Explore every episode of the podcast The Calming Ground Podcast

Ever finally sit down to rest, only to have your mind hand you a to-do list? 

In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun (psychotherapist, certified qigong teacher, and forest bathing guide), introduces the show’s new intro as The Calming Ground podcast approaches its three-year anniversary this October. Along the way, Elizabeth explores why stillness can feel unsafe to a nervous system that’s been moving fast for a long time, and how she has to come to honor her own people-pleasing (fawn) response. She also shares how nervous system science and ancient body wisdom arrive at the same place, and why coming back again and again is the practice itself. You’ll be guided through two short-in-the-moment practices you can use anywhere, anytime. 

Key Takeaways:

• Small doses of slowing down help the nervous system settle and feel safe.
• Disconnecting from the body is often protective, and gentle check-ins with the jaw, shoulders, feet, and hands can invite us back. 
• Qigong and nature archetypes can help us remember our place in the wider, wilder world, even when we can’t get outside. 

Resources:

Register for the free workshop  From People Pleasing to Self-Trust: Reclaim yourself without Burning Bridges: https://go.thecalmingground.com/people-pleasing-to-self-trust

For 1:1 coaching and/or to ask any questions or share reflections, contact Elizabeth at elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

Website: https://thecalmingground.com/

Follow along: @thecalmingground on Facebook & Instagram

If this episode offered you a moment of ease, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who could use some space for slowing down.

What if the thing you're struggling to let go of right now is something this season is asking of you?

In this solo episode, host Elizabeth Mintun explores the seasonal pull toward letting go that so many people feel each fall through the lens of Five Element theory from Traditional Chinese Medicine. She explains why autumn is governed by the Metal element according to TCM (and what that has to do with your lungs, your grief, and your need to slow down), and connects it to nervous system science. This episode is for anyone who's noticed themselves wanting to slow down, say no more easily, or quietly grieve something as the season turns - and wants to understand a perspective on why.

Key Takeaways:

• Five Element theory (Traditional Chinese Medicine) links each season to specific organs, emotions, and energies - autumn is governed by Metal
• Shortening daylight and cooling temperatures create real physiological shifts toward parasympathetic (rest and restore) nervous system states
• A simple longer-exhale breathing practice can help the body practice release in real time

Resources:

Previous episodes on autumn and the metal element: 

• Episode 105 - The Metal Element and Fall Self Care: How to Release and Refine
• Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-calming-ground-podcast/id1704337948?i=1000728174111
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5N7TcpFQoMq2AKcrWopz2m?si=da1289b1cb154c8b
• Episode 53 - Breath, Balance, and Release: Aligning with Fall through the Metal Element.
• Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-calming-ground-podcast/id1704337948?i=1000671506561
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3XtQCz4OvVqvOiXxP2Pd3v?si=21fc16dc4d6e4a75

For 1:1 coaching and/or to ask any questions or share reflections, contact Elizabeth at elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

Website: https://thecalmingground.com/

Follow along: @thecalmingground on Facebook & Instagram

There is a scientific debate that's been quietly unfolding for nearly 20 years: researchers have published findings questioning some of the biological claims behind polyvagal theory, the framework that has shaped how trauma-informed therapists and somatic practitioners - Elizabeth included - talk about the nervous system's response to safety and threat.

In this solo episode, host Elizabeth Mintun walks through what polyvagal theory says, what the critique actually challenges, and why the debate remains genuinely unresolved between credentialed researchers on both sides.

But this episode is about a much older question: what do we do when the ground shifts under something we've already built our work, our beliefs, or our sense of trust upon? Elizabeth reflects on why presence (not airtight guarantees) is what actually keeps us safe. This episode is for anyone who has ever had to hold a belief, diagnosis, relationship, or decision a little differently than they once did.

Key Takeaways:

• Polyvagal theory's claims about the vagus nerve's role in shutdown/freeze responses are being actively debated by researchers - and there's no clear resolution yet.
• Certainty held too tightly can close us off from new information and growth; curiosity keeps us in relationship with truth instead of possession of it.
• Presence, not certainty, is what's actually available to us, and typically what actually helps the most. 

Resources:

For 1:1 coaching and/or to ask any questions or share reflections, contact Elizabeth at elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

Conscious Practitioner Collective - monthly gathering for practitioners in Columbus, Ohio: https://thecalmingground.com/conscious-practitioner-collective

Follow along: @thecalmingground on Facebook and Instagram

Subscribe to The Calming Ground Podcast so you never miss an episode. If you loved this conversation, please share it with a friend and leave a review!

A circle of strangers, no rehearsal, no sheet music…Just voices and a guide named Porangui pulling a room of near-strangers into one shared rhythm. 

In this solo episode, host Elizabeth Mintun reflects on three very different gatherings from the same couple of weeks: a sound circle led by Porangui, a monthly meeting of her Conscious Practitioner Collective, and the first live session of her new program, Finding Your Footing When the Ground Shifts. Underneath their differences, she found the same medicine at work in each one - and traces why that medicine took her so long to trust, starting with a hard lesson learned in a middle school hallway.

Elizabeth explores why so many of us learn to fear community rather than trust it, and how belonging can form in real time between total strangers when a group is given just enough structure and permission. This episode is for anyone who has ever felt like they were standing just outside a circle, wondering if there was room with their name on it.

Key Takeaways:

• Community isn't a scarce resource to be chosen for; it's something people can step into together, again and again, the moment they're willing to.
• Co-regulation (settling a nervous system in the presence of other regulated nervous systems) can happen in a drum circle, a practitioner gathering, or a Zoom room alike.
• Real community includes friction, activation, and disappointment. The goal isn't a frictionless group, but a safe enough one to be vulnerable inside.

Resources:

For 1:1 coaching and/or to ask any questions or share reflections, contact Elizabeth at elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

Conscious Practitioner Collective - monthly gathering for practitioners in Columbus, Ohio: https://thecalmingground.com/conscious-practitioner-collective

Follow along: @thecalmingground on Facebook and Instagram

Subscribe to The Calming Ground Podcast so you never miss an episode. If you loved this conversation, please share it with a friend and leave a review!

Last week, Dolly Parton died. A glacier collapse triggered catastrophic flooding in Nepal. An Ebola outbreak became the deadliest in the Democratic Republic of Congo's history. If you've felt oddly numb to some of the news and unexpectedly gutted by other parts of it, this solo episode is for you.

In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun explores why grief tends to land unevenly - why a celebrity we never met can hit harder than a mass tragedy overseas - and what that says about the nervous system. In this exploration, Elizabeth incorporates nervous system science, Five Elements theory of ancient Chinese medicine, and our connection to the natural world. She offers an invitation to choose, on purpose, where your attention and grief go… Instead of letting an algorithm decide for you.

Key Takeaways:

• Why parasocial grief is real grief. The neuroscience behind mourning someone you've never met. 
• Empathy overload and grief numbing. Why your nervous system "dims the switch" on tragedies at scale. 
• The doomscroll loop. How unresolved sympathetic activation from news consumption tends to accumulate in the body as anxiety and numbness simultaneously. 
• Reframing self-care as self-discovery. How to use what hits you hardest as information about what you value, rather than something to just numb or push away. 

Resources:

For 1:1 coaching and/or to ask any questions or share reflections, contact Elizabeth at elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

Follow along: @thecalmingground on Facebook and Instagram

Subscribe to The Calming Ground Podcast so you never miss an episode. If you loved this conversation, please share it with a friend!

Poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer has written and sent out a poem every single day for decades. These are first drafts, no editing, no safety net. In this conversation, she shares what that practice has taught her about creativity, identity, and the wild, disorienting terrain of grief.

In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun sits down with Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, a poet, writer, and teacher whose daily poetry practice has become both a spiritual discipline and a public offering - poems sent out into the world unpolished, in service of truth rather than perfection. In this conversation, they talk about how a nightly writing ritual, one she began simply because it was the only quiet time she had as a young mother, became a lifeline after the sudden loss of her seventeen-year-old son to suicide in August 2021. This episode is a beautiful conversation about what it means to live in wonderment.  

Key Takeaways:

• A daily creative practice is a practice of showing up to presence, and that capacity can become a lifeline in crisis.
• Grief itself changes shape over time; writing became a way for Rosemerry to track and integrate that change rather than "get through" it.
• The identities we build - mother, wife, runner, baker - can all be taken away. What remains is a simpler, truer sense of what is.

Resources:

Preorder The Wonderment and Get a Signed Copy!

