In this episode we chat to the amazing Jonathan Fields about self-awareness, creating communities of belonging and uncovering your unique source code so you can find meaningful work that lights you up. Jonathan is an award-winning author, serial entrepreneur, community-builder, speaker and teacher. He’s been featured everywhere from The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Inc., SmartCompany and Entrepreneur to the pages of Vogue, Elle, Allure, Yoga Journal, Mind + Body, USA Today, and People just to name a few. He’s incredibly inspiring, genuine, full of integrity and he truly cares for people. He’s also the reason the 3 of us met in the first place, so it was a real thrill to get to interview someone who’s had such a significant impact on our lives. 

We discuss the ways in which self-awareness is a precursor to self-love and how so much of Jonathan’s work has a focus on self-enquiry and developing a deep level of self-knowledge. We look at where his fascination with the human condition, psychology and human performance began in college, how he followed that curiosity over the years and the profound impact that 9/11 had on his life and work.

We talk about the way we learn to love ourselves in relation to the way we interact with others and how important it is to find communities that foster connection, acceptance and belonging. Jonathan shares so much insight about how we can create amazing communities by being completely open about the values the community stands for, modelling those behaviours, and intentionally designing experiences with social dynamics, interaction and safety in mind. It’s this safe container that allows people to be open and vulnerable, which is what leads to greater connection and belonging.

We also go into Jonathan’s latest work with Sparketypes, which is all about helping you discover your unique source code for work that fills you with a sense of meaning and purpose and allows you to feel fully engaged and fully expressed in the world. We discuss how unloving it is to spend the vast majority of your time doing things that conflict with your essential nature, and why so many people find themselves in this position with the work that they do. Jonathan believes that through learning more about who you are, what matters to you most, and what feels deeply meaningful, this gives you the self-knowledge to know what to say yes or no to in a way that nourishes you and it’s these choices that lead to self-fulfilment or self-love.

Finally, we talk about Jonathan’s self-care rituals and why dark chocolate just might be the solution to everything. We hope you enjoy this episode as much as we enjoyed speaking to Jonathan.

Resources Mentioned:

Good Life Project - www.goodlifeproject.com 
Sparketypes - https://www.goodlifeproject.com/sparketest/

Jonathan Fields: On self-awareness and finding work that lights you up as an act of self-love

In this episode we chat to the amazing Susan Piver about her latest book The 4 Noble Truths of Love and understanding meditation as a path to love. Susan is a New York Times Best-Selling author of 9 books, a meditation teacher, a speaker and a long-time Buddhist practitioner. She runs the largest virtual mindfulness community in the world, the Open Heart Project, which has more than 30,000 members. Susan is incredibly wise, insightful and kind and we're so grateful for everything she shared with us. 

We discuss how Susan first became interested in Buddhism, why this particular spiritual path appealed to her and how this led to her becoming a meditation teacher. We explore the way that Susan views meditation as a path to love rather than a self-improvement technique or life-hack. Susan explains how through sitting with yourself in meditation and allowing yourself to just be who you are, this opens you up to gentleness. And as you practice softening towards yourself, this allows you to soften towards others and approach them with the same compassion and gentleness.

We talk about the intersection between intimate relationships and self-love and how the way that you treat yourself and talk to yourself can bleed over into your intimate relationship and the way you talk to your partner. The closer you get to a person, the more intertwined you become and if you’re someone who speaks harshly to yourself, as these boundaries become blurred, you’ll probably find yourself speaking harshly to your partner.

We also talk about the notion people have that you have to love yourself first in order to be in a healthy, loving relationship and why Susan believes this is a myth and in some ways, an act of aggression towards yourself.

We go through her 4 Noble Truths of Love as a helpful way of understanding modern relationships and the personal insight Susan has gained from her own marriage of 20 years. Last but not least, we chat to Susan about the wisdom of the enneagram - an ancient typology tool that is extremely helpful in understanding yourself and others. We hope you enjoy this episode as much as we enjoyed chatting to and learning from Susan.

Susan Piver: On The 4 Noble Truths of Love And The Wisdom Of The Enneagram

In this episode we chat to the incredible Katie Coyle about the essential role that self-love and self-compassion play in the parenting journey and how to role model these tools to children.
Katie is a pediatric nurse, a writer, an advocate for early intervention, a mother of 3 beautiful children, and a wonderful friend to Lindsay, Koes and Sam.

We discuss Katie’s personal journey to parenthood, which involved infertility issues and Katie conceiving premature twins through IVF at the age of 26. Katie opens up about how difficult this process was and the body shame she felt because her body wasn’t functioning as it was ‘supposed to’. We talk about how Katie found herself at breaking point about 18 months after giving birth and how this became her invitation to becoming more self-compassionate and learning how to love herself well.

We look at the ways that children learn through observing their parents, and why this means practising self-love is the ultimate lesson for parents to learn, so they can role model this behaviour to their children. Katie shares why dropping perfectionism as a standard is a must and how adopting a growth mindset is a more powerful alternative.

Katie also shares some great tools to help children when they’re feeling anxious and upset, how to use story and play as tools to teach self-compassion and what to do when kids or parents are feeling flooded. Katie is an absolute wealth of knowledge, she has a heart of gold and we feel so lucky to have her on our podcast.

Katie Coyle: On Self-Compassion And Self-Love As Essential Tools For Parents And Kids

In this episode we talk about the recent break that we took on our podcast and the different ways we each felt about it. We discuss how important it is to take breaks and get the rest we need, but equally how it’s important to honor the commitments we make to ourselves and others, and the difficulty in finding the right balance between the two. 

We look at the way that modern society tends to value productivity more than rest and the detrimental effects this can have if the message we receive is that it’s not okay to take a break. We also discuss the negative labels and language we use when we talk about rest and how this contributes to the problem.

We talk about the emotions that can come up when things don’t turn out the way we originally planned, or when we need to change our goals and commitments to ourselves and others - from frustration, to guilt, to disappointment and feeling like we’re letting people down.

We discuss the fact that self-loving practices differ from person to person and from season to season and why we need to tune-in to what feels self-loving for us, right now, in the season that we’re currently living in.

Taking A Break Is Ok

You Are Infinitely Loved - A podcast about self-love and self-compassion.  What would your life be like if you believed that you are infinitely loved? How would your world change if you had true self-love and self-compassion? How can you build these practices into your everyday life? This podcast is the co-creation of Sam Thomas, Lindsay Bong and Koes Bong and is an exploration into different individual's journeys with self-love, tools that everyone can use to build their self-love and all of the ways that self-love and self-compassion are connected to so many of the challenges and struggles in our lives.