Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele Taraba

Gissele Taraba
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Love and Compassion Podcast-Where Gissele talks with everyday exceptional people who have overcome adversities and have wisdom to share.

  1. 5D AGO

    Ep. 86 – Loving All Aspects of Ourselves with Rashi Nayar

    TRANSCRIPT Gissele: Hello, and welcome to the Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. Today we’re talking with Rashi Nayar, and she’s on a mission to shift humanity from lower states of consciousness to higher states of consciousness. Gissele: I’m so, so excited to talk to her today. We’re gonna have a great conversation and she’s gonna do a practice with me. Maybe you can tag along as well. So welcome Rashi. Hi Gissele: Rashi. Rashi: Hi Gissele. Rashi: I’m so honored to be here with you. Gissele: Oh, thank you so much for being on the show. I’m really looking forward to it. Gissele: What led you to be on this mission to increase the consciousness of humanity? Rashi: My own path to increasing my own consciousness, you know, to operate from higher states of consciousness, which is peace, joy, and love. You know, these are actually who we are and we explore that more as we go along. Rashi: But I was very depressed for 18 years of my life, you know, since [00:01:00] 2007 when I lost my dog and in a car accident. And that was the first time I had experienced unconditional love that way, you know, someone loved me for who I am, not for, I had to prove myself or I had to perform. I had to be someone. Rashi: I could just be whatever. And he loved me that way, right? And it’s very beautiful to get that type of love from someone in that way. And when I lost him, he was only two years old and he met with a car accident and he died in my arms. But that was like it was like an opening. And it was like my heart broke for the very first time. Rashi: I had never experienced something like that before and I was grieving, but that was the first time I started asking questions like, who am I? Why am I here? What’s our true purpose? What is God? What is enlightenment? You know, all of that. Because what my soul was longing for was to connect back to that unconditional love that I had experienced from him. Rashi: But I didn’t know, [00:02:00] I was always looking outside, you know, outside myself. And I entered toxic relationships because I thought that other people were gonna give that to me. I was very disappointed and I was very depressed. I wasn’t chronically depressed. I was depressed, but I was also living in a low, low grade anxiety for a very, like, very long time until 2025. Rashi: This year when I lost another family member, I lost my aunt to ms. So that episode really shook me to the core and it forced me to sit in stillness with just with myself. Like no more reading books, no more going outwards, right? Because that’s what I always did. I would go to a spiritual retreat. Rashi: I would, you know, go outwards, read books, do therapies, you know, do coaching. I did a lot of work, technically a lot of healing work, and maybe that was required, but. Nothing really significantly changed. You know, I was still the same. I was [00:03:00] still living with low grade anxiety and I was still the same. And but this time I went inwards and I connected with the part of myself that is infinite, that is peaceful, that is love. Rashi: And I realized that everything that I thought about myself or the identity that was caring was actually not who I truly was or not, or not who I am. The identities or the masks that I was wearing, you know, the mom, the entrepreneur, and the aunt and the friend, all of those were really masks and identities that I was carrying. Rashi: But who I truly am, my most authentic self is actually free already. She’s already free. And it’s not even a, she, I wouldn’t even, we cannot really label, right? It’s, it’s. The vast infinite being that we are is inherently peaceful. Is [00:04:00] inherently open. Infinitely joyful. Infinitely blissful and loving. Rashi: Compassionate. That peaceful, that’s who we are inherently. And I, stayed in that high, right? Let’s just say I was in those higher states of consciousness for three days straight and I was floating. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Rashi: Yeah. I was so high. But then came the day I went down, the anxiety was back again, and I was like, wait, I thought I was enlightened. Gissele: I did it. What happened? Rashi: But that is what what’s supposed to happen, because now. I could see the contrast, right? I had experienced something so profound, and now there’s the contrast or the lower states of consciousness, which is fear, anxiety, lack. I was back, I was back in the fully humanness, you know, the human part of me, but [00:05:00] now my aunts, so she passed away and three days later she, she was in my head, she kept telling me, Rashi, love yourself. Rashi: Rashi, love yourself rash. It’s like, it was constant. And I realized that I didn’t love the parts of me that were so-called dark or negative. I was trying to get rid of anxiety. I was trying to get rid of the darkness, right? I was trying to resist whatever I was experiencing in the moment, and that was profound because now my only job is to love myself unconditionally. Rashi: In all parts of myself, the shadows they call it in the psychology. But I realized that the parts that I’m trying to get rid of, the anxiety, the so-called depression, the low level depression that I was constantly feeling the numbness or the sometimes of sometimes just sadness, [00:06:00] like it would just come up. Rashi: What if I fell in love with those parts of myself? Then what would happen? And that became the journey that became the practice. And when I did that, I no longer resisted those. So it was just the experience and me in love with whatever what is right, whatever the experience is. And now I’m whole, now I’m not broken, you know, there’s some, nothing’s wrong with me. Rashi: You know, and that was the narrative that I lived with for 18 years. If something is wrong with me, I need to be fixed. I need the healing, I need the therapy. But really there is nothing inherently is wrong with me. We all experienced this human side of things and what if I fell in love with the humanness, Rashi: And that’s why the being that I experienced, so in those three days when I experienced the so-called enlightenment or the awakening, it was when I touched my being. And our being is inherently free. We who we are, our [00:07:00] authenticity, we are inherently free. We are peaceful. And yet the human side of things or you know, how we grow up, our conditioning, our identity, our beliefs that we carry, all of that is there. Rashi: And that is the conditioning. So the constructed itself or the human is still there, but we cannot try to get rid of it. It’s like, you know, the snake leaves its skin. By its own. We cannot force the skin. We cannot rip the skin out of the snake, you know? So it’s going to happen only when we fully and completely fall in love with who we are in the humanness. Rashi: And that brings me back to that connection, to that love, to that peace that resides within all of us. So that’s in a nutshell, that that’s the story. That’s why I do what I do. Gissele: beautifully said. First I wanna go back to the, the loss of your dog as a person who had a dog. Gissele: Never wanted a dog to be honest, but we got one for a family and felt completely in love with the dog. And after [00:08:00] 13 years to have lost him. And I realize now that he had to go the way that he did. But he did teach me about unconditional love and patience and forgiveness and joy. And so the grief that you experience after having that can feel very overwhelming. And so where I was going with this question is, the human experience can feel so real, I have sat with some really difficult emotions it’s almost as if your mind tells you that something’s gonna happen something bad or you’re gonna die. Gissele: What do you say to people that say, you know, This is all we are because this is what we can concretely see and touch and experience. How do you go from that to understanding and embodying the fact that we are more than this reality? Rashi: Yes. Oh, that’s such an important question. Something that I live with almost every day. Rashi: You know, there’s this low grade anxiety that I still experience on a daily basis. [00:09:00] The only thing that’s different is I’m no longer resisting it. Gissele: Hmm. Rashi: So, you know, and we human beings, we are either, we’re only living in two A states at all time. We’re either to attach to the state that we want, which has happiness, joy, love, bliss, or we are resisting the lower states of consciousness, which is anxiety. Rashi: We’re really in, in these two states or all times. So it’s like when we get that love from the dog or the baby, you know, I have two babies, two little girls. And I’m like, I want it all the time. Right. So now there’s attachment, because if she says something like, I have a 4-year-old, which is a, she’s a very mischievous toddler. Rashi: Right. When you say something that can feel like hurtful. I mean, I don’t take her things seriously because I know better, but Gissele: yeah, Rashi: for someone else it could feel like, what, what would just happen? Like we were in love and now, or the, the spouse says something, right? Like, I have my husband who really triggers me, so he’s, he’s like my [00:10:00] best enemy, right? Rashi: Like he’s my favorite person, so mm-hmm. He says some things that can feel hurtful, and in the beginning it really used to bother me because I would resist those things. I would resist the experience of whatever’s happening in the moment, right? But now I lean into it, and that’s the difference when we are getting this anxiety or when we are getting something and the experience doesn’t feel pleasant. Rashi: The mind itself because the mind is like that. Mind wants to go navigate to