“You can pre-order the book from my local bookstore, Between the Covers, and I will personalize it for you (there's a comments section at the final checkout for you to say who you want the book signed to). Order before September 12 when I go in to sign the books. The bookstore will ship your book to anywhere in the US the next day.” -Rosemerry  

Before The Wonderment: A Pre-Launch Party 

August 29, 6-7:30 p.m. mountain time

zoom, recorded, donations accepted

“Please join me for a pre-release party hosted on zoom . And if you want to pre-order a book, you can pre-order the book from my local bookstore, Between the Covers, and I will personalize it for you (there's a comments section at the final checkout for you to say who you want the book signed to). Order before September 12 when I go in to sign the books. The bookstore will ship your book to anywhere in the US the next day.” -Rosemerry 

UK Book Launch Party with The Poetry Pharmacy

September 24, 11 a.m. mountain/6 p.m. UK

“European friends—it’s a book launch just for you, hosted by The Poetry Pharmacy in the UK. Of course anyone anywhere can join us, but the Poetry Pharmacy is making it possible to order the books in the UK and will send them out before the launch so you can read along. Poetry, conversation, singing, questions … join me! Tickets available with or without a book purchase.” -Rosemerry 

Rosemerry’s earlier poetry collection mentioned in this episode, All the Honey: wordwoman.com/books/all-the-honey

Rosemerry’s daily poem email list sign-up and website: https://www.wordwoman.com/

Finding Your Footing When the Ground Shifts: A 4-Week Practice in Movement, Nature's Archetypes & Nervous System Science: https://thecalmingground.com/finding-your-footing

Curious about 1:1 coaching? Questions or guest suggestions? Reach out at elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

Follow along on Facebook & Instagram @thecalmingground

If this episode moved you, please subscribe and share it with someone who needs it today.

We rush toward finished frameworks and polished programs without ever seeing what shaped them. This episode pulls back the curtain on how nature became the language for nervous system work, long before it had a name.

In this solo episode, host Elizabeth Mintun shares the personal roots of the nature archetype framework behind her upcoming program. Drawing on her own childhood spent largely outdoors, and her ongoing work as a psychotherapist, qigong teacher, and mindful life coach, Elizabeth unpacks why frameworks for nervous system work need to live in the body, rather than being something simply of the mind, and why nature's own symbols and archetypes became the doorway for that embodied understanding.

Key takeaways:

• Nervous system change happens through the body, not just intellectual understanding. Movement and felt experience matter as much as concept
• Nature's symbols and archetypes offer an embodied language for internal states like groundedness, flow, and release, in a way diagrams and definitions can't
• Nature can offer us powerful resources to help us navigate times of change

Resources

Free live workshop: "Who Am I Now? Finding Your Footing When Your Life Changes Shape" on August 26th: https://thecalmingground.com/free-workshop

Questions or reflections from this episode? 

Email Elizabeth at elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

Want to go deeper in your own practice? 

Learn more about 1:1 coaching with Elizabeth Mintun here

Find Elizabeth on Facebook & IG @thecalmingground

Subscribe to The Calming Ground Podcast so you never miss an episode. If you loved this conversation, please share it with a friend.

We rush past thresholds constantly - the small daily ones and the big life-chapter ones. This episode is about what it costs to leave transitions unmarked, and what changes when we honor our transitions.

In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun explores why we so often rush past thresholds, both the small daily ones and the bigger life-chapter ones, and what it costs the nervous system when we do. Drawing on polyvagal-informed work and her own training as a psychotherapist and mindful life coach,

Elizabeth unpacks why unmarked transitions get stored in the body as unfinished business - and shares a personal story from a two-year clinical training program that changed how she understands endings. 

Key takeaways:

• Thresholds aren't just the big, obvious moments; they're daily, and mostly go unmarked
• Unmarked transitions can leave the nervous system in low-grade activation, still "waiting" for closure 
• Ritual and reflection turn a blur of time into distinct, metabolized chapters

Resources

Free live workshop: “Who Am I Now? Finding Your Footing When Life Changes Shape” on August 26th, 1pm EST: https://thecalmingground.com/free-workshop

Free Guided Meditation: https://thecalmingground.com/free-guided-meditation

Questions or reflections from this episode? Email Elizabeth at elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

Want to go deeper in your own practice? Learn more about 1:1 coaching with Elizabeth Mintun here 

Find Elizabeth on Facebook & IG @thecalmingground

Subscribe to The Calming Ground Podcast so you never miss an episode. If you loved this conversation, please share it with a friend.

What do you do when a place that’s held twenty years of your life history is about to be sold? You bury a shell in the sand and say good bye imperfectly, with sand still stuck between your fingers. 

In this episode, your host Elizabeth Mintun (licensed psychotherapist, certified qigong teacher, and mindfulness coach), shares the story of saying goodbye to her uncle’s property on Oak Island, a place woven through more than two decades of family life, births, and losses. The episode moves between a literal ending - a beloved property about to be sold - and the constant endings in life we rarely notice. Elizabeth reflects on a “Sacred Pause” retreat she co-led with Ami Peacock just days before this trip and weaves it into a larger question: what does it mean to consciously practice letting go?  

Key takeaways:

• Creating a simple ritual (finding an object, naming what you’re releasing, marking the moment) can help an ending feel complete, even if imperfectly so. 
• The body already practices letting go constantly. Every exhale is a small release, happening thousands of times a day. 
• Bringing conscious attention to small, everyday endings (a season, a day, a breath) builds the same muscle needed for the larger ones. 

Resources

Free live workshop: “Who Am I Now? Finding Your Footing When Life Changes Shape” on August 26th, 1pm EST: https://thecalmingground.com/free-workshop

Free Guided Meditation: https://thecalmingground.com/free-guided-meditation

Questions or reflections from this episode? Email Elizabeth at elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

Want to go deeper in your own practice? Learn more about 1:1 coaching with Elizabeth Mintun here 

Find Elizabeth on Facebook & IG @thecalmingground

Subscribe to The Calming Ground Podcast so you never miss an episode. If you loved this conversation, please share it with a friend

She held two things dear: the privilege of making mistakes, and the right to be a “damn fool”.

This episode is a re-air of a conversation between host Elizabeth Mintun and her mother, Margy, who died in January of 2025. They set out to talk about compassionate accountability; how to live aligned with our values without turning that alignment into one more way to fall short. What Margy offers is something roomier. She describes the constriction of inherited shoulds, the moment she saw that her own parameters had shrunk her possibility of living fully, and the slow work of learning her mistakes could be pardoned. It's a short conversation, and a plainspoken one. It may be helpful for anyone carrying a should that was handed to them and would like to feel more grace and love towards themselves. 

Key takeaways:

• Shoulds are inherited, usually from people trying sincerely to give us direction - and it's adult work to ask of each one whether we actually embrace it.
• Rigid parameters of right and wrong don't tend to protect a life; they often shrink it.
• Mistakes aren't the failure of growth, they're the mechanism of it.
• Self-forgiveness and forgiving others are the same capacity, practiced in two directions.

Resources

Free Guided Meditation: https://thecalmingground.com/free-guided-meditation

Questions or reflections from this episode? Email Elizabeth at elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

Want to go deeper in your own practice? Learn more about 1:1 coaching with Elizabeth Mintun here 

Find Elizabeth on Facebook & IG @thecalmingground

Subscribe to The Calming Ground Podcast so you never miss an episode. If you loved this conversation, please share it with a friend

What if not knowing is a doorway?

In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun sits down with Dr. Chanti Tacoronte Pérez, a creative guide, teacher, and depth-oriented artist whose work weaves together rest, image-making, myth, and embodied practice. She is the creator of The Ritual of Rest and the Bird Song Oracle Deck.

Dr. Chanti describes her work as a living collage; emergent, non-linear, and responsive to the moment. Together, she and Elizabeth explore how liminality, slowness, and ambiguity open space for deeper presence and transformation: why the doodling that once made her fail math class was actually an embodied way of learning, and what depth psychology calls the "transcendent function" that blossoms when we stay inside tension instead of rushing to resolve it. This conversation is for anyone who has mistaken their slowness for stupidity, who longs to create but fears not being good at it, or who wonders when the excitement of not knowing disappeared.

Key Takeaways

• Not knowing can be a creative doorway. Some of the most transformative moments arise precisely because no one planned them.
• Rest, dream states, and creativity meet in the liminal space. Drawing or writing upon waking can "translate" what we experience there.
• Handwriting is an embodied learning practice. Research by Audrey van der Meer shows it produces widespread brain connectivity that typing does not.
• Low-stakes experiments calm the demand for sharpness and let other parts of ourselves come free. Examples are drawing with crayons,  drawing with the non-dominant hand, and closing your eyes while the pencil moves. 

Resources 

Study: "Handwriting but not typewriting leads to widespread brain connectivity" by Audrey van der Meer: 

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1219945/full?xcod=organichQwK21wXxRhQwK21wXxRhQwK21wXxRhQwK21wXxR

Dr. Chanti's Upcoming Offerings

• Archetypes of Artistry — Summer Art Course: https://www.yantrawisdom.com/workshops/2026archetypes
• Myths of Rest, Sleep and Dream — In person, Santa Fe: https://www.yantrawisdom.com/workshops/fallmyth
• Making Monster — Fall Virtual Creative Container: https://www.yantrawisdom.com/workshops/monster

Find Dr. Chanti

• Website: https://www.artesvida.com
• Instagram: @art.es.vida

Connect with Elizabeth

• Curious about 1:1 coaching? Learn more: https://www.thecalmingground.com/inner-compass
• Email: elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com
• Facebook & Instagram: @thecalmingground

If this conversation opened something in you, subscribe and share it with someone!

What if healing is about coming home to the wholeness of who you are?

In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun sits down with LeNaya Smith Crawford, The Holistic Therapist™ - a licensed therapist, holistic mental health educator, business mentor, and wellness CEO with over a decade of experience. 

