While Lisa Tokunaga originally trained in Reiki and is passionate about the power of crystals, her work is now primarily focused on facilitating quantum healing experiences. Her passion is helping others reconnect with their strengths, purpose, and wisdom.
We invite you to start the new year off by listening to our discussion about the many different paths to healing. What possibilities might open up for you? We both base the work we do in supporting others on the premise that there is no “right” or “wrong” way to do it. We all must seek out, explore and ultimately decide what healing looks and feels like to us, based on our own unique journey. Both Lisa and I hope to help facilitate deeper connections for our clients within their own Selves.
Lisa offers today’s take-away as the reassurance that “Everything is ok!” and that you *will* discover your path. One place to start uncovering it can be through contemplating the questions: “Who am I? What is it like to be me?”
Find/Follow Lisa:
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Join me as I take a look back at the year of the snake and what that means to me. How and where did transformation occur in my world? I pontificate about how important it is to believe in ourselves, take risks, keep trying, put in consistent effort… and then trust in an unfolding.
The themes of slowing down, stillness and silence have guided me throughout the year. It feels like they’ve come full circle as we wind down into another period of softening and slowing. I speak of some of my highlights from this year: sitting a solo at-home retreat, being able to speak with Sharon Salzberg, and finally taking an official Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Course. They’ve all contributed in unique ways to my ongoing healing, growing and evolving.
Today’s take-away is an invitation for you to take a look back at your last year and reflect. How have you grown? Where have you been? What have you gone through? What will you take forward with you?
Free online MBSR Course: https://palousemindfulness.com/
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Gretchen Miura is a mindfulness meditation teacher, grief care facilitator, and dear friend. In her work with Lighthouse Circle, a grief support group she runs with Sarah Furuya, she creates and holds open spaces and opportunities to share our stories and experiences about it.
Even if you haven’t lost anyone close to you yet, grief is something we all experience throughout our lives. Grieving for lost childhoods, past versions of ourselves, even grief over what might have been–there are so many different types of grief to grapple with in this messy, imperfect, human life.
In this episode we talk about how important it is to allow ourselves to “feel to heal” and how “what we persist resists.” Learning ways to open up and allow for the complex emotions that may emerge during grief, as well as holding it all gently, helps us carry it forward. Our losses never really go away, nor do they get “fixed.” But by learning how to integrate them into our lives, we can learn to experience the closest thing to “healing” we can.
Gretchen leads us through a brief RAIN practice for today’s take-away. You can find many more resources on RAIN on Tara Brach’s website: https://www.tarabrach.com/rain
You can find more information about Lighthouse Circle, including the self-paced Evergreen program and free resources, here: https://www.sarahfuruya.com/grief-support
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https://www.instagram.com/lighthousecirclegriefsupport
https://www.instagram.com/dairyuji_oga
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Today I talk about the power of positivity in counterbalancing the negativity bias we all have to some extent. While learning to stay on alert and be vigilant against danger helped our ancestors survive and evolve, it remains a prominent feature of our modern day brains and can cause us to feel chronically on edge, anxious and stressed.
In addition to our biology, we are facing a lot of truly dangerous and distressing challenges globally at the moment. What can we do when faced with so many overwhelming negative experiences and emotions?
By training our minds to also recognize, cultivate and let in the good, we can learn to hold it all – anything that happens to us – with a bit more perspective and equanimity. The power of positive emotions – those “little” things that make life worth living – and our biological need to care for one another, connection, and community is what gets us through difficult times in our lives, both individually and collectively.
Sign up to my “The Power of Positivity: Overcoming the Negativity Bias” workshop here: https://forms.gle/JMXePJWVEJLucXGr5
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Today I talk with fellow health and wellness coach and friend, DeDe Spicher, about transformation, change, and the power sharing our stories have in sustaining hope, joy and strength–even in the most challenging of times.
DeDe’s experience with bariatric (weight loss) surgery was the first step of many on her remarkable personal journey from patient to coach. As she found new ways of being in the world and radically redefined her relationship with food and eating, she was not only able to keep the weight off, but has become an inspiration and guide to others navigating their own experiences.
Her work explores the intersection of bariatric health, embodiment, and emotional resilience, weaving mindfulness and nervous system support into all aspects of holistic wellness. She helps others untangle their wellness journeys from shame and “shoulds,” instead building relationships with their bodies rooted in mindfulness, compassion, and self-trust.
