Vital Presence - Shaping the new story

Explore how to thrive and live more creatively after midlife Author and coach Dr. Sally Jean Fox is reshaping the story of what is possible—at any age but especially as we age.

CJ Miller The Spiritual Artist 05/02/2024

CJ Miller The Spiritual Artist Chris Miller (CJ) is an entrepreneur, artist, writer, and speaker. He’s a lifelong Spiritual learner who has spent the last 20 years examining the creative process and its relationship to spirituality. He’s the author of the book, and produces a podcast by the same name in which he interviews artists and spiritual thought leaders. In addition, CJ holds yearly Spiritual Art Retreats where consciousness and art-making combine. /episode/index/show/vitalpresence/id/31083088

Michael Williams: Storytelling as a Healing Practice 04/12/2024

Michael Williams: Storytelling as a Healing Practice Dr. Michael Williams is a Canadian-born storyteller who spent three decades living in Scotland, where he honed his skills as an oral storyteller. We talk about our mutual love of storytelling as we trace Michael's history as a contemporary bard, in Europe and Canada and his recent work with elders and hospice patients. /episode/index/show/vitalpresence/id/30798453

Dr. Clarissa-Castillo Ramsey: Living and Leading Artfully 03/21/2024

Dr. Clarissa-Castillo Ramsey: Living and Leading Artfully Dr. Clarissa Castillo-Ramsey brings artfulness together with leadership and helping people grow. She is an organizational psychologist, artist, coach, and author of the book: . /episode/index/show/vitalpresence/id/30482913

Francesca Aniballi: Fairy tales aren't just for kids 01/29/2024

Francesca Aniballi: Fairy tales aren't just for kids Francesca Aniballi, PhD, uses fairy tales as a transformative tool for adults. She combines her knowledge of expressive arts, literature, myth, and Celtic culture, to offer us a path toward self-insight—tapping the healing power of the imagination. /episode/index/show/vitalpresence/id/29702478

Sally Jean Fox: Following a Creative Call After Midlife 10/16/2023

Sally Jean Fox: Following a Creative Call After Midlife younger? Author Sally Jean Fox made it her quest to discover what could bring heart and meaning to the second half of her life. She chronicles her story in her new memoir Meeting the Muse After Midlife: A Journey to Meaning, Creativity, and Joy. In this episode, she is joined by Dana Lynne Andersen, her friend, colleague, and teacher to explore what it means to follow an artful, transformative path into one's last decades. Dana Lynne Andersen is the Director of the Awakening Arts Academy in Assisi, Italy, where she offers courses and also leads a Transformative Arts Certification program, which Sally has taken. Sally Jean Fox is an author, coach, performer, and artist who writes about the search for meaning in the post-midlife years. She writes the Engaging Presence blog and hosts (with exceptions like this) the Vital Presence podcast. /episode/index/show/vitalpresence/id/28329296

Merle Saferstein: Writing and Sharing Your Legacy 10/09/2023

Merle Saferstein: Writing and Sharing Your Legacy Legacy educator Merle Saferstein teaches the power of legacy journaling—capturing thoughts and memories that might be only for the writer's eyes but from which lessons might be shared with others. For 48 years, Merle Saferstein journaled, amassing a collection of 380 journals. From there she distilled key passages into two books Living and Leaving My Legacy Vols. 1 & 2 and interspersed her writings with tips on how to begin legacy journaling. Prior to writing her books, Merle spent twenty-six years as a Holocaust educator helping hundreds of Holocaust survivors to share their legacies. After retiring, she created Leaving Your Legacy®. Through classes, workshops, and lectures, she has guided thousands of people in sacred legacy work, writing for wellness, and journaling. /episode/index/show/vitalpresence/id/28270781

Mik Kuhlman, The Actor as Activist 08/28/2023

Mik Kuhlman, The Actor as Activist Mik Kuhlman is an actor, physical theatre comedian, performance artist, theatre-maker, and teacher who has worked and taught globally. Building on her twenty-five years experience with original ensemble and solo theatre, she recently created a stunning outdoor performance and celebration of our connection with nature called, "The Standing Nation." Merging science and feminist inspiration, she performs a piece of art and activism that will forever change how you see trees. /episode/index/show/vitalpresence/id/27874956

