors, PhD. https://ancestralmedicine.org/bio/
• Is ritual another form of STORYTELLING?
• Resource: Wellbriaty - https://wellbrietymovement.com/
• Does healing take place in isolation?
• Pavini shares a simple step towards conscious embodiment.

Find Pavini HERE.

LinkedIn.

Dr. Pavini Moray is a somatic couples coach and Relational Life Therapy practitioner with a PhD in Somatic Psychology and 15+ years guiding couples through crisis, betrayal, and reconnection. They are the author of How to Hold Power (Penguin Random House) and Tending the Bones (North Atlantic Books). Rooted in the belief that our bodies hold profound wisdom, Pavini's work invites us to reconnect with ourselves, our lineages, and the possibility of collective healing.

They are the host of Salty Sweet, a documentary-style podcast following real couples through the work of staying together. Their approach blends somatic psychology, relational science, and a spiritual sensibility, delivered with warmth, precision, and zero wellness-speak.

Find Sandra HERE.

Magic Thread Media

#TheEdgeofEverydayPodcast #MagicThreadMedia #TendingTheBones #Embodiment #AncestralWisdom #Ritual #Storytelling #MythandMeaning #EmbodiedWisdom #DepthPsychology #SomaticPsychology

Mentioned in this episode:

This show was brought to you in part by the Magic Thread Media Network. To learn more visit: https://magicthreadmedia.com/

Why do high achievers still feel unfulfilled after reaching their goals?

Amy sits down with executive coach and founder of Personal Energy First, Chelsea Szabo, to explore why professional success does not always create the fulfillment people expect. Chelsea explains how external expectations, learned definitions of success, and constant achievement can disconnect people from the internal signals that reveal what genuinely feels aligned.

Together they unpack how body awareness can help you recognize a true yes or no, why fear can sometimes be mistaken for intuition, and how small daily decisions can rebuild trust in yourself. The conversation moves through personal energy, burnout, workplace pressure, higher-self leadership, and the difference between pursuing a goal because it is meaningful and pursuing it because you have been conditioned to believe it should matter.

By the end, what emerges is a grounded reminder: when success feels empty, the answer may not be another goal. It may be learning how to recognize what your body, energy, and inner wisdom have been telling you all along.

Moments That Create Momentum:

1. The Success That Leaves You Feeling Empty – Explore why external achievement can still leave you disconnected when it isn't aligned with what truly matters to you.

2. Learning the Language of Your Body – Discover how recognizing your body's natural "yes" and "no" signals can lead to more confident, aligned decisions.

3. When Fear Sounds Like Wisdom – Understand how to distinguish protective patterns from the deeper guidance that supports personal growth.

4. Alignment Happens One Decision at a Time – See why meaningful change often begins with the smallest choices to honor your needs throughout the day.

5. The Most Inspiring Thing You Can Do Is Be Yourself – Hear why authentic presence often creates a greater impact than striving to impress or perform.

About the Guest:

Chelsea Szabo is an executive coach, speaker, and founder of Personal Energy First. Drawing on more than 15 years of corporate coaching and training experience, she helps high achievers and leaders manage stress, reconnect with their personal energy, and lead with greater clarity, purpose, and resilience. Chelsea is also a certified Energy Leadership Index™ master practitioner, Reiki Master, ThetaHealing® practitioner, and breathwork guide.

https://www.personalenergyfirst.com/

About Amy:

Amy Lynn Durham, known by her clients as the Corporate Mystic, is the founder of the Executive Coaching Firm, Create Magic At Work®, where they help leaders build workplaces rooted in creativity, collaboration, and fulfillment. A former corporate executive turned Executive Coach, Amy blends practical leadership strategies with spiritual intelligence to unlock human potential at work.

She’s a certified Executive Coach through UC Berkeley & the International Coaching Federation (ICF) In addition, Amy holds coaching certifications in Spiritual Intelligence (SQ21), the Edgewalker Profile, and the Archetypes of Change . In addition to being the host of the Create Magic At Work® podcast, Amy is the author of Create Magic At Work®, Creating Career Magic: A Daily Prompt Journal and the founder of Magic Thread Media™. Through her work, she inspires intentional leadership for thriving workplaces and lives where “magic” becomes reality.

Connect with Amy:

https://createmagicatwork.net/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/create-magic-at-work

https://www.facebook.com/112951637095427

https://www.instagram.com/createmagicatwork

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnEm4h3fUgaq8qgvZpz6dGg

Thanks for listening!

Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page.

Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!

Subscribe to the podcast

If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

Leave us an Apple Podcasts review

Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you are enjoying the show, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.

Creative block feels eminently real: it feels like some magical channel closes and our creative ideas are nowhere to be found. But creative block is nothing more than a very tempting illusion. Really creativity is our natural state. When we aren’t creating, it means only that our creativity needs something from us.

