The Michelle Chalfant Show — Life from the Adult Chair

We use statements like, "I'm so in the flow today, everything fell perfectly into place." We also hear, "I was so out of the flow today, it was the worst day." Does this "flow state" randomly happen to us or can we choose it? I believe we can access this state and ride it like a wave! In today's show, I explain how we do this, with a 4-step process to access and harness your own flow state. Sponsor: This week's show is brought to you by Audible! Get a free audiobook to spice up your commute and learn and love through reading. Sign up for your free book at AudibleTrial.com/theadultchair. From there, search for our recommended book for the week: Flow: Living at the Peak of Your Abilities by Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi.

"How do I find my way out?" What are you in? That doesn't matter! If you're in a situation that is painful, scaring you, causing you discomfort, no matter of external advice is going to help you get yourself out of it. To dig out, you have to go inside, to find the parts of you that that you don't understand that keep you locked into a cycle of pain, that prevent you from finding clarity, from freeing yourself from the ego of your Adolescent Chair! I've had so many people come to me stuck in struggle and pain lately so on today's show I have four tools to offer that will help you on the road back to peace and into your Adult Chair! Sponsor: This week's show is brought to you by Audible! Get a free audiobook to spice up your commute and learn and love through reading. Sign up for your free book at AudibleTrial.com/theadultchair. From there, search for our recommended book for the week: The Surrender Experiment by Michael Singer!

I could not be more excited about today's show! Dr. Dan Siegel joins me to talk about his new book Aware, and the work he's been doing that can radically accelerate our journey toward learning to live in the present moment. This is an amazing partner to all the work each and every one of you are doing to learn to live in your Adult Chair — I know you're simply going to love this! Sponsor: This week's show is brought to you by Audible! Get a free audiobook to spice up your commute and learn and love through reading. Sign up for your free book at AudibleTrial.com/theadultchair. From there, search for our recommended book for the week: Aware by Dan Siegel! About Dr. Dan Siegel Dr. Siegel is a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine and the founding co-director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA. He is also the Executive Director of the Mindsight Institute which focuses on the development of mindsight, which teaches insight, empathy, and integration in individuals, families and communities. Dr. Siegel has published extensively for both the professional and lay audiences. His four New York Times bestsellers are: Mind: A Journey to the Heart of Being Human, Brainstorm: The Power and Purpose of the Teenage Brain, with Tina Payne Bryson, Ph.D: The Whole-Brain Child, No-Drama Discipline, and the upcoming The Yes Brain (2018). His other books include: The Developing Mind (2nd Ed.), Mindsight, The Mindful Brain, and The Mindful Therapist. Dr. Siegel also serves as the Founding Editor for the Norton Professional Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology which contains over fifty textbooks.

We're back! I'm thrilled to be back to the podcast after our summer break, a break that's been filled with much emotion for me personally. I share that experience with my friend Karen Campion on the show this week as we talk about the true power of letting go to move forward. Karen is wonderful and I'm sure her insights will resonate with you, just as they do with me! Sponsor: This week's show is brought to you by Audible! Get a free audiobook to spice up your commute and learn and love through reading. Sign up for your free book at AudibleTrial.com/theadultchair. From there, search for our recommended book for the week: When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chödrön! Links & Notes Learn about Karen and her work

Unfortunately, we all experience shame at some point in our lives, some of us more than others. In this guided meditation exercise, you will be guided through a process from the Adult Chair model that releases and transforms shame.

