As I'm recording this episode on September 10th, yesterday was my birthday and I turned 40, which feels momentous. So for this episode, I was thinking, because it was on my brain a lot yesterday and today even, that I might share a little bit about where I was 10 years ago in case that helps you and also just to give you a little bit more of an idea of my story and where I've come from and what's happened in my life and what I've kind of created over that time period. I’m blown away when I look at where I was a decade ago and compare that to what my life looks like today. At the core of a lot of the changes I’ve made in my own life, is the understanding that happiness comes within, which we touched on last week, so listen to that episode! But I hope that today’s episode will help demonstrate the significance of making changes and letting go of things that don't align with who we are, the concept of living our own lives instead of living someone else's, and the importance of measuring our progress and growth.

Episode Resources:

• Bhagavad Gita
• Instagram: @ceceliabmandryk
• Let’s work together! Join The Calmer Brain Club
• Learn more about Nervous System Self-Care

Mentioned in this episode:

The 5-Minute Shift Mini Course

Learn more about The 5-Minute Shift mini course, a brain-based approach to feeling better now. It’s on sale for $29!

The 5-Minute Shift Mini Course

Before listening to this episode, I want you to take five minutes to end this thought: “I’ll be happy when…” or you can insert calm/successful/loved or whatever it is you’re desiring at this moment. Give yourself the opportunity to brainstorm and write down everything that comes up, whether it’s something big or small. The reason why I want to start to play with this question and the reason why we're devoting an entire episode to it is because it pushes our happiness off into the future – that happiness can only come when you’ve checked all the boxes on that list. But what if you could retrain your brain to think that happiness is within you instead of dependent on something outside of you? That happiness is actually available now, in the present, rather than the unattainable future? This concept used to be really hard for me to understand, and maybe you’re reading this feeling the same way. So I hope this episode helps clear it up!

Episode Resources:

• Instagram: @ceceliabmandryk
• Let’s work together! Join The Calmer Brain Club
• Learn more about Nervous System Self-Care

Mentioned in this episode:

The 5-Minute Shift Mini Course

Learn more about The 5-Minute Shift mini course, a brain-based approach to feeling better now. It’s on sale for $29!

The 5-Minute Shift Mini Course

If you’ve listened to the past couple episodes of the podcast or if you’re connected with me on social media, you know that my family and I have recently moved from a small island in Maine to Virginia. Not only that, my kids are starting school for the first time ever. So in this episode, I want to discuss how I have been using her work to support myself and my children through the changes and shifts in our lives. You will learn the importance of understanding and processing our own thoughts and emotions, as well as caring for our nervous system in order to show up as present and supportive parents. By doing this work, we can create a safe space for our children to experience and process their own emotions. Get started today!

Episode Resources:

• Listen to last week’s episode
• Instagram: @ceceliabmandryk
• Let’s work together! Learn more about The Calmer Brain Club

Mentioned in this episode:

The 5-Minute Shift Mini Course

Learn more about The 5-Minute Shift mini course, a brain-based approach to feeling better now. It’s on sale for $29!

The 5-Minute Shift Mini Course

In this episode, I thought I would share my personal experience of using the tools and skills I talk about in each episode of this podcast during a period of change and uncertainty in my own life. I’m sharing how I navigated the emotions and challenges that arose during our recent move (while being pregnant!) and how I stayed grounded and calm throughout the process. You’ll hear the importance of recognizing and accepting emotions, asking meaningful questions, and being aware of thoughts and beliefs. I’m also highlighting the power of practicing tools such as EFT tapping, coherent breathing, meditative walking, journaling, and prayer. It’s my hope that this episode will encourage you to commit to doing this work over time to create peace and calm in your own life.

Episode Resources:

• Instagram: @ceceliabmandryk
• Let’s work together! Learn more about The Wins Course or The Calmer Brain Club

Mentioned in this episode:

The 5-Minute Shift Mini Course

Learn more about The 5-Minute Shift mini course, a brain-based approach to feeling better now. It’s on sale for $29!