    54 min

  2. JAN 24

    Ep. 85 – Educating from the Inside Out: Leadership, Self-Worth, and Compassion with Deidre Harris

    TRANSCRIPT Gissele: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. Gissele: Today we’ll be chatting with Deidre Harris, who is a national leadership in highly effective teams development trainer and coach. She supports educational programs looking to enhance their administrative staff’s leadership skills and their teaching teams levels of effectiveness. Gissele: Please join me in welcoming Deidre. Deidre: Hi. Gissele: Hi. Hello. Welcome to the show. Oh, Deidre: thank you for inviting me. Gissele: Oh, thank you so much for being here. This is definitely a topic of interest for me. I was wondering if you could tell the audience a little bit about how you got into this work. Deidre: Oh my gosh. To make a long story, very short that I’ve just been working in the education field for over 35 years [00:01:00] and through all of my very. Deidre: Various different positions. You know, leadership has just been coming up over and over and over again. And, and what does that look like? As a teacher working with children or as an assistant supporting that teacher or as a director or principal supporting staff. And so no matter what position I was in or what I was doing, leadership was just always, at the foundation of everything we did. So as I stepped out to do my own work, it just kept coming up more and more, and so I said, okay, there’s a need. Let me get out there and help to address it. Gissele: Wonderful. Wonderful. And what were some of the biggest leadership challenges you saw in the education system? Deidre: Well, gosh, I have to start with myself, Gissele right? So how did leadership show up in me? And a lot of times we kind of think about it and put it under the category of professionalism, but leadership. Actually goes [00:02:00] beyond professionalism to to be professional, to to show up with that hat, to do the work that you are hired to do in a manner that you know, that gives great outcomes for everybody. Deidre: That’s just one piece of it. When I go in and I talk about leadership, it’s really about mindset. And so I actually had to work on my own set. Who am I as a leader? And how do I get to show up in that leadership to, you know, to actually, again, get those outcomes that I’m looking for. And so, as I was, you know, as I started doing this work among myself, like I mentioned earlier, I started seeing it. Deidre: Elsewhere. And what I notice is that again, well, the biggest challenge, or the thing that I notice the most is everybody attributes leadership to a title. Gissele: Mm. Right? Mm-hmm. So yeah, you’re Deidre: either your administrator or like I said before. You’re a director or a principal or, you know, sit [00:03:00] somewhere where leadership is part of your, your title in the sense of authority. Deidre: And so that’s, I would say one of my, my biggest challenges and, and what I noticed and again, what’s, you know, motivated me to do this work because leadership, we’re all leaders. You know, regardless of our title, regardless of what we do, and because I have that belief, then going out there and helping people to see their leadership and then to start standing in their leadership, that’s, that’s been my ongoing challenge in work. Gissele: Hmm. Deidre: Yeah. Gissele: Thank you for that. Thank you. and I really appreciate that you said that you know, everyone or anyone is a leader, right? Including the children. And so as teachers who, step up into their own leadership can then model that for the kids themselves. But the school system isn’t always sort of designed that way. Gissele: Where leadership [00:04:00] can come from anywhere. It is at times designed in a very hierarchical, as many other systems that we have. How has the structure been sort of a little bit of a hindrance or help, around leadership? Deidre: Well, you know, I would say it’s definitely a hindrance or, a challenge, a barrier, and again, you nailed it. Deidre: The education field is very hierarchy driven. It’s very top down. We see that in our struggles with, being a teacher or wanting to be a teacher and having things. Put upon you that you have little to no control over and and hence some of the impact in terms of the severe teacher shortage that we’re in right now. Deidre: I mean, who wants to work under those demands. So absolutely. Going in and again, helping people to understand that when you take on and think about personal leadership, it takes you out of this space of feel, what I call victimhood [00:05:00] of feeling like, oh. I have no control, I have no influence. Deidre: I have no power. And really showing people just how much power they actually have, even when things are being put upon them. So how they address the situation, how do they stand up and use their voice? How do they actually go through and develop their skillsets? Those are things we all have Personal power. Deidre: Over and agency. And so therefore, we can stand in our leadership regardless of what’s going on around us. And in fact, when we’re truly grounded in our leadership, the outside world tends to impact us less. Meaning it’s not like things don’t happen, but our response, we tend to be more responsive and less reactive. Deidre: Yeah. Right. And, and ultimately that’s the goal. Gissele: And what you said is so, so important because I think you’re right. There’s times when we feel [00:06:00] helpless and so if you, if we really can reflect on where’s my power in this moment, even if it’s just in how I react to this particular experience, then we’ll feel more powerful then we feel like we’ll have more leadership Gissele: I just wanted to go back to your point about this this sort of shortage for teachers. Do you think that sort of the lack of funding or the lack of like, the amount of money that teachers are getting paid, it might be contributing? Because right now the cost of living seems to be not necessarily reflecting what people’s salaries are. Deidre: Absolutely Deidre: So wages and salaries are certainly part of that. And also, I mean, there’s a disparity even within the education field. So if you’re if you are part of a school district, then your salary tends to be higher. You have access to more resources. Including additional education that, you know, can be subsidized as well as benefits.[00:07:00] Deidre: But if you’re in early childhood, which is where I spend a lot of my time, where we’re working with teachers who are with infants, toddlers, and preschoolers, many of them are in community schools and don’t have the same system set up. So their wages, their benefits, their resources are even less. And yet the expectations for their education are the same and we know how ex. Deidre: Expensive it is for college, right. To get that degree. And so even in early education, you need to have a degree. So now we’re asking people to take on a lot of debt, right? Yeah. Because most of us, how many of us can afford paying for it outright? So we’re taking on a lot of debt and coming out with very low wages. Deidre: Which means that, I mean, just the cost of living, but those dreams like owning a house, right? Or you know, things like that, providing for your family get whittled way down because of the amount of debt that you’re already coming out with. [00:08:00] And so, absolutely, that has a lot to do with the field. And as I mentioned earlier, again, because a lot of things are so top down driven, they’re, a lot of things, again, I use the word put upon because it is directed by people sometimes outside of the field who Have little understanding or have an expectation of an outcome and say, this is what you know we want you to do and this is how you, we want you to do it. All of that decreases the, motivation for becoming a teacher because they actually have taken the art away from it, and I don’t think people see, you know, realize that teaching is both the science. Deidre: And in art. Mm-hmm. And so we can go in and deliver a curriculum and the curriculum is the science part, but how we do it when we do it to, you know, to what degree we do it, what strategies are we doing when that’s the art piece. And many times things are so [00:09:00] structured that the art goes away. It, it’s no longer fun. Gissele: Yeah. I completely agree Absolutely. Yeah. sometimes I think to myself, we kind of live in a topsy-turvy world, right? Like, think about the people that make millions of dollars. Not that we should take anything away from people to play, football and movie stars Gissele: Wonderful. You know, you’re allowed your abundance, but important roles such as teaching and nursing they’re paid such, such a base level and it just doesn’t work. And we’re kind of in an interesting time. Gissele: I see it because we kind of have this gap. there was the baby boomers and people of my generation and even younger that kind of got sold a bag of goods, right? and it sort of worked for us during our time you could go to a good school, graduate, get a good job, get all the things that you thought you were going to get, but the new generation. Gissele: Even if they graduate, they come out with huge debt. They don’t have jobs that are going to pay them because some of these companies now are just wanting to not pay [00:10:00] benefits, not just give what people deserve. Mm-hmm. And so then you see this new generation that is like, I’m out. Gissele: Yes. I’m gonna live off grid. I’m gonna make money on social media. I’m just not gonna do those things. Yes. And so something’s gonna have to change, right? Like, I think we’re gonna have to prioritize. These sorts of positions and go back to the art and go back to the acknowledging the value t

    44 min

  3. JAN 17

    Love Without End: Animals, Mental Illness, and Life Beyond Death with Rebecca Schaper

    Gissele: [00:00:00] With Martin Luther King, Jr Wright, does love have the power to turn an enemy into a friend? Gissele: Does it have the power to heal? we’re creating an inspiring documentary, courage to love the Power of Compassion, which explores their extraordinary stories of those who have chosen to do the unthinkable, love and forgive even those who are most hurtful. Through their journeys, we will uncover the profound impact of forgiveness and love. Gissele: Have not only of those offering it, but also on those receiving it.  In addition, we’ll hear from experts who will explore whether love and compassion are part of our human nature. And how we can bridge divides with those with disagree with. If you’d like to support our film, please donate a www M-A-I-T-R-I-C-E-N-T-R e.com/documentary. Gissele: That’s maitricentre.com/documentary. Hello and welcome to the Love and Compassion [00:01:00] Podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. Today we’re talking about how love binds us with others, including those of crossed over. Gissele: We’ll be talking with Rebecca Schaper about communicating with animals on the other side after the sudden and unexpected passing of Rebecca Schaper dog’s. Gus. She consulted animal communicator Sonny Mann, beginning a lengthy and revealing correspondence. Gissele: Sonny reported her dialogue with Gus in the afterlife at various times throughout the next year. This moving story includes the transcripts of those psychic sessions, along with Rebecca’s notes from her daily journal as she responds to both the earthly and spiritual guidance from Gus. His spirit describes his life in both worlds. Gissele: He urges her to embrace fully her life contract as a Shamaic practitioner and healer. Please join me in [00:02:00] welcoming Rebecca. Gissele: Hi, Rebecca. Hi. Rebecca: Thank you so much for having me. I’m looking forward to this wonderful conversation. Gissele: Thank you so much for being on the show. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about how you started this journey of, communicating with Gus on the other side. Rebecca: Sure. 2023. My dog Gus died unexpectedly on December 7th. Mm-hmm. he was six years old. He was my co-pilot. He was definitely my soul dog. It was as though we knew each other in the past life and we communicated to each other telepathically, and of course it broke my heart wide open. To the point where I was worse than losing my parents by suicide and. Rebecca: I’ve never felt grief like that in my life. So in January of [00:03:00] 2024, which was a month after he had passed away, I decided to reach out to a pet communicator because I knew I needed help. and I knew I could not do this on my own. Normally, I can work through situations. I’ve had some real trauma in my life, which I’m grateful for. Rebecca: because it’s definitely led me to a lot of love and compassion like your show. But I knew at this point I definitely needed help. So I communicated with Sonny, asked her if she’d be willing to communicate with my dog, Guss. And what she would do is she would, go into some type of trance is the correct. Rebecca: Word to use, but she was just able to have that strong telepathic connection and she would ask him questions. And then after she was done, I mean it wore her out. She told me, she said, it’s [00:04:00] very taxing on the body. And so after she was done with that first session. I was blown away with what, with what the information she had told me. Rebecca: And so fast forward, we had 10 sessions, so she would transcribe ’em to me because she lived in Australia and the time zone was difficult. And a couple of times we chatted with each other and then I would journal my comments to the comments between Gus and Sonny this book is a three way conversation and so there you go. Rebecca: And it, she was really able to provide a lot of healing for me. And Gissele: what were some of the messages thatwere unique to you in Gus’s experience that most people wouldn’t have known? Rebecca: Yes, I will definitely share a few. One of ’em was she saw the word beck [00:05:00] and Gus said, that’s my mom, Beck, her brother David calls her Beck and. Rebecca: There’s no way that Sonny would’ve known that. I mean, there’s just no way. Because he was communicating to her. He said, yes, that’s my mom. Beck, her brother David calls her back. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Rebecca: And then another one, which I felt was really profound. We hiked to Machu Picchu and the day one of the days was on my husband’s and i’s anniversary and I had to look down and there was, I wish I had it with me, but I think it’s on the altar table, Rebecca: it had a heart shaped stone. And I thought, oh my God, on that anniversary, how beautiful. So I kept it with me. Fast forward after Gus had passed away, I was sitting outside [00:06:00] and I was doing some meditation and just kind of working through, Rebecca: really tapping into the stone and some other stones I collected accidentally dropped the heart stone and it broken three pieces. Hmm. And I thought to myself, oh my gosh, is this a sign saying that my heart is broken? Of Gus. So I was devastated. Rebecca: The next day, I walked down, I go to this fire pit’s made outta stone and Guss and my daughter’s dog, Stella would always get on top of that fire pit and they would walk around it and try to find chipmunks. So this was like, you know, a constant thing. So anyway, I would go and put my bird seed on top of the rim of the fire pit so I could feed the birds. And I just happened to look down and there was a heart stone, almost the same shape and size. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Rebecca: And, to me I [00:07:00] was like, that. So profound and so stunning and it just warmed my heart completely. And, another one, I’m at my beach house now. Rebecca: We have this area where you can look out over the marsh, and he would always be with me in a red chair is a cushion. And he talked about the red chair and the fire pit looking out over the marsh to her. Mm-hmm. So there’s many more, but that’s what comes to the forefront to me as of now. Gissele: Were there any messages from Sonny and Gus around the relationship between human beings and animals and even the connection and nature that we might have lost? Rebecca: Oh, most definitely. Rebecca: I felt like Gus was trying to communicate, saying they always want to be with you. Gissele: Hmm. Always. Rebecca: they’re always there, They definitely can talk to [00:08:00] you. even the most subtle ways. They speak to you, they can speak to you through songs, which Gus used to speak to me through songs. Rebecca: There’s one of my favorite songs over the Rainbow. And they were unbelievable synchronicities when that song would come on when I was grieving. Mm-hmm. And I knew that was him. They communicate through numbers, they communicate, they can communicate in so many ways. One of the key factors is, is being aware of it Rebecca: It’s to me. It has opened my eyes wide open to whole different realms of communication and not just dogs, cats, any type of animal in nature. Rebecca: ’cause I am very much in tune with nature and they are here to help us. We just have to open up our hearts. [00:09:00] Open up our hearts and listen. trust is a big issue. And one other thing every time I would get a message that I knew intuitively, I knew that was something from Gus. Rebecca: I felt it in my body. I would always say thank you. I would. Be very heartfelt in saying thank you because it’s a gift. Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. It’s amazing how we’ve been taught that we are separate from animals and that there’s this hierarchy. Gissele: And so it probably is challenging for people to. To understand or believe that they can communicate with animals. there’s not this hierarchy that somehow human beings know better. Do you believe that people sort of have a contract or agreement even with their animals before they incarnate? Rebecca: Absolutely. Absolutely. I know I did with Gus and now we have a new dog, [00:10:00] Zeke. Gissele: Hmm. Rebecca: And he is from the same breed and from the same breeder, and how synchronicity led up to that. And he’s into my life for a reason as well. Mm. There is no doubt in my mind. I mean, I think about animals. You think about your family. Rebecca: I believe is a contract. Rebecca: if people will look for the lessons and the connection, or even if you’re out and about and you see somewhere and you’re like, God, that energy feels very similar. I feel like I know that person. Rebecca: That could be. A contract soul connection, but you just may not know at that time. Gissele: Yeah. is there some specific practices that you use to help you get in tune? Because sometimes our own emotions can get in the way. Gissele: I lost my dog last November and. I’m very, very grateful for the lessons and the being that he was. Gissele: But I also miss him a lot. [00:11:00] And I know my kids are eager to get another dog, but I’m just like, Gissele: It’s not the right time and I don’t want another dog. I want my dog back. Which is, can we pause Yeah. Rebecca: if you put that intention out Gissele: mm-hmm. Rebecca: Ask your dog. You can have your dog reincarnate and soul dog a new dog, but you’ll know. Gissele: True. Rebecca: you’ll know if you’re supposed to, and that dog, I promise, if you’re open and expanded to it and ask, it will happen. Gissele: my challenge Rebecca is, I also don’t wanna be the type of person that would hold back another soul for my own ego needs, right? Like my dog’s time with me was very, very special and he taught me so much. Gissele: But maybe his journey is to go on and do something else. Like I would never want to hold another soul