How do I live authentically? If you find yourself asking that question, you're not alone. I hear this from clients practically daily, each feeling a connection with the concept, knowing they're disconnected from their true, authentic selves, but at the same time struggling to move into that place of living their own lives authentically. To help us answer this question and better understand the practice of living authentically, Sandra Rojo is with us to share her expertise. Sandra is founder of Journey to Authentic living and her practice is dedicated to helping others find their authenticity through her practice in the healing and therapeutic arts. Sponsor: This week's show is brought to you by Audible! Get a free audiobook to spice up your commute and learn and love through reading. Sign up for your free book at AudibleTrial.com/theadultchair. From there, search for our recommended book for the week: Essentialism by Greg McKeown or Soul Shifts by Barbara De Angelis! About Sandra Rojo Sandra Rojo is the Founder and President of Journey to Authentic living (JTAL). JTAL is a Coaching, Training and Consulting Company. Sandra has more than 15 years of hands-on experience working with clients to achieve positive lifestyle and behavioral changes. Sandra lived in Northern Italy for many years where she served as a teacher, interpreter, and coach for young women. Links & Notes Journey to Authentic Living YouTube Instagram Facebook

Pain can feel heavy, like a dark cloud that won't go away. We often times don't realize that we are carrying our pain with us from the past, in hopes that something or someone will make it magically go away. Today, Rea Wright and I offer 5 ideas for relieving the darkness of pain and living a lighter more peaceful life. Sponsor: This week's show is brought to you by Audible! Get a free audiobook to spice up your commute and learn and love through reading. Sign up for your free book at audibletrial.com/theadultchair. From there, search for our recommended book for the week: Molecules of Emotion: Why You Feel the Way You Feel by Candace B. Pert!

The Enneagram is a personality typing system that helps us to identify more clearly who we are, and is an exciting tool that is gaining in popularity all over the world. Today on the show Ramona Reid blends the wisdom of the Enneagram into the Adult Chair. Ramona shared with us how she experiences the Child, Adolescent and Adult through the lens of the Enneagram and the commonalities of the two models and how they enrich each other. This was an enlightening episode that will surely take you deeper into self awareness. Sponsor: This week's show is brought to you by Audible! Get a free audiobook to spice up your commute and learn and love through reading. Sign up for your free book at AudibleTrial.com/theadultchair. From there, search for our recommended book for the week: The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth by Christopher Heuertz!

This week on the show I have a guest to talk to us about one of the most misunderstood and over-used labels I've run across: borderline personality disorder. Dr. Robin Arthur is a fantastic and knowledgeable expert who has been working with BPD individuals for years and has managed to offer us the tools we need not only to understand it, but to differentiate it from other personality disorders that are often confused. She's got tips to share, examples to demonstrate her points and a terrific set of recommendations for supporting those in your life living with borderline personality disorder, too! Sponsor: This week's show is brought to you by Audible! Get a free audiobook to spice up your commute and learn and love through reading. Sign up for your free book at AudibleTrial.com/theadultchair. From there, search for our recommended book for the week: Stop Walking on Eggshells: Taking Your Life Back When Someone You Care about Has Borderline Personality Disorder by Randi Kreger and Paul T. Mason! Links & Notes Find Robin at Transform Consulting

It's a little bit of a heavy subject today, but it's one we have to talk about: Healing our Shame. It's a subject that crosses my office practically daily in insidious and subversive ways. Shame contaminates our work and our relationships and creates a cycle of binary, either/or thinking. But we can take back our power in our relationship with shame if we work to understand it, relate to it, and use the tools we have that are built in to The Adult Chair! Get ready everybody… we're going to move through some shame today! Sponsor: This week's show is brought to you by Audible! Get a free audiobook to spice up your commute and learn and love through reading. Sign up for your free book at AudibleTrial.com/theadultchair. From there, search for our recommended book for the week: Healing the Shame that Binds You by John Bradshaw!

