From the Heart with Rachel Brathen

Joy isn't the reward you earn after all the work is done. Joy is the work. That's what a new series on For the Love with Jen Hatmaker is all about, the Sacred Yes. It's choosing delight, rest, and pleasure on purpose because saying yes to yourself, that's the thing that finally lets you fill your table with everybody else. Come find your Sacred Yes with Jen. Follow and listen to For the Love with Jen Hatmaker wherever you get your ...

This episode brings us another segment of Ask Rachel, where Rachel takes calls from listeners and answers any questions they have. The inquiries today were so beautiful, and all were connected to the theme of returning home to yourself. How can we navigate heartbreak? When life is incredibly overwhelming, how do we settle down and find peace within ourselves? How do we know we are making decisions for us and not for family or frien...

For the past few weeks, Rachel has found herself in a depleted slump. But now, she has slowly crawled out to see the light again. Feeling more rested and energized, she shares the tweaks and changes she made in her life that brought about this change (Hint: one of them may have been Bad Bunny).

Sometimes we can get so caught up in trying to make things magical and extraordinary, that we turn something that is already good into somet...

Do mom brains just work differently than dad brains? This is obviously not the case in every family, but in a lot of families - the mother bears the brunt of the mental load. The mother is the one making sure the kids have everything for school, they do all the groceries and list making, they note the things that need fixing and mending and cleaning. So why is that? Do their brains just work differently? Are they just born able to ...

In today’s episode, Rachel is the type of tired that you feel in your soul, in your bones, and in your identity itself. It’s a feeling that stems from the roles and responsibilities she has in her life right now, but it goes even deeper and older than that - into the trauma she felt as a child and the burdens placed on her back then. Rachel attempts to unpack this experience by sharing specific examples from her own fam...

When you reflect on your personality, why do you think you are the way you are? Is it due to your nature or your experiences? In today’s episode, Rachel reflects on this question with her own personality - much of which she thinks is the result of her childhood. She opens up about codependency and a sense of internal stress and urgency that never seems to leave, no matter how little there is on her to-do list.

On a journey o...

There’s a lot happening in Rachel’s life at the moment! You probably feel it too. This weekend has so much momentum and high energy. It’s the peak of the season, summer solstice, and the midsummer celebration in Sweden. All of the events happening sent Rachel into a sickness spiral where she realized something important: this was her first felt experience of aging.

With the high highs of summer we can usually exp...

Today’s episode is about going back to basics, full circle moments, and a new chapter intertwining with the old. Rachel has just launched a summer retreat after some serendipitous circumstances. It has her reminiscing back to her twenties when her and Dennis first launched retreats together from their kitchen table. She shares some old stories and why she’s feeling so nostalgic: she now feels integrated back into a sens...

This episode of From the Heart is all about AI and how it is infiltrating every corner of our lives. After a few upsetting encounters with AI, Rachel was left wondering: do the bad parts of the internet outweigh the good? Where are we headed as a society? And is it even our fault if there’s no way to stop it? 

It can be so hard to balance the desire to live without the internet while our lives have become so intertwined...

In today’s episode, it’s the end of May, Rachel’s energy is buzzing, and things are happening all around! Rachel talks about the momentum that this month brings to the Scandinavians, and just how that momentum has met her: it’s come bearing so many ideas and epiphanies.
Rachel has been initiating a million things lately, and she talks about different projects she has going on the farm, how her day looks j...

If you are a mother, you probably know the feeling of fear well. In today’s episode, Rachel talks about the biggest trauma her nervous system is still experiencing today - the fear of something happening to her children.

Lea had surgery this week which was a huge experience for their entire family. Rachel shares the entire story from start to finish, and beautifully puts the terror moms can feel into words. It’s a vuln...

Can we build confidence in our children? Or is confidence something they have to figure out for themselves? This episode brings us another segment of Ask Rachel, where Rachel answers questions from listeners that have called in. She shares her future vision and dreams for the store at Ala Farms and how to deal with roosters so they don’t ruin your life.

Then she answers a really beautiful question on how to build confidence...

In today’s episode of From the Heart, Rachel shares her process of getting things done and how she stays productive in her daily life. It looks a lot like this: manifesting with the energy of a thousand suns, side questing on the way to another side quest, and then falling apart on the couch with a tub of ice cream once all is said and done. 

We all have different ways that we generate and create. But it all comes down ...

In today’s episode, Rachel shares many opposing thoughts that we are all thinking right now: the world is absurd, crazy and scary - but the world is also full of so many beautiful things. Everywhere we look there is war, genocide, starvation, and terrifying men in positions of power. But there are also children laughing, flowers blooming, and ducks in Rachel’s house! How can these polarities exist at once? And even more...

In today’s episode, Rachel answers a very specific question: does she hate men? The answer to this is… no, not all men. But the truth is, the male population as a whole is not giving women a lot to feel confident in right now. From charlatans in the healing space preying on the vulnerable, to the lack of prosecutions resulting from the Epstein files, and the shocking rape academy online, we live in a misogynistic syste...

If you want to try Activations, now is the perfect time. Visit activations.com/rachel for more.

When you envision your most authentic self, who do you see? What is that person like? What are their daily habits? How do they feel? In this bonus episode, we are re-releasing one of our favorite past episodes with Mimi Bouchard, the creator of Activations. Mimi transformed her life from one of self-hate and drug use to living...

Does it feel like time is just moving quicker and quicker? Are you yearning to slow down the clock and enjoy each moment as it comes your way? In today’s episode, Rachel is about to celebrate her husband’s 40th birthday. After meeting in their twenties, having two children, and spending decades together - this feels like a big milestone. Rachel shares her thoughts on growing older as she takes a trip down memory lane.

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What would you do if you woke up tomorrow and had no power? Or the grocery stores had no food? Or there wasn’t any clean water anymore? What would you do if all of a sudden you were expected to live a completely different lifestyle than you are used to? Can we really rely on the government or anyone else to take care of us?

In today’s episode, Rachel talks about prepping for the end of the world. Over the past couple o...