Simple Daily Practice Radio With Peggy Freeh

In 1990, Sharon and a friend decided to take a yoga class  at the local recreation center.  Sharon was always very physical (skiing, running, biking), and yoga was another interesting physical challenge to explore.   She ended up finding so much more than a physical practice.  She studied Anusara yoga when she wanted to explore a more feminine path.  She studied yoga therapy when she was called to work one-on-one with people to support them in finding and using the yoga practices that were best for them..     As she continued to evolve, so did her yoga practice.  She started to be drawn to the more contemplative aspects of yoga and was moved to study in the Kripalu School.  Most recently, she has studied yoga nidra to open up to the meditative yoga practices.   Sharon beautifully shares her story of how her yoga practice for the last 24 years has been an ever evolving series of shifts and explorations and openings for her.  Be sure to try her yoga nidra practice to connect to your heart’s desire.  

Stevie Puckett leads a mini-meditation to help you see, feel and know the difference between your calm, intuitive mind and your mental chatter.

Stevie was already kind of doing it her whole life.  She would get some unexpected insight and share it.  Lo and behold, it would be right.  She wasn’t trying to connect to her intuition - it just came naturally.   Over time, she noticed another part of herself - the one that liked to analyze things and solve problems.  It said it was sensible, rational and important (at least in its own opinion).  But Stevie noticed when she was connected to that part, she didn’t really feel her best.  She felt pessimistic, worried, and anxious.  She preferred to be connected to her more intuitive self.  She felt lighter, clearer and more flowing in that place.   She set out to find how to feel good all the time by staying connected to that intuitive self.  She challenged herself to stay connected to her intuition 24/7 (or as much as she could manage).  As she practiced, it got easier and easier until it is just what she lives now.     Stevie shares the different threads of how her practice developed over time, how her life

Ten years ago, Megan Potter created her own daily morning practice in a very simple way - making a cup of tea, sitting in her favorite chair and watching the birds outside her window.  She was never good at doing the same thing every day, and she used that to her advantage to create a customized morning practice for herself.     While she has settled on a few elements to help her enter into her practice time (like lighting incense and candles), her practice changes every day depending on how she’s feeling and what she’s needing.  It’s always about connecting to her center and finding what she needs most to best support herself for that day.   And she is totally open to what comes up - go for a walk, sit in meditation, light a candle, have a bath, skip work for the day.  She keeps her practice vital and alive by allowing it to live and breath and express itself differently every day. Megan shares about her beautiful, dynamic practice; her flexible and graceful perspective on practice; and how to start a simila

Kamali was having a hard time connecting with her partner in bed.  She wasn’t getting the intimacy, connection and depth she wanted, and she wasn’t able to find a way through it.  She heard a tantra teacher speak about how tantra embraces everything, including sexuality, and something unlocked in Kamali - she knew this was something she wanted to pursue. She started with a home study course, learning the tantric meditations and practicing them at home on her own.  She started feeling the changes in her body and she knew she wanted more.  She and her partner learned practices they did together, and were able to break through their personal blocks to connect more deeply to themselves and to each other.  Life got challenging and Kamali came to see all the strengths she had gained from these practices: the strength to stay with her challenging emotions, the courage to become more of her authentic self, and the trust that nothing wrong was happening. After learning and living these tantric practices, she is now st

Natanya Lara shares a guided visualization, helpful for times when adults or children feel overwhelmed or scattered to help release their excess energy and find a place of calm and center.

Like most people, Natanya found being a parent challenging.  While she had wonderful intentions for how she wanted to parent her two sons, she would find herself triggered and not able to hold to those intentions.  Add in a major crisis in her marriage, and she wasn’t able to be the present, calm, confident parent that she wanted to be. She started unintentionally adding simple practices to her day.  She took a course in metta (lovingkindness) meditation.  A friend taught her a short yoga routine she could fit into spare moments of the day.  When the days seemed too much to face, she developed a simple gratitude practice to start her day and shift her energy to a more positive place before her feet even hit the floor. Eventually, she saw the power of these daily practices, and consciously made them a regular part of her day.  She also developed practices she could call on as needed during the day as she felt drained or challenged.  She also was able to use some of these practices with her sons to help them mo

Michelle Greenman shares a practice to help you identify your one most pressing priority so you can create your daily “get it done” list. Be sure to get a copy of her Life Inventory handout at simpledailypracticeradio.com.

It all started with one decision - “I don’t want this anymore.   I won’t let this happen anymore.”  Michelle was a freshman at university.  She kept all sorts of odd hours, hardly ever went out in the sunlight and didn’t eat well.  She had a hard time even getting out of bed every day.  She was seriously depressed.     But once she made that decision, things started to change.  She decided to create a list every day of the things she was going to get done, no matter what.  Her first list - “wake up and brush my teeth.”  That’s it.  But after the haphazard way she had been living, that felt challenging and important - challenging to make even that small of a commitment to her own well-being, and important to following through on her decision to change.   A few days later, after brushing her teeth became easy, she dropped that from the list and added taking a shower.  And once that became easy, she added eating breakfast within two hours of waking up.  Slowly and steadily, Michelle came out of her depression.  

Cara Gubbins shares a short grounding and centering practice, perfect to use in the morning, evening or anytime you want to come into the present moment.

