The Calming Ground Podcast

Elizabeth Mintun

This podcast offers a space for busy people to go to for inspiration, wisdom, to learn from one another's struggles and transformations, as well as to receive actionable steps to relax, gain confidence, and move forward with the life they long to experience.

  1. 3d ago

    159 - The Community We're Taught to Fear

    A circle of strangers, no rehearsal, no sheet music…Just voices and a guide named Porangui pulling a room of near-strangers into one shared rhythm.  In this solo episode, host Elizabeth Mintun reflects on three very different gatherings from the same couple of weeks: a sound circle led by Porangui, a monthly meeting of her Conscious Practitioner Collective, and the first live session of her new program, Finding Your Footing When the Ground Shifts. Underneath their differences, she found the same medicine at work in each one - and traces why that medicine took her so long to trust, starting with a hard lesson learned in a middle school hallway. Elizabeth explores why so many of us learn to fear community rather than trust it, and how belonging can form in real time between total strangers when a group is given just enough structure and permission. This episode is for anyone who has ever felt like they were standing just outside a circle, wondering if there was room with their name on it. Key Takeaways: Community isn't a scarce resource to be chosen for; it's something people can step into together, again and again, the moment they're willing to.Co-regulation (settling a nervous system in the presence of other regulated nervous systems) can happen in a drum circle, a practitioner gathering, or a Zoom room alike.Real community includes friction, activation, and disappointment. The goal isn't a frictionless group, but a safe enough one to be vulnerable inside. Resources: For 1:1 coaching and/or to ask any questions or share reflections, contact Elizabeth at elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com Conscious Practitioner Collective - monthly gathering for practitioners in Columbus, Ohio: https://thecalmingground.com/conscious-practitioner-collective Follow along: @thecalmingground on Facebook and Instagram Subscribe to The Calming Ground Podcast so you never miss an episode. If you loved this conversation, please share it with a friend and leave a review!

  2. Sep 2

    158 - When the World Feels Too Heavy: A Nervous System Guide to Grief, Doomscrolling & Overload

    Last week, Dolly Parton died. A glacier collapse triggered catastrophic flooding in Nepal. An Ebola outbreak became the deadliest in the Democratic Republic of Congo's history. If you've felt oddly numb to some of the news and unexpectedly gutted by other parts of it, this solo episode is for you. In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun explores why grief tends to land unevenly - why a celebrity we never met can hit harder than a mass tragedy overseas - and what that says about the nervous system. In this exploration, Elizabeth incorporates nervous system science, Five Elements theory of ancient Chinese medicine, and our connection to the natural world. She offers an invitation to choose, on purpose, where your attention and grief go… Instead of letting an algorithm decide for you. Key Takeaways: Why parasocial grief is real grief. The neuroscience behind mourning someone you've never met. Empathy overload and grief numbing. Why your nervous system "dims the switch" on tragedies at scale. The doomscroll loop. How unresolved sympathetic activation from news consumption tends to accumulate in the body as anxiety and numbness simultaneously. Reframing self-care as self-discovery. How to use what hits you hardest as information about what you value, rather than something to just numb or push away.  Resources: For 1:1 coaching and/or to ask any questions or share reflections, contact Elizabeth at elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com Follow along: @thecalmingground on Facebook and Instagram Subscribe to The Calming Ground Podcast so you never miss an episode. If you loved this conversation, please share it with a friend!

  3. Aug 26

    157 - Writing Through Grief: Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer on Poetry, Loss, and the Wonderment of Being Alive

    Poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer has written and sent out a poem every single day for decades. These are first drafts, no editing, no safety net. In this conversation, she shares what that practice has taught her about creativity, identity, and the wild, disorienting terrain of grief. In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun sits down with Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, a poet, writer, and teacher whose daily poetry practice has become both a spiritual discipline and a public offering - poems sent out into the world unpolished, in service of truth rather than perfection. In this conversation, they talk about how a nightly writing ritual, one she began simply because it was the only quiet time she had as a young mother, became a lifeline after the sudden loss of her seventeen-year-old son to suicide in August 2021. This episode is a beautiful conversation about what it means to live in wonderment.   Key Takeaways: A daily creative practice is a practice of showing up to presence, and that capacity can become a lifeline in crisis.Grief itself changes shape over time; writing became a way for Rosemerry to track and integrate that change rather than "get through" it.The identities we build - mother, wife, runner, baker - can all be taken away. What remains is a simpler, truer sense of what is. Resources: Preorder The Wonderment and Get a Signed Copy! “You can pre-order the book from my local bookstore, Between the Covers, and I will personalize it for you (there's a comments section at the final checkout for you to say who you want the book signed to). Order before September 12 when I go in to sign the books. The bookstore will ship your book to anywhere in the US the next day.” -Rosemerry     Before The Wonderment: A Pre-Launch Party  August 29, 6-7:30 p.m. mountain time zoom, recorded, donations accepted “Please join me for a pre-release party hosted on zoom . And if you want to pre-order a book, you can pre-order the book from my local bookstore, Between the Covers, and I will personalize it for you (there's a comments section at the final checkout for you to say who you want the book signed to). Order before September 12 when I go in to sign the books. The bookstore will ship your book to anywhere in the US the next day.” -Rosemerry  UK Book Launch Party with The Poetry Pharmacy September 24, 11 a.m. mountain/6 p.m. UK “European friends—it’s a book launch just for you, hosted by The Poetry Pharmacy in the UK. Of course anyone anywhere can join us, but the Poetry Pharmacy is making it possible to order the books in the UK and will send them out before the launch so you can read along. Poetry, conversation, singing, questions … join me! Tickets available with or without a book purchase.” -Rosemerry  Rosemerry’s earlier poetry collection mentioned in this episode, All the Honey: wordwoman.com/books/all-the-honey Rosemerry’s daily poem email list sign-up and website: https://www.wordwoman.com/ Finding Your Footing When the Ground Shifts: A 4-Week Practice in Movement, Nature's Archetypes & Nervous System Science: https://thecalmingground.com/finding-your-footing Curious about 1:1 coaching? Questions or guest suggestions? Reach out at elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com Follow along on Facebook & Instagram @thecalmingground If this episode moved you, please subscribe and share it with someone who needs it today.

