Gentle Finds Lindsay

Collage artist Stephanie Pierson is near and dear to my heart, and after listening to this episode, she will surely be to you as well. She has an interesting life story that led to her discovering a completely new side of herself later in life. Her story is one of love, loss, survival, healing, and blossoming. For most of her life, she experienced a stable and loving home life, raising two sons with her beloved husband,  Greg, who she met in her twenties.  As they neared retirement, she lost Greg suddenly and unexpectedly. From that point on, her life was never the same: she endured three types of cancer, and more unexpected heartbreak. Creating art was how she survived, and rediscovered herself. And it was thanks to a special person who lit a fire and a love within her,  that she was able to keep going. Tommy, an artist himself, was the special person in Stephanie's life who encouraged her to find that expressive part of herself.  And even though he is no longer with us, their connection will always remain, and she continues her art to honor him and the love they shared.

As her life was turned upside down, she began making collages, mostly of women, forging a new path, and getting to know this new woman she was becoming. As she transformed, so her art unveiled itself. She underwent surgeries, and magazines were torn up and reworked into intuitive female companions. Her work is an "exploration of the larger mystery of the female form." Each one of her paper dolls as she calls them, is a part of who she is, a shuffling around of her subconscious.

She is a strong and inspiring woman, and her story is one worth listening to if you need some motivation to keep going. At her lowest points, she didn't believe life had anything more to offer, and she is here to tell you it does, and that you are always more than you think you are.

She makes the point that we are all collages when we reflect on our lives. We have all had people who have been cut out of our lives, paths taken and redirected, paths cut too short. But in the end, we do our best to make that life beautiful. It's hard, it's a process, but it's worth it.

Stephanie credits her family and friends for helping her get through her hardest moments. She has faith that Greg, “would be thrilled” to see her art and witness this chapter in her life. When I think of Stephanie, I think of someone who knows how to build community, and Greg was absolutely half of that picture. As he said , “'Nothing in this life matters more than love and community and knowing we are not alone."

Connect with Stephanie Pierson

Website  ➡️   https://www.stephaniepiersonart.com/
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----About Gentle Finds----
Gentle Finds was founded on the idea that each one of us plays a part in creating the world we live in through the choices we make. In our relationships, the work we do, and the products we buy, our everyday movements leave a mark, for better or worse, and Gentle Finds is here to help you leave a gentler mark. Every two weeks I find a gentle inspiration to share with you, with practical tips about how we can be nicer to ourselves, each other, our bodies, and our environment. Subscribe, follow, and start your gentle journey today!
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Let the music bind us once again.

"The ears are always on. You can shut your eyes, but you cannot shut your ears...The ears are always listening." - Dr. Kathleen Howland

When do you listen to music, and why? What music do you choose? Where does it take you?  We all have our own personal playlists, but Dr. Kathleen Howland invites us to think more deeply about our connection to music and how we can use it to heal our hearts, minds, and even our bodies.  Having worked for nearly 40 years in the field of music therapy, Kathleen is convinced that music is a central part of the human experience. In this talk, she takes us through some of her more personal experiences and how she has used music as a tool in life’s most fragile moments. Speaking with Kathleen made me want to feed this part of myself. After listening to her, you’ll want to buy tickets to a concert, step outside of your musical comfort zone, and simply feel what happens to your body when your ears are listening. It’s a comfort to know that no matter what’s going on in your life, you’ve got music.
As Kathleen says, music is beauty with a biological rationale.
About Dr. Kathleen Howland:
Dr. Kathleen Howland, is a board certified music therapist and licensed speech language pathologist. For the past 35+ years, she has worked with a variety of clinical populations using music to enhance speech, language, cognition and movement. She teaches courses at Berklee School of Music and The Boston Conservatory at Berklee, and she’s developed a specialization in neuroscience as the biological rationale for why music is effective and necessary in educational and medical settings. She has presented keynote lectures and workshops nationally and internationally specializing in physician and nursing education. You may have seen her TedXTalk How Music Can Heal Our Brain and Heart.


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00:00 - Introduction
00:52 - Growing awareness of music therapy
3:04 - What is music therapy?
5:56 - Music counteracts stress
6:42 - Did music contribute to our success as a species?
9:09 - Music, the brain and education 
24:52 - Music and neuroscience
28:45 - Music therapy in hospitals
34:44 - Choosing therapeutic music
36:05 - Kathleen's cancer journey
39:28 - A memorable hospice experience with music therapy
46:38 - Mental health: what to do without a music therapist?
51:21 - What is your music living will?
52:36 - Music Therapy Tales for more information
54:06 - Music from womb to tomb

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To lessen the stress in parenting, focus on relationship. 

Ryan Allen, also known as preschool therapist on social media channels, gives us a crash course on gentle parenting. He explains that the gentle parenting style has actually existed for a long time (as authoritative parenting), but has only recently been branded with the name gentle. We speak about how authoritative is the middle-ground of parenting, with authoritarian and permissive styles on the two extreme ends of the spectrum, and why gentle parenting gives the best outcomes, and helps us have a more peaceful household.  While it seems like power struggles are an inevitable part of the parent/child relationship, Ryan explains how some of the battles can be avoided. By simply implementing a few gentle techniques,  parents can improve their relationship with their child, and liberate themselves from some of our daily frustrations. In this conversation with Ryan, we feel the weight lifted off our shoulders in real-time, and better, easier parenting seems possible with his guidance.

