FINE is a 4-Letter Word Lori Saitz

First of all, I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge and celebrate all the work that’s gone into getting to this milestone of 150 episodes of Fine is a 4-Letter Word.
In past solos, I’ve talked about courage, doing what others won’t do, energy, and making decisions.
If you’re not familiar with what I do outside of this show, I work with business leaders and corporate teams, giving them tools and techniques so they can be more focused, resilient, and collaborative so they can manage the distractions in their heads that keep them from being as productive as they’d like and move projects forward with less stress and drama.
One of those techniques is meditation - but there’s often a lot of resistance around meditation, what it is, how to do it, etc.
There are many benefits, not least of which is meditation can decrease anxiety, it builds resilience. You’ll spend less time stuck in mulling over past mistakes and worrying about what might happen tomorrow.
In fact, a study at the University of Western Ontario followed an 8-week mindfulness program. Results showed participants experienced a 32% decrease in stress, a 30% decrease in anxiety and a 29% decrease in depression.
Tune in to this special episode and discover for yourself:
✅ When you can expect to see results from meditation
✅ The best time of day to meditate and how to use it to set yourself up to be more efficient and successful
✅ How you can easily make meditation a habit
✅ And much, much more packed into this powerful 23-minute episode!
This episode comes with a bonus called “Meditation: Clearing Anxiety” which is posted separately as a bonus episode.
Resources:
My Website: https://ZenRabbit.com/     LinkedIn: https://zenrabbit.com/linkedin/ Facebook: https://zenrabbit.com/facebook/ Instagram: https://zenrabbit.com/instagram/
Invitation from Lori:
Much of what I included here comes from my digital Staying Calm in Chaos program.
If you’d like to get access to the entire program, where there’s a whole bunch more tools and techniques beyond meditation, you can find it at https://www.stayingcalminchaos.com/sp.
It’s time to step out of the clusterf*ck... of fear, regret, and disappointment, and into a place of peace and contentment!

This meditation is designed to clear stress and anxiety so you can feel grounded and safe in this moment. Sometimes anxiety can spin you into a frenzy. Worrisome thoughts get stuck playing on an endless loop through your mind. It doesn’t feel good and it doesn’t serve you in any useful way.
Use this one to bring yourself back to tranquility, serenity, and calm.

Music credits: ©2017 Rebecca Reads Recordings Root Chakra Singing Bowls Note C

In almost all of my episodes on Fine is a 4-Letter Word, I deal in varying degrees with the circles of life.
In two of the themes I explore with my guests – the values and beliefs they were raised with, and the moment in their life when they realized or found out that everything wasn’t “fine” – we see how these themes come together. And see where some of the conscious as well as the subconscious imprints either trigger the latter and/or blaze the trail for self-discovery, self-improvement, and self-actualization.
For the first time, I have a returning guest, Christina Robinson Race, who joined me 105 episodes ago for a conversation called “Lighting a Candle & Letting It Go”.
For a quick recap: Christina was raised in an abusive home and when she was sexually abused by a neighbor, got shut down by her covert narcissist mother who didn’t want to deal with it. There was no trust and no communication. During our conversation, we delved into how Christina and her husband had applied lessons from their upbringings in efforts to be better parents to their children, and how her desire to be an available, accessible parent had influenced her career path.
Today, we pick up with what’s happened since that episode. It’s been interesting to say the least, but it definitely hasn’t been “fine.”
The day we sat down for our update, Christina had just – and I mean within the couple days preceding – gotten out of surgery, packed up her house in Tennessee, and moved to Illinois to live with her now ex-husband, who in the intervening time had left her after having an affair with a younger colleague.
Christina’s children are coming along – her son is in the military, and one of her daughters is now starting as a teacher in a summer school.
The biggest challenges Christina has been working to overcome is having limited social interaction as an extrovert, taking things day-by-day as a person who was so organized she would have color-coded charts planning things out months in advance, and finding out that even when your children are grown, not only do you continue being a parent, but it takes on new and interesting forms!
Most people fear change, even positive change, because it involves the unknown. That’s why we settle for less, conform to others’ expectations, wonder how we became clones of our parents when we swore that would never happen, and stunt our own growth as human beings.
In a moment, when you meet Christina, or reconnect with her as the case may be, I invite you to open your mind and your heart as you prepare to discover answers to questions you didn’t even know to ask. Then be sure to stick around for the MANY takeaways, because there are some extremely powerful lessons here.
Christina’s hype song is "Brand New Me" by Alicia Keys.
Resources:
Christina Robinson Race’s websites: https://christinarobinsonrace.com/ and https://www.epremium.com/ Facebook: https://www.linkedin.com/in/crrace/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chrisrace
Also check out Christina’s previous episode, Lighting a Candle & Letting It Go.
Invitation from Lori:
Now, let me mention that...