  4. Aug 19

    156 - Behind the Curtain: How Nature Became My Nervous System Framework

    We rush toward finished frameworks and polished programs without ever seeing what shaped them. This episode pulls back the curtain on how nature became the language for nervous system work, long before it had a name. In this solo episode, host Elizabeth Mintun shares the personal roots of the nature archetype framework behind her upcoming program. Drawing on her own childhood spent largely outdoors, and her ongoing work as a psychotherapist, qigong teacher, and mindful life coach, Elizabeth unpacks why frameworks for nervous system work need to live in the body, rather than being something simply of the mind, and why nature's own symbols and archetypes became the doorway for that embodied understanding. Key takeaways: Nervous system change happens through the body, not just intellectual understanding. Movement and felt experience matter as much as conceptNature's symbols and archetypes offer an embodied language for internal states like groundedness, flow, and release, in a way diagrams and definitions can'tNature can offer us powerful resources to help us navigate times of change Resources Free live workshop: "Who Am I Now? Finding Your Footing When Your Life Changes Shape" on August 26th: https://thecalmingground.com/free-workshop Questions or reflections from this episode?  Email Elizabeth at elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com Want to go deeper in your own practice?  Learn more about 1:1 coaching with Elizabeth Mintun here Find Elizabeth on Facebook & IG @thecalmingground Subscribe to The Calming Ground Podcast so you never miss an episode. If you loved this conversation, please share it with a friend.

  5. Aug 12

    155 - Honoring Thresholds: A Nervous System Approach to Endings and Transitions

    We rush past thresholds constantly - the small daily ones and the big life-chapter ones. This episode is about what it costs to leave transitions unmarked, and what changes when we honor our transitions. In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun explores why we so often rush past thresholds, both the small daily ones and the bigger life-chapter ones, and what it costs the nervous system when we do. Drawing on polyvagal-informed work and her own training as a psychotherapist and mindful life coach, Elizabeth unpacks why unmarked transitions get stored in the body as unfinished business - and shares a personal story from a two-year clinical training program that changed how she understands endings.  Key takeaways: Thresholds aren't just the big, obvious moments; they're daily, and mostly go unmarkedUnmarked transitions can leave the nervous system in low-grade activation, still "waiting" for closure Ritual and reflection turn a blur of time into distinct, metabolized chapters Resources Free live workshop: “Who Am I Now? Finding Your Footing When Life Changes Shape” on August 26th, 1pm EST: https://thecalmingground.com/free-workshop Free Guided Meditation: https://thecalmingground.com/free-guided-meditation Questions or reflections from this episode? Email Elizabeth at elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com Want to go deeper in your own practice? Learn more about 1:1 coaching with Elizabeth Mintun here  Find Elizabeth on Facebook & IG @thecalmingground Subscribe to The Calming Ground Podcast so you never miss an episode. If you loved this conversation, please share it with a friend.