About Ryan Allen:
Ryan is  independently licensed by the state of Ohio as a Professional Clinical Counselor (LPCC) and an Independent Chemical Dependency Counselor (LICDC). 

Connect with Preschool Therapist:
Website: Ryanallencounseling.com
TikTok: @preschooltherapy
Instagram: @preschooltherapist

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00:00 - Introduction
1:14 - What is preschool therapy?
2:49 - Gentle parenting
4:11 - 3 categories: authoritarian, authoritative, permissive
12:02 - The Whole-Brain Child
15:48 - Small moments make an impact
20:37 - Encourage emotional expression
24:17 - Negative behaviors - what to do
25:32 - Children and grief
26:38 - Kids and nighttime boundaries
28:42 - Timeouts, Time-ins, Calming corners
33:46 - Teaching consent with friends and relatives
38:16 - Labeling our kids
40:30 - Desensitized to "no"
41:49 - Balancing the "favorite" parent
43:18 - When kids lash out
45:00 - Social media is a paradigm shift for parenting
50:24 - Ryan's journey

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///Follow Gentle Finds

🎧  Subscribe on Apple (ttps://apple.co/3qyFarZ) or Spotify (https://spoti.fi/3ryauZd​​​)

Website ➡️  https://www.gentlefinds.com/​​
Instagram ➡️  https://www.instagram.com/gentlefinds...
Facebook➡️  https://www.facebook.com/GentleFinds/

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----About Gentle Finds----
Gentle Finds was founded on the idea that each one of us plays a part in creating the world we live in through the choices we make. In our relationships, the work we do, and the products we buy, our everyday movements leave a mark, for better or worse, and Gentle Finds is here to help you leave a gentler mark. Every two weeks I find a gentle inspiration to share with you, with practical tips about how we can be nicer to ourselves, each other, our bodies, and our environment. Subscribe, follow, and start your gentle journey today!







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Dr. James Mckenna discusses his book, “Introducing breastsleeping - a new understanding of humanity’s time-honored sleeping and feeding arrangement: Safe Infant Sleep: Expert Answers to Your Cosleeping Questions.”  We speak about the mother-baby environment, and the myriad benefits (mental and physical) that come from keeping the mother-baby unit together.

Dr. James Mckenna is the leading expert on mother-infant sleep in the United States. He founded and directed the Mother-Baby Behavioral Sleep Laboratory at the University of Notre Dame - the first of its kind to study the physiology and behavior of cosleeping parents and infnats. He has appeared on NBC, CNN, ABC, The Today Show, and NPR, and is a global voice on the relationship between bedsharing, breastfedding and SIDS. 

With the birth of his son, he and his wife discovered that their readings about how to care for infants were steering them directly in opposition with everything that seemed to them, natural, and instinctive. 
In his view, we are built for family ties, connection, and wired for a deeply important bond with our mother or caretaker. The healthy baby’s “premature” body at infancy is still incredibly dependent on the mother’s body as its environment. And for these reasons, among others, Mckenna argues that human babies are not physically ready for our culture of putting a newborn baby in a separate room, whereby we expect them to learn independence in a crib, away from mother.

Connect with Dr. James McKenna 
Twitter ➡️: https://twitter.com/drjamesmckenna
Website ➡️: https://cosleeping.nd.edu/

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00:00 Introduction
02:08 Primates and human babies
09:57 The fourth trimester
12:00 Babies don't manipulate
14:13 Cosleeping isn't for everyone
18:19 Defining cosleeping
23:05 Cosleeping bassinets
24:36 A carrying species
26:36 The importance of touch
28:00 Breathing and SIDS
32:17 Cry it out
35:10 The idea of a "good" baby
37:47 The mother is the habitat
42:48 Evolution and world cultures
44:14 SIDS
49:28 The medical context
58:08 Why guidelines are needed

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///Follow Gentle Finds

🎧  Subscribe on Apple (ttps://apple.co/3qyFarZ) or Spotify (https://spoti.fi/3ryauZd​​​)

Website ➡️  https://www.gentlefinds.com/​​
Instagram ➡️  https://www.instagram.com/gentlefinds...
Facebook➡️  https://www.facebook.com/GentleFinds/

----About Gentle Finds----
Gentle Finds was founded on the idea that each one of us plays a part in creating the world we live in through the choices we make. In our relationships, the work we do, and the products we buy, our everyday movements leave a mark, for better or worse, and Gentle Finds is here to help you leave a gentler mark. Every two weeks I find a gentle inspiration to share with you, with practical tips about how we can be nicer to ourselves, each other, our bodies, and our environment. Subscribe, follow, and start your gentle journey today!


Support the show

What could be more gentle than a cloud?  A soft, puffy marshmallow world in the sky: gentle to the eye and gentle to the spirit. 