The 5-Minute Shift Mini Course

Today on Calmer Conversations, I want to talk about the difference between intentional thought work and toxic positivity. Sometimes when people find out about this work or sometimes when I get questions about it, they think that coaching or they think mindset work is really about only using positive affirmations or always keeping a positive mindset and I don't think that could be further from the truth. In reality, when I think about this work, I really think about how it's an embracing of all of your humanity and all of the thoughts you have, all of the emotions you have, and the entire human experience. But I understand why it can come across the other way and why people can even use this work as a new form of perfectionism or a new thing to do right. They can start feeling really bad if they do have negative thoughts – so that's what we're gonna talk about today, moving from toxic positivity and embracing all of your humanity to create lasting change. If that sounds like something you're interested in, this episode is definitely for you!

Episode Resources:

• 3 Tools for Calmer Change: Acceptance
• Byron Katie
• Instagram: @ceceliabmandryk
• Let’s work together! Learn more about The Calmer Brain Club

Mentioned in this episode:

The 5-Minute Shift Mini Course

Learn more about The 5-Minute Shift mini course, a brain-based approach to feeling better now. It’s on sale for $29!

The 5-Minute Shift Mini Course

Today I want to talk about silly thoughts, more specifically that there are no silly thoughts or that what we judge as silly thoughts are actually not silly. While this sounds a little bit funny to be using the word silly so many times, I think this is something that comes up quite a lot, particularly for people who have an active cognitive brain, consider themselves to be overachievers, or have a decent understanding of how their brain works. Most thoughts don't make logical sense and are based on past experiences and beliefs. In truth, calling a thought silly puts the brain into resistance, making it harder to make changes. So I want to chat about the importance of curiosity and acceptance when it comes to “silly” thoughts, and suggest practices that will help you shift from judgment to curiosity and enable you to work with your thoughts and create change.

Episode Resources:

• Visit the full show notes page here.
• Instagram: @ceceliabmandryk
• Let’s work together! Learn more about The Wins Course or The Calmer Brain Club

Mentioned in this episode:

The 5-Minute Shift Mini Course

Learn more about The 5-Minute Shift mini course, a brain-based approach to feeling better now. It’s on sale for $29!

The 5-Minute Shift Mini Course

In this episode, we’re jumping into the second bonus tool of creating calmer change: allowing. If you haven’t listened to the previous episodes in this series, be sure to do that first! Now, allowing is a foundational skill that can be used to shift your mindset and bring intentionality into your life. When listening, you will learn the concept of allowing and its opposite of resisting and how resisting emotions can hinder personal growth. I’m sharing the importance of accepting and processing emotions, and providing some of my favorite techniques such as EFT tapping and coherent breathing to help with the practice of allowing. By the end of this episode, you’ll be ready to take action on allowing to create an increased capacity for change, connection, and creativity.

Episode Resources:

• Visit the full show notes page here.
• Instagram: @ceceliabmandryk
• Let’s work together! Learn more about The Wins Course or The Calmer Brain Club

Mentioned in this episode:

The 5-Minute Shift Mini Course

Learn more about The 5-Minute Shift mini course, a brain-based approach to feeling better now. It’s on sale for $29!

The 5-Minute Shift Mini Course

Over the past few episodes of the podcast we've gone through the foundational tools that I use and teach over and over again, and they appear in almost everything that I talk about and everything that I teach – that is awareness, acceptance, and curiosity. So tune into the past three episodes if you haven’t. But as I was recording the episodes, these two other tools kept floating around in my mind as really foundational tools as well. I don't talk about them perhaps not as much, but I think that it's worth putting them here towards the beginning of this podcast because I think they are so key and they're so crucial and you might be able to start using them now, so why not have some episodes on them? These two tools are slowing down and allowing. Today we're going to focus on slowing down and next week we'll focus on allowing, but know that these are two kinds of bonus foundational skills that I use, that my clients use, and that I teach over and over again. On slowing down, I know it can feel cliché, and that being more present is something we’re all “striving for”, but what does this actually mean and look like in practice? Tune in to find out and take action on this tool today.

Episode Resources:

• Visit the full show notes page here.
• Instagram: @ceceliabmandryk
• Let’s work together! Learn more about The Wins Course or The Calmer Brain Club

Mentioned in this episode:

The 5-Minute Shift Mini Course

Learn more about The 5-Minute Shift mini course, a brain-based approach to feeling better now. It’s on sale for $29!

The 5-Minute Shift Mini Course