The Positive Mind

This week Kevin and Niseema talk about the Danish word "Hygge," which is a way of creating comfort and ease in your life.  It is amazing how many ways we can create more comfort and ease in our daily rituals, from how we wake up in the morning, to how we live our day, to how we go to sleep.

In the fall/winter season, there are so many ways to add pleasure to our lives, like wearing cozy wool socks, to making a cup of hot apple cider...

This week, Kevin and Niseema talk about the Vagus Nerve, a major nerve in the body that begins at the brain-stem and travels all the way through the vital organs to the sacrum. The Vagus Nerve helps control several muscles of the throat and voice, plays a major role in regulating the heart rate and keeps the gastrointestinal tract in working order. The Vagus Nerve has also been shown to have a very strong connection to how you mana...

In our final show on Resilience, Kevin and Niseema talk about how "programming" in childhood can lead to inflexibility and a low level of resilience as an adult.

Most often, children are programmed through negativity: "Don't do that. Don't touch that. Don't complain." This can force a child to create a "good child" persona that causes them to detach from a feeling self. They will carry this "good child" persona into adulthood, losin...

In Part 3 of our series on Resilience, Kevin and Niseema talk about the difference between "strain" and "stress." Notice what happens when we change a familiar word like "stress" into a more accurate description like "strain."  Are you "strained out?" 

One of the most universal sources of stress is strain. It can be a physical or psychological strain, and it can be caused by many different factors. For example, if you work long hour...

In Part 2 of our series on Resilience, Kevin and Niseema talk about defense mechanisms and an internal mechanism called "The Engineer" which wants to keep us from changing.  "The Engineer" will work to sabotage any kind of alterations you want to make, even positive ones.
This week's show is centered around learning how to have a dialogue with, and make friends with, "The Engineer" so you can make the changes you want to make.

------...

We are kicking off a four-show series on resilience. In this time of COVID/post COVID stress and all that it entails, people's sense of resilience is very low.  How are you doing with your resilience? Do you feel tapped out, that you cannot handle one more demand? Tune in as Kevin and Niseema talk about ways to refill your resilience tank to move forward with knowledge and purpose.

-----------------------------

For more information o...

This week Kevin and Niseema welcome Dr. Brenda Shoshanna, Ph.D, psychotherapist, Zen practitioner, speaker and author of the book, “Zen and the Art of Falling in Love.” Brenda shares with us her journey and understanding of how every person we meet can teach us how to love.   In sharing this, she shows us ways that we can love without judgment, shame, or blame.

_________________________________________________

For more information or...

Falling out of love is a heartbreaking feeling. The expansiveness. warmth, and joy of being with your beloved is just gone.  It may have happened suddenly or overtime, but there is no doubt that 'the loving feeling" is gone. 

This week Kevin and Niseema explore some of the reasons why what used be a "tuning in" to our partner, suddenly turns into a "tuning out."  Expectations, lack of relationship skills, stress, personal history, o...

This week Kevin and Niseema talk about the fear of letting people get close to you. How many people really know you? How many people do you feel close to? Closeness is often a trigger for most people. What happens to your body when people get too close?
Kevin and Niseema explore the common fears that consciously or unconsciously keep relationships at an arm's length. The fear of being controlled, the fear of losing independence, the...

This week Kevin and Niseema talk about research into "memory" and how our adult brains impose a memory on to our childhood brain. Statistics consistently show that the adult brain often creates a faulty "memory" of incidents that happened in the past. It's as if the brain takes a photograph of a past event and then distorts or enhances the photograph. The brain will often create a faulty memory of what love looked like in our child...

Everything and everyone changes.  What is revealed when the green leaves of summer turn so many varied colors?  Each tree, each leaf, has specific traits to it.  What if love's essence is an ability to see through the personality of our partner, to what is a completely unique constellation of traits that make them who they are.  Kevin and Niseema explore the concept that it is this essence that delights us and makes us fall in love...

Love is a feeling, not a Hallmark card or a box of chocolates.  It is deeper and harder than that.  Love is not unconditional, it needs the right conditions to be present, to be felt.

This week Kevin and Niseema talk about love and how it is the antidote to loneliness.  In looking at the questions of the UCLA Loneliness Scale it becomes clear that a lack of love, or the feeling of love, is at the core of why loneliness is so ubiquit...

In this final show on loneliness, Kevin and Niseema discuss the personality system called The Enneagram, and the nine different ways people hide their loneliness from themselves.  What if all human beings could be understood as having one of nine personality styles? Knowing your own personality style might help you solve many problems in your life, including any loneliness you might have.

In this show, Kevin and Niseema talk about s...

This week, Kevin and Niseema talk about ways to recognize and cultivate “Companionship” and “Belonging,” the two themes of the Loneliness Scale questions, (see button below.) Did your parents have companions or feel a sense of belonging in their community or social circle?  If not, you may have a high tolerance for isolation and loneliness yourself. Birth order is also a factor: first-born children are often the parent/caregiver's ...

In Part 2 of our series on loneliness, Kevin and Niseema talk about the idea of having a "high" or "low" tolerance for loneliness based on your family heritage or genetic makeup.  When you look at your own background can you see whether or not you have a high or low tolerance for loneliness? Does this make it easier for you to talk about loneliness in a non-judgemental, less shameful way?

In the second part of the show, we talk abou...

This week Kevin and Niseema talk about that other pandemic, Loneliness. In the 1970's only 11% of Americans reported feeling lonely. That number has more than tripled to 36% of all Americans, including 61% of young adults and 51% of mothers with young children. More and more people are expressing their feelings about loneliness yet we still can't seem to find the language to talk about it.
How do you react when you hear someone say ...

Children learn to navigate their surroundings with little guidance except for the voices and actions of the adults who are responsible for them. These words, feelings, and behaviors shape who they become for better or worse.

This Independence Day, join Kevin and Niseema as they explore steps outlined by Alice Miller, author of, "The Drama of the Gifted Child.”  These steps help you discover your true nature, starting with your core ...

This week Kevin and Niseema invite Charley Wininger LP, LMHC, author of  Listening to Ecstasy: The Transformative Power of MDMA, back for his third appearance on the show to discuss why he calls MDMA, "The Chemical of Connection." Charley reads pivotal passages that describe the physical and emotional responses that MDMA creates, as well as its bonding effects in both his relationship with his spouse and some courageous couples who...

Do you find yourself being pulled in two directions at once? Do you have many feelings about one aspect or one situation in your life? Sometimes, when we have a number of feelings running through us at one time, it becomes hard to find our ground and difficult to make decisions. What you might be feeling is called ambivalence, feeling two things at once (Ambi meaning two, and valence meaning feeling), which is not necessarily a bad...