Unconventional Life – Podcast, Blog, Live Events

Author: Jules Schroeder

  • Ep 235: How Being Yourself Translates with Canadian singer/songwriter Tara MacLean

    Ep 235: How Being Yourself Translates with Canadian singer/songwriter Tara MacLean

    Tara MacLean has experienced a few game-changing synchronistic encounters of “right place, right time” in her successful career. In fact, these events came as a direct result of the way Tara has chosen to live her life, in deep and dedicated service to her own originality. She’s a Juno-nominated artist, a Zen meditator, a Mom of three whose career started with one fateful moment of leaving every ounce of her soul in a song that would change her life forever.

    It was the mid-90s and Tara had just gotten out of jail, ended a relationship, and found herself on a ferry, in the Gulf Islands, singing her heart out when she was first discovered. She says singing is what she knows how to do when everything else seems to be falling apart. It was this surrender back into herself that started it all.

    “I think the most important thing with your art is to fully express yourself. Because the only thing that can make you unique is your own voice.”

    Fast forward approximately twenty-five years to today. Tara has just signed a book deal.

    In the middle of a yoga class, she had a thought. A moment of clarity around a part of her personal story. That thought made its way into a social media post that inadvertently went viral. The result of the viral post? A book deal.

    What do the song on the ferry and the social media post have in common?

    Tara doesn’t “put it on”, she just does…Tara. You’ve heard the old saying, march to the beat of your own drum? Well, Tara has been marching and we can all hear her.

    “Be what you are and work hard at it.”

    It’s not been all horseshoes and fate for Tara, it’s been a heck of a lot of work. And after writing and performing albums for decades, she’s just broken free and produced her own album (go Tara!). Here are a few tips Tara’s shared with us on how to get yourself and your art out there.

     

    Sharing Your Art With the World

    1. The most important thing is to put it out there! Get it out on the streaming sites. If you can make it into some kind of video, that’s great. Video is such an incredible way to reach people in shareable snippets for social media.
    2. Work on your social media strategies. Find someone who is really, really good at it.
    3. Find your brand. Know who you are and what you have to offer. Focus in on that.
    4. Figure out who your audience is. Now, try to find them.

     

    Resources:

  • Ep 234: No Bullsh*it, No Excuses: Alter Your Life with Beth Weissenberger

    Ep 234: No Bullsh*it, No Excuses: Alter Your Life with Beth Weissenberger

    Do you continually cut corners when it comes to self-care? Remember that commitment you made to yourself to exercise or meditate regularly? Are you doing it? Are you “kind of” doing it? Or have your excuses stopped you from starting?

     

    Tired of your own bullsh*t?

    Beth Weissenberger is the master of seeing through bullsh*it, and helping people get to the other side. She is straight as an arrow. The co-founder of The Handel Group, a renowned executive life coaching company that works with people on personal and professional levels, Beth guides a team of coaches who help shift individuals from self-destructive cycles to places of personal integrity and accountability.

    “You do not need me for your strengths, where I go is to the dark side. To the side where you get in your own way. Your cavities and pollution, so we go to solve your cavities and pollution very quickly, this is not hard.”

    Beth cuts straight to the chase, offering her clients a chance to take the courageous step of looking at what’s not working in their lives, and then utilize that courage to take bold action.

    According to Beth, 80% of the unconscious self-dialogue going on in your head is negative. She’s got nicknames, caricatures even, of the types of self-dialogues that make up that 80%. Get to know the caricatures who make up your negative self-dialogue and you might start to understand why the excuses and procrastination are running the show.

    Introducing….. “Chicken Voice”

    Chicken voice is the avoidant, fear-based part of you that will make every excuse under the sun to avoid conflict or those hard conversations that need to happen.

    Next up….. “The Brat”

    The brat is the defiant, adolescent-like voice that simply won’t….because it said so.

    And last but not least…..

    “The Weather Reporter” The weather reporter is the subtlest of the three negative voices. This is the voice of excuses and reasons why not to do the things that will serve you best.

    “They’re not on your team, never will be on your team and they’re out to make your life suck.”

    Now, ask yourself, where are you a chicken, a brat and a weather reporter in your life?

     

    Two Easy Steps to Regain Personal Integrity & Accountability

    1. You need a specific measurable promise. Decide what you want to change (eg. I will meditate 5 days/week every morning.) and make a promise, a commitment to doing it.

    2. Now choose a consequence for not doing it, someone to hold you to account. Now pick a real consequence, something you don’t want to mess with. Something that is non-negotiable in your life. (For Beth, her consequence to not meditating was no morning coffee…she’s been meditating every morning since March!)