    35 min

  4. 12/08/2025

    Ep. 82 – Transforming Grief Into Love with Barry Adkins

    TRANSCRIPT Gissele: Hello and welcome to the Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. Today we’re talking with Barry Adkins after losing his 18-year-old son, Kevin, to alcohol poisoning. Barry saw that he had two choices. He could curl up in the corner and allow himself to become a victim, or he could get out and tell as many people as possible about what happened to his son, Kevin. Barry chose the latter in an effort to raise awareness of the dangers of binge drinking. Barry set out on an Epic 1400 mile journey on foot from Arizona to Montana. His son’s ashes in his backpack, stopping at numerous schools, churches in treatment facilities along the way to share his story. Larry’s presentation describes in powerful detail the night his son died.[00:01:00] The quiet morning that he got the knock on the door and how he came up with the idea to walk from Arizona to Montana.Barry’s message is both powerful inspiration and a warning about the consequences of even one night of binge drinking. Barry has shared his story with over 200,000 students and parents. He has been a featured speaker at numerous high schools, community events, and town hall meetings. Barry has also been featured in numerous media outlets, including Reader’s Digest, the Dr. Gina Show and the Leon Fonte Show. Please join me in welcoming Barry. Hi Barry. Barry: Oh, thanks for having me on. Gissele Gissele: Ah, thank you for being on the show. I was wondering if you could share with the audience a little bit about the story of your son’s passing and how that led you to actually decide to become this powerful messenger on the dangers of pitch drinking. Barry: Well, Gissele, I probably should start by kind of telling you, you know, what led up to that. [00:02:00] Yeah, let’s start with that. So he had just graduated from high school. He struggled in high school. He was actually flunking his English class in March of his senior year in high school. And he needed it for graduation, right? Mm-hmm. And I would always talk to him about it and, you know, he would tell me to quit bothering him about it. He’d take care of it. But at the end of the day, he did graduate, and I remember at his high school graduation ceremony, he gave me a hug and whispered, thanks for not giving up on me, dad. Gissele: Hmm. Barry: And shortly thereafter suffice to say he saved up enough money and I agree to co-sign a loan so he could buy a new truck. And if you have listeners that work at dealerships, I apologize, but I have a healthy dislike for that process, right? Mm-hmm. Because they’re gonna try to sell me something I don’t want or need. He found one of the dealerships, so I gotta go in and sign papers, right? Gissele: Mm-hmm. I Barry: sit down in the, the dealerships. You know, in their [00:03:00] office, and the first thing this guy says to me is, how about some life insurance? And I’m like, 18-year-old boys don’t need life insurance. They don’t die. But I was wrong. They do die. He wouldn’t live long enough to make a single payment on that truck. So a few weeks later. I remember him sitting down in our living room and talking about how he couldn’t believe his life was finally beginning and he wanted to move out, and I did my best to discourage him because we honestly never really had any problems with him. His high school principal didn’t even know who he was. I didn’t have any luck talking out of it. So a couple weeks later, his buddy Craig came over and they started moving him out. You know, he’s 18 years old. His definition of moving out was throwing a bed, a tv, and a dresser in the back of his truck. Mm-hmm. I remember him coming back in and he came into the living room and he said something I’ll never forget. He said he wasn’t [00:04:00] gonna take his toothbrush with him. He’d be back tomorrow and grab it. I walked out front with him like I normally do, gave him a hug, told him that, be careful, and I loved him and watched him drive away. It was the last time I saw him alive that night. His friends decided to throw a house warming party for him. Started with a keg of beer and moved on to shots. He left a voicemail for his sister that night talking about how much fun they were having and how drunk he was. After he left that voicemail, he passed out his friends laid him in his bed on his side in case he vomited, but the party was still going on. They actually went in and shaved his head and his legs while he was passed out because he’s just passed out, right? Gissele: Yeah. But Barry: his buddy Craig, was worried about him, kept going back into check on him around 4:00 AM calls started coming into 9 1 1. First calls were difficulty [00:05:00] breathing. Next calls. Not breathing. My son died alone in a hospital. Well, I slept peacefully in my bed. The next morning was Sunday morning. My wife and I are sitting around talking about what we’re not gonna do that day or do that day. Eight 30 in the morning. The doorbell rings. And we’re looking at each other because we weren’t expecting company. And I open the door and I see two police officers and somebody in plain clothes at my front door. Should have been a big red flag, right? It should have been, but I’m that guy. It didn’t even occur to me, Gissele, that something bad had happened. I actually joked with them as they came in thinking this had to have something to do with a dog or a parked car, but they didn’t laugh at any of my jokes. One of the officers in the plain clothes stayed at the front door. The other officer walked in and stood in front of the chair that Kevin had sat in [00:06:00] two weeks before and talked about how his life was finally beginning. He said There had been an accident and your son is dead. We asked who, because we have a number of children, they said it was Kevin and they handed me his driver’s license. Yeah, there is something pretty final about it when a police officer hands you your child’s driver’s license because until that exact moment in time, you’re holding out hope that this is all a big mistake. You’ve misspelled the last name, but once they hand you, your child’s driver’s license, you know he is gone and he is never coming back. Gissele: That must have been so devastating. Barry: Yeah, people say it’s impossible to know what it feels like to lose a child, and they’re right until it happens to [00:07:00] you. It’s a life changing event. There’s no two ways about that. Mm-hmm. Gissele: And so what was the journey between hearing that your son had died to one, you had determined to spread the message to save the lives of other young people. Barry: Well, I’ll tell you a little bit about the process. Honestly, I was angry with God and I told him so I simply didn’t understand why  a kind God would. You know, let my son die. And I tried to bargain with him and said, Hey, back up time, you’re God, take me, let him live. And I don’t think, as a parent, I’m unusual. That’s not, I don’t think that would be an unusual thought for anybody. Right? Gissele: No. Barry: But a couple days later, I had another life changing event. This is a little bit difficult for me to describe, but I’ll do my best. I was [00:08:00] laying in bed, it was about four o’clock in the morning and I was awake, and I just had this sense that someone had just came in the room, you know? Yeah. You have that feeling. Did somebody just walk in behind me or something? And then there was a light. A light I’ve never seen before and I haven’t seen since, and there was a message, and the message was that he didn’t suffer. And something very good would come from this. And I didn’t get a chance to say anything. it’s not words you hear, it’s just things, you know. I, it’s really Gissele: mm-hmm. Barry: I’m not a seance guy or anything like that. I just, that’s what happened. And I’m not here to tell everybody that that made everything okay. ’cause it didn’t. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Barry: But it gave me a mission. Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. Barry: Right. And then we had to go pick up his [00:09:00] ashes. I remember going down to pick up his ashes and I walked in, you know, into a funeral home. They’ve got, you know, pictures on the wall and they’re playing music in the background. They take me into an office, sit me down in a big comfortable chair, or the desk in front of me. The funeral director walks in. Sets an urn down in front of me, an urn that held all the remain of the kid that I burped. I changed his diapers. I coached all kinds of different sports. I taught him to shoot a gun, swing, a golf club. All the remains of him were sitting in an urn in front of me. And at that moment I knew one thing, and that was that I didn’t want to be a victim. Because the world doesn’t need any more victims. We’ve got plenty already. The world needs people who take something bad and they make something good come from it. Gissele: This [00:10:00] might be a difficult question, so you can skip it if you want to, but what was your wife’s reaction like? Barry: that’s another part about grief. Right. She has been incredibly supportive of everything. Yeah. Was she terrified when I said I wanted to walk to Montana? Yes, we both were, but I knew. That’s what I wanted to do and. I had a lot of people try to talk me out of it. Gissele, right? Well-meaning people that I think they were afraid I was gonna fail. and you get that right? Yeah. Who do you think you are? Right? That’s a long ways of walk. But I had another guy that I talked to that said something that kind of sealed the deal. I really wasn’t gonna get talked out of it, but he said, well, how do you think you’d feel about it in 10 years if you don’t do it? Gis