I adore our guest today! Patti Elledge joins us to talk about adult attachment wounds. She's a brilliant therapist and practitioner and gives us so much depth through our conversation on the role of attachment in our lives and how we can heal ourselves — plus, her work fits _perfectly_with what I teach in The Adult Chair. So grab some coffee or tea and settle in for a wonderful conversation that can change your life! Sponsor: This week's show is brought to you by Audible! Get a free audiobook to spice up your commute and learn and love through reading. Sign up for your free book at AudibleTrial.com/theadultchair. From there, search for our recommended book for the week: Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find - And Keep - Love by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller! Links & Notes Find Patti on LinkedIn DiannePooleHeller.com

What do we do when we feel like we just can't put one more thing on our plates? When the people we love and care about are expecting so much from us, it feels like we're suffocating? When our career obligations increasing anxiety beyond our ability to cope? I know the feeling, and I know you know the feeling, and today on the show, I'm going to share a recent experience that had me turning to MY Adult Chair. I hope you find taking a seat in your own Adult Chair can help you soften the blows of stress and anxiety, too! Sponsor: This week's show is brought to you by Audible! Get a free audiobook to spice up your commute and learn and love through reading. Sign up for your free book at AudibleTrial.com/theadultchair. From there, search for our recommended book for the week: Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life by Thich Nhat Hanh!

The rush of anxiety and overwhelm can quickly take over our experience of the world. Being equipped with the tools to ease that experience is central to living in the Adult Chair. Let us journey.

The only way you're going to heal is to own your life. That's the overriding message of the show today and it comes thanks to the story of a fabulous client we'll call "Carolyn." She's graciously offered her story for this week's show as a demonstration of owning your own stuff, and making great strides in breaking the damaging patterns and programs that play over and over in our lives. Thanks to her work with the Chairs, she's found grounding and hope in moving forward through relationship addiction and more! Sponsor: This week's show is brought to you by Audible! Get a free audiobook to spice up your commute and learn and love through reading. Sign up for your free book at AudibleTrial.com/theadultchair. From there, search for my recommended book for the week: Personal Development Simplified: An Easy to Follow Guide to Personal Development for Beginners, Identify and Break Negative Patterns, Become a Better Version of Yourself, Guaranteed by Coach KP!

We do everything we can to keep ourselves safe and loved in the world. To do this, we look to the past and gather up stories and then based on those stories we project into the future based on assumptions. Living like this creates stress and keeps us out of the present moment and stuck in the Adolescent Chair! When we learn to become "story busters" and live from a place of fact and truth, we find ourselves seated squarely in the moment and in the Adult Chair. In this episode, I share with you how easily and quickly we fall into stories and assumptions, and how quickly we can change our lives when we step into the moment and find our new truth from the Adult Chair. Sponsor: This week's show is brought to you by Audible! Get a free audiobook to spice up your commute and learn and love through reading. Sign up for your free book at AudibleTrial.com/theadultchair. From there, search for my recommended book for the week: You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life by Jen Sincero!

As children, we unknowingly inherit dysfunctional or unhealthy beliefs. This meditation takes you on a journey to find your true self and along the way, remove the inherited unhealthy and dysfunctional beliefs. Find yourself at the end feeling more worthy, strong, empowered, confident, brave and lovable with a beautiful boundary keeping others dysfunctional opinions or beliefs out. Enjoy the journey.

Ted is back! This time we're kicking it off with a big question about men and emotions, but I guarantee you there are some surprises in store from there! Ted shares his personal journey to understanding, learning to feel and experience his emotions. Along the way, he teaches us some important lessons on men and women and how we experience our emotions in different — but powerful — ways! Join us! Sponsor: This week's show is brought to you by Audible! Get a free audiobook to spice up your commute and learn and love through reading. Sign up for your free book at AudibleTrial.com/theadultchair. From there, search for our recommended book for the week: Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman, Ph.D.! Links & Notes Dr. Ted Klontz Ted's Courses at Creighton for Financial Services Professionals

I get this question all the time: "how to do I get (fill in the blank loved-one here) to get into their Adult Chair?!" I get it. You're doing all this fantastic work on yourself, you're sitting in your emotions and learning to move with them, not in spite of them. You're doing all the great things that you need to do to live authentically yourself … now why won't other people get on this train with you? Great question. And I'm going to take on exactly that this week on the show — I hope you join me! Sponsor: This week's show is brought to you by Audible! Get a free audiobook to spice up your commute and learn and love through reading. Sign up for your free book at AudibleTrial.com/theadultchair. From there, search for our recommended book for the week: Conversations with God (Book 1) by by Neale Donald Walsh of Enlightened Relationships by Eckhard Tolle! Links & Notes Register now for The Adult Chair Level 1 — Nashville, April 28-29, 2018