Free Reconnection & Rest Guide: https://wildrebelwellness.com/questionnaire-order-page
Find DeDe at: https://wildrebelwellness.com
Substack: WildRebelWellness
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@WildRebelWellness
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wild_rebel_wellness
Spotify: Wild Rebel Wellness Podcast
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Today I get real, deep, and personal as I explore the tender space I find myself in lately: finding forgiveness for the younger versions of me that didn’t always make the best and brightest decisions in life.
While obviously all of those past versions of me got me to where I am today (and that’s pretty great!), I find myself wondering at the “whys” of how I started down the unhealthy paths that held me captive for so many years of my life. That process has led me to self-compassion once again, and the profound but simple notion of forgiveness.
I talk about how considering all three directions of forgiveness as a practice provides a beautiful framework for keeping perspective. We can ultimately find forgiveness if we’re willing to stay open, honest, and hold the intention to do so in our hearts as we practice it. Today’s take-away is this forgiveness meditation as I learned it from Jack Kornfield.
Jack Kornfield’s forgiveness meditation on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbHKCy4f6Dk&t=325s
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Join me as I speak with Jennifer Schrappe, a licensed professional clinical counselor based in Ohio about internal family systems.
Originally created by Dr Richard Schwartz, within the framework of IFS, one of the best things we can do for ourselves is to get to know all of our parts and realize there are “no bad parts.” They all have their purpose and reason for existing in the way that they do. If we can make space for them, begin to recognize, engage and dialogue with them, we can go a long way to understanding, and even healing, ourselves. Jennifer provides us with a way to begin this inner exploration on our own, and offers advice on when it might be wise to seek out the services of a professional.
Today’s take-away is the reminder that there is always a reason for feeling the way that you do – and that that reason is *not* that you are crazy, more messed up than anyone else, or that there is something wrong with you. You are simply a human having a very human experience within a very human life.
International Mental Health Professionals in Japan: https://www.imhpj.org
TELL Hotline and Chat: https://telljp.com/lifeline
Learn more about Internal Family Systems: https://ifs-institute.com
“No Bad Parts” by Richard C. Schwartz, PhD
Follow Jennifer: https://www.instagram.com/jenniferschrappelpcc
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Join me as I explore the interplay between:
our expectations (for ourselves, others, our circumstances)
the gap between them and reality (and what we do with that discrepancy)
how our mindset shapes and frames it all.
I’m curious to hear what your thoughts are on how these three interact with each other! Feel free to leave a comment on whatever platform you’re listening to or send me a DM on my socials (below).
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I was delighted to be able to chat with Michelle Pietrzak-Wegner about the slow life: yoga, nature, what she calls various “slow practices,” and how getting in touch with our physical body helps us rediscover and reconnect with ourselves in deeply profound ways.
Originally from the US and based in Tokyo, Michelle is a licensed somatic-based psychotherapist, Certified International Yoga Therapist, and Certified Shinrin Yoku (Forest Bathing) Guide with a twenty-year background in teaching and facilitating yoga, mindfulness, and trauma-informed somatic practices.
Michelle’s websites: https://www.embodied-therapy.com
Find her on socials: https://www.facebook.com/SlowLifeExperience
https://www.instagram.com/slow_life_experience
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Today I talk about fierce self-compassion and specifically, how it has helped to shape the course of my own journey. Even when I didn’t quite realize it at the time, both tender and fierce self-compassion were working together like a beautiful yin yang symbol supporting my path to change, growth and healing.
For all the doubters out there, fierce self-compassion shows us that compassion is not weak or ineffective and it certainly doesn’t “let us off the hook.” With it, we can protect, provide and motivate ourselves to reach further, aim higher, and succeed even beyond our wildest dreams. We don’t flagellate or force ourselves because we are failing or lacking somehow, but because we fundamentally care deeply and we want to be happy, healthy and well.
Learn more about fierce self compassion from Dr Kristin Neff
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(A note about the sound – you can tell this was definitely recorded in the summer in Japan near a mountain with trees! Apologies about the cicada background noise.)
Today I’m joined by Marci Kobayashi, a writer, teacher, and business owner based in Hiroshima, Japan. Marci is the author of Finding Yoyu: The Japanese Compass for Navigating Overwhelm and Cultivating Abundance in 7 Key Areas of Life and is currently working on a memoir about caregiving for her father-in-law with Alzheimer’s. Her writing blends personal storytelling with practical insight, offering readers a fresh and compassionate lens on balance, resilience, and the hidden pressures many women face.