    48 min

  5. 12/03/2025

    Ep. 81 – Why We Feel “Not Good Enough” with Sabrina Trobak

    TRANSCRIPT video1290704010 Gissele : [00:00:00] Was Martin Luther King Jr. Right? Does love have the power to turn an enemy into a friend? Does it have the power to heal? We are creating an inspiring documentary called Courage to Love. The Power of Compassion explores the extraordinary stories of individuals who have chosen to do the unthinkable, love and forgive even those who have caused the most deep harm. Through their journeys, we will uncover the profound impact of forgiveness and love, not only on those offering it, but also on those receiving it. In addition, we’ll hear from experts who will explore whether loving compassion are part of our human nature and how we can bridge divides with those we disagree with. If you’d like to support our film, please donate at www MAI tt R-I-C-E-N-T-R e.com/documentary. [00:01:00] Hello and welcome to The Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. Today we’re talking about not feeling good enough and what we can do to start feeling better. Our guest today is Sabrina Trobak Based out of Fort St. John BC Canada is a registered clinical counselor and author of the book, not Good enough, understanding Your Core Belief in Anxiety. She’s also a clinical supervisor, public speaker, and holds a master’s degree in counseling psychology. Before establishing her practice, she dedicated over 20 years to education, serving as a teacher, vice principal, school counselor across three school divisions. Sabrina, has extensive training in addressing trauma in its effects on daily life, [00:02:00] including anxiety and the core beliefs. Of not being good enough, not important, not valued. Her counseling agency Trobak. Holistic counseling aims to help individuals identify, challenge, and transform these core beliefs into being good enough, important enough, and value. Please join me in welcoming Sabrina. Hi, Sabrina. Sabrina: Hi. Nice to be here. It’s nice to meet you. Gissele : Oh, nice to meet you too. Thank you for being on the show. I was wondering if you could start by telling the audience what sort of led you to do this sort of work? Sabrina: I always wanted to be a teacher, you know, even in kindergarten, I was the kindergartner helper that helped other kids tie their shoes. Just was always something I wanted to do is be a teacher. Towards the end of my teaching career, I was a school counselor. And even as a teacher, I was a learning assistant teacher, so I did a lot of work in smaller groups, working more individually with students. So you get [00:03:00] to create a much deeper connection because you’re working one-on-one as opposed to a class size of, you know, 25, 30, 35, whatever it might be. And so then I went into counseling. Same thing. You really get to build that relationship. And then I went to a workshop on suicide. That was looking at suicide, more of a symptom of that core belief. Feeling not good enough. Not important, not valued. At the end of the workshop, I just thought, this is what I need to do. So the presenter, Tony Martins taught me his model of therapy. I quit teaching and started my own private practice, which really uses that as the focus point. So really going back and helping people understand and support and challenge that core belief. I started my own private practice in 2010. And within about six months I had a waiting list and I hated having to turn people away. The model I practice where we’re really addressing that core belief is a long-term model of [00:04:00] therapy. So a lot of my clients are with me a year and a half, two years, sometimes even longer. And so I decided to write the book not good enough as a way to provide a resource for people who can access counseling for whatever reason. Gissele : That’s beautiful. Thank you. And reflecting on your teaching experience, did you find that students were suffering from not feeling good enough? And do you think that’s changed? Sabrina: Students, teachers, parents, administration, support staff? Yeah, it’s kind of a worldwide thing. You know, I think it’s been there for a really long time. I think what we’re seeing a difference in is. People are talking more about mental health. So rather it being this thing that we just kept down and suppressed and pretended wasn’t an issue. Now we’re talking about it and the problem with that is we don’t necessarily know what to do with it now that we’re talking about it. So it seems like it’s kind of imploding all over the place. But you know, I think it’s been going on forever and [00:05:00] ever, and ever and ever. In fact, your core belief develops based on your parents’ core belief. If your parents’ core belief was not good enough, not important, not valued, they can’t really teach you anything else. So that means that was that generation. Well, where did they get it from? Their generation, and it just kind of goes on and on and on and on. Gissele : I really appreciated that you said that. ’cause that has been my experience that we are just now vocalizing the fact that we have these feelings. And to some people it’s like, we didn’t have these things before. That’s just simply not true. It’s just that now it’s feeling safer to talk about it. We want to address the issues and want to understand where this sort of came from. I wanted to really. Touch on the concept of not good enough. Because at least in my experience, I wasn’t that sort of person that criticized themselves. I didn’t say call myself a loser. My not good enough actually showed up in a very different way, in a [00:06:00] very covert way. I would say in terms of limiting my dreams or really negative thinking in terms of like catastrophizing.  how does not feeling good enough show in different people? is there specific patterns or is it just very different depending on the person? Sabrina: I think the main pattern is it holds you back. it doesn’t allow you to feel content, feel peaceful, feel confident. That would be a common pattern, but what that can look like can vary significantly. Also, the degree of your core belief can play a significant role as well. You might be feeling, you know, actually pretty good enough, important and valued just once in a while. That not good enough, not important, not value comes up. All the way to the other where really everything, every thought you have is reinforcing and supporting that not good enough, not important, not valued. So it can look like a variety of different ways. We get clients who come into counseling for all kinds of different things. [00:07:00] Relationship issues, anxiety, depression. They can’t really sleep. They’re having nightmares. Pornography gambling, alcohol, drugs, cheating, lying you name it, all kinds of different things. What we say is. These aren’t really the problem. These are the symptoms of that core belief. If your core belief is not good enough, not important, not valued, you need to distract, but you’re gonna be going to things that allow you to distract that ultimately end up reinforcing that core belief because it gives you something to beat yourself up over. Hmm. So it can look like a variety of different behaviors For sure. Gissele : Do you ever see people with like health issues? Sabrina: Oh, all the time, for sure. Mm-hmm. Stomach issues, headaches, sore aches and pains. What happens when with that core belief not good enough? it creates a lot of self-doubt and insecurity. Anxiety is lack of [00:08:00] confidence. Not believing in yourself. You can handle something. A lot of people think anxiety is about the trigger, right? I have anxiety of driving on the highway. If it really was about driving on the highway, then no one would be driving on the highway. So it’s not about that. It’s about my belief and my ability to handle it. So if I believe I can handle driving on the highway, I’m not gonna have anxiety. If I can’t, I believe I can’t handle it. I will have anxiety. So that anxiety, that self-doubt, every time we go into anxiety, that fight, flight, freeze, adrenaline gets dumped into our body. That gives us that boost of energy to fight or to run away. But if I’m creating all of this anxiety in my head through my own thoughts, or it’s creating a sense of danger, I think I’m in danger, but I’m not really in danger. It’s the catastrophizing thoughts, the negative thoughts, the beating yourself up, the what if scenarios. Every time you go into that fight, flight, freeze, that adrenaline, that energy has to come from somewhere.[00:09:00] So what happens is it zaps all of our non-vital organs. Stomach, bladder, pancreas, kidney, liver, skin all of our non-vital organs get zap of energy. So if you have really high anxiety where you’re going into this fight, flight, freeze response, hundreds of times a day, you are going to see a physical impact. Absolutely. You know, if your stomach is being zapped a hundred times a day, don’t expect it to digest food properly. That’s, it’s just not gonna work. Gissele : Oh, thank you for that. I really appreciate that. That also got me to think about my experiences with trust.  I used to have huge trust issues ’cause I was raised with like, my parents also had views and trauma and, it was when I realized that I didn’t trust myself to deal with people’s betrayal, not necessarily trusting the other people, that things shifted for me. It was me realizing that it was like, oh, this is about me. This isn’t about them. And their behavior, whatever they choose to do, is [00:10:00] entirely up to them. if they choose to betray me, well then that’s their choice. But it was about me. What are some things that can help someone become more aware of whether or not. They’re not feeling good enough. Sabri