Annie Waugh is an integrative therapist and dear friend and she's joining me on the show today to talk about an area of particular expertise: Essential Oils! I love oils and cherish everything Annie has taught me — and I can't wait for her to share some of these great lessons with you all today. We tackle depression and grief and hormone balance and so much more! So grab your diffuser and settle in for some terrific and practical instruction on integrating essential oils into your healing journey! Sponsor: This week's show is brought to you by Audible! Get a free audiobook to spice up your commute and learn and love through reading. Sign up for your free book at AudibleTrial.com/theadultchair. From there, search for our recommended book for the week: The Healing Power of Essential Oils: Soothe Inflammation, Boost Mood, Prevent Autoimmunity, and Feel Great in Every Way by Eric Zielinski, D.C.! Links & Notes Learn More about Annie Waugh Register now for The Adult Chair Level 1 — Nashville, April 28-29, 2018

Shannon Thomas sits down in the adult chair with me today to talk about narcissism, gaslighting, and other forms of abuse and emotional trauma that can plague our relationships. This is a wide-ranging interview thanks to YOU! So many of the questions Shannon takes on this week come from your responses in our Facebook private group — far more than we could cover in one sitting! So, consider this a start, and know that I'll have Shannon back soon to keep this conversation moving. Sponsor: This week's show is brought to you by Audible! Get a free audiobook to spice up your commute and learn and love through reading. Sign up for your free book at AudibleTrial.com/theadultchair. From there, search for my recommended book for the week: _Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse_by our very own Shannon Thomas! About Shannon Thomas, LCSW Shannon Thomas, LCSW, is a licensed clinical social work supervisor, the owner and lead therapist of an award-winning private practice counseling agency in North Texas and best-selling author of 'Healing From Hidden Abuse'. In 'Healing From Hidden Abuse', Shannon bridges the gap between pop culture and clinical advice and also outlines her 'Six Stages of Healing' model. Her passion is helping people overcome life challenges and seeing abuse survivors living to their fullest potential. Shannon approaches her work from the lens of a therapist and as a fellow survivor of psychological abuse. Links & Notes Find Shannon at Southlake Counseling ShannonThomas.com Shannon Thomas on Facebook Shannon Thomas on Instagram Shannon Thomas on Twitter

Go ahead and say it out loud right now: "It's all about me!" My clients have a lot of trouble saying it, as if it gets stuck in their throats. But being able to say that it's all about you isn't selfish, it's ownership! It's your charge that you are taking responsibility for your own emotions, feelings, desires. You're going to look after yourself first, and thus open the door to being able to be an even better, whole support for those closest to you! All that and more on this week's show! This week's show is brought to you by Audible! Get a free audiobook to spice up your commute and learn and love through reading. Sign up for your free book at AudibleTrial.com/theadultchair. From there, search for my recommended book for the week: Edgar Cayce on Mastering Your Spiritual Growth by Kevin J. Todeschi! Plus, listen all the way through to the end this week. Remember Pete Wright? Producer of this very show? Well, he has a new podcast and he's released a trailer that I've included at the end of the show this week. It's called "What's that Smell: A sometimes-funny podcast about humans and their anxieties." I know so many people that feel such shame about their own anxieties and Pete and his partner are doing a wonderful job sharing the things that cause them anxiety and modeling how we can all be better about laughing together as we own our own stuff! I've listened to the first few episodes and they range from off-the-wall to downright sensitive. Give it a shot! Find it in iTunes here, or their website at RashPixel.FM.