Gretchen Staebler: Walking your mother home 07/09/2023

Gretchen Staebler: Walking your mother home Gretchen Staebler is an award-winning author in the Pacific Northwest who wrote a moving memoir about returning to her childhood home to care for her mother. It's a candid, complex, and well-crafted story that will be useful to anyone faced with providing end-of-life care or support for a family member. Gretchen also provides advice and support for caregivers at her website GretchenStaebler.com. In this interview, she offers some of her top tips for caregivers while talking about her own writing journey and how she produced her first book after sixty. /episode/index/show/vitalpresence/id/27392274

Priscilla Long: Creating at Any Age 07/05/2023

Priscilla Long: Creating at Any Age Priscilla Long, Seattle-based author or Dancing with the Muse in Old Age, Minding the Muse, and The Writer's Portable Mentor takes us behind the scenes of her fascination with late in life creators. /episode/index/show/vitalpresence/id/27380535

Dana Lynne Andersen: The power of transformative arts 05/15/2023

Dana Lynne Andersen: The power of transformative arts Dana Lynne Andersen is a multimedia artist, writer, playwright, and teacher who has taught and exhibited on three continents. She is the founder of the Awakening Arts Academy, with programs in Assisi, Italy, and online. In this conversation, we explore the nature of the Transformative Arts Certification Program she offers—why it is so needed in the world and what it represents. /episode/index/show/vitalpresence/id/26836572

Suzanne Anderson: The transformative power of grief 05/01/2023

Suzanne Anderson: The transformative power of grief When her beloved husband took his life, and with it her life as she knew it, Suzanne Anderson faced a choice: would she be broken down and defeated, or broken open and transformed? Join this conversation about walking an unexpected path to a powerful outcome. /episode/index/show/vitalpresence/id/26699586

Diana Place—Creating a new story in the 3rd Act of life 04/22/2023

Diana Place—Creating a new story in the 3rd Act of life Executive and entrepreneur turned community builder and advocate for women in the 3rd act of life, Diana Place shares wisdom from her journey and the inspiration for the online 333 Collective she created. /episode/index/show/vitalpresence/id/26621322

Debbie Weiss: Love, loss and starting over after 50 03/04/2023

Debbie Weiss: Love, loss and starting over after 50 When Debbie Weiss lost her husband of 30 years before she was 50, she learned life lessons that she has shared through her recent memoir Available As Is: A Midlife Widow's Search for Love. We talk about the challenges of love, loss, midlife dating, and what it was to begin her writing career. after fifty. Debbie Weiss /episode/index/show/vitalpresence/id/26127930

Lois Holzman: Developing through play and performance 01/26/2023

Lois Holzman: Developing through play and performance Lois Holzman is a “ performance activist” who uses her academic background and experience to organize people—as individuals and communities—to participate in creating new development, hope and possibilities. Trained as a development psychologist, she gives new meaning to what it is to develop. Practicing “Non-knowing growing, ” she helps people ask questions, have interactions, and question assumptions in order to create new ways of becoming. Her tools include play, improv, and performance, and great, provocative questions. /episode/index/show/vitalpresence/id/25616613

Isidra Mencos: Sex, salsa and a great story 01/17/2023

Isidra Mencos: Sex, salsa and a great story Isidra Mencos' debut memoir Promenade of Desire—A Barcelona Memoir (October 2022, She Writes Press) is a sensual coming of age story tracing her journey from repressed Catholic virgin to seductive Mata Hari, as Spain transitioned from dictatorship to democracy. /episode/index/show/vitalpresence/id/25610364

Alex Doman: Sound entrepreneur 01/02/2023

Alex Doman: Sound entrepreneur Alex Doman is in the business of learning, brain enhancement, and healing through the science-based applications of music and sound. He is a third-generation pioneer in sound healing, and his businesses, Advanced Brain Technology and Vital Neuro, build on the history of innovation begun by his father and grandfather. We talk about how to support brain health and thrive in times marked by rapid change as well as the aftermath of the pandemic. /episode/index/show/vitalpresence/id/24693585

Margo Weinstein: Author, adventurer, mom 06/17/2022

Margo Weinstein: Author, adventurer, mom Margo Weinstein is a traveler, intrepid adventurer, class-action lawyer, and single mom. Educated at Yale College and Northwestern University School of Law, she became a partner in a multinational law firm, but that did not stop her from traveling to over eighty countries, moving with her young son to Shanghai and Bali, and discovering how to combine wanderlust and motherhood. Now at midlife, she looks to the road ahead. /episode/index/show/vitalpresence/id/23462168

Dr. Juliet Bruce: Finding sanctuary in story 05/19/2022

Dr. Juliet Bruce: Finding sanctuary in story Juliet Bruce, PhD uses myth, storytelling, and expressive arts to help those struggling with hardship, trauma, and the challenges of living in these times. We discuss her upcoming book and how she uses story to change lives. /episode/index/show/vitalpresence/id/23172320