LeNaya shares the five-layer holistic framework that carried her through her own dark night of the soul, integrating the physical, energetic, mental-emotional, spiritual, and communal dimensions of healing. Together, she and Elizabeth explore why stillness can feel so frightening in a culture programmed to go-go-go, how sound healing works with our internal energy, why community is the layer we most often abandon, and what it means to honor "the human behind the healer." While LeNaya often teaches therapists, this conversation is for anyone longing to move beyond compartmentalized self-care into true wholeness, and especially those who give so much to others that they've forgotten how to receive.

Key Takeaways:

• True healing asks us to integrate all five layers of who we are - physical, energetic, mental-emotional, spiritual, and communal - rather than tending to just one.
• Fear of stillness is natural in a culture that trains us to constantly produce; finding a trusted guide and allowing time for discomfort are the doorways in.
• Sound healing works with the energetic layer, helping regulate the nervous system and restore internal balance.
• We're often taught to heal in isolation, but at some point the journey asks us to return to community; sometimes the simplest medicine is going where the people are.

Resources:

The Holistic Path to Healing:

A 5-day immersive experience hosted at the Omega Institute, designed to support deep restoration, nervous system regulation, and holistic healing through experiential and somatic practices facilitated by LeNaya Smith Crawford: Omega Five Day Learning Retreat

Holistic Therapist Conference (HTC)

A 4-day in-person conference taking place October 1–4, 2026 at the Art of Living Retreat Center in Boone, North Carolina. The conference brings together therapists, healers, and wellness professionals for workshops, panels, and experiential sessions focused on integrating somatic, trauma-informed, and holistic approaches into clinical and healing practice: Holistic Therapist Conference

https://www.lenayasmithcrawford.com/

Find Lenaya on IG: @lenayascrawford 

Ready to go deeper on your own re-membering journey? Explore 1:1 coaching with Elizabeth: https://www.thecalmingground.com/inner-compass

Questions or reflections? Reach out: elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

Find The Calming Ground on Facebook & Instagram: @thecalmingground

If this conversation resonated, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs a reminder that wholeness is their birthright.

It's 2pm, you've read the same email three times, and you're reaching for another coffee. What if that afternoon fog is actually one of the most reliable signals your body sends all day?

In this episode, your host Elizabeth Mintun (licensed psychotherapist, certified qigong teacher, and mindfulness coach), explores what's really happening in your nervous system during the afternoon energy dip, and why the way most of us respond (more caffeine, more willpower, more pushing) quietly costs us more than we realize.

Elizabeth unpacks the biology behind the midday slump - from circadian rhythms to the lesser-known 90-minute ultradian waves we move through all day - and explains why the familiar "wired and tired" state comes from overriding the body's natural requests to downshift. She shares her own relationship with the afternoon dip, the simple five-minute practices that changed it, and why a real pause works at a level your phone never will. This episode is for anyone who hits a wall every afternoon and has been blaming themselves for it.

• The afternoon dip is built into your biology. Your circadian rhythm naturally sags between 1-3pm whether or not you ate a big lunch. Cultures around the world have honored this with siestas and midday rest. 
• Your body moves in waves all day. Roughly every 90 minutes (ultradian rhythms), your system asks to downshift - a yawn, drifting attention, the urge to stretch. Each time you override that request with caffeine or willpower, you add activation and tension to the system.
• "Wired and tired" is what stacking looks like. Exhausted underneath, buzzing on top. This state comes from pouring stimulation over unanswered fatigue. Caffeine masks the signal; it doesn't answer it.
• Scrolling isn't a break. When you switch from the spreadsheet to social media, the input changes but your nervous system stays activated. A true pause is a deliberate downshift, which is a cue of safety that invites the settled, connected ventral vagal state where heart rate eases and breath deepens on its own.

Resources

Free Guided Meditation: https://thecalmingground.com/free-guided-meditation

The Sacred Pause Half-Day Retreat in Clintonville (Columbus, OH): 

📅 Saturday July 18th | 9:30 AM –2:30 PM EST 

👉 Register for here 

Questions or reflections from this episode? Email Elizabeth at elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

Want to go deeper in your own practice? Learn more about 1:1 coaching with Elizabeth Mintun here 

Find Elizabeth on Facebook & IG @thecalmingground

Subscribe to The Calming Ground Podcast so you never miss an episode. If you loved this conversation, please share it with a friend

What if the spaces in between - the breath before the inhale, the dusk before the dark - hold more wisdom than anything we're chasing? 

In this episode, yoga nidra teacher and bestselling author Tracee Stanley joins host Elizabeth Mintun to explore liminal space, daily ritual, and the practice of coming home to yourself, one breath at a time. Tracee explains liminal space as the in-between moments most of us are trained to rush past. She offers that ritual doesn't require hours of free time or a five-day retreat to be transformative. She talks about the sandhyas, the sacred junctures of the day (sunrise, midday, sunset) that anchor her own practice, the Soham mantra woven into every breath, and how our attention has become a commodity, pulled and extracted by algorithms built to take us away from ourselves rather than toward what's reciprocal and alive. 

This episode is for anyone craving more groundedness in an ordinary, busy life. 

Key Takeaways

• Ritual lives in the ordinary: how you wake, how you drink your tea, how you wash the dishes. Tracee anchors her day to the sandhyas - sunrise, midday, and sunset - rather than waiting for big blocks of free time.
• Our attention has become commodified. Algorithms are built for extraction; nature and ritual are built for reciprocity. The practice is simply noticing where attention goes and gently calling it home.
• Soham - the mantra already living in the breath itself (so on the inhale, hum on the exhale) - is one of the simplest doorways into presence.

Resources

Tracee's website: traceestanley.com  

Tracee’s Instagram: @tracee_stanley

Living Ritual: Infuse Each Day with Purpose and Spirit - preorder Tracee’s book now; it releases August 25th: https://www.traceestanley.com/livingritual#preorder

Radiant Rest: Yoga Nidra for Deep Relaxation and Awakened Clarity - Tracee’s free guided practices:

https://soundcloud.com/shambhala-publications/practice-one-grounding-deep?utm_source=Email&utm_campaign=social_sharing&utm_medium=widgetutm_content=https%3A%2F%2Fsoundcloud.com%2Fshambhala-publications%2Fpractice-one-grounding-deep 

Tracee’s Soham Meditation : https://on.soundcloud.com/esEnlpiANT0d2Ythyz

The Sacred Pause Half-Day Retreat in Clintonville (Columbus, OH): 

📅 Saturday July 18th | 9:30 AM –2:30 PM EST 

👉 Register for here 

Free Guided Meditation: https://thecalmingground.com/free-guided-meditation

Email Elizabeth at elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

Want to go deeper in your own practice? Learn more about 1:1 coaching with Elizabeth Mintun here 

Find Elizabeth on Facebook & IG @thecalmingground

Subscribe to The Calming Ground Podcast so you never miss an episode. If you loved this conversation, please share it with a friend

You know it's time. The relationship, the self-talk, the job… maybe you've known for a while. And still, you haven't moved.

In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun explores the question that's been showing up in client sessions, community conversations, and her own life lately: I know what I need. So why can't I get myself to move? Drawing on nervous system science, this episode offers a gentler way to meet the resistance that shows up right when we're trying to grow. 

Key Takeaways

• Your nervous system ranks options by familiarity, not by what's best for you. A painful pattern has already been survived - your body has proof of that. A new path hasn't been tested yet, so your system defends what's known, even when it hurts.
• The old pattern is still giving you something, even while it costs you. This is secondary gain, and naming it honestly (without blame) is often the missing piece in understanding why you haven't moved yet.
• Change takes capacity, not willpower. If you're already running on empty, asking yourself to overhaul a relationship or rebuild your self-talk is asking a depleted system for more output with less fuel. Sometimes the most loving move is rebuilding capacity first.

Resources

The Sacred Pause Half-Day Retreat in Clintonville (Columbus, OH): 

📅 Saturday July 18th | 9:30 AM –2:30 PM EST 

👉 Register for here 

Free Guided Meditation: https://thecalmingground.com/free-guided-meditation

Email Elizabeth at elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

Learn more about 1:1 Coaching with Elizabeth Mintun here 

Find Elizabeth on Facebook & IG @thecalmingground

Subscribe to The Calming Ground Podcast so you never miss an episode. If you loved this conversation, please share it with a friend.

What if there was ancient wisdom that might be able to help us during the season of summer? 

In this solo episode, host Elizabeth Mintun explores the fire element from qigong and Traditional Chinese Medicine and what it means to tend your inner flame rather than just feed it. She opens by reading her poem, written in a parking lot after dropping her daughter off at camp - and uses that moment of emptiness as an entry point into one of the richest teachings of the season.

Fire is the element of summer: the element of the heart, of joy, of outward expression and connection. Fire also has a shadow - scattered energy, overstimulation, the performing of aliveness rather than the feeling of it. Elizabeth unpacks the five element framework for listeners new to qigong and TCM, exploring the heart and small intestine as fire's organ pair, the difference between balanced joy and its anxious shadow, and what it actually feels like in the body when fire is in balance versus burning thin. 

Resources

The Sacred Pause Half-Day Retreat in Clintonville (Columbus, OH): 

📅 Saturday July 18th | 9:30 AM –2:30 PM EST 

👉 Register for here 

Free Guided Meditation: https://thecalmingground.com/free-guided-meditation

Email Elizabeth at elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

Learn more about 1:1 Coaching with Elizabeth Mintun here 

Find Elizabeth on Facebook & IG @thecalmingground

Subscribe to The Calming Ground Podcast so you never miss an episode. If you loved this conversation, please share it with a friend

What if the parts of you you've been hiding - even from yourself - are actually your greatest source of power?