Karen Gelstein is another of my favorite people. She's a therapist based out of New York City and when you hear what she has to say on love addiction, love avoidance, narcissism in the show this week you're definitely going to want to learn more about her work. We're of the same mind, and I think you'll find in this show that her perspectives absolutely cement the critical importance of inner child work in healing from this emotional space. It's terrific! Links & Notes Karen Gelstein on PsychologyToday.com This week's show is brought to you by Audible! Get a free audiobook to spice up your commute and learn and love through reading. Sign up for your free book at AudibleTrial.com/theadultchair. From there, search for my recommended book for the week: Healing Your Attachment Wounds by Dianne Poole Heller!

This week on the show I'm thrilled to welcome one of my precious clients and author of one of my very favorite quotes on healing, "soothing cannot be outsourced." Susan introduces us to her journey of discovery in the Adult Chair which encompasses so many of the elements of struggle that so many face: loss of family, grief, reconciliation, all milestones on a path to discovery and love of self. Thank you so much to Susan for her willingness to join me for this conversation and sharing her own journey! Links & Notes This week's show is brought to you by Audible! Get a free audiobook to spice up your commute and learn and love through reading. Sign up for your free book at AudibleTrial.com/theadultchair. From there, search for my recommended book for the week: The Power of the Heart: Finding Your True Purpose in Life by Baptist de Pape.

What an amazing milestone! Never in a million years would I have imagined the love and grace I've discovered in the audience of this podcast. Thank you so much for everything you've done to make the journey to episode 100 so special. And now, let's get started on our journey to episode 200 with a conversation on self-love! I have ten tools you can use to drive your own journey to self-love, each part of a practice I use with my clients to help recenter and find joy inside themselves. I love each step on this journey and I believe you will, too. Remember: it's a practice! Be patient, and let's journey! This week's show is brought to you by Audible! Get a free audiobook to spice up your commute and learn and love through reading. Sign up for your free book at AudibleTrial.com/theadultchair. From there, search for my recommended book for the week: You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay!

One of the most cherished, empowering, and attractive experiences in a relationship comes when both partners are strong in the belief of their own worthiness in the world. This meditation serves as a reminder of that strength and beauty: You Are Worthy. Let us journey.

Carrying around feelings of blame, shame, anger, sadness, or apathy from un-forgiveness can be incredibly heavy on us. This forgiveness meditation will help you to gain a new perspective with the person or event that has made you feel stuck and unable to move on. During this meditation, we cut cords, relieving us of the heavy burden we have been carrying and let go of the energy of the pain. In the end, we find ourselves transformed, lighter, and ready to move on. Let us journey.

Many of us grow up learning to please others, to give up our personal space to ensure others are ok before ourselves. We violate our personal space and drop our boundaries in order to not offend others, maybe we walk on eggshells, attempting to keep the peace, forgetting we are betraying ourselves in the process. This meditation is to teach others how we want to be treated. It's a meditation that re-programs our misbeliefs about ourselves and helps us to learn how to improve our sense of self and how to set boundaries.

Throughout our lives we experience relationship challenges, changes or even relationships that end. This is life. Often times we have a difficult time moving on or letting go when a relationship is in flux or ending. This meditation helps us to release the cords that bind us to the old dysfunctional ways and patterns in a relationship. This meditation helps you to cut and release the old dysfunctional cords that are tethering the two of you in the relationship, in order to allow the relationship to become what it needs to-perhaps a new stronger connection or a clean ending. Cutting cords does not end the relationship, it releases the dysfunctional cords that are binding you with someone so new healthy cords can form and connect you from a healthy place.

Reset your mind and body to the new frequency of you: a person of vision, accomplishment, success, and light. Let us journey. This meditation helps to reprogram the mind with empowered thoughts that enable you to set goals and achieve success in life. We often times feel stuck or may have negative self-talk around goal setting and success. Many of us lack the confidence or beliefs within ourselves that we can become successful. This meditation plants seeds of empowerment, confidence, worthiness, and self-love into the mind that will enable you to make true life changes and begin to see yourself in a new way.