Mary Fridley: Reimagining dementia, death and dying 02/10/2022

Mary Fridley: Reimagining dementia, death and dying How can we bring a community focus and reinvent the conversation about dementia care and the process of caring for the dying. Mary is on the faculty of the Eastside Institute in NYC. /episode/index/show/vitalpresence/id/22095686

Dana Lynne Anderson turns the tables 09/15/2020

Dana Lynne Anderson turns the tables Dana Lynne Andersen turned the tables in the interview to ask Sally about her creative life. /episode/index/show/vitalpresence/id/16024901

Dr. Joye Hardiman: Cultural acticist 09/07/2020

Dr. Joye Hardiman: Cultural acticist Dr. Joye Hardiman is a cultural activist who is showing us how to build a stronger tomorrow by learning from the artifacts and stories of the past. She is the producer (and star!) of Ancestral Art Works on YouTube. Joye has been an actress, a theatre director, scholar, writer, university professor, community activist, world traveler, storyteller, and higher education architect. She was the Executive Director of The Tacoma campus of the Evergreen State College urban campus and a member of the faculty. /episode/index/show/vitalpresence/id/15920069

Dana Lynne Andersen: Awakening through Art 08/25/2020

Dana Lynne Andersen: Awakening through Art Multimedia and performance artist, and educator, Dana Lynne Anderson talk about her unique approach to unlocking our creative and consciousness through art. /episode/index/show/vitalpresence/id/15754913

Jean Storlie: The innovative storyteller 08/24/2020

Jean Storlie: The innovative storyteller PJean Storlie, author of Once Upon an Innovation talks about her new book and her own mid-life reinvention. /episode/index/show/vitalpresence/id/15734921

Susan Massad and Mary Fridley: Bringing Joy to Dementia 07/22/2020

Susan Massad and Mary Fridley: Bringing Joy to Dementia Massad and Fridley, both Eastside Institute faculty, are changing the narrative around dementia with their "Joy of Dementia" workshops. The workshops allow paritcipants impacted by dementia to play together, while challenging assumptions about how we work with people with dementia. /episode/index/show/vitalpresence/id/15317834

Shauna Ahern: Finding "enough" in ourselves and community 01/18/2020

Shauna Ahern: Finding "enough" in ourselves and community Conversation about how the author was able to let go of what was keeping her from finding enough and how she was able to find the joy of enoughness in community. /episode/index/show/vitalpresence/id/12792383

Sally Fox, PhD: Living more creatively in the 2nd half of life 01/16/2020

Sally Fox, PhD: Living more creatively in the 2nd half of life Sally Fox, head of this podcast, has the tables turned on her by Ellia Harris who interviews Sally about her book-in-progress Meeting the Muse after Midlife. They talk about creativity, moving beyond the myths of aging, and tapping the special Superpowers that can come win the 2nd half of life. /episode/index/show/vitalpresence/id/12759782

Tina Shattuck: Social entrepreneur 01/12/2020

Tina Shattuck: Social entrepreneur Tina Shattuck is a social entrepreneur who takes big ideas and then brings them down to earth in the community. She has founded two organizations focused on the empowerment of women and girls Working Mothers Revolution and Women Hold the Key. We talk about how she has developed her projects from a foundation, always, of community. She's currently working on an initiative to connect women of different ages, maid, mother, and matriarch, for the learning and betterment of all. /episode/index/show/vitalpresence/id/12709154

Dana Lynne Andersen: The transformational power of creativity 12/04/2019

Dana Lynne Andersen: The transformational power of creativity Dana Lynn Andersen, founder of Awakening Arts Academy of Art, Creativity, and Consciousness speaks on the importance of awakening our creative and artistic expression for our development and for the world. /episode/index/show/vitalpresence/id/12282602

Pat Samples: The wisdom of the older body 10/17/2019

Pat Samples: The wisdom of the older body Pat Samples is a author, coach, and teacher who has led clients and groups to rediscover the magic of the information living in their bodies. /episode/index/show/vitalpresence/id/11685644

Michael Meade: The elder in troubled times 09/11/2019

Michael Meade: The elder in troubled times Why are elders needed in these troubled times? Michael Meade, internationally known author, storyteller and mythologists has addressed this question in his latest book: We talk about his insights in this conversation about keeping the soul alive when the world is struggling. /episode/index/show/vitalpresence/id/11217812

Vital Presence - Shaping the new story

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