In this illuminating conversation, host Elizabeth Mintun sits down with Melanie Ryan, psychotherapist, Buddhist teacher, shamanic practitioner, and creator of the Golden Shadow Method. Melanie explores how the unconscious holds not just our wounds, but also our greatest gifts, and how ancient wisdom traditions can guide us back to the light of our own true nature.

Melanie shares her remarkable journey from conventional psychotherapist to weaving together Carl Jung, Tibetan Buddhism, and shamanism into a transformative healing path. Together,

Elizabeth and Melanie explore why we are so often more afraid of our own power than our pain, how shadow work can help us reclaim hidden parts of ourselves, and why our triggers (both dark and golden) are actually allies pointing us toward healing. 

Whether you are deep in your own healing journey or simply curious about what lies beneath the surface, this conversation offers profound insight into the ancient wisdom that has always known: you are already good.

Key Takeaways

• The shadow holds your golden gifts, talents, and power too.
• Basic goodness is your true nature; the work is removing what covers it.
• Your triggers are teachers, not enemies - they point directly to where healing wants to happen.
• Play and creativity are essential doorways into the golden shadow
• Ancient wisdom traditions - Jung, Buddhism, shamanism - all point to the same truth: we are not separate from love

Resources

Melanie's Website: goldenshadowmethod.com

Newsletter & Ancient Wisdom Today: ancientwisdomtoday.com

Melanie on Instagram & Facebook: @golden.shadow.method  

Melanie's upcoming retreat The Golden Shadow Method at The Omega Institute, New York:

https://www.eomega.org/workshops/golden-shadow-method

The Sacred Pause Half-Day Retreat in Clintonville (Columbus, OH): 

📅 Saturday July 18th | 9:30 AM –2:30 PM EST 

👉 Register for here 

Free Guided Meditation: https://thecalmingground.com/free-guided-meditation

Email Elizabeth at elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

Learn more about 1:1 Coaching with Elizabeth Mintun here 

Find Elizabeth on Facebook & IG @thecalmingground

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What if you are already whole, just as you are? 

In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun shares a very personal story of her painful divorce, navigating the complexities of a blended family, and spending years immersed in self-development. She talks about how nature, forest bathing, qigong, and simple mindfulness practices helped me move from striving toward wholeness to recognize that wholeness was already present. 

Key Takeaways

• Insight alone isn’t enough. Understanding your patterns can be transformative and yet, intellectual awareness is different from embodying compassion, presence, and self-acceptance in everyday life. Consistent practices that reconnect us with our breath, our bodies, and the present moment are so simple and yet powerfully transformative. 
• Nature invites presence. The natural world invites us into relationship, rhythm and connection with the present moment. 
• Wholeness doesn’t mean perfection. Recognizing your wholeness doesn’t deny pain, wounds, or growth. Recognizing your wholeness means that you already have value and beauty, just as you are. 

Resources 

The Sacred Pause Half-Day Retreat in Clintonville (Columbus, OH): 

📅 Saturday July 18th | 9:30 AM –2:30 PM EST 

👉 Register for here 

Free Guided Meditation: https://thecalmingground.com/free-guided-meditation

Email Elizabeth at elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

Learn more about 1:1 Coaching with Elizabeth Mintun here 

Find Elizabeth on Facebook & IG @thecalmingground

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What if the most powerful thing we can offer each other isn't a strategy, but actually just a kind reminder?

In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun addresses what it really means to return to presence, to yourself, and to what sustains you. She covers Harvard research on mind-wandering and why it matters for your wellbeing, the Sanskrit concept of smriti (mindfulness as remembrance), why our nourishing practices fall away and how to return without shame, and why the most radical thing someone can offer us is often the simplest: come back.

Key Takeaways

• Your body is always in the present tense. When your mind wanders, sensation and breath are some of your fastest anchors back.
• Losing yourself rarely happens in one moment - it happens in a thousand small ones. Coming back is the same: one small, honest act at a time..
• When a nourishing practice falls away, start smaller than you think you should - the goal is to re-establish contact, not to immediately return to full capacity.
• Smriti, the Sanskrit root of mindfulness, literally means remembrance. 

Resources 

The Sacred Pause Half-Day Retreat in Clintonville (Columbus, OH): 

📅 Saturday July 18th | 9:30 AM –2:30 PM EST 

👉 Register for here 

Email Elizabeth at elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

Learn more about 1:1 Coaching with Elizabeth Mintun here 

Find Elizabeth on Facebook & IG @thecalmingground

Subscribe to The Calming Ground Podcast so you never miss an episode. If you loved this conversation, please share it with a friend

What happens when grief feels too heavy to hold with words alone? 

In this moving conversation, host Elizabeth Mintun sits down with Kelsey Moro, dance movement & creative arts therapist and founder of Riverbend Grief. Kelsey explores how grief lives in the body - and how movement, breath, ritual, and community can help us reconnect to ourselves after loss. 

In this conversation, Kelsey shared her personal journey into grief work after the tragic loss of a friend in high school transformed her relationship with dance and ultimately led her to become a grief therapist. Together, Elizabeth and Kelsey explore the ways grief can leave us feeling frozen, disconnected, or afraid to fully feel - and how gentle movement practices can help us safely meet our grief rather than avoid it. Whether you’re navigating loss yourself or supporting.c someone who is grieving, this conversation offers compassionate insight into the healing power of embodiment, ritual, and community. 

Key Takeaways

• You do not need to be a dancer to benefit from movement-based healing. 
• Breath itself is a form of movement and can be a powerful starting point. 
• Small daily grief rituals can help grief feel less overwhelming. 

Resources 

Kelsey’s upcoming retreats: 

Conscious Grieving Retreat in Mill Valley, CA

Creative Grief Tending Retreat at The Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY

Kelsey’s Website: www.riverbendgrief.com

Kelsey’s Email: riverbendgrief@gmail.com

Kelsey’s Instagram: riverbend_grief

Learn more about 1:1 Coaching with Elizabeth Mintun here 

Contact Elizabeth: elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

Find Elizabeth on Facebook & IG @thecalmingground

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What happens when the thing you’ve spent years trying to hide becomes the very thing that sets you free?

In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun sits down with author and writing coach Melissa Petro for an honest conversation about shame, storytelling, identity, and the courage to be seen. Together,

Elizabeth and Melissa explore the healing power of writing, the difference between secrecy and privacy, and how telling the truth about our lives can help loosen shame’s grip. 

This conversation is compassionate, nuanced, and full of insight for anyone who has ever felt afraid that parts of themselves were “too much,” “unacceptable,” or unworthy of being seen.

Key Takeaways

• You become the narrator. When you write about your past, you create distance from the person you were. The "older, wiser narrator" can make meaning without being the shame. You are no longer your shameful path - it's past tense.
• Move at the speed of trust. Melissa is clear that radical honesty is a privilege not everyone has - there are real consequences to revealing stigmatized parts of yourself. Her advice: start in safe containers. A journal. A trusted friend. A small workshop. 
• Shame resilience is a muscle - and it can become a superpower. The more you practice telling your truth in safe spaces and being met with kindness, the more resilient you become when you're not. You stop internalizing what doesn't belong to you.
• When you tell your truth, you give others permission. The ripple effect is real. Melissa hears it constantly: I've had that experience too. Thank you for saying it out loud. One honest story makes room for a hundred more.

Resources 

Melissa’s upcoming workshop at the Omega Institute: https://www.eomega.org/workshops/writing-shame-resilience

Melissa’s website: melissa-petro.com

Melissa’s book: Shame on You: How to Be a Woman in the Age of Mortification - available wherever books are sold

Melissa’s free monthly workshop: Write It Anyway meets the last Wednesday of every month, 6–8pm EST. Email melissa.petro@gmail.com to get the link.

Instagram: @melissa.petro

Learn more about 1:1 Coaching with Elizabeth Mintun here 

Contact Elizabeth: elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

Find Elizabeth on Facebook & IG @thecalmingground

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Is it okay to invest in your own steadiness and self-care when we’re in these tumultuous, uncertain times? 

In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun addresses several reasons why self-care might feel almost impossible to justify right now - the economic pressure, the relentless news cycle, the guilt of slowing down when the world feels like it's shaking. Rather than brushing those objections off, she sits with each one and offers a real, grounded response, bringing us back to why mindful self-care especially matters when we’re in uncertain and unsteady times and why a guided experience might be particularly beneficial. 

Key Takeaways

• Many of us believe we have a time and energy issue, when it’s actually most likely a prioritization struggle. 
• Self-care is often misunderstood as self-indulgence, when actually true self-care offers on-going maintenance by giving your system a reference point for calm. 
• A stressed system has difficulty designing its own recovery, which is why guided and held programs (like group coaching, therapy, retreats, etc.) can be so useful. 

Resources 

Your Calming Ground Virtual Retreat: 

📅 Friday May 15th | 7–9 PM EST (Replay available if you can't join live.)

      & Saturday, May 16th | 10–12 AM EST (Replay available if you can't join live.)