     “If you pick the right one to two promises in your life and you keep them and play in this, you’ll alter your entire life on a dime in a matter of six weeks.”

     

    More of The Handel Group:

  • Ep 233: Don’t Waste Your Life Worrying About Cellulite with Taryn Brumfitt

    Ep 233: Don’t Waste Your Life Worrying About Cellulite with Taryn Brumfitt

    Do you catch yourself looking in the mirror and sucking in your stomach? Flexing for the camera? Grumbling at your cellulite? Comparing yourself to people at the gym, pool or beach?

    This state of mind can eat us alive, turn us into our own worst critic and can be a sign of a very real and very commonly unacknowledged issue, body dysmorphia. The “imperfections” of your body are normal, a part of being alive and according to this week’s guest, ultimately insignificant to the human experience.

     “I want people to understand that they’ve got 28,000 days on the planet, if they’re lucky, and that is not a lot of time, so let’s not waste them worrying about cellulite or our stretch marks.”

    Taryn Brumfitt started her public career by doing things unconventionally. In 2012 she casually posted a photograph of what her body looked like years after competing in swimsuit competitions. With pure embrace, love and fearlessness she posted a nude photo that showed skin folds, cellulite and the realness of a woman’s body without the spray tan and photoshop. The act was almost as beautiful as she is. And it went viral. 100 million people kind of viral.

    Since that day, Taryn has dedicated her life to sharing a simple message: get your relationship right with your body. She’s an internationally recognized keynote speaker, founder of The Body Image Movement, a best-selling author, creator of a documentary called Embrace, 2019 Australian of the year and a mother of three.

    “If we truly want to be the best entrepreneurs and friends and husbands and wives and all of those things, having an exceptional relationship with yourself and your body is everything.”

     

    Ways to Shift Into Right Relation With Your Body

    1. Move your body for pleasure, not punishment! Exercise doesn’t have to be a drag, find things to do that you enjoy. Go swimming, go for a hike, find things that light you up and get you moving at the same time. Don’t move your body because you ate the cake, move your body because you love to.
    2. Your body is not an ornament, it’s a vehicle to your dreams. Find the reasons to love your body. Find a part of your body that you hate and find the love for it. Love is there, but you might have to search a little.
    3. Notice the messages of body-hate around you, but don’t take them in, don’t take them on.
    4. Treat your body like a temple. Eating 20 donuts on the couch isn’t loving your body, its sabotage. Nourish your beautiful body with beautifully nourishing food.

    “I just want people to understand the true power that comes from not anchoring yourself down and weighing yourself down inside your own head by talking negatively about your body. It’s a superpower that we can all tap into and it’s very possible for everybody.”

     

    How To Be a Good Role Model to Kids Around Food & Body Image

    • Show children positive body image by having a positive body image and being that example for them
    • Don’t demonize food. Don’t talk about good food and bad food
    • Don’t talk about dieting
    • Throw out the scales.
    • Enjoy our bodies, enjoy life and have fun!

    “We were not born into the world hating our bodies, this is a learned behavior. We bought into the messages that told us to be anything other than what we are and it’s made us miserable and disconnected to our lives.

     

    More of Taryn:

  • Ep 232: The Remote Control to your Nervous System with Max Gomez

    Ep 232: The Remote Control to your Nervous System with Max Gomez

    You need it to survive. You can only live a few minutes without it. It controls your brain activity, your mood and your psychological state. And most of the time, we do it without even noticing.

    Breath is literally life.

    Did you know that there is a right and wrong way to be breathing? Did you know that you can manipulate your state of mind with breath? Breathing techniques have been used by different types of people from all different backgrounds for completely different uses. Breath can be used to withstand extreme cold, manage extreme trauma or high-stress/high-stakes situations. For others, it can be a magical key to a restful sleep or stopping the cycle of endless anxiety.

    This week’s guest, Max Gomez, harmonized his degree in neuroscience, his love of breathwork and his entrepreneurial mind to create a platform where over 10 million people can harness the power of breath.

    What is breathwork, you might ask? Breathwork is an umbrella term for powerful breathing techniques. The incredible thing is that depending on the kind of breathwork being done, one can either eliminate stress and anxiety, increase energy, improve endurance or help you fall asleep.

    “We consider the breath to be the remote control to the nervous system and we want to give everyone all of the channels to the nervous system. So if you’re looking to calm down from an anxiety attack, if you’re looking to go to sleep, if you’re looking to wake up, you should be able to control that very quickly just with your breathing alone which is a very healthy alternative to all of the other vices we have out there.”