    50 min

  6. 11/23/2025

    Ep. 80 – From Shame to Strength: Women’s Health, Pelvic Power & Compassionate Weight Loss with Krysti Beckett

    TRANSCRIPT Gissele : [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele.  We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. Today we’re talking to Krysti Beckett, who’s a passionate plus size personal trainer and pelvic fitness specialist. Her goal is to get moms to move with confidence and build strength at any size without worrying about their size or weight. Krysti resides in Burford, Ontario with her husband, three children and beloved dog Ozzy. Please join me in welcoming Krysti Hi Krysti. Krysti Beckett: Hi. Thanks so much for having me. Gissele : No, thank you for being with us. I wanted to ask you if you could tell the audience how you got started in this business that you’re in. Krysti Beckett: Yeah, I mean, as a young person, fitness was not [00:01:00] really on my radar. I’ve been a plus size my whole life, but I actually was a nanny in my early twenties and one of the women I was a nanny for had a fitness business and she said, you know, you’d be really good at this. So I kind of started doing admin work and then I got certified as an instructor and really like, found movement that I liked. ’cause I think for a lot of women I grew up. Just doing fitness, like you exercise to be skinny. And it had to be hard and it had to be uncomfortable. But I kind of fell in love with it, trying different things and decided that that was the career path I would take. So I became a personal trainer and I kind of did follow the grain for a long time with the fitness industry and selling weight loss and teaching people how to basically always be on the journey to lose weight And then I kind of understood and, and saw some research that showed that [00:02:00] most diets are actually designed to fail. That’s how we make our money. And started to learn more about. The benefits of strength training for longevity to relieve pain. the benefits for your bones, all sorts of things that have nothing to do with the scale whatsoever. And through that, also becoming a mother at the, around the same time learning about pelvic health. So as a pelvic fitness specialist, I’m working with women to overcome things like pain, leaking, painful sex something called prolapse, where your pelvic floor, if it’s not supportive enough, the organs can actually descend from your body. And it’s actually fairly common, but it’s, it’s something we just don’t talk about enough. Gissele : Mm mm I love everything you just said. Krysti Beckett: Thanks. Gissele : The first thing is really that, you know, reflecting on as a society we’re very plus size phobic, right? Like we, we think that skinny is the place to [00:03:00] be in. When you think about. You know how much we try to get everyone to fit in a box, right? Even like plastic surgery, everything. Everybody has the same nose, everybody has the same face, everybody has to have the same body, and that is such a disservice. What sort of messaging did you see around the fitness industry about people embracing their own sort of like body shape? Krysti Beckett: So unfortunately, I think the industry as a whole doesn’t, if you were to Google Fitness, if you were to Google Gym, you’ll find young, white, thin bodies.  that’s the general representation that comes to the fitness industry. But it’s interesting because first of all, we white people, I mean, I’m a white person. We are the global minority. It’s people of color, the global majority, and yet this [00:04:00] industry has only reflected that in, you know, visually especially it’s become an aesthetic rather than about health. There are certainly other professionals like myself that serve as health at any size or fitness at any size, but there’s comparatively very few of us. Gissele : Hmm. You just got to triggering in my head, when I think about fitness and I think about what you were just talking about, I envision sort of the Lululemon. Yes. Even like yoga has sort of been sort of taking over. ’cause yo yoga’s supposed to be a spiritual practice as well as a physical one. Krysti Beckett: Mm-hmm. Gissele : Right? But then you, and then I’m not trying to judge the Lululemon wearing. Yoga people. It’s just that, you know, I sort of envisioning how everyone’s trying to fit that mold. And if you don’t have workout gear, that makes you look acceptable. I was one of [00:05:00] those, I never had workout gear that would be presentable, right? I half the time didn’t remember to shave my legs And so, yeah, the messaging that people are receiving is that they’re not good enough, right? Krysti Beckett: A hundred, a hundred percent. And to tie in into what you just mentioned a lot of traditional practices that belong to other cultures. Like yoga have been whitewashed. And so there’s this, I can’t even think of the comedian’s name, but she is East Indian and she has this hilarious bit where she talks about like, if you are rushing to yoga, you are doing it wrong. The whole purpose of yoga is to slow down and restore yourself, and it’s something people do in their pajamas. But in our western culture, it’s people hustling to get to class and they’re taking their fancy yoga mat and they have to, like you said, the Lululemon [00:06:00] clothes. And it’s you know, on, on Instagram, especially when we see these influencers, they’re very thin. They’re wearing all the fancy gear and, and doing the very extreme poses, handstands and floating and, it’s incredible the things we can do with our bodies, but it’s also an, that’s an ableist perspective. Most of the population cannot move their body that way, could they? With training and display, I mean, it’s very possible, but for most people, that’s not what their bodies do, and that’s not necessarily what fitness looks like for them. Gissele : Yeah. And I was just contemplating on the fact that there have been now yoga studios that do drinking and yoga, right? Krysti Beckett: Oh yeah. Gissele : And so they do drinking and yoga, and then they do like the puppy and that, that’s all great. Like if that’s what you wanna do. But like you said, like, are we abiding by the true essence of [00:07:00] the practice? Right? Right. And are we creating environments that are. Open to different body shapes, different sizes, and let me know your thoughts about this, because I always thought these sorts of things are just a mirror of us, how we reject ourselves, right?  plastic surgery these are billions of dollars. So these are people that are realizing or thinking that they’re not enough, that they need to look a certain way. the diet industry is billions of dollars. Ozempic, I’m interested in all your thoughts. Krysti Beckett: Yeah. I, so to start off, culturally, we are people that expect instant everything. I mean, we no longer wonder or search for information in our brain. Like, what was that actor’s name again? Or what was that thing that happened last week in the news? We instantly can pull up our phones and we can get the [00:08:00] answer in seconds. And so when it comes to something like our bodies, everything takes time, everything. And so to expect that you can change your body, particularly in appearance instantaneously, is not realistic. And. Unfortunately, I think a lot of pressure is put on us. One of the ways that the diet indu industry really messes with our heads is before and after pictures. And though the intention maybe, and I did, I used them for a time as a personal trainer. The, the intention was to show if you put in the work, you will get results. But that’s not what it ends up doing. What it ends up doing is telling our brains, here’s a body ideal. Here’s what you have. It’s not enough, it’s not worthy. Here’s what you can [00:09:00] have that is worthy. You will be a better person. We will respect you more. We will see you as far more valuable if you have a smaller, more chiseled body. And with Ozempic it’s such a weird time for us. In the states, especially celebrities can market pharmaceuticals. So we have Gissele : mm-hmm. Krysti Beckett: These beautiful people Gissele : mm-hmm. Krysti Beckett: Who may or may not be using the drug being paid to market it. So using their influence in order to sell it. And I’ve had three clients that were on ozempic, two of them for diabetes but all three with the goal of weight loss. All three of them women in their fifties and no, maybe sixties have come off it because even though they did say it did help them reduce their eating, they found that they were always overeating and they were always thinking about food. They all reported low [00:10:00] energy and muscle loss. And no one is talking about this because especially after 50 perimenopause, when your estrogen drops, it is harder to keep your muscle, let alone, to grow it, to make more muscle. Mm-hmm. With ozempic. You are making it astronomically harder because it’s actually removing some of that muscle. And above and and above that there are other things that people are reporting. It’s hard, it’s hard to really know what the, the landscape is going to look like. Yeah. Over the next decade or two because it is so popular and seeing the effects. But every single medication out there, and I’m not knocking medication. I have used medication, you know that is a discussion between you and your doctor. But that discussion should always, always include the risks. And there are always risks to medication. You have to make that decision with your doctor. Is the risk worth it? Are [00:11:00] you going to get significant benefits to improve your health and your life? Right? But going on Ozempic because you saw a celebrity selling it because you think it’s going to solve all your problems with weight loss. I don’t know. I don’t know tha