  6. Aug 5

    154 - Nature-Based Rituals for Transition: A Story about Marking What's Ending

    What do you do when a place that’s held twenty years of your life history is about to be sold? You bury a shell in the sand and say good bye imperfectly, with sand still stuck between your fingers.  In this episode, your host Elizabeth Mintun (licensed psychotherapist, certified qigong teacher, and mindfulness coach), shares the story of saying goodbye to her uncle’s property on Oak Island, a place woven through more than two decades of family life, births, and losses. The episode moves between a literal ending - a beloved property about to be sold - and the constant endings in life we rarely notice. Elizabeth reflects on a “Sacred Pause” retreat she co-led with Ami Peacock just days before this trip and weaves it into a larger question: what does it mean to consciously practice letting go?   Key takeaways: Creating a simple ritual (finding an object, naming what you’re releasing, marking the moment) can help an ending feel complete, even if imperfectly so. The body already practices letting go constantly. Every exhale is a small release, happening thousands of times a day. Bringing conscious attention to small, everyday endings (a season, a day, a breath) builds the same muscle needed for the larger ones.  Resources Free live workshop: “Who Am I Now? Finding Your Footing When Life Changes Shape” on August 26th, 1pm EST: https://thecalmingground.com/free-workshop Free Guided Meditation: https://thecalmingground.com/free-guided-meditation Questions or reflections from this episode? Email Elizabeth at elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com Want to go deeper in your own practice? Learn more about 1:1 coaching with Elizabeth Mintun here  Find Elizabeth on Facebook & IG @thecalmingground Subscribe to The Calming Ground Podcast so you never miss an episode. If you loved this conversation, please share it with a friend

  7. Jul 29

    153 - The Privilege of Making Mistakes: Self-Forgiveness and Letting Go of the Shoulds

    She held two things dear: the privilege of making mistakes, and the right to be a “damn fool”. This episode is a re-air of a conversation between host Elizabeth Mintun and her mother, Margy, who died in January of 2025. They set out to talk about compassionate accountability; how to live aligned with our values without turning that alignment into one more way to fall short. What Margy offers is something roomier. She describes the constriction of inherited shoulds, the moment she saw that her own parameters had shrunk her possibility of living fully, and the slow work of learning her mistakes could be pardoned. It's a short conversation, and a plainspoken one. It may be helpful for anyone carrying a should that was handed to them and would like to feel more grace and love towards themselves.  Key takeaways: Shoulds are inherited, usually from people trying sincerely to give us direction - and it's adult work to ask of each one whether we actually embrace it.Rigid parameters of right and wrong don't tend to protect a life; they often shrink it.Mistakes aren't the failure of growth, they're the mechanism of it.Self-forgiveness and forgiving others are the same capacity, practiced in two directions. Resources Free Guided Meditation: https://thecalmingground.com/free-guided-meditation Questions or reflections from this episode? Email Elizabeth at elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.com Want to go deeper in your own practice? Learn more about 1:1 coaching with Elizabeth Mintun here  Find Elizabeth on Facebook & IG @thecalmingground Subscribe to The Calming Ground Podcast so you never miss an episode. If you loved this conversation, please share it with a friend

  8. Jul 22

    152 - Creativity, Rest, and the Power of Not Knowing with Dr. Chanti Tacoronte Pérez

    What if not knowing is a doorway? In this episode, host Elizabeth Mintun sits down with Dr. Chanti Tacoronte Pérez, a creative guide, teacher, and depth-oriented artist whose work weaves together rest, image-making, myth, and embodied practice. She is the creator of The Ritual of Rest and the Bird Song Oracle Deck. Dr. Chanti describes her work as a living collage; emergent, non-linear, and responsive to the moment. Together, she and Elizabeth explore how liminality, slowness, and ambiguity open space for deeper presence and transformation: why the doodling that once made her fail math class was actually an embodied way of learning, and what depth psychology calls the "transcendent function" that blossoms when we stay inside tension instead of rushing to resolve it. This conversation is for anyone who has mistaken their slowness for stupidity, who longs to create but fears not being good at it, or who wonders when the excitement of not knowing disappeared. Key Takeaways Not knowing can be a creative doorway. Some of the most transformative moments arise precisely because no one planned them.Rest, dream states, and creativity meet in the liminal space. Drawing or writing upon waking can "translate" what we experience there.Handwriting is an embodied learning practice. Research by Audrey van der Meer shows it produces widespread brain connectivity that typing does not.Low-stakes experiments calm the demand for sharpness and let other parts of ourselves come free. Examples are drawing with crayons,  drawing with the non-dominant hand, and closing your eyes while the pencil moves.  Resources  Study: "Handwriting but not typewriting leads to widespread brain connectivity" by Audrey van der Meer:  https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1219945/full?xcod=organichQwK21wXxRhQwK21wXxRhQwK21wXxRhQwK21wXxR Dr. Chanti's Upcoming Offerings Archetypes of Artistry — Summer Art Course: https://www.yantrawisdom.com/workshops/2026archetypesMyths of Rest, Sleep and Dream — In person, Santa Fe: https://www.yantrawisdom.com/workshops/fallmythMaking Monster — Fall Virtual Creative Container: https://www.yantrawisdom.com/workshops/monster Find Dr. Chanti Website: https://www.artesvida.comInstagram: @art.es.vida Connect with Elizabeth Curious about 1:1 coaching? Learn more: https://www.thecalmingground.com/inner-compassEmail: elizabethmintun@thecalmingground.comFacebook & Instagram: @thecalmingground If this conversation opened something in you, subscribe and share it with someone!

4.9
out of 5
18 Ratings

About

This podcast offers a space for busy people to go to for inspiration, wisdom, to learn from one another's struggles and transformations, as well as to receive actionable steps to relax, gain confidence, and move forward with the life they long to experience.

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