Your life is a collage of all the experiences you have, people you meet, and what you learn along the way.
Like many collages, even if they begin with a concept or a plan, as you bring them together they may take directions you hadn’t anticipated and show you things even more interesting than what you originally expected.
This was the case for Noemi Beres, whose professional work owning and managing a podcast booking agency involves helping people tell their stories and connecting them to hosts who provide the canvas for their verbal collage.
Growing up as an only child in a small town in Hungary, Noemi had loving, supportive parents as well as an extended family who nurtured her spirit, helped her fulfill her dreams, and saw things in her that she could not see in herself.
When Noemi started school, she was bullied by her classmates. Seeing that Noemi needed something bigger than that little school and town, her parents encouraged her to study abroad for a year in Denmark. After she came back to Hungary, locals barely recognized Noemi – she had become a different person.
The foundation was a level of confidence and clarity far beyond most young women her age. As she began her university studies, she fell in love with and quickly married a young man from her hometown. All these years later, they’re still married and going strong, so everything looks fine in that department.
Noemi finished college, moved to Ireland, and started her career and her family. She and her husband discovered their love of entrepreneurship and built a business together. They built a family when their son was born. And when they decided they preferred a Mediterranean climate, they moved to Cyprus and started their life there. Yep, everything’s fine there too.
But that word… “fine”… Fine is a 4-Letter Word.
Just when everything seemed to be going well, Noemi’s father was diagnosed with cancer. He was given a six-month prognosis, but beat the odds and lived two years, passing away in 2019. A few months after that, her paternal grandmother suffered an injury and died as a result. A few months after that, the pandemic hit and Noemi and her husband lost their business and found themselves starting over professionally.
In the midst of all this grief, Noemi reconnected with her flair for art. She had begun weaving collages while sitting with her sick father. This passion took on a life of its own and she now incorporates her love of photography, as she creates collages using family photos with pictures she takes.
In a moment, when you meet Noemi, you’ll see how all the threads of her life experience come together as she plans to publish a book of collages and participate in a very unique pilgrimage!
Noemi’s hype song is "The Pretender" by Foo Fighters.
Resources:
Noemi Beres’ website: https://www.podcastconnections.co/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/noemiberes/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/noemi.beres Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/noemi_beres_/
Invitation from Lori:
Now, let me mention that in my special guide, 5 Easy Ways to Start Living the Sabbatical Life, you can discover, step-by-step, how you can stop settling for “fine” and look at your life with a fresh set of eyes. Even if, like many people in today’s high-speed world, you’re not in a position to take a...

