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    Dr. Dan Discusses Depression and Anxiety

    en-usSeptember 25, 2019

    About this Episode

    Rich welcomes Psychologist, Author and Speaker, Dr. Dan Peters. Dr Dan is the co-founder of Parent Footprint, with the mission to make the world a more compassionate and loving place — one parent and one child at a time. He is host of the “Parent Footprint Podcast with Dr. Dan” and is a regular contributor to The Huffington Post and Psychology Today. Dr. Dan is also the co-founder and executive director of Summit Center, offering psychological and educational services for children, adolescents, adults, and families, including assessments, consultation, and counseling. Dr. Dan is also the author of a series of "Make Your Worrier a Warrior" series of books providing easy-to-follow, practical strategies for both parents and children. Dr. Dan is a frequent speaker and writer on topics related to parenting, family, giftedness, twice-exceptionality, dyslexia, and anxiety.

    In this episode, Rich dives deep into Dr. Dan's own journey with depression and anxiety. Rich will explore Dan's journey into facing and going through that pain, what helped him pivot and ultimately, how this journey contributed to Dr. Dan's purpose and all that he has manifested in creating A Richer Life for himself.

    For more information on Dr. Dan you can visit: www.drdanpeters.com or www.summitcenter.com

    Dan and Rich fully agree that to live A Richer LIfe, we need to be courageous, face our fears that are not going to kill us and take one step at a time in the direction of our dreams. Join us on this journey.

    National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255)

    Recent Episodes from A Richer Life

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    Intrinsic Goals - Finding our Gifts

    During this episode of A Richer Life, host Rich Weingart speaks with Jeff Snipes, who spent 16 years leading one of the largest United States corporate leadership development companies before selling the company in 2012.  Jeff made a transformation in his professional life, becoming the Co-Founder and Chairman of Millennium School, Founder/Chairman/Board of Directors of Millenium.org, and the Founder and Chairman of Conscious Leadership and Education Foundation.  We explore leadership, family, education and what is missing and what it means to be a ‘success’ and be in alignment. 

     

    Episode Highlights: 

    • Rich shares three of the developmental frameworks from the Millenium Forum. 
    • Jeff has been drawn to both the entrepreneurial and educational paths. 
    • Jeff discusses the early breakthroughs that his leadership development company experienced.  
    • How willing were the executives to explore the parts of themselves that needed fixing?  
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    • What was the pivotal shift in Jeff’s life and leaving his executive role?    
    • What would be the cost of not listening to your gut feeling?  
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    3 Key Points:

    1. Within each of us lies our unique true nature and our potential to be in service of all.   
    2. Notice interconnection. Everything is interdependent. Recognize how each action affects another. 
    3. Practice compassion. Compassion requires action. Strive to alleviate the suffering in ourselves and others.

     

    Tweetable Quotes:

    • “Careers are funny things. You always think you have a game plan and then the 
    • Universe intervenes and it unfolds in unpredictable ways.” – Jeff Snipes
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    • “Stay open to feedback and people will trust you more, and they will sign up to help you.” – Jeff Snipes
    • “People are ultimately successful when they are in alignment.” – Jeff Snipes

     

    Resources Mentioned:

    A Richer Life
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    During this episode of A Richer Life, host Rich Weingart speaks with Mike Govoni, a certified holistic health and wellness coach and a certified addiction recovery coach. Mike speaks about being in recovery for over 15 years, his coaching program called Healing Beyond Recovery and how he continues to do this in his own life, and how he fought back against trauma and contemplation of suicide. 

     

    Episode Highlights: 

    • Rich Weingart introduces Mike Govoni, who shares his background.  
    • Mike Govoni found out his father was a pediphile priest. 
    • Mike Govoni was taken away from his mother at age three.  
    • Sexual molestation happened to Mike, but not at the hands of his father.  
    • Mike discussed his past addiction issues.    
    • How did thoughts of suicide arise in his life? 
    • In what ways did meditation practices benefit Mike?   
    • What was a catalyst for Mike to start healing? 
    • We must create a more flexible nervous system. 
    • We all have self-energy and it is who we are. 
    • Our true being is loving awareness.
    • COVID-19 is bringing us together and apart at the same time. 
    • Life is traumatic, but we need the courage to heal it. 
    • What is Mike Govoni doing to live A Richer Life? 

     

    3 Key Points:

    1. Trauma creates a sense of disconnection and dysregulation in our nervous systems. Addiction is an attempt to regulate and restore connection, where the arousal cycles potentially last well past rehab treatment.  
    2. We don’t come to consciousness without pain. 
    3. Trauma is an illness of not being alive in the present moment. 