    56 min

  7. 11/10/2025

    Ep.79 – Can We Be Trained To Be More Compassionate? Conversation with Dr. Olga Klimecki

    TRANSCRIPT Gissele: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content today. We’re wondering can we be trained to be more compassionate? And our guest today is Dr. Olga Klimecki who is a neuroscientist and a psychologist who earned her doctorate degree in the University of Zurich Olga’s, a psychologist and neuroscientist who’s interested in understanding the neural mechanisms that shape our social emotions in adaptive ways. Her doctoral research investigated neural behavior and emotional plasticity induced by training social emotions like compassion and empathy. The results of these longitudinal studies in adults provided evidence for the plasticity of social emotions spanning the levels of neural function, emotional resilience, and helping behavior are her current interests include meditation and [00:01:00] promoting conflict resolution through compassion. Please join me in welcoming the amazing Dr. Olga Klimecki. Hi Olga. Dr. Klimecki: Hi. Thank you for having me here. Thank you for the invitation. Gissele: Oh, thank you for being on the show. I’ve been a big fan of your work for a very, very long time. I was so excited when you published with Tanya Singer, your work on the difference between, empathetic distress and compassion and all of the work that you’re doing on aging. I mean, it’s just, it’s just phenomenal work. I was wondering if you could tell the listeners what actually got you started on your journey. Like, what drew you to study empathy and compassion? Dr. Klimecki: Yeah. Thank you for the question. it’s a longer journey. It’s started in my student years. I had a friend who was meditating and I found that idea of going to a place and being silent for a week. Very intriguing and I felt like trying it out myself. And so with my background [00:02:00] interest in psychology and in neuroscience, I finally found a PhD possibility where I could study not only. Psychological mechanisms and the brain, but also with a link to meditation, which I found very exciting. And even though in the beginning of my PhD I tried out different forms of socio-emotional training, including nonviolent communication and others, I was most drawn to the meditation indeed, which I started at the same time practicing meditation as I started investigating meditation. So That’s Gissele: beautiful Dr. Klimecki: background story. Yeah. Gissele: in terms of your research, how have you found that meditation has helped you  has your meditation practice helped you understand some of the findings Dr. Klimecki: Yeah, definitely. I think it’s really interwoven. Like sometimes I get ideas through the practice. Gissele: And also about the [00:03:00] limitations. And sometimes the research I read or I do also informs me about potential limitations. For instance, what I learned from the research, which something I cannot never learn from my own practice, is the diversity of responses in our different participants. Dr. Klimecki: So in the papers, we always report mean results, whereas the diversity of how people experience it. It’s very large. So in all our studies, there are people who improve, who get worse, who don’t change much. And working with the participants, I really got to hear their different stories, their different angles. And over time, I, because we all go through different stages in life, I also experienced some of these benefits. Sometimes I experienced some of the adverse effects of meditation and sometimes it doesn’t change my wellbeing or my daily life much so with time I, I feel like I’m getting to that diversity experience, for [00:04:00] instance. But I’ve, I’ve seen it in the research before and there were other things that I saw in my personal practice before and then I could research it. So, so it’s really a, a bit of an interwoven. Yeah, pattern. And for instance, what I found in my, own practice and something I haven’t really researched yet much, is that it’s really important to start in, in the meditation wherever you are at. Like, I I once tried to cultivate loving kindness and it was really hard for me. And when I, when I started at the place where I actually was emotionally, then it could, it could develop and evolve and, and flourish. But yeah, it’s, there are different starting paths. This is what I learned through my practice. Yeah. But it’s, it’s really interwoven. Gissele: I really appreciate the fact that you mentioned that compassion can sometimes can feel negative. I’ve also been on a long-term com meditation journey myself, and the expectation that it has to feel [00:05:00] good all of the time instead of acknowledging that sometimes difficult emotions will arise and, and to be able to sit with them was definitely something I had to learn. But I think that’s kind of the belief that meditation and even these practices like loving kindness are supposed to feel good, whereas sometimes it’s really hard to cultivate in the beginning. So, so I Dr. Klimecki: thank you for that. Yeah. Yeah. And something I, for instance, learned in the theory before I learned it in my own practice is that sometimes it’s not the time to meditate. Yeah. and so I knew this on an intellectual level, but I’ve been able to meditate for many, many years and then I had a period in my life that was particularly difficult and I even. With that knowledge in the back of my head, I could tell myself, okay, it’s fine if you, if you don’t meditate for a few weeks or months, it’s okay. It, it’s fine. Gissele: Yeah. Dr. Klimecki: Sometimes there are times like these, so it’s a diverse experience. Yeah. Gissele: Hmm. And I love that you do research on compassion, but you [00:06:00] also practice it for yourself because saying to yourself I’m meeting myself where I’m at is one of the most compassionate things you can do. And so you are living and researching compassion, which I think is so, so powerful. I was wondering if you could, for the audience, describe the difference between empathy and compassion. ’cause I think people use it interchangeably and you know, some of your research seems to indicate that there are differences. Dr. Klimecki: Yeah. So there are many different researchers who use very different definitions of empathy and compassion and so on. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Dr. Klimecki: And what I find useful is to basically dissociate them a little bit. So when we speak of empathy, we speak of the sharing of another person’s emotion, and it’s a kind of isomorphic sharing, which means it’s the same kind of emotion. So when I meet a friend and she’s happy, I can share her happiness. When I, sometimes I can even share the anger of a friend. I, I even experienced that there was a friend who was very angry at the, at the [00:07:00] system, and I could really share that anger at the system. So you can share a lot of emotions of other people knowing that the source of the emotion is the other person. This is called empathy. And then when we speak of compassion, we mean relating to another person’s suffering. So it’s very specific. It’s not for all emotions, but it’s for negative emotions relating to another person’s suffering with care and benevolence and with that wish to alleviate that suffering to contribute to an improvement for that person. So it’s really titling to that pro-social motivation. Gissele: One of the things that I discovered in your work is, so this is how I understood it, so correct me if I’m wrong is that empathy is more like the mirror neurons, like you’re mirroring their behavior. But whereas the compassion enables you to sort of, I use the boat analogy to stay on the boat and not drown with people to actually want to, to help people, but also [00:08:00] understand that if they’re not wanting your help, that that’s. Too. And so it, taps into a different area of the brain, like you were talking about more pro-social, that it extends that caring and love without the judgment. Because I teach social work students and we often talk about how sometimes when you’re in those helping professions, you wanna rescue people, you want to force your perspective on them and say, well, I know best, this is how it’s gonna help you. And then you tend to drown with them. What are your thoughts about about that difference? Am I on the right track or, Dr. Klimecki: yeah, yeah, I agree with that difference. That, so in empathy, what we see is that both, well meta-analysis of empathy for pain have shown certain areas in the brain activated, namely the. Anterior insular, which is the kind of interceptive cortex. So the interceptive cortex means it’s a place of the brain where we feel what we are experiencing so we can feel cold or hot or pain, or [00:09:00] all sorts of bodily sensations. So we tend to activate areas of our brain when we feel with other people that are the same areas as when we feel or experience our own sensations. So we kind of simulate the other person’s experience. And so this is empathy. But when we, and we have shown that when you train empathy, you can strengthen activations in these brain areas, and the anterior cingulate cortex, which belongs to that empathy for pain network. However, compassion on the neural level is different. So when we train compassion, we strengthen activations in the prefrontal cortex and in the stratum and the prefrontal cortex is very important for regulating thoughts. Behaviors and emotions. And it’s also important for positive emotions in general. And the stratium is very important for learning, for reward, for feeling affiliated, for feeling close to others, for feeling connected. So [00:10:00] it’s a different set of brain areas that’s being activated. And then whe

