The Daily Ascent

Operation Podcast
Operation Podcast
  • 4.7 (145)
  • Mental Health
  • Updated Daily

Welcome to The Daily Ascent. I'm Molly Carmel — and this is the podcast I always wished existed: a bite-sized, on-the-ground spiritual note that can shift your thinking and your outlook on life. Because sometimes, that's all it takes — a small shift in what we choose to believe — to make the day a little better, and to make us a little more awake, alive… and ascending. Each weekday, we climb together — rising above the noise, finding the flow, and getting grounded in what really matters so you can live your day with more meaning, connection, and ease.

  1. 20h ago

    The Real Reason You Quit Right Before It Gets Good

    I was staying with friends in North Carolina, and every morning I took all three dogs on a walk. It was my contribution, lifting a real thing off my friends' plates. And at first it was chaos: three dogs, tangled leashes, wet dogs climbing all over the car. But almost a month in,  I noticed it had become the most peaceful part of my day. I even took all three to a roadside coffee shop on the trail and they sat there like little angels. It didn't get easy, I got fluent, and the only thing that made me fluent was doing it over and over when it was still hard.  This is an episode about the clumsy beginning of every worthwhile thing, why we quit right before it gets good, and how repetition quietly turns chaos into intuition.  Today's reading is from Kathleen Norris's The Quotidian Mysteries, on how the thing we think we're only getting through has the power to change us.  This is an episode about staying through the hard beginning. Question to carry into your day: What are you thinking about quitting, that might just be in the clumsy beginning part, not the wrong part?  Want to work together? Me too! Book a discovery call and let's talk about whether the Stop Starting Over System is right for you. https://link.mollycarmel.com/widget/bookings/mc-discoverycall  Let's Stay Connected:  Subscribe on YouTube Instagram: @mollycarmel Check out my Pocket Sages on my Amazon Storefront Questions or want to share your story? Email me at dailyascentpod@gmail.com  An Operation Podcast production | @OperationPodcast

  2. 3d ago

    How to Enjoy Time Alone When You Didn't Choose It

    I was in North Carolina watching a friend's dog, and my mom was supposed to come stay with me for the week. Then she got the stomach flu. I was so bummed, and I told my friend Michelle I was stuck in the monastery. Michelle has two kids and a life so full I get tired watching her Instagram stories, and she said, "Oh my God. What I wouldn't do for four days alone."  So I used the monastery. I journaled, I did a full moon ritual, I took a bath in the middle of the afternoon, and a couple of days I did nothing at all on purpose. I did what Michelle would do with four days alone.  Today's reading is from Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh: "Certain springs are tapped only when we are alone."  This is an episode about the difference between solitude you chose and solitude that got handed to you, and how to sign for a week you didn't order.  Question to carry into your day: What are you enduring right now that you haven't decided what it's for?  Want to work together? Me too! Book a discovery call and let's talk about whether the Stop Starting Over System is right for you. https://link.mollycarmel.com/widget/bookings/mc-discoverycall  Let's Stay Connected:  Subscribe on YouTube Instagram: @mollycarmel Check out my Pocket Sages on my Amazon Storefront Questions or want to share your story? Email me at dailyascentpod@gmail.com  An Operation Podcast production | @OperationPodcast

  3. 4d ago

    [FAVORITE] The Gift of Just Being There

    A client came into my office completely depleted. People around her were sick, dying, falling apart. She was holding so much suffering that she was disappearing inside it. And she kept saying, "I just can't fix it. I can't fix any of it."  And I said quietly, "What if fixing isn't the only option?"  This episode is for everyone who has ever felt helpless in the face of someone else's pain, and needed permission to just be there instead.  Question to carry into your day: Where in your life are you trying to fix what simply needs your witness?  Ready to do this work with real support? Book a strategy call and let's talk about whether the Stop Starting Over System is right for you. https://link.mollycarmel.com/widget/bookings/mc-discoverycall-organic  Let's Stay Connected:  Subscribe on YouTube Instagram: @mollycarmel Check out my Pocket Sages on my Amazon Storefront Questions or want to share your story? Email me at dailyascentpod@gmail.com  An Operation Podcast production | @OperationPodcast

  4. 5d ago

    Why Self-Care Isn't Making You Feel Any Better

    I'm away with friends somewhere beautiful, and I got here more tired and stressed than I want to be, doing all the restful things and still feeling empty, because I was never actually present for any of them. At dinner but thinking about work. On the walk but in my head.  My friend Sarah, who just came through a hard season, cracked it for me: self-care was never the activity, it's the presence you bring to it. She started practicing being one-minded, fully in one thing at a time, and it's what finally filled her back up. I've been practicing it all week, and it's changed things.  This is an episode about why doing all the self-care can still leave you empty, and what actually fills the cup. This is an episode about being one-minded, and being home for your own life.  Question to carry into your day: Where are you doing all the right things to care for yourself, but never actually there for any of it?  Want to work together? Me too! Book a discovery call and let's talk about whether the Stop Starting Over System is right for you. https://link.mollycarmel.com/widget/bookings/mc-discoverycall  Let's Stay Connected:  Subscribe on YouTube Instagram: @mollycarmel Check out my Pocket Sages on my Amazon Storefront Questions or want to share your story? Email me at dailyascentpod@gmail.com  An Operation Podcast production | @OperationPodcast

