Simple Daily Practice Radio With Peggy Freeh

Ana was severely depressed as a teenager.  She didn’t believe anyone loved her and that people were just out to get each other.  She felt disconnected and unfulfilled.   She found herself writing lists of what she was grateful for.  She focused on what she was grateful for in herself, really allowing herself to savor her own positive qualities she would normally overlook.     And as she wrote, it felt like a huge load dropped away from her.  She felt deep love and connection.  The world took on a different meaning, and she realized that she had a purpose.   Ana has continued to expand her gratitude practice to her whole life now.  She shares her powerful story, how she walks in the world in gratitude, and how she has found deep appreciation for all the experiences of her life.  

Peggy started Simple Daily Practice Radio as a way to talk about daily practice by having people share their stories of their own daily practices.  After 24 interviews, she wanted to share 6 insights she’s received from these interviews.     Here is an overview of the 6 insights.  For more details for each insight, listen to the podcast.  Peggy also gives uses specfiic examples from the 24 interviews to illustrate her points.  You can also listen to the original interviews for even more details.   Insight #1 - Follow Your Inspiration   Insight #2 - Start Small and Simple     Insight #3 - You Don’t Have to Be As Consistent As You Think   Insight #4 - Be Flexible   Insight #5 is Choose a Structure that Works for You   Insight #6 - It’s So Worth It

Heather Rampolla leads a guided body love meditation for women you can use every day.

Heather Rampolla’s career was taking off.  She was climbing the corporate ladder, getting promotion after promotion, working all the time.  She got married and became a stepmom to two teenage stepdaughters.  And with all this, she was living on coffee and junk food.   One night, she fainted when she got up to go to the bathroom. She ended up going to the ER  and found out that she was severely dehydrated.  That was her wake up call.  She started to question how what she was eating was affecting her health and how she was feeling every day.   She and her husband decided to try a raw, vegan diet for three months.  Figuring out what to eat and how to fit it into her busy life was only part of the problem.  She found herself dealing with mindset issues, and she turned to daily practices to support herself in facing these challenges.   Heather has totally transformed her life.  Her diet changes have brought her a new level of health and wellness, and her daily practices have brought her to a new level of self love

Heather Chauvin shares how meditation can be so vital for mothers, and then leads a guided meditation on the breath to help mothers feel more grounded and in control.

Many people start their daily practice when faced with a personal crisis. Heather Chauvin’s son was struggling, and even though she was a trained mental health professional, none of the traditional approaches helped.     One day at a bookstore, she saw a book on teaching children to meditate. She bought the book, and started using the techniques with her son. The meditations helped him, but even more, Heather found she needed meditation and it became a daily practice for her.   A few years later, Heather had another crisis - a Stage 4 lymphoma diagnosis. Her meditation practice had given her the ability to step back and get some perspective on her situation, but the new challenge inspired her to evolve her practice in new and different ways.   Heather shares the insight and wisdom she has gained through deepening her daily practice through two personal crises.  Her beautiful, solid presence shines throughout the interview, and she reflects on the difference daily practice has made in her life.

When Alexia was 30, her mother suddenly died of cancer, and her life spun out of control.  She had focused her own life choices around what was best for her mother, and with her mother gone, she lost her center.  She fell down a dark hole and had no idea how to get out.   She tried many different practices, looking for the ones that were most effective for her.  Some helped a little.  Others were major turning points for her.  She didn’t have any plan or guidance. She followed her intuition and just kept trying different practices until she found what worked best for her.   Alexia shares deeply about one of the most significant breakthroughs for her, Head Trash Clearing, a method she created based on Reflective Repatterning.  She describes what it’s like to do, how it helps her, and how she uses it in her day to day life.  She gives some startling examples of the results she’s had with the technique, and why she started a company to share this work with the world.   Alexia admits that she tried many practices

Claire's daughter has been a sweet, loving girl, but the combination of hormones, autism and changes in her epilepsy had made her difficult live with, even dangerous. Claire was at the end of her rope, not even sure if she wanted to live. She knew something had to change, but she didn’t know what.   A woman in her community was teaching a class on EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) Tapping. Claire was a trained shiatsu practitioner, and honestly, she thought the idea of bring an issue to mind and tapping on yourself while saying words out loud sounded crazy. She respected this woman though and went to a class on weight loss. Even after her first session, she was clear this was what she needed to help her with her situation with her daughter.   Claire continued sessions with the EFT practitioner and was able to find a whole different place of calm and peace to help her daughter. She went on to study EFT on her own, and is now teaching others how to make it a daily practice.   Claire shares her moving and remark

Melani Marx leads an Crystalline Conscious Technique (CCT™) practice to help you find the daily practices that are perfect for you right now.   To connect with Melani, you can reach her at her website melanimarx.com.   For the complete show notes for Melani’s interview and practice, go to simpledailypracticeradio.com.