👉 you can find more information about the virtual retreat here

Learn more about 1:1 Coaching with Elizabeth Mintun here 

Contact Elizabeth: elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

Find Elizabeth on Facebook & IG @thecalmingground

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Most of us try to think our way through hard seasons. We analyze, prepare, and mentally rehearse until we feel ready for whatever comes next. But what if calm isn't something the mind can manufacture?  It's something the body has to experience. 

In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun explores two archetypes from the natural world - the river and the roots - and how returning to these ancient patterns can help your nervous system find its footing, even when life doesn't feel steady. We are living through a lot right now. The advice we're most often given - reframe it, focus on what you can control, think positively - asks the mind to do something it genuinely can't do alone: create safety.

Elizabeth addresses why calm is less about thinking and more about experience, and how two archetypes from the natural world can help your nervous system find its way back to steadiness, even in the middle of uncertainty.

Key Takeaways

• Thinking has limits when it comes to creating calm. When life feels uncertain, the mind reaches for predictability. If it can't find any, it often generates anxiety as a substitute. Understanding this pattern is the first step toward something different.
• Nature archetypes work because they're felt, not just understood. When you vividly imagine something like a river or a root system, your brain responds as if it's a real experience - the same neural pathways that process sensation and emotion begin to activate. This is why these images can shift something in the body, not just the mind.
• remembering who you already are.

Resources 

Rooted & Resilient Free Workshop: a free, live one-hour workshop where we work directly with the River and Roots archetypes through guided meditation and reflective practice. You'll leave with something you can feel in your body, not just understand in your head.

📅 Tuesday, May 5th | 12–1 PM EST (Replay available if you can't join live.)

👉 https://go.thecalmingground.com/quarterly-workshop

Learn more about 1:1 Coaching with Elizabeth Mintun here 

Contact Elizabeth: elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

Find Elizabeth on Facebook & IG @thecalmingground

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There’s a reason your shoulders may drop when you step outside… A reason your breath may deepens near water… A reason something in you may relax a little when you pause beneath a tree.

In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun explores what’s actually happening in your body and nervous system when you spend time in nature, and why something so simple can feel so profoundly restorative. Blending personal story, science, and soulful reflection, she shares a moment from my forest bathing training that changed how she understands presence, support, and what it means to be in relationship with the natural world. In addition, she dives into some of the research behind nature’s impact on stress, attention, and emotional regulation and, more importantly, what the natural world can teach us about rhythm, rest, and reclaiming a more human pace of living.

This is an invitation to step out of constant doing… And remember how to simply be.

Key Takeaways

• Nature regulates your nervous system. Even brief time outdoors can lower cortisol, reduce anxiety, and shift your body into a state of rest and repair.
• Attention matters. Nature restores your mental energy by engaging effortless attention and curiosity, allowing your overworked brain to replenish.
• You belong to the natural world. Reconnecting with nature is, in many ways, remembering who you already are.

Resources 

Previous episodes on forest bathing and nature to check out: 

#9 - Forest Bathing for Replenished Energy

#36 - Living Your Wild Soul Story: A Journey with Mary Reynolds Thompson

Learn more about 1:1 Coaching with Elizabeth Mintun here 

Contact Elizabeth: elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

Find Elizabeth on Facebook & IG @thecalmingground

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When was the last time you did absolutely nothing? Not scrolling. Not multitasking. Not “resting” while mentally running through your to-do list…. If that question makes you feel a little uneasy, you’re not alone.

In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun explores why slowing down can feel uncomfortable, restless, or even threatening. Beneath the surface, this isn’t about discipline or willpower; it’s about your nervous system doing its job to keep you safe. Elizabeth unpacks the deeper reasons rest can feel so hard, what it’s actually costing you to stay in constant motion, and how to begin gently retraining your system to experience stillness as safe and full of ease again.

Key Takeaways

• Your drive to stay busy is a deeply wired survival response shaped by evolution and reinforced by modern culture.
• Busyness often acts as a buffer against uncomfortable emotions like grief, uncertainty, or loneliness.
• Slowing down is a skill that can be practiced in small, accessible ways. It’s not an all-or-nothing lifestyle change.
• Even brief pauses (2–5 minutes) can begin to retrain your nervous system over time.
• Gentle, rhythmic movement (like walking or qigong) can be a powerful bridge into stillness for those who struggle to stop completely.

Resources 

Learn more about 1:1 Coaching with Elizabeth Mintun here 

Contact Elizabeth: elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

Find Elizabeth on Facebook & IG @thecalmingground

Subscribe to The Calming Ground Podcast so you never miss an episode. If you loved this conversation, please share it with a friend!

Most of us have been taught that growth means pushing through, figuring it out, or getting it “right.” What if real growth comes from learning how to stay present at your edge?

In this powerful conversation, host Elizabeth Mintun sits down with Jaye Marolla to explore a very different approach to leadership, growth, and self-awareness. Drawing from over a decade as a bodywork practitioner, Jaye shares how working with the body can expand our capacity to hold uncertainty, navigate conflict, and move through life with greater presence and resilience. 

Together, they unpack the concept of yin-led leadership, challenge common cultural narratives around power and safety, and introduce the idea of edge mapping, a practice of meeting ourselves at the boundary between the known and the unknown.

Key Takeaways

• Growth happens at the edge, through presence. Real transformation comes from staying with discomfort, curiosity, and the unknown rather than bypassing it.m
• Yin leadership is deeply attuned and responsive. True leadership arises from listening, receiving, and being in relationship with what’s happening, rather than controlling it.
• Edge mapping expands your capacity. By gently exploring your edges (instead of pushing past them), you can build resilience, awareness, and flexibility.
• Yin and yang are not opposites - they are interdependent. True power comes from their integration: grounded, rooted yin giving rise to clear, intentional yang.
• Fulfillment is a natural part of life cycles. Knowing when something is complete (and having the awareness to release it) is essential for growth and new emergence.

I’d love to hear what stood out to you in this conversation.

What edge are you noticing in your own life right now?

You can email me at elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com - I always love hearing what’s resonating.

Resources 

Jaye's website: https://www.thebodyinnate.com/

Jaye’s IG: https://www.instagram.com/thebodyinnate/

Learn more about 1:1 Coaching with Elizabeth Mintun here 

Contact Elizabeth: elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

Find Elizabeth on Facebook & IG @thecalmingground

Subscribe to The Calming Ground Podcast so you never miss an episode. If you loved this conversation, please share it with a friend!

If you’re a woman in your 40s or 50s feeling exhausted, anxious, disconnected, or “not like yourself”… this episode might impact how you understand what’s happening. For example, what if it’s not just stress… or even your mindset?

In this powerful conversation, host Elizabeth Mintun sits down with Daniela Hess, the co-founder, spiritual director, and lead educator of the organization Great Energy. Together, they explore the missing link in so many personal growth and spiritual conversations: your physical body. Daniela dives into why a regulated, relaxed body is essential for deeper healing and awareness, the concept of burnout and adrenal fatigue, and how metabolic and hormonal imbalances affect mood, nervous system regulation, energy levels, and relationships. 

Key Takeaways

• Practice diaphragmatic (belly) breathing throughout the day
• Incorporate gentle movement like Qigong or walking
• Many "emotional issues” are actually physical imbalances. Hormones, nutrients, and metabolism play a significant role. 

Resources 

Daniella’s website: https://www.greatenergy.org/

• Check out her free monthly offerings:
• Community Sunday (Qigong practice)
• Sacred Sunday (guided meditation + reflection)

Learn more about 1:1 Coaching with Elizabeth Mintun here 

Contact Elizabeth: elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

Find Elizabeth on Facebook & IG @thecalmingground

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What if the restlessness, irritation, or quiet longing you’ve been feeling… isn’t random?

In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun explores the deeper meaning of spring through the lens of ancient Chinese medicine - not just as a season, but as an internal shift happening within your body, emotions, and energy. She unpacks the Wood element; the energy of growth, movement, vision, and new beginnings, and gently guides you to understand how spring lives within you, perhaps influencing everything from your mood and motivation to your creativity and sense of direction.

If you’ve been feeling frustrated, uninspired, or unsure of your next step, this episode offers a compassionate and empowering lens to understand why…and practical exercises to begin shifting.

Key Takeaways

• You are not separate from nature - you move with its seasons
• Spring can be a time of activation, growth, and forward momentum, both internally and externally
• Small, intentional shifts can help restore flow, creativity, and direction

Resources 

Learn more about 1:1 Coaching with Elizabeth Mintun here. 

Contact Elizabeth: elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

Find Elizabeth on Facebook & IG @thecalmingground

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“This book is an invitation: an invitation for you to find and adorn your own inner temple. To return to it again and again. To create rituals that speak your language, carry your symbols, and guide you through chaos and into clarity.”

— Jean Culbertson Sutton, Ritual Well

What if the small things you already do - lighting a candle, holding a meaningful object, pausing with a cup of tea - are actually powerful rituals?

In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun welcomes back ritual practitioner and author Jean Culbertson Sutton to explore the power of ritual and how it can reconnect us with ourselves, each other, and the sacred within everyday life. Jean shares how rituals can emerge organically from our lives and become anchors during times of transition, grief, uncertainty, and growth.

If you've ever felt drawn to meaningful practices but weren’t sure where to start, this conversation offers a beautiful doorway in.