In this conversation, we talk about many things relating to yoyu: what it is, the different areas of life we can find it, how to cultivate more of it, and how the concept can provide us with a more abundant-leaning outlook on life in general.
Marci shares a “take five” practice as today’s take-away – but it might not be exactly what you expect.
Find Marci at: https://marcikobayashi.com/
Find your copy of Finding Yoyu: https://books2read.com/fy
Marci’s “Celebrating & Intending” Notebooks: https://marcikobayashi.com/celebrating-and-intending-a-daily-practice/
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Listen in as I dispel some of the most common myths and misconceptions about self-compassion, explain the three basic elements, and dive in deeper to discuss how tender self-compassion forms the fundamental basis from which we best initiate personal transformation. When we learn how to accept ourselves just as we are (flaws and all), we open up the pathway to create meaningful, lasting change in our lives.
Today’s take away is to find lovingkindness phrases you’d like to hear every day – and as a bonus challenge, try to find a time of day to do so!
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In this episode I talk about how we are hard-wired to avoid pain. While this is a great evolutionary feature for us in the physical world – we don’t have to find out the hard way that fire hurts each and every time – when it comes to our inner world, that avoidance does not usually have the best end results.
After sharing some personal stories of what I have found to be true in being able to deal with difficult emotions as they occur (and not), I walk us through the RAIN technique as today’s take-away. RAIN stands for Recognize, Allow, Investigate and Nurture. It is a simple, yet powerful, tool in practicing how to deal with difficult emotions as they arise – instead of resisting them in one of the many ways we have learned to do.
TELL Crisis Hotline in Japan: 0800-300-8355 (Toll Free) or Chat
Resources and a guided RAIN meditation by Tara Brach
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#difficultemotions #dealingwithpainfulemotions #negativeemotions #selfcompassion #selfcare #lovingourselves #RAIN #RAINpractice #tarabrachmeditations #tarabrachRAIN #radicalacceptance #mindfulnesspractice
Today I do my best to share my experience, thoughts, and reflections from my five day, silent, at-home retreat. It was A LOT. All around. A lot of meditating. A lot of being. A lot of nothing. A lot of time. A lot of silence. A lot of me.
It was hard — because life is hard. It was also full of love and deep appreciation and gratitude and joy and wonder and beauty.
Coming to you live from the great outdoors, apologies for the birds in the background and the occasional wind-gust. Like our mindfulness practice, it’s all a part of it.
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#athomeretreat, #silentretreat, #radicalacceptance, #selfcompassion, #mindfulnesspractice, #mindfulnessmeditation, #vipassanaretreat, #cultivatingresilience, #monkeymind, #innerstrength
Life is hard. Our modern day lives are complex. We exist in an infinite universe, bound by finite time and physical limits. It’s the most natural and human thing in the world to get lost in our thoughts, day-to-day struggles, worries, social media, and endless To Do lists. Reflecting on our deepest values—what truly matters in life—isn’t something we often make time for.
But when we do, if we can learn to identify our North Star, we can begin to make choices that create a meaningful, aligned, deeply satisfying life. We can learn to live and act in ways that not only make us feel better and happier, they create a ripple effect of love, calm, health, and well-being into the world—things we so desperately need now more than ever.
This episode discusses what core values are and why they matter, resources to use to identify them, and how to integrate them into our daily lives. Simple, small and consistent actions create the conditions for living a life being true to ourselves.
https://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test
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#corevalues #livinganalignedlife #yourbestself #radicalacceptance #stressrelief #stressmanagement #selfcompassion #mindfulnesspractice #resilience #innerstrength
In this episode I talk about “the gremlins:” limiting beliefs, negative self-talk, self-doubt and all of those little whispers in our minds that somehow we just aren’t quite good enough.
While the gremlins are unique to each of us, dependent upon things like our upbringing, cultural norms or taboos, or even specific incidents or traumas we may have faced, we all have them. It’s important to recognize this, and to realize they are not our fault or our failings.
I talk about what we can do to bring awareness to them as a first step in resisting them. We can come to understand – we don’t have to believe what they are saying as Truth.