  5. 6d ago

    [FAVORITE] When Life Humbles You (But You Keep Going Anyway)

    You're trying so hard to do something meaningful. Something good. And it just falls apart. This episode is about what happens in that moment, the hot flush of shame, the stories we tell ourselves, the voice that says maybe you should just stop, and why staying in the room anyway is the whole point. There's a difference between humiliation, which makes you want to hide, and humility, which opens you up. This one is about learning to tell them apart.  Question to carry into your day: Where in your life are you being invited to keep going, not because it's easy or perfect, but because it's yours?  Ready to do this work with real support? Book a strategy call and let's talk about whether the Stop Starting Over System is right for you. https://link.mollycarmel.com/widget/bookings/mc-discoverycall-organic  Let's Stay Connected:  Subscribe on YouTube Instagram: @mollycarmel Check out my Pocket Sages on my Amazon Storefront Questions or want to share your story? Email me at dailyascentpod@gmail.com  An Operation Podcast production | @OperationPodcast

  6. Aug 10

    The Real Reason You Want to Be Told What to Do

    My friend and I took a yoga class where the teacher would not tell us what to do. He just kept saying "maybe." Maybe you'll take the triangle, maybe you'll hold it longer. It got on my nerves, until he explained that yoga was meant to be a personal practice, and he didn't want us obeying him, he wanted us listening to ourselves.  And it cracked something open, because I once read the research on self-determination early in my recovery and gasped, since it explained my whole life: we heal when the choice is ours, not when it's an order. And yet, even knowing all that, I still stood there wanting to be told.  This is an episode about how deeply we're trained to look outside ourselves for the answer, and how to start trusting the teacher who's been inside all along.  Today's reading is from Martha Beck's The Way of Integrity, on learning to trust your inner teacher. This is an episode about taking back the authority over your own life. Question to carry into your day: Where in your life are you waiting to be told, when you already quietly know?  Want to work together? Me too! Book a discovery call and let's talk about whether the Stop Starting Over System is right for you. https://link.mollycarmel.com/widget/bookings/mc-discoverycall  Let's Stay Connected:  Subscribe on YouTube Instagram: @mollycarmel Check out my Pocket Sages on my Amazon Storefront Questions or want to share your story? Email me at dailyascentpod@gmail.com  An Operation Podcast production | @OperationPodcast

  7. Aug 7

    Why You Don't Have to Wait for a Good Day to Start

    Two hundred episodes. I can hardly believe it, and thank you for being here for it.  Here's what's perfect: today's episode is about not waiting for the good day to start, which is exactly how we got to two hundred. I'm living in the mountains with three dogs right now, where the weather does whatever it wants, sunny one minute, pouring the next.  So I stopped checking the forecast and made a rule: we walk rain or shine. And somewhere in there I stopped tolerating the rainy walks and started loving them. I've basically become one of the dogs. Because they were never going to postpone their lives for the weather, and it turns out neither should I.  Today's reading is from John Muir's Our National Parks, on how the winds will blow their freshness into you, and the storms their energy.  This is an episode about not waiting for a clear forecast to start living. Question to carry into your day: What have you been putting off until conditions are perfect, that you could go do today, exactly as the day is? Want to work together? Me too! Book a discovery call and let's talk about whether the Stop Starting Over System is right for you. https://link.mollycarmel.com/widget/bookings/mc-discoverycall  Let's Stay Connected:  Subscribe on YouTube Instagram: @mollycarmel Check out my Pocket Sages on my Amazon Storefront Questions or want to share your story? Email me at dailyascentpod@gmail.com  An Operation Podcast production | @OperationPodcast

  8. Aug 6

    [FAVORITE] When Darkness Is Your Ascent

    I was sitting at brunch with one of my oldest spiritual advisors, telling her I was in a hallway. Gray, heavy, can't see what's next.  And she looked at me and said, in her British accent, "Molly, you are not in a hallway. You are ascending. This is what it feels like to ascend." Something cracked open.  This episode is about what happens when we stop labeling hard seasons as regressions and start recognizing them as the steepest, most sacred part of the climb.  Question to carry into your day: Where in your life can you shift from "it's murky" to "it's moving"?  Ready to do this work with real support? Book a strategy call and let's talk about whether the Stop Starting Over System is right for you. https://link.mollycarmel.com/widget/bookings/mc-discoverycall-organic  Let's Stay Connected:  Subscribe on YouTube Instagram: @mollycarmel Check out my Pocket Sages on my Amazon Storefront Questions or want to share your story? Email me at dailyascentpod@gmail.com  An Operation Podcast production | @OperationPodcast

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4.7
out of 5
145 Ratings

About

Welcome to The Daily Ascent. I'm Molly Carmel — and this is the podcast I always wished existed: a bite-sized, on-the-ground spiritual note that can shift your thinking and your outlook on life. Because sometimes, that's all it takes — a small shift in what we choose to believe — to make the day a little better, and to make us a little more awake, alive… and ascending. Each weekday, we climb together — rising above the noise, finding the flow, and getting grounded in what really matters so you can live your day with more meaning, connection, and ease.

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