    Enter Max Gomez. Max took his love of breathwork and his entrepreneurial senses and blended them together. What he co-founded was the Breathwrk app. Now the CEO of Breathwrk, Max has helped bring various forms of breathwork into the lives of over 10 million users.

    “True freedom is really living your mission and living your purpose. I really think that I’ve found that with breathwork.”

    Breathwork has some very powerful effects on the brain. For example, navy seals use breathwork techniques to manage high-stress situations. Some pro athletes use breathwork in altitude training and multitudes of performers and public speakers use breathwork to calm the nerves backstage. Not to mention yogis!

    Now, let’s get down to it.

    Controlling the rate and type of breathing used can have 2 major effects:

    1. Slowing down breath, can put your body into a parasympathetic nervous system response, also known as “rest and digest”. This can be used for relaxation, managing stress/anxiety or preparation for sleep.
    2. Increasing the rate and pattern of your breathing can increase alertness, focus and energize the body. This is great if you’re sluggish to get out of bed or trying to tackle that 3pm slump.

    “Something that we take for granted most of the time, something that happens automatically most of the time, unless you actually control it, can really have a powerful, powerful impact on your life and wellbeing.”

     

    More of Breathwrk:

  • Ep 231: Biohacking your health with Eileen Durfee

    Ep 231: Biohacking your health with Eileen Durfee

    Imagine growing up in the birthplace of the nuclear bomb, where facilities that housed The Manhattan Project were as commonplace as the local football team. Now imagine that your first career is as a nuclear power engineer in this city. Your frame of reference for the world, your health and the health of the planet has a particular…nuclear feel to it.

    This was the world that Eileen Durfee lived and breathed. That is, until her physical health declined to such a point where she was riddled with allergies, candida, psoriasis and was feeling sick and fatigued constantly. On this week’s episode of Unconventional Life, we speak with Eileen, who shares her journey back to the healthiest she’s ever been and the technologies she’d developed to do it.

     

    Chronic Dehydration

    According to Eileen about 80% of health problems come from chronic dehydration. You can drink 2-3 litres of water a day, but if you’re water is super acidic or void of minerals, you could be stripping your body of its essential mineral needs, throwing your body’s pH out of balance and not actually hydrating yourself, or your organs. When the body is dehydrated, it allocates the water supply in a hierarchical “pecking order” (most essential function to lesser) so areas like your bone marrow might receive water before your joints or your lungs. Long-term dehydration can have effects throughout the body that may not resemble what you think dehydration looks like.

    When we ignore the biology and chemistry of life, our bodies are speaking and we’re not listening.

    “There’s this mind shift that needs to happen with people that need to understand what the body is crying out for.”

     

    What Kind of Water are You Drinking?

    Misinformation or no information around the kind of water you’re drinking and the affects it has on your body can leave people chugging water needlessly, with no real benefit.

    Are you drinking piped in city water? Rain water/tank water? Distilled? Purified? Spring? Ozonated?

    All water has a different surface tension, minerals, vitamins and pH all of which has an effect on your body. According to Eileen, water that can be maximized by the body has:

     

    Where to Start With Your Water

    • Drink spring water
    • water should be alkaline-rich, 10.7 pH is ideal (you can use ultra-sensitive pH test strips to test this!)
    • there should be minerals in your water! (you can add the minerals in, if need be.)
    • Water should have a small salt content. The kind of salt you use matters.

     

    A Toxic World

    The air we breathe, the water we drink and the chemicals we are exposed to on a daily basis has an effect on our health. Things like your off gassing carpets, the “new car smell’ and the fumes from your newly stained deck are not good for your body!

    Over time, these things accumulate and your body pays the price. Plus, the average American spends 90% of their day indoors. According to, “…the E.P.A. [Environmental Protection Agency] indoor air is 2-5 times more toxic than outdoors”. Breathing fresh air, drinking good water and not using chemicals in your home cleaning and building products makes all the difference.

     

    Symptom chasing vs. preventative health

    “We’re chasing symptoms”

    The bottom line is, the majority of the population is chasing symptoms, rather than questioning what’s causing them. Here are Eileen’s bio-hack pillars of health.

     

    Eileen’s Pillars of Health

    • Spend time barefoot!
    • Watch the sunrise
    • Drink ozonated water and oxygen-rich water
    • Add healthy salt to your water
    • Coffee enema
    • Dry brushing regularly
    • Use a near-infrared sauna with a Breathsafe Device (plasma air purifier)
    • Breath more oxygen-rich air

     

    More of Eileen:

    Website: Creatrix Solutions.

     

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