Key Takeaways

• Ritual helps externalize inner experiences. By interacting with physical objects, emotions like anxiety or grief can feel more tangible and workable.
• Ritual creates pauses in our lives. These moments of intentional stillness can reconnect us with our bodies, our values, and our sense of meaning.
• Community rituals deepen belonging. Even simple shared gestures can foster connection and respect among groups.
• You may already have rituals in your life. Becoming aware of them often deepens their impact.

Resources 

Jean’s book: Ritual Well

Jean’s website: https://jeancsutton.weebly.com/

Find earlier Interview with Jean (episode #5) here

Learn more about 1:1 Coaching with Elizabeth Mintun here 

Contact Elizabeth: elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

Find Elizabeth on Facebook & IG @thecalmingground

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What happens when we slow down enough to truly feel our bodies?

In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun sits down with assisted stretch practitioner Lisa to explore the transformative potential of assisted stretching and body awareness. Drawing from nearly two decades of experience in massage therapy and training in Thai yoga massage, Lisa shares how slow, supported stretching can help people reconnect with their bodies, regulate the nervous system, and release long-held tension.

We talk about the difference between performing movement versus receiving movement, why many of us are disconnected from our bodies, and how intentional stretching can create space for both physical and emotional release.

This conversation offers a thoughtful look at how practices that reconnect us to the body can shift not only how we move, but also how we live.

Key Takeaways

• Assisted stretching can support nervous system regulation. Slow, guided stretching helps activate the parasympathetic nervous system - the part of the body responsible for rest and relaxation - allowing muscles to release tension and the body to settle.
• Fascia plays a major role in flexibility and tension. Fascia, the connective tissue that surrounds muscles and organs, can become tight and restricted over time due to stress, repetitive movement, or inactivity. Gentle stretching can help improve fascial mobility and overall movement.
• Reconnecting with the body can support emotional well-being. Many people store stress and emotional tension physically. Bodywork practices like assisted stretching can create space for relaxation, emotional release, and a deeper sense of grounding.

Resources 

Connect with Lisa: 

- Instagram: Prostretchflex1 

- Facebook: Pro Stretch & Flex

-TikTok: @pro.stretch.and.f

- LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/lisa-binkley-21862b352

- Website: prostretchflex.com

- Email: prostretchflex@gmail.com

Learn more about 1:1 Coaching with Elizabeth Mintun here. 

Contact Elizabeth: elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

Find Elizabeth on Facebook & IG @thecalmingground

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If you’re living with chronic pain or pelvic pain - but medical tests keep coming back “normal” - this episode is for you.

In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun is joined by Sarah Highland, pelvic floor therapist and AASECT-certified sex counselor, to explore how chronic pain is created by the brain and nervous system, especially pain that doesn’t show up on scans. This conversation addressed the nervous system, central sensitization, shame, trauma, and why pain is always real - even when doctors can’t find a clear cause.

If you’ve ever been told “nothing’s wrong” but your body says otherwise, this conversation will offer validation, clarity, and hope.

Key Takeaways

• Pain is always real, even when tests show “nothing wrong.” Pain isn’t “in your head” - your nervous system interprets signals and creates the experience of pain, even without visible tissue damage.
• Healing often involves both mind and body. Trauma, stress, sleep, fear of movement, and medical experiences all influence chronic pain. Addressing these alongside physical care can be transformative.
• Hope exists even when pain feels hopeless. If you’ve tried medications or specialists without relief, exploring a biopsychosocial, nervous-system-informed approach can offer new pathways for healing.

Resources 

Sarah Highland’s website: https://www.pelvicfloorandmore.com/

Sarah’s IG: https://www.instagram.com/pelvicfloorandmore/

Resources Sarah mentioned in this episode:

Noigroup Clinical Discussions - YouTube

Home - Pelvic Global Directory

Rachel Zoffness Pain Science Author

An interesting study that speaks to the same topics: Association of Central Sensitization Inventory Scores With Pain Outcomes After Endometriosis Surgery | Obstetrics and Gynecology | JAMA Network Open | JAMA Network

Learn more about 1:1 Coaching with Elizabeth Mintun here. 

Contact Elizabeth: elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

Find Elizabeth on Facebook & IG @thecalmingground

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Have you ever promised yourself you’d say no, set a boundary, or speak up… and then said yes anyway?

In this episode, the last of the People-Pleasing Mini-Series, host Elizabeth Mintun explores why self-trust is hard, why guilt and old patterns show up, and how you can begin making changes with compassion and steadiness. Elizabeth addresses why understanding the pattern isn’t enough to shift it, how the nervous system interprets self-prioritization as risk, and the waves of guilt, fear, and identity disorientation that can arise when we are making a healthy change for ourselves. 

Elizabeth also shares her personal journey with people-pleasing as well as a free workshop happening Thursday, February 26th, called From People-Pleasing to Self-Trust. 

Key Takeaways

• Awareness ≠ immediate change. Understanding people-pleasing patterns is important, but your nervous system operates on survival wiring, so behavior change happens gradually.
• Self-trust can feel destabilizing at first. Saying no, setting limits, or interrupting old patterns can trigger guilt, fear of being misunderstood, and identity disorientation. This is normal.
• Micro-shifts and consistent practice matter. Pausing, regulating your nervous system, and practicing boundaries in relationships gradually rewires old pathways.
• Caring without disappearing is possible. You don’t have to harden, withdraw, or stop caring about others. Self-trust is about staying present with yourself in the context of relationships. 

Resources 

Sign up for the free workshop From People-Pleasing to Self-Trust: Reclaim Yourself Without Burning Bridges here:

https://go.thecalmingground.com/people-pleasing-to-self-trust

Learn more about 1:1 Coaching with Elizabeth Mintun here. 

Contact Elizabeth: elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

Find Elizabeth on Facebook & IG @thecalmingground

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What if the opposite of people-pleasing isn’t selfishness… but self-trust?

In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun explores people-pleasing through a compassionate nervous system lens, understanding how it often begins as an adaptive survival strategy rooted in relational intelligence, emotional attunement, and a deep value for harmony and connection. She looks at how immediate relief, identity reinforcement, fear of relational rupture, and external approval can quietly keep the pattern in place, and why saying no can feel physically unsafe. 

Most importantly, Elizabeth reframes the work: the opposite of people-pleasing isn’t selfishness at all, but self-trust. It’s about growing the ability to notice your internal signals, pause, and respond in ways that honor both yourself and your relationships.

Key Takeaways

• People-pleasers are highly attuned emotional readers and that relational intelligence is a strength.
• People-pleasing often feels like kindness, not “pleasing.”
• A quick “yes” brings immediate nervous system relief (and reinforces the habituated response).
• Healing requires expanding capacity to tolerate discomfort.

Sign up for the free workshop From People-Pleasing to Self-Trust: Reclaim Yourself Without Burning Bridges here:

https://go.thecalmingground.com/people-pleasing-to-self-trust

Learn more about 1:1 Coaching with Elizabeth Mintun here. 

Contact Elizabeth: elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

Find Elizabeth on Facebook & IG @thecalmingground

Subscribe to The Calming Ground Podcast so you never miss an episode. If you loved this conversation, please share it with a friend!

What if people-pleasing is your nervous system doing exactly what it has learned to do to keep you safe?

In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun explores people pleasing through the lens of the nervous system, specifically the fawn response, a survival strategy organized around connection and safety. Rather than trying to “overcome” or shame this pattern, we look at why it made sense in the first place - and how understanding it with compassion can create real, sustainable change.

Key Takeaways

• People-pleasing is a nervous system strategy. It often develops as a way to stay safe, connected, and regulated in environments where harmony, approval, or emotional attunement mattered for belonging.
• The fawn response is organized around connection. Alongside fight, flight, and freeze, the fawn response seeks safety by accommodating, smoothing, helping, or staying agreeable (especially in relationally sensitive people).
• Shame and force don’t create lasting change. Trying to “override” people pleasing by pushing yourself to say no often backfires because the nervous system still perceives danger.
• Understanding comes before changing a pattern. When we understand why people-pleasing once made sense, we can honor it rather than fight it - and patterns often begin to shift naturally.

Sign up for the free workshop From People-Pleasing to Self-Trust: Reclaim Yourself Without Burning Bridges here:

https://go.thecalmingground.com/people-pleasing-to-self-trust

Learn more about 1:1 Coaching with Elizabeth Mintun here. 

Contact Elizabeth: elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

Find Elizabeth on Facebook & IG @thecalmingground

Related episodes that do focus on boundaries: 

Episode #27 The Gift of Boundaries for Compassionate Presence: An Interview with Dawn Glasco

Episode #29 Growing Our Boundary Muscles: An Exploration of Inner & Outer Boundaries with Kelli Younglove 

Episode #30 Honoring Ourselves: Freeing Ourselves from People-Pleasing

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What if feeling stuck offers information worth listening to?

In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun explores the idea that stuckness is often a form of discernment. When we feel stuck, it’s usually not because we don’t care - it’s because something meaningful, complex, or emotionally layered is asking for time and attention.  Rather than reacting to the discomfort of uncertainty with striving or self-pressure, this episode invites a shift toward listening and responding with curiosity.

Elizabeth also shares a folktale about the “monkey trap” to illustrate how holding too tightly - even to something valuable - can keep us stuck, and how release often comes through softening rather than force. She also shares a personal story of a real-life example of how noticing and respecting stuckness can open the door to honest movement and deeper collaboration.

Key Takeaways

• Stuckness can hold valuable information about pace, grief, vulnerability, or competing values
• Striving for clarity can be a reaction to discomfort rather than a true response to what’s happening
• Stuckness can act as a protective brake, not a breakdown
• Asking relational questions (“What is this protecting?”) can be more helpful than demanding solutions

Learn more about 1:1 Coaching with Elizabeth Mintun here. 

Contact Elizabeth: elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

Find Elizabeth on Facebook & IG @thecalmingground

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What if doing less could actually teach us more?

In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun interviewed Marcia Miller, a lifelong teacher and Reiki Master, and meditation coach. In this conversation, Marcia reflected on her transition into a later stage of life - one shaped less by striving and productivity and more by discernment, nourishment, and listening. After decades of teaching and running a large yoga studio, she described what it has meant to consciously do less, rest until truly rested, and only say yes when something feels fully aligned.

Marcia also expressed that winter is both a literal season and a metaphor for a way of being: honoring darkness, quiet, and fallowness as necessary parts of life. Marcia also discussed the crone or elder archetype as a stage marked by clarity, courage, and responsibility. She spoke candidly about fierceness, boundaries, and the importance of community - reminding us that we are not meant to do everything alone, nor be at full capacity all the time. This episode offers an invitation to rethink productivity, rest, and connection.

Key Takeaways

• True rest often requires intentional boundaries, not just time off
• Clarity about what is ours to do emerges more easily when the nervous system is supported
• Living seasonally can mean aligning daily rhythms, evenings, and expectations with the natural world
• Asking “What is enough?” can be a radical and liberating practice

Marcia Miller’s Website: https://www.marciamilleryoga.com/

Marcia Miller’s Substack: https://substack.com/@marciamiller715561

Learn more about 1:1 Coaching with Elizabeth Mintun here. 

Contact Elizabeth: elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

Find Elizabeth on Facebook & IG @thecalmingground

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What if the reason growth feels exhausting isn’t because you’re doing it wrong - but because the frame you’ve been given is subtly pressurizing you?

In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun explores how the dominant frame of self-improvement can reinforce the belief that something about us is deficient or needs fixing. While growth and awareness are valuable, when they’re rooted in pressure rather than relationship, they can leave us feeling managed instead of met.

This conversation offers a re-orientation: moving from self-improvement toward self-acceptance, allowance, and relational growth. Through reflection, nervous-system awareness, and a classic folktale, Elizabeth invites you to consider what happens when we stop treating ourselves as projects and start relating to ourselves with curiosity and permission.

Key Takeaways

• Awareness is about noticing; self-surveillance can turn noticing into evaluation.
• Recurring patterns are  signals asking for a tending and/or a different way of relating.
• Growth rooted in self-acceptance and permission is often more sustainable than growth driven by pressure.

Learn more about 1:1 Coaching with Elizabeth Mintun here. 

Contact Elizabeth: elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

Find Elizabeth on Facebook & IG @thecalmingground

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In a time when so much feels uncertain - perhaps both personally and collectively - how do we stay grounded without turning away from what’s hard?

In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun shares reflections where a simple practice - pausing together in community for fifteen minutes each day - created surprising and meaningful shifts. From composing music from the heart instead of “shoulds,” to savoring “delicious bursts” of presence, to meeting mistakes with curiosity rather than perfectionism, these moments point to something essential: steadiness doesn’t actually come from control - it comes from presence… especially when it’s shared.

This episode is an invitation to slow down, soften the grip of “should,” and remember that even small pauses can help us live more honestly inside the both/and.

Key Takeaways

• Small, consistent pauses can create steadiness in an unsteady world.
• Shared practice matters - sometimes we regulate more deeply when we pause together.
• Peace isn’t something we wait for; it’s something we practice.
• Living in the both/and allows hope and heartbreak to coexist honestly.

Learn more about 1:1 Coaching with Elizabeth Mintun here. 

Contact Elizabeth: elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

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In January, our society tends to tell us to do more, fix ourselves, and start over… but what if the most powerful way to begin the year is actually through mindfulness? 

In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun offers a different starting point for the new year - one rooted in mindfulness, nervous system awareness, and compassionate intention-setting. Elizabeth unpacks what mindfulness really is (and what it’s not), gently challenging the idea that mindfulness is about calming down or simply engaging in positive thinking (or getting it “right”). Instead, mindfulness is presented as a brave and practical practice of paying attention, without judging, fixing, or escaping what we notice.

Key Takeaways

• Mindfulness changes the quality of how we grow, not whether we grow.
• Mindfulness helps us relate to action with more clarity, steadiness, and alignment.
• Awareness must come before sustainable change. We can’t shift patterns we aren’t aware of. Mindfulness helps us notice when choices are driven by fear, urgency, or habit - and creates space for more intentional responses.
• Intentions work best when they support the nervous system. A mindful intention is a direction of attention, not a demand. It leaves room for uncertainty, rest, and returning again and again without self-judgment.

Sign up here for free workshop Start 2026 with Clarity: Reconnect with Your Inner Compass  

Learn more about 1:1 Coaching with Elizabeth Mintun here. 

Contact Elizabeth: elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

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What if the longer periods of darkness during winter could be our teacher? 

In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun reflects on stillness, renewal, and possibility during late December. Drawing from timeless wisdom - the Northern European tradition of the Twelve Nights and the Inuit story of Sedna’s descent into the deep - Elizabeth explores how darkness, pause, and reflection are essential parts of growth. These stories illuminate the ways that slowing down, observing inner patterns, and cultivating clarity prepare us for meaningful beginnings.

This episode is perfect for anyone seeking calm, grounding, and mindful presence during a season that can feel emotionally heightened, complex, or tender.

Key Takeaways

• By honoring the quiet and slowing down, you create space for clarity, renewal, and the unfolding of what’s next.
• Though the spaces of uncertainty during times of change, transition, or decision-making can be quite uncomfortable, it can be very helpful to breathe through the discomfort rather than trying to “hop over it”. 
• Notice if you’re experiencing a push for “resolutions” and see how possible it might be to offer yourself ease and open curiosity about how you’d like to unfold in the coming year. Notice what emerges inwardly as you practice this curiosity and openness.  

Sign up for Intentional 2026: 3 Days to Reset & Realign here.

Learn more about 1:1 Coaching with Elizabeth Mintun here. 

Contact Elizabeth: elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

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What if peace in your life, and peace in the world, begins with the smallest shifts inside of you?  

In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun weaves together two timeless folktales, the Taoist story of the Useless Tree and the Cherokee legend of the Two Wolves. Together, these stories illuminate how slowing down, regulating our inner world, and choosing compassion over urgency creates the foundation for lasting calm. Elizabeth talks about how, as we step toward a new year, many of us are craving more peace in our relationships, our homes, and in the world. She suggests that peace doesn’t begin with resolutions or perfect habits. It begins within. And when we nurture it gently and consistently, it ripples outward in ways we may never fully see.

Key Takeaways

• Inner peace is grounded self-connection.True inner peace can come from staying connected to yourself, even when life feels busy, emotional, or uncertain.
• What you feed internally shapes your emotional well-being. Inner peace grows from daily choices, such as where you place your attention, how you respond to stress, and which inner patterns you nurture.
• Rest and slowness are essential for mental and emotional health. In a productivity-driven culture, creating space, slowing down, and tending to your nervous system are necessary for sustainable peace.

Sign up for Intentional 2026: 3 Days to Reset & Realign here.

Learn more about 1:1 Coaching with Elizabeth Mintun here. 

Contact Elizabeth: elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

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What if the end of the year didn’t have to mean resolutions, pressure, or performative reflection? 

In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun explores an approach to closing the year that welcomes your whole experience - grief, joy, exhaustion, resilience - and creates gentle space for renewal.

Elizabeth shares her personal experience navigating the end of last year while her mother was nearing the end of her life, offering a tender reminder that reflection doesn’t always look like journaling prompts or structured rituals. Sometimes, the most courageous thing we can do is simply notice what is here. Elizabeth talks about the Japanese year-end ritual Ōsōji and how its symbolism can guide your inner clearing, how simple breath and movement practices to support clarity and grounding, and the difference between “resolutions” and carry-forward moments. 

Whether you are grieving, exhausted, hopeful, or somewhere in between, this episode offers spacious, gentle support as you prepare to step into a new year with clarity and compassion.

Key Takeaways

• Reflection doesn’t have to be structured to be meaningful. Mindful noticing (simply acknowledging what’s present) is often enough, especially when life has been heavy or emotionally complex.
• Your bandwidth matters. Some seasons don’t allow for deep journaling or intentional letting go. Showing up honestly to your own experience is a powerful form of self-care.
• Endings can create natural space for renewal. The Japanese year-end tradition of Ōsōji reminds us that clearing physical spaces can also clear emotional and mental space for what comes next.

Learn more about 1:1 Coaching with Elizabeth Mintun here. 

Contact Elizabeth: elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

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If the holidays feel heavy or unexpectedly emotional, you’re not alone. 