In this installment of The Spark Sessions: Resourcing for Creativity, creativity coach Rachel Efron explores what happened when the most creatively alive season of her life was interrupted by a devastating fire in her home. For the first time in her life, she felt creativity blocked. But rather than surrender she tried using her own methods on herself. She asked herself what she asks whenever someone comes to her blocked: what is the missing resource for creativity to come back online? In her case, it was rest. And once she rested, she started creating again.

Through her own story, a client’s struggle with self-doubt, and an abridged creativity assessment, Rachel invites listeners to consider what their creativity may be asking of them now. At its heart, this episode reframes creative block not as an ending, but as a sign: that our creativity needs something from us.

Ready to discover your unique creative landscape?

Download the Muzi app at http://itunes.apple.com/app/id6739667782 to take the Creativity Assessment, and uncover your Spark profile. Then email your Spark to Rachel at rachel@rachelefron.com for a chance at a Spark Reading, where Rachel will offer personalized insight into what your creativity most needs from you right now.

Sparks of Insight:

• Creative block is a tempting illusion. The feeling of creative block means only that your creativity needs something from you.
• What Rachel’s experience after the fire reveals about the creative work involved in rebuilding a life.
• The five resources necessary for creativity , and how depletion in even one can quietly interrupt creative flow.
• Rest is more than recovery. Rest is how we clear space in our minds and hearts for new creative ideas.
• An abridged creativity assessment to help you recognize what is helping and hindering your creative process.

About Rachel:

Rachel Efron is an Oakland-based songwriter, producer, and creativity coach. She's released four full-length albums of original songs, plus written for such legends as Narada Michael Walden and Journey. Rachel is a premier songwriting coach for songwriters across the world, and has over fifteen years experience helping artists, leaders, and teams find their voice.

In 2022, Rachel turned her methods into a comprehensive framework and groundbreaking app, Muzi, to help everyone —artists and non-artists alike—access greater creativity in their lives.

email: rachel@rachelefron.com

website: https://www.rachelefron.com/creativity-coach-1

Download the Muzi app at http://itunes.apple.com/app/id6739667782

Thanks for listening!

Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page.

Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!

Subscribe to the podcast

If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

Leave us an Apple Podcasts review

Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you are enjoying the show, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.

What happens when love is treated as too soft, too personal, or too uncomfortable for leadership? This shared recording comes from Dr. Mark Rittenberg’s interview with Amy Lynn Durham on the Create Magic at Work podcast. Together, they explore what ghosting, cancellation, and disconnection reveal about the way people avoid conflict, vulnerability, and responsibility in the workplace. Through stories of dialogue, forgiveness, coaching, and human transformation, Dr. Mark makes the case that love belongs in leadership not as sentiment, but as presence, honesty, empathy, and the willingness to stay in relationship when it would be easier to disappear. It leaves us with a deeper question: Can leadership truly serve people if it does not make room for their humanity?

The Choreography Of A Connection:

1. Leadership as an Expression of Love – Love becomes practical when leaders build trust, act fairly, remain present, and treat people with empathy, honesty, and humanity.
2. The Hidden Harm of Ghosting – Avoiding an uncomfortable conversation may feel convenient, but the silence can leave another person questioning their worth, choices, and relationships.
3. Dialogue in the Danger Zone – Staying in difficult conversations creates space for understanding without requiring either person to surrender their identity or beliefs.
4. Forgiveness as a New Beginning – Forgiveness allows people and organizations to move beyond imperfection, see one another differently, and remain open to transformation.
5. Coaching as an Act of Service – Deep listening gives leaders a rare place to speak honestly, reconnect with themselves, and become more present for the people they serve.

Ready to strengthen the human side of leadership? Explore the Berkeley Institute for Human Connection and discover programs designed to help leaders build trust, communicate authentically, navigate difficult conversations, and create stronger teams.

Learn more at https://bihc.org/

About the Host:

Dr. Mark Rittenberg is a Distinguished Teaching Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley Haas School of Business, specializing in leadership communication and interpersonal dynamics. He is known for helping individuals and organizations develop authentic leadership presence through human connection and dialogue.

With over three decades of global experience, he has worked with Fortune 100 companies, government institutions, and international organizations. He is also the founder of the Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute, where he trains leaders and executive coaches from around the world.

At the heart of his work is a simple but powerful belief: leadership is rooted in love, expressed through presence, dialogue, and the courage to remain in human connection.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-rittenberg-bb90214/

Thanks for listening!

Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page.

Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!

Subscribe to the podcast

If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

Leave us an Apple Podcasts review

Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you are enjoying the show, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.

Mentioned in this episode:

This show was brought to you in part by the Magic Thread Media Network. To learn more visit: https://magicthreadmedia.com/

Today’s Edgewalker card explores how self-awareness deepens when we intentionally create space to listen beyond our own thoughts. Reflection becomes more than looking inward. It becomes an invitation to receive guidance, ask meaningful questions, and trust the wisdom that quietly emerges.

Start your own journey of reflection, creativity, and intentional growth with the Create Magic at Work Journal or bring the wisdom of the Edgewalker mindset into your daily life with your own copy of the Edgewalker Card Deck. You can find both at https://magicthreadmedia.com/experience