By engaging in this process of “gremlin fighting,” we learn to become the strongest, most confident, capable and resilient versions of ourselves we can be. We do this to not only resist and rebel against those internal gremlins, but also the real-life gremlins currently taking center stage in the external world.
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#selflove #innerwork #radicalacceptance #stressrelief #stressmanagement #selfcompassion #mindfulnesspractice #resilience #innerstrength
Join me as I explore what it means to honestly love ourselves – and how that has a ripple effect out into the world.
I argue that self-care is not selfish, self-indulgent or self-absorbed. I talk about the differences between self-soothing, self-care, and self-love. What is involved in truly loving ourselves? And loving ourselves through all of it — not only when life is good and we feel happy, but also during those inevitable periods of uncertainty, stress, darkness and difficulty. I discuss a multi-layered process 1. starting with awareness, 2. challenging the “norms” and expectations placed on us by society and others, and 3. diving in deep inside ourselves to ask (and answer): What do I really need?
While it may not be easy, it can be life-changing and beneficial not only for ourselves, but for the ones we love. Ultimately this ripples out to the entire global community of which we are all intricately interconnected.
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#selflove #innerwork #radicalacceptance #stressrelief #stressmanagement #selfcompassion #mindfulnesspractice #takingcareofyou
After our “look back” last time, today I talk about how that process evolves as we look ahead to the new year. By utilizing insights from the past year, we can identify lessons, themes, and patterns that have emerged. This kind of deep introspection may not always be easy, but the natural slower, subdued, rhythm of winter and the reflective energy of the New Year create the perfect opportunity—if we’re willing to listen.
I share the top five lessons I learned in 2024, ones so impactful that I’m carrying them with me into 2025 (and beyond). Join me as I explore how these insights shaped my mission statement for the coming year and how “believe” is guiding me into the year ahead.
Today’s take-away: I encourage you to embark on a similar process of your own. Who do you want to become? How do you want to live? And how would you like to feel by the end of this year?
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#changeandgrowth #creatingnewhabits #healthyhabits #transformation #mindfulnesspractice, #lifeinjapan #healingyourself #innerstrength #innerwork #radicalacceptance #stressrelief #stressmanagement #lookingahead #newyearintentions #selfreflection
Happy New Year!
Sending us all warmest wishes for a happy, healthy 2025 as we continue to learn, love, and live along our individual paths.
In today’s bonus episode, I take a look back at the past year to some of my achievements and accomplishments as an important part of the process of change and growth. Taking periodic intentional looks back helps us to recognize that the small, consistent steps we take eventually combine to create larger, long-lasting changes. I acknowledge how vital it also is to take those steps as we can – within the parameters of our very real life situations and circumstances – the many curveballs and hiccups to our best laid plans we all face each and every day. The beautiful thing is that we can always begin again. Every year, every day, in every moment with every breath.
Today’s take-away encourages you to take a look back at your own past year. Where were you a year ago? What challenges were you facing? What kind of life were you living? Where are you now? Taking an honest look at where you were and how you have evolved and changed throughout the year can help form a more honest and accurate basis upon which to reflect on what you want for the year ahead.
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#changeandgrowth #creatingnewhabits #healthyhabits #transformation #mindfulnesspractice, #lifeinjapan #healingyourself #innerstrength #innerwork #radicalacceptance #stressrelief #stressmanagement #lookingback #selfreflection
Have you ever noticed how much easier it is to think of all the things you don’t like about yourself, or things you wish you could change about your life, than it is to think of your wonderful qualities or all the things going well? How readily can you think of a negative customer service encounter versus a positive one?
As humans, our minds tend to “stick” to negative experiences much more readily than positive (or neutral) ones. This is called negativity bias and it served us incredibly well as a survival mechanism as we evolved. However, while our genetic predisposition towards negativity may have helped us to survive, it is positive experiences and positive emotions that make life worth living. How can we try to train our brains to experience them more, without sacrificing or manipulating the full range of emotions we experience?
Today’s take-away is a practice to help you build awareness of the most common thoughts you experience as a means to start exploring them, rather than simply being swept away by them.
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#changeandgrowth #creatingnewhabits #healthyhabits #transformation #mindfulnesspractice, #lifeinjapan #healingyourself #innerstrength #innerwork #radicalacceptance #stressrelief #stressmanagement #negativitybias #powerofpositivity