This meditation will reprogram the thoughts and beliefs we hold of ourselves that constrain us, those that prevent us from being who we are truly meant to be in the world. Let us journey.

This is a meditation to release anxiety, stress and worry. Find a comfortable position, close your eyes, and allow yourself to relax and become fully present. Let us begin.

A healing inner child meditation for codependency, negative programming, and lack of self-love. Let us journey.

We spend a lot of time searching for who we are on the outside of us when the direction we need to go instead is on the inside. Let us travel.

This meditation is excellent for anyone feeling overwhelmed, anxious, or stressed. In this meditation, we ground and cleanse to regain peace back in the present moment.

To live as an empath means taking on the emotional and energetic burdens of the world around us. In this month's mediation, I offer you a cleansing and grounding journey, a meditation to center you and help you find peace in noise. It is also a meditation for cleansing chakras, and we'll walk through each in meditation today.

This 5-minute meditation promotes relaxation, healing, and self- love. It's a wonderful meditation for emotional healing and/or physical healing or for anyone seeking greater peace in their lives.

No time for meditation? No more excuses! This one minute meditation promotes relaxation, brings you back to balance and create a sense of peace. It's a wonderful way to start your day and do during the day whenever you need to re-center and de-stress.

This 10-minute guided meditation will take you through a seven-step process to increase your manifestation success. It is an easy to follow creation process that includes the key steps in creation, using energy centers of the body to bring the creation down through you and into your reality. Many other manifestation strategies don't work well, as they are missing key elements to bring forth your desired creation. This process has been tried and proven and works! Let me know how you like it, would love to hear from you.

This 10-minute meditation will help you relieve stress and anxiety all year round. With a daily practice, you'll begin to find great inner strength from meditation — I hope you'll use this to begin to discover the emotional freedom that is possible!

Do you feel stuck? Do you continue to fall into the same dysfunctional patterns? This guided meditation helps to clear those patterns and make way for new empowering experiences.

We use this meditation to find and access our Inner Child. This is the part of us that is the container for our true feelings, true needs and innocence.

This is a guided heart opening meditation. It helps with opening our hearts to love from others and in loving ourselves.

Clears away old stories and limiting beliefs that are keeping us stuck and are in the way of living our most authentic lives.

A guided meditation for purifying our selves and releasing old, disempowered thoughts, wounds and emotions (both unconscious and conscious) and uncovering our true selves.

A guided meditation for when we feel scattered, spacey, "not all here." Grounding helps with focus, feeling present and awareness. It is beneficial to do this meditation daily. When we ground we are anchoring ourselves into the earth, which can be a very healing ritual on all levels.

Most of us grew up thinking that vulnerability equals weakness. Let's get this straight right off the top: that is absolutely not true. This week on the podcast we're going to pull that misconception apart and share some examples of vulnerability that you can use to frame how you approach becoming vulnerable as an act of courage, an act of embracing risk, and most importantly, and act of love!

Trouble staying in your Adult Chair when you're triggered? Me too! This week, I have a story all about my own triggering experience and I want to use it to demonstrate how to move through the chairs and release the power and energy that binds you in the trigger!

Trauma comes in many shapes and sizes. From single events to long-running experiences that take away our sense of safety and security. Even if it doesn't involve physical harm, it can lead toward isolation, depression, severe anxiety, and overwhelm. This week on the show, Michelle is back with a DriveTime Download inspired by the conversation on The Adult Chair private Facebook group to reflect on the nature of trauma and steps we can take to move forward in our Adult Chair! Links & Notes The Adult Chair 80: How do I feel my emotions?

Leaving work and feeling inspired — I have a new Drivetime Download for you! This week, I want to talk all about clearing anxiety. It's a massive trigger for so many of us this time of year, coming through my clients and group members all struggling to numb out, to escape the experience of anxiety. This week I want to help you navigate the rough waters of anxiety leading to significant, long-term change in your life. It's time to get off the treadmill of temporary soothing of pain, so hop in the car with me and let's go!