While so many of us feel out of sync with the fast-paced expectations of our society, sometimes it's hard to know how to slow down and just "be." Some of us may have the occasional idea there must be something out there that's more in tune with our own rhythm, something slower-paced.  Gavin Pretor-Pinney's advice? It's simple. LOOK. UP. The sky and it's visual landscape is ever-present in your life, always offering a new picture to spark your imagination. 

Gavin Pretor-Pinney's career has been dedicated to showing us the value in slowing down, dreaming, and giving our minds the space to imagine. Before founding The Cloud Appreciation Society, he co-founded The Idler magazine. The Idler Magazine's manifesto says,  "it is in our idleness that we become who we are....inaction is the well-spring of creation." 

On a trip to Rome, he realized he missed the visual variation of London's cloudy days. And from this realization, The Cloud Appreciation Society was born. He has since written several books about clouds, and has a way of bringing to our attention a part of our everyday lives, sitting there just waiting to be noticed for its awe-inspiring beauty and science. He reminds us to slow down, notice, appreciate, enjoy, and let our minds wander.  

Gavin rightly points out that just because something is aimless does not make it pointless. There is value in considering clouds. Deciding to spend 5 minutes a day appreciating them is free and available to us all. This appreciation is a way to intentionally pull yourself out of the frenzy of modern life, a way to be gentle to your spirit, and make space for new kinds of thinking. Give it a try. As Gavin says, "allow your imagination to drift in the breeze."

Connect with The Cloud Appreciation Society:
Website ➡️ https://cloudappreciationsociety.org/

----CONTENT ----------------------

00:00 Introduction
00:28 - The Cloud Appreciation Society Manifesto
1:31 - Introducing Gavin Pretor-Pinney
2:08 - Gavin's Magazine: The Idler
4:15 - Blue skies in Rome
12:55 - Clouds: the human experience
17:32 - Cloudys: variety, wellbeing and imagination
28:25 - The Cloud Appreciation Society
37:35 - Cloudspotter the word
40:12 - How to start cloudspotting
43:13 - Has Gavin seen every type of cloud?
44:56 - The Cloudspotter's Guide
45:53 - Traveling across the world for a cloud
50:04 - Become a member of The Cloud Appreciation Society
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///Follow Gentle Finds

🎧  Subscribe on Apple (ttps://apple.co/3qyFarZ) or Spotify (https://spoti.fi/3ryauZd​​​)

Website ➡️  https://www.gentlefinds.com/​​
Instagram ➡️  https://www.instagram.com/gentlefinds...
Facebook➡️  https://www.facebook.com/GentleFinds/
_______________________________________________

----About Gentle Finds----
Gentle Finds was founded on the idea that each one of us plays a part in creating the world we live in through the choices we make. In our relationships, the work we do, and the products we buy, our everyday movements leave a mark, for better or worse, and Gentle Finds is here to help you leave a gentler mark. Every two weeks I find a gentle inspiration to share with you, with practical tips about how we can be nicer to ourselves, each other, our bodies, and our environment. Subscribe, follow, and start your gentle journey today!
Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/gentlefinds)
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Jeffrey Masson is the author of dozens of books,  12 of which have been bestsellers. He is a well known voice in the worlds of animal rights and veganism. In this episode we discuss his most recent book, Lost Companions:Reflections on the Death of Pets, as well as some of his other books on animal behavior and emotions including, When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals, The Pig Who Sang To the Moon, Raising the Peaceable Kingdom, and The Face On Your Plate. 

With a history in psychoanalysis, Jeffrey has a way of chipping away at things to explore what's going on beneath the surface, and shows us through his research that animals have so much to teach us, if we would only take the time to open our eyes and hearts. Jeffrey pioneered the idea that animals are sentient beings. His scholarly approach to a subject which was for so long disregarded, helped to bring animal rights into the limelight. For any animal lover, Jeffrey's books are a comfort to read. In him, we can all find a kindred spirit.

While many of us know him for his work with animals, Jeffrey lived an entirely other life before entering the animal kingdom.  Before his work with animals, Jeffrey received a PhD in Sanskrit and Indian Studies from Harvard University, and then went on to complete a full clinical training program at the Toronto Psychoanalytic Institute. He became friends with Kurt Eissler, and  Freud's daughter, Anna Freud, and was invited to be the Director of the Freud Archives. There, he discovered unpublished personal letters belonging to Freud, which stirred up a huge controversy in the psychoanalytic world. This portion of the interview has been removed from the audio version of the podcast but can be found at gentlefinds.com. For anyone interested in Freud, the women's MeToo movement, and the evolution of therapy, you don't want to miss Jeffrey's whole story. 

You can find him at jeffreymasson.com


The Freud backstory (available on the video interview at Gentlefinds.com)Deciding to study animalsAnimals and their capacity for emotionsBorn a vegetarian, now an 80 year old veganCharlie Russell befriending wild bearsCesar Chavez and veganismAnimals open our heartsJimmy Stewart's poem: A dog named BoThoughts on hierarchyRaising the peaceable kingdomThe pig who sang to the moonEating animalsPigs are like dogsLilou the therapy pig at SFOChristian the LionBattle at Kruger
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Instagram: @gentlefindspodcast
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