In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun explores the tender landscape of holiday grief, including why it often feels heavier this time of year, and how we can support ourselves with gentleness and honesty. Through two powerful folktales from Japan and the Arctic Inuit tradition, she reflects on the universal experience of loss, remembrance, and the quiet ways love continues across time and distance.

This episode is for anyone moving through grief, navigating an empty chair at the table, or simply feeling the emotional weight that the holidays often stir.

Key Takeaways

• Grief often intensifies during the holidays. The season’s pressure for joy, togetherness, and celebration can amplify absence, longing, and memories. Grief naturally rises and falls, and the holidays are one of those times when it resurfaces.
• Grief doesn’t need to be pushed aside to enjoy the holidays; it can be gently integrated. You can create your own ritual of remembrance - big or small - to honor the person you miss. Lighting a candle, displaying a photo, cooking their favorite dish, telling a story about them, or simply whispering their name are meaningful acts of connection.
• It’s okay to set boundaries around traditions or expectations that no longer fit.
• Part of navigating holiday grief is giving yourself permission to adapt or simplify rituals, skip events, or ask for support.

Learn more about 1:1 Coaching with Elizabeth Mintun here. 

Contact Elizabeth: elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

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What if the wisdom you’re searching for is already moving beneath the surface, like a river under winter ice?

In this episode, Elizabeth Mintun explores the water element and the season of winter according to ancient Chinese medicine. She explores how winter can be a time of gestation, why your body may crave more rest right now, and offers micro practices to slow down during this holiday season. Elizabeth also shares a beautiful winter folktale that illustrates how clarity rises not from striving but from stillness. 

Key Takeaways

• Winter is the season of stillness, depth, intuition, and energetic conservation.
• Emotional depth - including grief - can surface in winter; this is normal and meaningful.
• Rest is not optional; it’s protective of your Jing (core energy reserves).
• Wisdom often rises when we stop striving and allow quiet to do its work.

Learn more about 1:1 Coaching with Elizabeth Mintun here. 

Contact Elizabeth: elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

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Horses don’t just sense our emotions - they help regulate them. And today, you’ll hear how.

In this powerful and heartfelt episode, host Elizabeth Mintun sits down with Jackie Stevenson, a therapist, coach, and equine-guided practitioner whose work blends nature, nervous system wisdom, and the profound presence of horses. Together, they explore how stepping into the world of the herd invites us to slow down, become present, and reconnect with the deeper layers of ourselves that often get buried beneath stress and daily life.

Whether you’re curious about equine-guided practices, seeking a deeper relationship with nature, or longing for a grounded way to reconnect with yourself, this episode offers a rich, expansive invitation to return home to your own presence.

Key Takeaways

Morning & Evening Calm Bundle (Black Friday deal): https://go.thecalmingground.com/

Jackie Stevenson’s website

Jackie Stevenson’s Ted Talk

Learn more about 1:1 Coaching with Elizabeth Mintun here. 

Contact Elizabeth: elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

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If you’ve been spiraling, ruminating, or stuck in patterns you can’t explain, you’re not broken - you may be in a portal. This episode explores how to walk through it.

In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun sits down with transformation coach Ruthie Lindsey. She shares her extraordinary story: surviving a devastating car accident, living seven years in bed with chronic pain after a surgical wire pierced her brainstem, losing relationships, and ultimately discovering the tools, practices, and inner wisdom that helped her return to herself.

This episode is an invitation into the sacred work of unlearning - the masks, conditioning, and inherited beliefs that keep so many of us folded down into smallness. We explore shadow work, trauma healing, rumination, nervous system overwhelm, and the moments that call us into rebirth.

Key Takeaways

Morning & Evening Calm Bundle (Black Friday deal): https://go.thecalmingground.com/

Website & Coaching Info: https://www.ruthielindsey.com/

Ruthie’s Substack Newsletter: “Love’s Invitation” 

Instagram: @ruthielindsay 

Learn more about 1:1 Coaching with Elizabeth Mintun here. 

Contact Elizabeth: elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

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How do you cultivate a heart wide enough to hold yourself, your loved ones, and the world with compassion? Elena Brower joins us to explore this and the power of letting go in her new book Hold Nothing.

In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun sits down with Elena Brower, mother, mentor, poet, artist, volunteer, bestselling author, and host of the Practice You Podcast. Elena has been guiding yoga and meditation practices since 1999 on Glo, and her work explores the art of listening, self-compassion, and returning to the spaciousness within.

In this conversation, Elena and Elizabeth dive into her newest book, Hold Nothing, a deeply personal exploration of letting go of narratives, embracing impermanence, and practicing what she calls a “grandmother’s heart.” Elena shares her journey as a student of life, her evolution as a teacher, and the quiet yet powerful practices that sustain her: from meditation and yoga to chaplaincy work in hospice and penitentiaries.

If you’re curious about embracing impermanence, and finding resilience and creativity in everyday life, this episode is for you. 

Key Takeaways

• Elena’s book Hold Nothing shows how releasing the stories we cling to opens up space for clarity, freedom, and emotional resilience.
• Sharing your authentic story, even when it’s uncomfortable or scary, can be a form of courage and connection.
• Whether in yoga, meditation, or everyday life, it’s important to show up as a student, cultivating curiosity and openness.

Elena Brower’s Website

Elena Brower’s Book

Elena Brower’s Glo Classes

Elena Brower’s Hold Nothing Book

Practice You Podcast

Elena’s Instagram: @elenabrower

Elena’s Substack: On The Inside

Learn more about 1:1 Coaching with Elizabeth Mintun here. 

Contact Elizabeth: elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

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We often talk about “finding balance”... but what if balance begins when we stop holding ourselves up and allow the ground to hold us?

In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun sits down with Mary Sinclair, a movement educator and somatic practitioner, to explore how our relationship with the ground shapes the way we move through life, both physically and emotionally. Mary shares how posture, alignment, and the simple act of yielding can shift us from effort to ease and why learning to yield can be a path to resilience and trust. 

Whether you’re standing at a crossroads, feeling off-balance, or craving more rootedness in your daily life, this episode offers a reminder: you don’t have to hold it all up alone.

Key Takeaways

• Grounding is a relationship, not a technique. True grounding isn’t something you “do.” It’s an ongoing dialogue between your body and the earth - a mutual exchange of support and trust.
• Balance begins with yielding. Instead of holding ourselves rigidly upright, we can soften into gravity and let the ground carry some of the weight. Yielding means allowing support.
• Posture is emotional as much as physical. How we stand and move often mirrors how we meet life. Softening the body’s effort to “hold it together” can open emotional and energetic space for ease and flow.
• Trust grows through the body. Each time we let ourselves feel supported (by the floor, the chair, the breath, etc.), we practice the deeper art of trusting life itself.

Mary Sinclair’s Website: marysinclairbalance.com

The Be Sanctuary in Columbus, Ohio: https://www.thebesanctuary.org/

Learn more about 1:1 Coaching with Elizabeth Mintun here. 

Contact Elizabeth: elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

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Your inner compass is ready to guide you… Are you listening?

Many of us have buried our inner knowing under years of doubt, overthinking, and second-guessing. In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun talks about how to reconnect with that inner voice, cultivate self-trust, and act with alignment even when the mind is loud and life feels uncertain.

Elizabeth shares a personal story of a time she faced a challenging decision and discovered how listening to her body, rather than just her mind, helped her find clarity. She also dives into common barriers to self-trust, the lessons hidden in fear, and an inspiring story from the Pancha Tantra - The Lion and the Rabbit - that illustrates the power of awareness, discernment, and courage.

Key Takeaways:

• Doubt and fear are normal: Acting from alignment doesn’t require certainty; it requires courage to honor your inner compass despite the uncertainty.
• Common barriers to self-trust:
• Overthinking and perfectionism
• Fear of regret or being wrong
• Seeking external validation
• Past experiences or unresolved emotions
• Self-trust is a practice: Like a muscle, it grows with consistent, small actions. Over time, it becomes a steady, quiet confidence ready to guide you in life’s twists and turns.

Join the Rooted & Resilient free workshop → https://www.thecalmingground.com/QuarterlyWorkshop

Learn more about 1:1 Coaching with Elizabeth Mintun here. 

Contact Elizabeth: elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

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One moment in a 10th-grade classroom changed how Lyn showed up in the world. This episode offers the story of finding her way back to her voice.

In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun talks with Lyn about her Unmuted Method, which helps people heal and feel safe to be seen. Lyn opens up about how she learned to regulate her sensitive nervous system, and the quiet courage it takes to let yourself truly be seen. 

Key Takeaways

• Visibility often brings up nervous system responses (not just mindset blocks).
• When we tend to our bodies and emotions first, showing up becomes more easeful, not forced.
• Playing small is often a form of protection. Naming it with compassion (rather than judgment) opens the door to change.

Join the Rooted & Resilient free workshop → https://www.thecalmingground.com/QuarterlyWorkshop

DM Lyn “ELIZABETH” on Instagram to receive Lyn’s free gift - a quick 5 minute Embodied Expression Activation 

You can Find Lyn here: 

• Website: www.heartfirehealingllc.com
• FB: https://www.facebook.com/ldelmastro/
• IG: https://www.instagram.com/heartfirehealing/
• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@heartfirehealing

Learn more about 1:1 Coaching with Elizabeth Mintun here. 

Contact Elizabeth: elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com

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