     

    Tweetable Quotes:

    • “I’m not a victim. I look at everything that happened to me as a catalyst to my spiritual evolution as me growing as a man, growing as a professional in the World of owning my own business.” – Mike Govoni
    • “We all have a story and it is up to us whether or not we want to look within and discover and befriend all of the parts of ourselves so we can bring ourselves fully to light. ” – Mike Govoni
    • “In order for us to express our light, that also requires us to look at our darkness.” – Mike Govoni
    • “When we are on our path to healing, we have to recognize that we are in some sort of pain and discomfort. Something is going on that we need to address.” – Mike Govoni 
    • “When there is no awareness that is present in our life, we take the mind and the fictitious stories that begin to secrete from the mind. We take them as being real.” – Mike Govoni
    • “I am not anti-medicine or Western approach. I think it is lacking a lot of things. But, the wisdom in me knew I had to find an alternative route. So, that is when I left mainstream medicine.” – Mike Govoni

     

    Resources Mentioned:

    A Richer Life
    en-usDecember 30, 2020

    A Young Man’s Blues with Jaxon Snipes

    A Young Man’s Blues with Jaxon Snipes

    During this episode of A Richer Life, host Rich Weingart speaks with Jaxon Snipes, currently an undergraduate at Cornell University pursuing a degree in Music within the College of Arts and Sciences with a minor in Business. Jaxon Snipes bravely opens up about the pain he experienced after literally a traumatic fall from grace that left him clinging on to life.  How did Jax overcome the trauma, the physical changes, the panic attacks and the depression?  On the other side, was Jax able to find his music? 

     

    Episode Highlights: 

    • Rich Weingart introduces Jaxon Snipes, who shares what brought him to Cornell University. 
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    • How did he start exploring the deeper parts of himself?  
    • Music became a massive stress release for Jaxon Snipes.  
    • What was life like going to Cornell for baseball? 
    • Jaxon describes the injury he experienced.  
    • How does it feel to recount that painful story? 
    • What was Jaxon’s lowest point after his accident?   
    • Did the accident bring Jaxon towards addiction?  
    • How can we alleviate pressure from kids? 
    • How did he get out of the cycle of hating himself?  
    • Jaxon Snipes performs a song that he wrote called “Young Man’s Blues.”  
    • It is ok to not feel ok. 
    • What is he doing in his life today to live a richer life? 
    • The small stuff is the big stuff. 

     

    3 Key Points:

    1. You have to feel your way through your pain to get through it, not ignore it. Be in touch with your feelings.  
    2. Once our nervous system recognizes that we are not going to die from mentally reliving our painful traumas, we stop acting like we are going to die. 
    3. Let kids know that they can be whatever they want to be, and actually mean it.  

     

    Tweetable Quotes:

    • “I had a relationship with a girl who had some anxiety and deeper issues, depression, and I felt it was my need to save her. She ultimately had to be taken away to a wilderness camp in Montana where she was completely secluded from me.” – Jaxon Snipes
    • “I have a therapist and I did that a bunch in the beginning because I had to deal with PTSD. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. That is one of the most important things to do is to kind of acknowledge that that happened.” – Jaxon Snipes
    • “You’ve got to kind of dive into it (trauma) to release the tension. It is kind of like a muscle where it is super tight and it is hurting you and you’ve got to just dig into it a little bit and you have to press it and hold onto it.” – Jaxon Snipes
    • “I went back to San Francisco and started focusing on my health and my wellbeing. I saw a therapist who I still see, and I rehabbed my brain through mental exercises in the hyperbaric chamber.”
    • “Most importantly to me, I dove into my music and wrote about my emotions and experiences.” – Jaxon Snipes
    • “Being able to fully accept yourself, just like you are loving yourself for as long as possible when you are a kid. Develop a foundation of full love for yourself and you will kind of always remember that.” – Jaxon Snipes

     

    Resources Mentioned:

    A Richer Life
    en-usDecember 09, 2020

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    Celebrating A Richer Life with Ellie Guardino

    During this episode of A Richer Life, host Rich Weingart speaks with Ellie Guardino, Vice President Global Head of Hematology Oncology for Personalized Healthcare at Genentech, adjunct clinical professor for medical oncology at Stanford University and loving Mom, Wife and Friend. Ellie was recently nominated and elected by Fierce Farma as one of 2020’s Fiercest Women in Life Sciences.