When Cara started her Master's Degree in Spiritual Psychology, she started a formal daily practice to take care of herself physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.  It started with small things, like taking a vitamin and going for a walk.  Each month, she would evaluate her practices and decide what to keep and what to change. Of all the practices she did, the one that she recommends to everyone is grounding.  She does it herself twice a day and whenever she realizes she needs it.  She starts new clients with grounding.  She uses it with her children every night before they go to sleep, and even taught her son to do it while he was in preschool.  As Cara says, "To meet me is to know how to set your ground." Grounding is our basic energetic connection to the earth.  Without it, we stay in fight or flight mode, not thinking clearly and not able to make good choices in the moment.  To teach you how to ground, Cara has generously provided a short recorded grounding and centering practice below. Cara des

In June 2013, Laurie Foley was 11 months into her journey with ovarian cancer.  She thought she would have been done with the treatment by then.  She was bored and frustrated with the chemo and surgeries and found that her faith had been challenged by her whole experience.  She describes it as being on a canoe trip and being in the middle of a long, flat lake - nothing to do but to keep paddling with no sense of being carried and no end in sight.  She wanted to know, "Where was God in all this?  Where was God on this long, flat lake?" She got an inspiration to write a meditation a day for a month - to sit and listen and write.  That sounded good.  Her faith had been an important part of her life for a long time and she loved writing her blog for her business.  And then she got the inspiration to share it on Facebook.  While she had shared her writing for her business and even a blog about her experiences with cancer, she wasn't sure about sharing something so deep and personal about her doubts and fears about

Elena has done different daily practices since she was a teen, including exercise, yoga, inspirational ready and eating well. Even with that basis in place, things shifted when she become a mother.  There was this new person to focus her energy on, and she wasn't clear how to show up as this new version of herself and care for herself and her child at the same time. She had already been coaching for many years, and was drawn to yoga to help her find her balance.  She started a yoga teacher training.  At first, she started with just 5 minutes of yoga in the morning.   And that gradually become 10 minutes.  She has gradually create a wonderful self-care ritual for herself that encompasses all aspects of her being - mental, physical, emotional and spiritual. Elena is now sharing her self-care rituals with other mamas so they can show up as this new version of themselves and still feel authentically themselves.  She beautifully describes how to start slowly and gently with creating a self-care routine and focusin

Two years ago, at the age of 35, Hailey had a stroke. She was in the hospital for five weeks, and when she was released, she had no idea how much of her former abilities she would be able to recover.  She was sleeping 15 hours a day, and could barely walk without feeling exhausted. She gradually developed her own daily practices to support her recovery.  She did physical practices to increase her stamina and support the healing of her brain.  She did meditative practices to support her emotional and spiritual well-being.  While her practices ultimately grew to two hours a day, she was dedicated to doing it to support her own healing. Now Hailey is almost fully recovered from her stroke, and continues to do a smaller set of her practices.  She candidly shares the challenges of keeping to a practice now that she is back to her busy, regular, crazy life.  She also shares why she is on a mission to help women look and feel their best using all natural methods.

Lisa was reading a magazine one day.  The editors asked a simple question:  "What was your most unusual goal?"  One answer in particular stuck Lisa - have a 101 new experiences in 1001 days.  Something about that just hit her.  She had a busy family life and a career in transition.  But this - this sounded like something fun, a lark, a "why not do it?" Lisa started her goal on January 1, 2010.  It started simply.  She was out taking a hike with her family, and they saw someone juggling tangerines.  Lisa said, "That looks interesting."  The man said, "Do you want to learn how to do it?"  And Lisa said "yes."  And then she said "yes" to belly dancing lessons.  And then she said "yes" to sending her first IM.  And then she said "yes" to coordinating a coffee fundraiser.   And she kept saying "yes" to new experiences for the next 1000 days. Some of the "yeses" were not worth repeating (like the juggling lessons).  Some of the "yeses" lead to even more "yeses" (like entering the Denver County Fair and then learnin

Elsie is a full time mother of two girls.  She is also working to bring her big work into the world:  helping people integrate holistic living and technology.  She has been providing free yoga classes through her podcast Elsie's Yoga Class since 2006, and she is a co-host of a podcast about podcasting, The Feed. So, how does she have time for a daily practice? Elsie shares the first practice she started with, even with two little girls to care for, and why it's so important.  She also shares the other practices she's added into her routine and how she manages them with all her other activities. Elsie shares how she stopped beating herself up for the practices she wasn't doing, and how she's made her whole life her practice.  Elsie also explains the simple practices she does with her kids to help them get grounded in their bodies so they can be more present and make better choices. Elsie shows that starting small, where you are, and doing what you can makes all the difference in the world.

Kirk read the book Talent is Overrated last year, and it changed his life.  He had always believed that he was naturally good at some things (puzzles, problem solving) and not very good at some other things (piano, golf).  What he read changed his perspective forever.  Getting better at an activity depends on practicing in a certain deliberate way, not on your initial abilities. Kirk set out to test this idea.  He had been practicing piano, always on the verge of quitting, expecting to never make much progress.  He worked with his piano teacher to break down his practice in a new way, and he had a major breakthrough in his ability to play.  Now, his morning piano practice is his daily meditation, and he notices his day isn't quite the same when he misses that time. Kirk was inspired to continue his experiments, deliberately practicing golf, programming and now, starting his own business as the Coding Handyman.  Listen as Kirk shares how he has come to love his daily practices and all the transformations he ha

Starting as a teenager, Marie has been on a lifelong journey to answer the questions, "Who and what am I really?" and "How do I flow from that truer center within myself?"  In this interview, she shares how that process has unfolded for her over the years, and how her two current practices support her in her ever deepening journey.