    1 hr

  8. 10/27/2025

    Ep.78 – Choosing Play in Relationships: From Conflict to Connections with Peter Anderson

    TRANSCRIPT Gissele: was Martin Luther King Jr. right? does love have the power to turn an enemy into a friend? Does it have the power to heal? This year, we’re creating an inspiring documentary called Courage to Love The Power of Compassion, which explores the extraordinary stories of those who have chosen to do the unthinkable, love and forgive even those who have caused them deep harm. Through their journeys, we will uncover the profound impact of forgiveness and love, not only to those offering it, but also on those receiving it. In addition, we’ll hear from experts who will explore whether love and compassion part of our human nature, and how we can bridge divides with those we disagree with. If you’d like to support our film, please donate at www [00:01:00] maitricentre.com/documentary. That’s Maitricentre documentary. Hello and welcome to the Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. Today we’re talking about the power of play in relationships, and we’re chatting with Peter Anderson. Peter Anderson is our relationship mentor performer, an author of the Playful Couple love, laughter, and lasting con connection. He helps couples rediscover the joy, spontaneity, and emotional safety that keep love vibrant, growing on decades of coaching. Neuroscience, improv theater and therapy tools like IFS and Holy Vagal Theory. He teaches partners how to transform communication, reignite intimacy, and co-create a playful, passionate bond. His journey spans from professional dance and comedy [00:02:00] improv to transformational leadership coaching, all of which now fuel the playful couple experience. He believes love isn’t something you manage, it’s something you create moment to moment through laughter, curiosity, and trust. Whether helping partners shift from conflict into connection or routine into romance, he loves sharing practical, heartfelt tools that invite couples to fall in love again with each other and with life. Please join me in welcoming Peter. Hi Peter. Peter: Hello. Thank you so much for having me. A lovely introduction. Gissele: Thank you so much for being on the show. I really appreciate it. can you start by telling the audience a little bit about how you got started in this work? Peter: Well, I suppose I’ve always been interested in the physicality, the connection with the body and that drew me to become a professional dancer and how that [00:03:00] connection, although on a performance level could really give to an audience somehow internally. I didn’t quite have that wisdom yet. And as I went on and I had relationships that were very, fun, exciting, playful relationships, but there was a loneliness in there, a sense of, holding back that I wasn’t completely safe to be who I truly was. And to get to that point when I had to untangle many different, avenues within my own self. And that led me to studying NLP, mindfulness,nonviolent communication, timeline therapy, Thai massage, craniosacral therapy. I just went just, I was like, I have to figure this out, because I felt that there was, in my family environment, which was very caring, there was an element missing that my mom and father weren’t really in love. [00:04:00] And if that was my education, how do I go and find that for myself? There was something that was missing that I needed to untangle. And so. As I went along, I was doing the coaching for people and individual coaching. I did business coaching. I had events and networks and, and they were, they were fulfilling, but something I wasn’t really firing from my deep heart passion. Mm-hmm. And it’s when I did the work and I finally had, a healthy relationship myself, and it was no longer the sense that I thought, I may not get this fantasy. Or is it just a fantasy of you find somebody and you really hold and build together? I like, I didn’t have that pure sense of what that was. And then I did, and it was a little bit like, imagine to win the lottery. It’s like, got it. And [00:05:00] I, that means I’m gonna spend some time on this planet. Knowing that I had it and what it was and what the poetry’s about and what the films are about and what all this stuff that I, I yearn for and I couldn’t quite get there. And, and then, my work started to turn, couples started coming to me and I started working with couples and, and I found that it wasn’t, we, you do work where you go in and you find, traumas and you untangle them, but there’s also the playfulness of the couple there. Yeah. What techniques do we have in therapy to be playful? I don’t think there are any, and because of comedy improvisation, it’s whole structure is on play and connection and listening and building and giving presence, I thought what a wonderful way to marry those two ways of growing. So that’s how it came across to where I’m today. Gissele: Hmm. Beautiful, beautiful. I was just thinking, last night I [00:06:00] just watched a movie on improv comedians that actually turn into,I, I guess they get sort of caught up in this, world of like, drugs. Oh, okay. It’s actually a really great comedy. I, I strongly suggest you watch it. Oh, okay. Peter: I might look into that. Yeah. Gissele: Yeah. It’s, it’s about improv comedians that actually end up sort of getting caught because they weren’t making any money cut into this. I don’t wanna give any too much away, but it’s, it’s actually quite funny. Yeah. I wanna go back to what you mentioned about your parents. so, so why do you think they were together? Do you think that they were together out of obligation? They were together out of like habit? Like what was it that you were picking up that clearly they were together? Not out of love, but out of what? Peter: Yes. I, I think it’s that big question about what is love? I think it gets into a real deep get with people, and we believe that we are in love, but if there’s a certain level of discomfort, it’s probably not, unconditional love. And I think, and [00:07:00] especially, in their era, there was no YouTube, there was no, you can’t get, there’s no self health books. There was, it was like you just learn from your environment. So. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Peter: for me, they both supported each other in a very special way. my dad was very calm, very good in, events, dangerous events and things like that. He was, he could really, my mom wasn’t so good in that, way, but my mom was very structured. my dad wasn’t so structured, so they, they kind of balanced off their, their weak points to, to become stronger together. And they were fond of each other and they still are today. I mean, we still have big family parties where everyone comes together. So there’s still a sense of, of bonding. But the in, and, and I think this is where it echoes back to me, but the, there was a loneliness with the two of them that they didn’t really gel outside those things that supported each other. And, I didn’t want to be, I [00:08:00] didn’t wanna spend my life with that type of, and it wasn’t major, it was like niggling conflict. It was just unhappy. So there wasn’t any major thing going on that you could write home about or in the newspapers. It was constant, just lack. And unfortunately, I went and did the same thing in my relationships. Hmm. my mom and dad are quite fun together, when they’re in the right space. And I found partners that we were really fun together in the right space. Gissele: Hmm. Peter: But again, that, that sense of being truly who you are and feeling vibrant from that space, took a long time to unlearn that. Gissele: Hmm hmm. And when I think about my own experiences  I came into my relationships with a lot of, like all of my baggage, right? And then my partners all came with their baggage. How important do you think it is for us to address our own baggage ourselves before we even.[00:09:00] Come into these relationships and how early should we be addressing our baggage? Peter: Yes. Now this is a very interesting question that I’ve pondered over quite a bit. ’cause there was one part, if we work on ourselves too much, we get focused on that we’re not enough and that we’re damaged. And I, if I just learn one more thing, if I just learn another more thing, if I break, oh, there’s another trauma, I’ll fix that. I’ll do this course, I’ll read that. And you can get lost in this cycle of trying to heal. And it can almost become an addiction in itself. Mm-hmm. That you don’t get to the core issue because you’re constantly trying to scrabble around with, and sometimes just being who you are is enough. And in other times, that trauma just keeps on knocking at the door and it doesn’t allow you to be who you are. It’s visiting that trauma and getting to know it with compassion [00:10:00] and without judgment, and that caring of that younger part of yourself and, and giving it the support and the love that it needed so it can, it can release that, that grip that it has within the darkness. So I was on the school of thought, well, my passion was I was gonna work on myself and I was gonna make sure, and I wasn’t gonna have another relationship until I was completely healed. So I didn’t wanna go through the pain again. And I took full responsibility for it. And I worked and I worked. And when I met my partner, I was hesitant to get into the relationship. I didn’t trust my, my own radar. I was like, I dunno, by just pulling in the same, I’m in love with the same trauma and I, I haven’t learned, I haven’t,the Phoenix hasn’t risen from the ashes. I’ve still got water. So I didn’t, I was nervous and she was just like, we’re just learn together. Gissele: Mm. Peter: And for me, that was [00:11:00] awakening in myself. ’cause I’d always t

    1h 2m
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Love and Compassion Podcast-Where Gissele talks with everyday exceptional people who have overcome adversities and have wisdom to share.

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