    Ellie Guardino has been fighting her own battle with cancer since 2008 and speaks about how she is facing it head on, focusing on her work, and what it takes to live life to the fullest in spite of aggressive cancer. This episode is dedicated to celebrating Ellie Guardino’s incredible medical career achievements and her momentum to keep moving forward, inspiring others in the process. 

    Episode Highlights: 

    • Rich Weingart introduces Ellie Guardino. 
    • Who were Ellie’s role models growing up and what drove her forward? 
    • Ellie takes us through her inspiration and her life’s work.  
    • How important is it to hold space for your patients for them to feel safe? 
    • Challenges of being a patient.    
    • When did she transition to Genentech? 
    • What causes cancer to come back?
    • In 2012, Ellie had another melanoma that developed on her chest wall. 
    • What is Ellie’s status today? 
    • How impactful has her family been in her life?  
    • Our faith can move mountains.  
    • What advice would she share with her children and to her younger self?  
    • The peaceful life of Martin Luther King helps Ellie Guardino tremendously.  
    • What would Ellie Guardino like to share with the audience? 

    3 Key Points:

    1. To have faith is to defy logic and it is an act of courage. It takes faith to think positively and to know that there is a deeply loving God that cares about our pain.   
    2. No one is without fear. But it is crucial to get to a point where you can live each day without being burdened by it and can live each moment to the fullest. 
    3. Ellie Guardino’s motto is “Faith over fear.” 

    Tweetable Quotes:

    • “I may not be as much of an advocate for myself. But I was so grateful for all of the care and support that I got. I just try to remind myself that I am a patient now. I have to view this as a patient and let them help me.” – Ellie Guardino
    • “I was very open and I knew that would serve me well because that is what I have always told my patients. You need to embrace your community because that is what will get you through.” – Ellie Guardino
    • “When I was diagnosed with my melanoma, I had a chance to evaluate whether I was doing everything I wanted to be doing and the answer was yes. I wouldn’t have done anything differently. ” – Ellie Guardino
    • “I probably spend an hour and a half or two hours with each patient on that first visit and look at, what are their economic needs? Are they going to need extra support? We have all kinds of breast cancer grants. ” – Ellie Guardino
    • “I was able to keep my practice and also do research at Genentech that would impact far more patients in the long run than my one-on-one patient-to-patient care. ” – Ellie Guardino
    • “If I worry about tomorrow, I lose today, and I don’t want that to happen, that I lose opportunities, and happiness that I could be having, and fun that I could be having when you don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow. Don’t focus on that.” – Ellie Guardino

    Resources Mentioned:



    A Richer Life
    en-usNovember 26, 2020

    Conscious Parenting - How do we show up for ourselves and our family?

    Conscious Parenting - How do we show up for ourselves and our family?

    During this episode of A Richer Life, host Rich Weingart speaks with Dr. Alana Lopez, Licensed Psychologist and Parent Coach with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and a PhD in Pediatric Psychology. Dr. Alana Lopez talks about her inspirations for embracing conscious parenting, how it has influenced her professional work and her own parenting strategies, and how she goes about working with families. 

     

    Episode Highlights: 

    • Rich Weingart introduces Dr. Alana Lopez.
    • Dr. Alana Lopez opens up about her early journey learning what it means to be a conscious parent.  
    • We have to do the inner work first for conscious parenting. 
    • What was the area of her life that she felt stuck in originally regarding parenting? 
    • What is the ‘dial’ for Dr. Alana Lopez that makes her days graceful?  
    • In the midst of all of our ‘doing,’ we have to incorporate ‘being’ to recharge.  
    • The importance of parenting with power and grace.  
    • What is the conscious parenting approach that Dr. Alana Lopez uses when she is working with families?  
    • We can get too caught up in labels for our kids and ourselves.  
    • Honor where you are at in the moment without judgement.
    • 90% of the time we are just going through life based on old habits. 
    • Don’t be afraid to show your kid that you are not perfect.  
    • What does she mean by ‘space creator?’  
    • Parents should be the ultimate safety signal. 
    • What does Dr. Alana Lopez mean by being an ‘energy shifter,’ ‘emotion detective,’ ‘connection maker,’ and ‘accountability partner’? 
    • What advice does Dr. Alana Lopez have for parents that feel like they are failing? 

     

    3 Key Points:

    1. The book that helped to transform Dr. Alana Lopez is The Conscious Parent: Transforming Ourselves, Empowering Our Children by Dr. Shefali Tsabary
    2. Honor your child that stands before you and make sure their voice is being heard and understood.  
    3. We can sit with our feelings and acknowledge them and open up the door to new possibilities. 

