Episode 204: How to Love Yourself, with Best-Selling Author (And Ellen DeGeneres Favorite!) Rachel Madorsky
Release Date: 09/10/2024
How to Manage--and Change!--Chronic Pain with Pain Reprocessing Therapy and Patty Tashiro
Brilliantly Resilient
"Acute and chronic pain are processed in different parts of the brain. If you aren't healing and are still in pain, it's possible that your brain has established learned neural pathways that can continue to cause pain, which becomes chronic." Patty Tashiro ~ Is your brain keeping you in pain? The emotional responses we have to trauma--which often stay with us--can trigger the brain to continue to send a physical pain response in our bodies. Huh? Isn't pain caused by a physical issue in the body? Well, yes. Unless it isn't. Patty Tashiro experienced a mother's nightmare when her daughter and...
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Episode 213: How to Expand Diversity and Inclusion to Include Everyone, with Toby Mildon
Brilliantly Resilient
"There is diversity within diversity itself. Even people with shared disabilities have different experiences. We are all diverse. Diversity includes everyone." ~ Toby Mildon, Author of Inclusive Growth: Future-proof Your Business by Creating a Diverse Workspace, and Building Inclusivity: Making Your Workplace Equitable, Diverse and Inclusive How many people in the world are exactly like you? EXACTLY like you, no differences. The answer is no one. Every single person, because of countless factors including genetics, personal experiences, education, inherent skills--the list is...
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Episode 212: Advocating for Kids Without "a Voice," with TeamChild's Christina Sorenson
Brilliantly Resilient
The Maasai tribe of Africa greets one another by saying "How are the children?" We have to recognize that all the children in our community are our children. Christina Sorenson Attorney and Advocate for Foster Children at Christina Sorenson was in 15 different foster care homes from ages five to fifteen. Separated from her sister and eventually adopted at age fifteen, Christina has made it her life's work to provide legal and supportive aid for children and young adults in foster care. An attorney at in Seattle, WA, Christina has thoughtfully incorporated her own life experiences into...
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Episode 211: How to Live with a "Pilgrim's Heart" with Christine Eberle
Brilliantly Resilient
"Be where you are on the way to where you want to be going." ~ Christine Eberle, Author: "Be where you are on the way to where you want to be going." Um...huh? The above sounds like a riddle, doesn't it? Then again, isn't life a kind of riddle we try to figure out every day? Christine Eberle, author of , decided to seek clarity in answering life's riddle by undertaking a journey--literally and figuratively--as she and her husband walked the Camino of St. Ignatius Loyola in 2022. For the uninitiated, the Camino (there are two--one of St. James and one of St. Ignatius), is a...
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Episode 210: How to "Be Better" in 2025, with Mary Fran Bontempo
Brilliantly Resilient
I came down to those two words. Be better. I think if we can boil it down to something, 'Be better' might be the most that we should be asking of ourselves. ~ Mary Fran Bontempo, Author It's 2025. How are you feeling about that? I find the time right after Christmas to be a bit challenging. After a month of being jolly buying, planning, decorating, eating, drinking, visiting with family and friends, suddenly it's over. And sure, New Year's Eve is fun, but it's also accompanied by that feeling of 'Oh my God, now I have to improve myself again.' Enter the dreaded New Year's...
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Episode 209: Mindfulness and Honoring the Pause with Shawnta Hooks
Brilliantly Resilient
"I needed to embark on a journey to reclaim my connection, both personally and professionally." Shawnta Hooks ~ Leading Belonging and Mindfulness Speaker. Shawnta Hooks was never a believer in meditation or mindfulness. Working in accounting and corporate compliance during her 20 year corporate career, Shawnta found herself in a toxic work environment after a company reorganization, feeling completely disconnected, unseen and unheard. Her first instinct was to lay blame on the company, until she realized it wasn't entirely her work environment that was causing her challenges....
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Episode 208: New Book! From Broken to Brilliant: How to Live a Brilliantly Resilient Life, with Mary Fran Bontempo
Brilliantly Resilient
You have everything in you already to live a Brilliantly Resilient life. You have Resilience and you have your own personal Brilliance. It's already there. You were born with both of those things. ~ Mary Fran Bontempo, Author, From Broken to Brilliant: How to Live a Brilliantly Resilient Life Have you uncovered your Resilience yet? Since Covid, we’ve been reminded constantly about the need for resilience, as though every day, we must gird for battle before we wander into the unknown terrors of the world. Truthfully, that scenario doesn’t seem that far-fetched anymore. If you’ve...