Having compassion for people is generally considered a good thing and a sign that you’re a decent and kind person who makes an effort to make the world a better place by being part of it.
Raised in a religious household, Tara LaFon Gooch learned the value of love and kindness towards others. However, she struggled to extend that same love and compassion to herself.
She came from a home with an abusive, toxic father who disappeared from the picture just when she was beginning to discover the meaning of life from an adult perspective, and she hasn’t seen him since she was 14. You see already the conflict in energies and values.
Confidence was a major issue for Tara, and in so many ways she was down on herself.
On March 16, 2022, she found herself sitting alone in her garage, having just quit a job that featured a highly toxic work environment, contemplating ending her life.
How had everything gone so wrong? Why doesn’t it ever get any better? “If I have a purpose, let me know. If there’s anybody that can hear me, just let me know,” she cried.
Things were not fine at all – and Fine is a 4-Letter Word.
Then she heard a voice in her mind that said, “Your life has meaning but you need to give more.”
After hearing that message, Tara discovered some powerful lessons.
One of them was giving yourself radical permission to accept that your memories of past experiences and traumas are YOUR memories – and the simple fact that they may not actually be exactly what happened does not make them less real. Reframing negative experiences can lead to personal growth.
Also, when you have conditions like Tara’s - major depressive disorder and anxiety - you find yourself crying in the shower, screaming into the void, wondering what’s wrong with you and why it has to be this way. Treatments usually involve years of therapy, often combined with medications that make you feel worse, not better.
But then she found a treatment that costs nothing, yet rewires neural pathways and increases dopamine and serotonin levels in the brain.
In a moment, when you meet Tara, you’ll learn all about this “wonder drug”.
Tara’s hype song is “Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor.
Resources:
Tara LaFon Gooch’s website: https://taralafongooch.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tara-lafon-gooch Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tara.lafon Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/taralafongooch/X: https://x.com/Taralafongooch Watch Tara LaFon Gooch’s TedX Talk now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vuq-HJb_Qds
Invitation from Lori: 
In my special guide, 5 Easy Ways to Start Living the Sabbatical Life, you can discover, step-by-step, how you can stop settling for “fine” and look at your life with a fresh set of eyes. Even if, like many people in today’s high-speed world, you’re not in a position to take a month or year-long sabbatical.
You know how you normally hear the disclaimer “Don’t try this at home!” In this case, you CAN try this at home. And not just “try,” DO.
Once you read it, you’ll
✅ Discover a counter-intuitive approach to...

Picture yourself living what seems like a regular life as a parent and entrepreneur, where everything seems uneventful and you have every reason to expect the rest of your life to follow a pretty straightforward path. You know, everything’s FINE.
Then, one day you go to pick up your kids from school and all of a sudden you’re seeing double.
Next thing you know, your life has been turned completely upside-down, your legs are numb and you’re sitting in a wheelchair.
In what version of reality could you picture yourself becoming an Olympic weightlifter just five years later?
This is Kim Rahir’s story of how Fine is a 4-Letter Word.
Fortunately, she was raised with two values that would support her through her unexpected midlife journey – always be ready to show up and perform, and conscientiously show respect for people and take them as you find them.
Along with these values, she became a person who did not wallow in self-pity or claim victimhood status. There was no asking “why me?” when faced with adversity.
When she first started seeing double that day when she was 45 and picking her kids up from school, her doctor suggested she might be experiencing a cerebral hemorrhage and urged her to hail the next taxi to the hospital. After a long series of tests combined with the onset of additional health issues, it eventually became apparent she had Multiple Sclerosis (MS).
Now wait – five years later she was at the gym training to become an Olympic-level weightlifter?
As you’re about to discover, her doctor discouraged her from doing it in a way that indicated he didn’t want to be involved. She was told to take all sorts of injections that made her feel worse, and ultimately traded them in for some ibuprofen. All of it made her feel disrespected, and she had to find a way to reclaim her power.
This isn’t the outcome you’d imagine for someone who has Multiple Sclerosis - nor would you picture her becoming a fitness coach helping women feel fabulous doing 15 minutes of work each day.
In a moment, when you meet Kim, you’ll be awestruck by her comeback story.
Kim’s hype song is “Far From Over” by Frank Stallone.
Resources:
Kim Rahir’s website: https://kimrahir.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kim-rahir/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kim.rahir/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kim.rahir/ Take Kim Rahir's free Strength and Health Assessment today to find out exactly where you are at and what will be your best next steps: https://link.roasmail.com/widget/survey/GiXtvmtUw9cHkOlCRRLG
Invitation from Lori:
In my special guide, 5 Easy Ways to Start Living the Sabbatical Life, you'll discover, step-by-step, how you can stop settling for “fine” and look at your life with a fresh set of eyes even if, like many people in today’s high-speed world, you’re not in a position to take a month or year-long sabbatical.
You know how you normally hear the disclaimer “Don’t try this at home!” In this case, you CAN try this at home. And not just “try,” DO.
Once you read it, you’ll
✅ Discover a counter-intuitive approach to making intentional changes in mindset and lifestyle.
✅ Learn how to own your...