     

    Tweetable Quotes:

    • I really decided at that point, like, I have a son coming into the world and I want to be all-in. In order for me to be all-in, I have to take care of myself. I have to be in touch with myself and really get back to the roots of what's important.” – Dr. Alana Lopez
    • “We are all humans in this together. We all have a story to tell that is so worthy and deserving of being heard.” – Dr. Alana Lopez
    • “Our children are our teachers and they are here for a reason. It is so powerful just to see your child through that fresh lens." – Dr. Alana Lopez
    • “I think for me, the biggest ‘aha’ in that area was what was my relationship with my emotions were, and to really look at that relationship. That relationship is very heavily influenced by how we were raised.” – Dr. Alana Lopez
    • “It is finding refuge in the simple things, like just taking a nap or just sitting with your child on the couch, with no TV.” – Dr. Alana Lopez
    • “Great parenting is not about doing things quote-unquote ‘right’ or not yelling. It is about getting curious about what triggers us, knowing why we fall back into old patterns without self-judgement, making a conscious effort to try something different.” – Dr. Alana Lopez

     

    Resources Mentioned:



    A Richer Life
    en-usNovember 17, 2020

    Rich's Real: One Year, Lessons Learned

    Rich's Real: One Year, Lessons Learned

    One year anniversary of A Richer Life podcast. Rich looks back on his podcasting journey with gratitude and some of the lessons he has learned.

    In this episode, Rich outlines his top 10 lessons and some of the things he works through and we all work through as we create new pathways in our nervous systems, safety for ourselves and others and build a tribe to lean in to and co-regulate with on our journey towards A Richer Life.  

    We are meant to shine and hiding our light does nobody any good...a difficult truth to claim for ourselves, but a truth it is.  We were meant to shine even through the darkness that is sometimes a part of life.

    A Richer Life
    en-usNovember 04, 2020

    The Power of Self-Care

    The Power of Self-Care

    On this episode of A Richer Life, host Rich Weingart speaks with Amy Shouse of NorCal Integrative Medicine about what inspired her to pursue integrative medicine, her experiences with trauma, and what it really means to engage in self care. 

     

    Episode Highlights: 

    • Amy came from a medical family, but her family members weren’t the most healthy and her father (an ER doctor) died at age 40 from a brain virus. 
    • Amy went to many medical doctors to get her health issues assessed, but she was misdiagnosed and had her concerns ignored by all of them until she went to an acupuncturist. 
    • Through her acupuncturist, she found another integrative medicine doctor who correctly diagnosed her with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. 
    • Amy’s health concerns not being addressed properly inspired her to become an integrative medicine practitioner. 
    • Amy had a lot of what she refers to as “unmetabolized trauma.” 
    • Amy watched her dad’s health rapidly deteriorate over the course of about two years from the time she was about 13 to 15 years old. 
    • Amy believes that self care is a full time job, but people have resistance to it because we live in a society that is solely focused on being productive. 
    • Amy received a new chronic diagnosis this year of “Burning Mouth Syndrome.” 
    • Because her mom checked out when her dad died and Amy was the oldest child, she had to become the parent. 
    • The pandemic has changed so many things, and Amy has seen a huge increase in patients coming in for acupuncture for their anxiety. 
    • Functional medicine involves further testing and more detailed work than a typical physician would put in. 
    • Amy has recently gotten into paddle boarding with her family as a form of self care. 
    • Play and laughter are important parts of self care. 

     

    3 Key Points:

    1. Amy’s experiences with doctors misdiagnosing her Hashimoto’s was one of the things that inspired her to become an integrative medicine doctor. 
    2. Many people have a lot of resistance to practicing self care because we live in a society that focuses almost exclusively on functionality. 
    3. Unmetabolized, or unprocessed, trauma can have physical consequences and lead to chronic health issues. 

     

    Tweetable Quotes:

    • “When you’re looking for a root cause, you’re not just asking what, you’re also asking why.” - Amy Shouse
    • “You have to practice not being in resistance.” - Amy Shouse 
    • “None of us are in the game of perfection.” - Rich Weingart 
    • “Choose love, not fear. It’s as simple as that.” - Amy Shouse

     

    Resources Mentioned:

    A Richer Life
    en-usOctober 08, 2020

    We ARE Enough

    We ARE Enough

    We ARE Enough - this is such an important truth to claim for ourselves and not always easy to do or see. We are not perfect nor will we ever be, but we can try to be the best version of ourselves.  When we fall short of that, we can try to practice radical self-compassion and forgiveness for others when they 'miss the mark'. We must heal individually and as a Nation.