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Episode 207: Finding the Brilliance and Resilience in Generational Relationships with "Gentelligence" Author, Dr. Megan Gerhardt
Brilliantly Resilient
Let's have smarter intergenerational conversations. Let's be OK and not threatened by the fact that you see this differently than me. Let's figure out why and how that could actually be helpful and beneficial. Dr. Megan Gerhardt Author of Do you work with people of different generations? Do you live with people of different generations? Do you have public contact with people of different generations? Unless you live alone on an island, the answer to at least one, if not all, of these questions is yes. And in your interactions with those of different generations, it’s almost...
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Episode 206: How to Mourn the Loss of a Sibling with Annie Orenstein, Author of Always a Sibling: The Forgotten Mourners Guide to Grief
Brilliantly Resilient
No one checks in on them, right? They often delay their own grief, put off their own mourning in order to support their parents and step up. But then? They remain there and they never really get a turn to express their own grief, or to be the mourner in the room. Annie Orenstein ~ Author of Do you have a sibling? Most of us do. And according to author, Annie Orenstein, as children, we often spend more time with our siblings than with our parents. Yet as we grow, our sibling relationships are pushed to the background as we form other adult relationships in our lives. So...
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Episode 205: Empowering Those Who Stutter, with Nolan Stuttering Foundation President, Brian Nolan
Brilliantly Resilient
“I'm trying to open stutter more. Because I I've reached a level of of acceptance that I'm proud of, but I'm nowhere near where I need to be. I interview people on podcasts who openly stutter, and I'm so proud of them because they do it without shame and that's the real issue. The real issue is shame, every day, when you stutter.” Brian Nolan President and Co-founder, Have you ever heard someone stutter? If you don’t stutter, it can be uncomfortable to know how to react. Do you try and finish the person’s sentence? Do you look away? Do you simply wait? While a...
info_outline~ Rachel Madorsky
How to Love Yourself in Less Than a Week and Also for the Rest of Your LIfe
Do you love yourself? Does even reading the question make you uncomfortable? And if it does, why?
If you squirmed a little reading the above, you’re not alone. Most of us will gladly think about those we love and share that with others. But ask us about self-love? Yikes.
Rachel Madorsky is a psychotherapist, executive coach, speaker and best-selling author of the book How To Love Yourself: In Less Than a Week And Also for the Rest of Your Life. (A short, delightful read that was featured in Ellen DeGeneres’ first ever 12 Days at Home Holiday Box in November, 2023!)
After battling with depression, Rachel experienced a turning point when a fellow student in a personal growth course turned to her and said, “All of this would get better if you would love yourself.” As Rachel notes, “In that moment I felt like someone just gave me the cure, and at the same time I wanted to say what does that mean? It’s an easy thing to say but no one tells us what it means or how to do it.”
On this episode of the Brilliantly Resilient podcast, Rachel dispels many misconceptions about self-love, most notably that far from being selfish or self-indulgent, self-love frees us from negative focus on ourselves and gives us more time and ease to love and be generous with others. She also makes a topic which many find uncomfortable, unthreatening and accessible.
Here at Brilliantly Resilient, we don’t shy away from tough topics, and self-love fits the bill. Rachel advises regularly asking “What is the most loving thing I can do for myself right now?” Fortunately, the answer needn’t involve huge steps. Even the smallest step towards self-love and self-care can change the trajectory of a life. As Rachel notes, “Small hinges swing big doors.”
Tune in to this week’s podcast to hear more of Rachel’s wisdom and be sure to listen for these additional bits of Brilliance:
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When we ask a question of ourselves and we listen to the answer and we say yes and do the thing, we are building self-trust at a whole new level…. No one can actually give us the things we need most better than ourselves.
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We think that being hard on ourselves is the thing that will make us better. But the more forgiving, and loving and generous we are with ourselves, the faster the healing, the more we’re capable of giving, the more we’re capable of receiving. It’s important to forgive ourselves and say “I was so human in that moment.”
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We think we are being so loving and forgiving to everyone else, but another truth is we can only take someone as far as we are willing to go. So if we start giving from the overflow (of our own love) rather than our own depletion, it’s a higher quality of care for others.
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Everyone is always worthy of more love. Open the door for more love.
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You can exponentially expand your ability to give and love, and giving and receiving is a circle. The more we actually allow ourselves to receive the more we have to give. There is a distinction between taking and receiving. Receiving makes you feel satisfied.
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Small hinges swing big doors. If we were in a boat or a plane and we changed direction by only 2 percent,we would end up on a different continent. A very small action repeated can change the trajectory of our life. Any place we can add more sweetness with the intention of growing our self-love knowing it will grow love for others is a life changer.
Be sure to find Rachel on her website and social media:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachel-madorsky-lcsw-3233374/
https://www.instagram.com/rachelmadorsky/
https://www.facebook.com/RachelMadorskyAuthorSpeakerCoach/
The Book: How to Love Yourself in Less Than a Week and Also for the Rest of Your LIfe
Let’s be Brilliantly Resilient together!
XO,
Mary Fran