Grow Towards The Light

For many of us, the holidays are all about spending time with family. Whether merry, or just plain scary, the emotions and feelings we experience during the holiday season linger far after the decorations are down and resolutions are made. In this episode, Juan shares the almost “life changing moment” he had in how he handles the stress of going back home, his identity, and relationship with his family. Was it a Christmas miracle or the result of the awareness that parents are just people too? Above all, what is important to you is what matters most.

The doctor is in!  But what if the doctor isn't human?  Our favorite psychotherapist, John Tsilimparis, joins the podcast as we discuss the growing impact of AI, and specifically AE (artificial empathy), in the medical field and in the most important aspects of our daily life.  What is Chatbot Therapy?  Can AE make us better humans or is it merely manipulating us?  This technology can be a game changer for providing support for human doctors in assessing actionable treatment and dramatically increasing access to mental healthcare services.  But with all of the progressive promise also comes the potential perils.  The father of AI has sounded the alarm warning us that AI is growing faster than we can control or regulate it.  Global security agreements and regulation must be established and implemented before it's too late to prevent artificial intelligence from outsmarting us all.

With a worldwide box office of $1B, there is no denying the massive appeal and success of Barbie, the movie that has become a movement.  In this episode, Cecile, Juan, and Shawn breakdown Barbie, give their thoughts on the movie and the inter-generational, cross-cultural, and overall appeal of the iconic Mattel brand. They discuss how Director/Writer Greta Gerwig does a brilliant job introducing some heady societal themes in a hyper-visual, colorful, depiction that is entertaining yet nuanced on many levels.

You are as old as you think you are. Studies have shown that we typically perceive ourselves to be from 7 years to 20% younger than our actual chronological age.  This gap is called our subjective age, but are we just living in denial or is there a benefit to this kind of thinking?  Preconceived notions that we each hold on aging may also be a predictor of our eventual, future reality. People who perceive themselves to be younger than they are typically lead healthier lifestyles, engage in more positive self-talk and self-care, and tend to be less depressed. 

You can’t have the life you want if you don’t know what you want from life.  As children, we dream of the lives that we want, imagining our grown-up selves, careers, soulmates/families, and possessions.  It all begins with your thoughts - believing that what you want is possible and attainable.  But that will only get you so far.  To manifest the life of your dreams takes work.  It doesn’t just magically happen.  It requires the right mindset, hard work, planning, pivoting, patience, and perseverance.  Align your thoughts and attitude with your actions to get the results you want.  In this week’s episode, Cecile, Juan, and Shawn share the journey from being a small town kid where nothing ever happens to living a life that they dared to imagined.

You’re not imagining it.  Stress is making us anxious and it is effecting our thoughts, feelings, and physical bodies.  Psychotherapist, John Tsilimparis, is back to explain the importance of identifying/managing stress and understanding how anxiety effects each of us differently.  And, gives us a simple stress test ( a great tool – really) that we can take anytime to tell us the truth about our stress and its affects.  Building emotional resilience is the key to adapting to change and going with the tide.  We must choose to be like to ocean to ride every wave of life.

Stress affects us in different ways.  For some, everyday stress makes it hard to sleep keeping us awake at night.  It makes others eat too much or not at all.  But did you know that stress can cause you to lose your hair?  We breakdown the truth behind stressed-out hair and what we can do to save it.  We welcome Trichologist and Celebrity Hair Care Specialist/Stylist, Shann Christen, to the studio to give us the true science behind hair loss, alopecia, and its connection to unmanaged stress, our diets, ageing, and our actions.  He clears up hair myths and fallacies that are making our hair fall out and educates us step-by-step on simple ways to improve and restore our luscious locks.  Cecile is living proof that it works.  Listen in and start growing healthier hair!

To be human means you will experience stress at points in your life throughout the course of your life.  It is part of the human condition that, if left unmanaged, leaves us gassed.  Whether it’s because of work, family, weather, finances, loss, illness, or even the news and social media, we all experience stress and, it seems like today, we are more stressed out than ever.  Lucky for us, April is Stress Awareness Month.  In this episode, we share some of our own stressors we’re experiencing, discuss the importance of breathing and calming the mind, and emphasize the necessity of finding your own ways to unplug, unwind, and decompress to preserve your mental health and physical well-being.

This week we have the one and only John Tsilimparis, relationship therapist, in the house to sound off on our last 2 dating episodes with Indie and Jai.  We dive into recognizing dating red flags in ourselves and with others, the importance of self-love and awareness, why it’s good to be both velvet and steel, and why doing exactly what you want this Valentine's Day is the healthiest thing you can do for yourself.