    A Richer Life
    en-usSeptember 30, 2020

    Conscious Relationships: Mama Healing Trauma

    Conscious Relationships: Mama Healing Trauma

    During this episode of A Richer Life, host Rich Weingart speaks with Cassandra Solano, who works to impact people’s lives by addressing hidden trauma that could be holding them back from their potential. 

    Cassandra is a licensed clinical social worker in California and a conscious relationship coach helping people get unstuck in love via online coaching in the US and Internationally. She has been counseling since 2006 in various settings from drug treatment to mental health clinics. She's been in private practice for over a year helping people identify how their childhood trauma is impacting their adult relationships, break unhealthy patterns and heal. She is sober over 15 years, a survivor of childhood emotional abuse, sexual abuse, domestic violence, narcissistic abuse and uses her personal and professional experience along with spiritual tools to help clients transform their lives. You can find her hanging out on instagram @cassandra_solano  

    Cassandra dives into her first-hand experience of how damaging a chaotic childhood can be to the latter parts of your life, herself growing up in an unhealthy household. Self-development is a lifelong process, so the best time to start is now!



    Episode Highlights: 

    • Cassandra has quite the background story that led her to make an impact in people’s lives
    • Growing up in a bicultural home played a large part in who Cassandra is today
    • Micro-direct trauma shapes our nervous system which lays roots into every other part of life
    • A faulty blueprint exists in the world of what a real man should look and act like
    • Cassandra’s parents both experienced their own individual traumas that were brought about by their upbringings
    • Trauma extends between generations as the caregiver naturally imprints on their children
    • Every individual has the right to decide whether or not they want to forgive the trauma that their parents have bestowed upon them
    • Recognizing that childhood trauma can be hard to wrap your head around but can also explain so much
    • The ACES study showed the links between parental conditions and health problems later in life for the children
    • Emotional abuse and neglect show their head in different forms for everyone
    • Childhood trauma will show itself in relationships later on in life
    • Children and adolescents will turn to stressful strategies as a method to overcompensate for what they are missing at home
    • Drugs and alcohol are an easy escape from the pain of a traumatic reality
    • Trauma is inherited by younger generations at both a relational and biological manner
    • Cassandra went through an emotionally abusive relationship that ended in a necessary divorce, for her children’s sake
    • Different seasons of life require different forms of self-development and foundational elements
    • Self-development is a lifelong process that affects you and those in your life
    • If your nervous system is in a disruptive mode, it will show up in your perceptions and behavior
    • A bottom-up approach, nervous system to thoughts, will allow you to set the right foundation for a change in your life
    • Learn to listen to what your body is trying to tell you before your brain messes it all up
    • Self-awareness is vital to successful communication in a relationship
    • Many people go into shut-down mode, which leads to poor decision-making and blurs the thought process
    • Moving from the dorsal state to the sympathetic state to the ventral state
    • Life happens every single day, so be aware that - you will change states as your deal with it
    • To be vulnerable and share your feelings means you must learn how to be safe

     

    3 Key Points:

    1. The World puts pressure on both men and women to behave and conduct themselves in certain ways, and that pressure can turn into damaging trauma if not dealt with in the correct way.
    2. Intergenerational trauma is the reason that so many children experience the same emotional problems that they went through. At both a relational and biological level, trauma is imprinted on children and affects them as they grow older.
    3. Self-development is a lifelong process, If you can find a way to change the relationship between your nervous system and your perceptions of relationships, the world, and life in general, you can begin to live in harmony of both body and mind.


    Tweetable Quotes:

    • “Understanding what our parents went through and their trauma doesn’t mean we have to give them a pass or excuse them for not doing better...it is every individual’s right to decide to forgive their parents or not.” - Cassandra Solano
    • “Just because I was born to these parents that had PTSD in their bodies, that it had affected them biologically at a cellular level, I already came out the shoot, kind of,  wound tight.” - Cassandra Solano
    • “The normal thing for humans to do is to repeat patterns without much consciousness of why they’re doing it.” - Rich Weingart
    • No matter how much you struggled in relationships, you can heal, find clarity, and learn the skills to have a healthy relationship.” - Cassandra Solano

     

    Resources Mentioned:

    A Richer Life
    en-usSeptember 11, 2020

    Rich's Real: In This Burning House

    Rich's Real: In This Burning House

    Feeling like shit feels like shit, but it happens.  We are not designed for perfection or for feeling perfect every day.  In understanding our 'state' and how we are designed, we can have compassion instead of judgement and move through (with self-care) to a higher state of consciousness.

    A Richer Life
    en-usAugust 27, 2020