Melani started writing lists when she was 12. Between being diagnosed with severe scoliosis and entering adolescence, she needed something to feel like she had some control in her life.  That’s how her daily practice began.   She gradually shifted from lists to journaling. She would take time for lots of physical movement - swimming, skiing, riding horses.  When she had to wear a cast for a year after surgery, she added singing and playing the guitar to help her express all the feelings she was going through.   When she became a single mother of three, she swam and meditated every day as a way to support herself.  She developed a walking practice to be present in her body and receive the answers to the continual questions she asks.  She learned a powerful energy technique that cleared her PTSD and allowed her to finally live without continual anxiety.   Melani’s daily practice journey has been an amazing, unfolding process of connecting to herself over and over again, in new and different ways as she has chan

  Kendra shares some basic instructions to start an art journaling practice.  She also walks you through some examples of her own art journal entries, and her process of working with different ideas, images and emotions in her work.

Kendra struggled with depression and anxiety for as long as she could remember.  A high school art teacher assigned a weekly art journal as part of her class work.  Kendra wasn’t thrilled with the process.  She didn’t like using other people’s journaling prompts and she felt inhibited knowing she was creating the journal for a grade.   She moved a thousand miles away from home for college, and her struggles got worse.  She turned to art journaling again, this time on her own to make sense of what she was experiencing.  She ultimately decided to leave college, partly from the clarity she had gained by working on her journals.   Her life continued - she got married and had a son.  And her depression and anxiety continued.  Her work with her art journals moved into a deeper phase. She’s come to believe that this way of connecting to herself is key to maintaining her well being through her ups and downs.   Kendra graciously shares her experience with art journaling and how it has supported her as she moves throug

  Anne leads a short practice to ground and balance your first chakra.  Once you learn the practice, you can use it anytime you feel scattered, anxious or unsure.

Anne has a strong personal daily practice.  She’s been experimenting with different practices since she was a teenager, often without even knowing that was she was doing one. Today, she blends together many practices throughout her day, feeling into what she needs in the moment and then choosing a practice to best support herself in the moment.     But there are times when she wants to go deeper, to take more time and space to reflect, get quiet, and dive deeper than she can during her day-to-day life.  Then she creates a spiritual retreat for herself.  By consciously creating extended time and space for herself, she is able to open up and find new levels of connection and healing.   Sometimes, these retreats are joyful and light and energizing.  Sometimes, they are painful and tiring and deeply healing.  They are always incredibly valuable, taking Anne into places she can’t always reach in her regular life. Anne shares her whole daily practice journey, how she creates her own spiritual retreats, and her best

  Everett Young records how he does his daily guitar practice - how he breaks it down and what he focuses on.  While he knows he wants to improve, he explains how to focus in the moment and find a calm, meditative state while practicing.

Everett had always wanted to be a professional guitarist.  He played the piano professionally, and recorded an album, but there was always the dream of being a guitartist.  His musical career as a pianist stalled out and at the age of 31, he decided to get a Ph.D in political psychology and become a college professor.     The guitar dream never quite went away.  He got his Ph.D., and set out on his academic career.  Four years ago at the age of 41, he took a temporary teaching position away from his family.  With the extra time he had, he decided to take up the guitar again.  He did practice more, but still not every day.  But he went through a significant shift - he started thinking of himself as a guitarist.     When he got home, he started practicing every day, sometimes up to 6 hours.  He formed a band, recorded an album and started playing gigs.  He credits his ability to becoming a professional guitarist to his daily practice.  Even though he was uneven and inconsistent at first, he kept coming back to

Jesse decided to travel the world for a year.  He wanted freedom and adventure and to get out of his own little world.  Unexpectedly, after a few months, he got bored.  It wasn’t that beautiful fantasy of traveling the world and finding himself.  Instead, he was listless and unfocused.   At first, he found some other travelers who were listless and bored, too.  They drank beers together and got to be right about how travelling the world wasn’t so great after all.  That was fun for about a day.  Then Jesse realized that if he stayed with these people, that would be all they would do.   So instead, he bought a ticket to Tibet.  He met some people who travelled in a different way - engaging with the local people and not following the tourist track.  And he started to have experiences that were deeply moving to him.  Approaching travel in this different way helped him find what he really wanted - a way of being fully engaged and connected to the world around him.   Jesse continues to travel with this attitude of

Jen Trulson shares a guided meditation practice to help you connect with the feelings you want to have from doing a daily practice.  She then guides you through her own process of working with her feelings every day.

Jen started her daily practice by looking at her thoughts every day.  That was interesting for awhile.  Then she learned another practice that focused more on noticing what she was feeling and then choosing how she wanted to feel instead.  This sparked something in her.  She began to focus first on her feelings, and she found it was a more powerful experience for her.   But her practice didn’t stop there.  After awhile, she realized it was still very mind oriented.  She took a mind/body coach training program that emphasized connecting to the actual sensations and feelings in the body.  This inspired the next shift in her practice - to identify what she was feeling and deliberately sit with those feelings, loving them just as they were in the moment without trying to change them.  Instead of her practice being based in her mind, it was now a full mind/body experience.   She still felt resistance to sitting down every morning with herself, because she didn’t always want to experience her irritation or agitatio

  Sharon Alexander leads a 30 minute yoga nidra practice to connect you to your heart’s desire.  It is a deep practice with no movement to help you withdraw your senses from the external world and focus on your inner experience.  Please set aside 30 minutes where you will not be disturbed to do this practice.