Sharpen Your Sword

Dr. Steven Hayes is a Professor of Psychology in the Behavior Analysis Program at the University of Nevada and the author of 46 books and nearly 650 scientific articles.

He is especially known for his work on "Acceptance and Commitment Therapy" or "ACT" which is one of the most widely used and researched new methods of psychological intervention over the last 20 years.

Dr. Hayes has received several national awards, such as the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapy.

His popular book Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life for a time was the best-selling self-help book in the United States, and his new book A Liberated Mind has been recently released to wide acclaim. His TEDx talks have been viewed by over 600,000 people, and he is ranked among the most cited psychologists in the world.

Some things we talk about ––

• The ACT method (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy)
• How to stop identifying with negative thoughts and emotions
• The "Defusion" technique for taking power away from those negative thoughts
• Perfectionism, people pleasing and my unlearning process with those traits
• Ways to address fear and anxiety and if we can really reframe anxiety as excitement when it comes to speaking or performing.

Connect with Dr. Steven Hayes:

Katarina Gleisberg is a mindfulness educator, coach, and co-creator of the "Calm During Chaos" Mindfulness course alongside Nathan Todd who was on the podcast a few episodes ago.

After teaching students of various ages in three countries, she was struck by the commonality that students of all backgrounds showed greater attention, calm, productivity, and collaboration after a short mindfulness practice.

She then evolved her teaching focus to spread mindfulness and its holistic health benefits including greater attention, compassion, stress-relief, life satisfaction, empowerment, and even strengthened immunity.

She wants us all to know that mindfulness can be practiced anywhere, any time, free of charge by anyone.

In this episode we talk about ––

–– How she discovered mindfulness in her professional life

–– The TAPS (Total and perfect silence) technique and the impact of mindfulness in kids with different personality types

–– What mindfulness is NOT

–– The two wings of mindfulness

–– How she inadvertently wound up in the local newspaper

–– The R.A.I.N. technique for starting to process emotions

Connect with Katarina:

Zack Alexander has been on quite the healing journey as you'll hear in this episode. We actually went to the same high school but never really had a conversation until our paths crossed on Instagram a couple weeks ago so we decided to sit down and record a podcast.

Zack is a Holistic Life Coach who incorporates a Trauma-Informed approach to his practices.

He uses a number of alternative therapies including spiritual awakening counseling, mindfulness/meditative techniques, somatic healing and reiki/energy healing.

Some things we talk about ––

• His 4 Year battle with a mystery illness which was eventually diagnosed as schistosomiasis

• The realization he had that allowed him to be resilient through that process

• How he was opened up alternative healing modalities

• His message to those who are skeptics about chakras, meridians and energy healing

• How to reconcile generational conditioning, programming and trauma

• Why the collective nervous system has gone haywire and what to do about it

• Masculine vs. Feminine Energy

• What is spiritual bypassing?

Connect with Zack:

Chris Delaney is someone I've only known for a few months, but have already learned so much from. He's one of the most intentional people I've ever met when it comes to his work. His mission is to consciously change the way humanity learns and connects globally through the platform, Life Unchained, cofounded by him and his partner Danielle. ⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣ ⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣ Chris is a also speaker, mentor, business advisor, and outspoken advocate for men's mental health.⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣ ⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣ Prior to this, Chris was an award winning sales and leadership trainer for small businesses and in the Fortune 500 spaces.⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣ ⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣ We discuss a lot of topics in this episode which could all be an episode of their own, so I guarantee I'll be having him back on in the future.⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣

Some things we talked about ––

• His advice on dealing with fear

• What the spiritual journey really is and what "awakening" can look like

• The most important questions we should be asking ourselves…

• What our shadow is and where do we start with understanding it and incorporating it?

• Why "ego death" is not the proper terminology to use

• His experience of being dead for a few minutes

This is officially my longest podcast to date, so I hope you guys are enjoying the long form style of these episodes because that's how I feel that we can learn the most from those I get to connect with.

Connect with Chris:

Facebook ––

What is the antidote to fear? I don't mean to break your heart, but I don't have the answer. I do share some thoughts though around what I believe can help us dispel the virus called fear.

There are ways in which fear serves us and absolutely has a purpose, but more often than not, it lives in the future and around a narrative that we're not going to be okay.

That perceived future looks different for everyone, but as I see so many affected by this, myself included, I weigh in on a few things that might serve us when we're experiencing this low vibration energy.

Connect with Brock: