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Dr. Russell Kennedy, aka “The Anxiety MD”, specializes in the art and neuroscience of helping people recover from anxiety disorders. He knows anxiety from the inside out, as he developed his own anxiety disorder as a result of growing up with a dad with severe schizophrenia.

We are all so lucky to have Dr. Russ join us for today’s episode of Cracking Open. He shares his personal story of how he healed his anxiety and teaches us that anxiety is simply old trauma energy that is stuck in our body and nervous system which sets off alarms over and over again telling us that we are not safe.

We are kicking off this new season with Linda Sivertsen, a woman whom I have admired and learned from for many years – not only as an accomplished writer, but as a mom, woman, and fellow soul seeker.

Linda always wanted to be a writer. And even though she was in the bottom third of her class academically, she had a dream one night where she saw herself as a writer of several books. That was all the encouragement that this dreamer needed to persevere through her old stories of not being good enough.

Today Linda Sivertsen is known throughout the world as "Book Mama". She is a book proposal doctor, author whisperer, agent connector, idea-fairy, and huge-hearted cheerleader of creativity for writers of all genres–and every gold-plated publishing dream. In the past twenty-four years, she has authored & co-authored eleven books. Her titles have won awards and hit all the lists as an author, co-author, and former magazine editor and ghostwriter.

Three years ago to the day that I lost my mom, the most devout Catholic I've ever known, I interviewed this week's podcast guest, who just so happens to be the daughter of a nun. Life is full of surprises, but rarely any accidents.

Liz Dozier is the Founder & CEO of Chicago Beyond, an organization whose mission is to ensure that all young people have the opportunity to live a free and full life. Since its inception in 2016, Chicago Beyond has invested more than $40M in barriers to equity – from education, to youth safety, to health, wellness, and beyond.

Have you ever had a conversation with someone you just met, where time seems to come to a standstill and it feels like you have known this person for years? This is exactly what it felt like when I interviewed Tami Simon.

Tami is the Founder and CEO of Sounds True, a wildly successful multimedia publishing company that she launched more than three decades ago with a dream and one clear mission – to disseminate spiritual wisdom. Now one of the top publishing companies for many of the leading teachers and visionaries of our time, Tami and her team of more than 110 employees are accomplishing their mission to wake up the world.

Listening to today's conversation with Angie DeGeronimo is the perfect way to learn how to feed the healthy and more loving wolf inside of you.

Angie DeGeronimo is a habit change expert, transformation coach, and author of The Little Wonders Playbook, which provides guidance on simple, daily habits that can drive positive change in every area of your life.

We all know that presence is hard to come by this time of year with the busyness of the holiday season, as we attend parties and performances, wrap up year-end work deadlines, and check off our “to-do” lists.

But what I'm realizing is that our presence truly makes the best presents of all.

So I am gifting you the presence of this week’s special podcast guest, Candace Blair.

Candace has been teaching Kundalini for over 10 years, is an experienced sound healer, a certified “Cacaoista”, a shamanic reiki practitioner & a lead coach for the “Alchemy of Becoming” methodology.

I don’t know about you, but whenever I spend time with family over the holidays, I become even more curious about people’s personalities, especially my own.

Why are we so attached to some family members, but not to others?

Why do we feel safe around some people, but want to avoid or run
away from others?

Why are some of us so uptight about cooking, while others can do it
with ease?

Why do we sometimes crave solitude while other times love being in
a large group?

I have found that one of the greatest times of year to take a deeper look into our choices, our triggers, and even our own souls, is over the holidays.

That makes this the perfect time to listen to attachment style expert Dr. Diane Poole Heller this week on the Cracking Open podcast!

This week's Cracking Open Podcast episode with Shaka Senghor is so effing good!

(I actually wanted to write the F word, but I still feel a bit scared doing it – hello old Catholic schoolgirl guilt!)

There are so many gems in this episode but one of my biggest takeaways was the importance of standing in your truth.

Shaka shares his story with us about his own reckoning and realization that he initially wasn’t living his truth. Instead, he was living out an interpretation of his life rooted in his trauma. This trauma-informed life eventually led him into a 19-year imprisonment for 2nd-degree murder, seven of those years which were in solitary confinement.

Ashton Whitmoyer-Ober is a community psychologist, speaker, and certified Enneagram educator. She is also the author of Enneagram for Relationships, The Two of Us: A Three-Year Couples Journal and The Enneagram Made Simple.

With a desire to see relationships strengthened and people empowered, she created Enneagram Ashton in early 2019.

You may be asking yourself – what is the Enneagram?

Ashton shares with us this incredible ancient system that will not only help you strengthen your relationships but also help you not take things so personally in life.

I will never forget one cold and dark February morning getting chills from head to toe while listening to Krista Tippet interview Trabian Shorters on her podcast On Being.

Trabian was describing his visionary concept of asset framing. From social media to journalism, academics, and policy-making, asset framing is about seeing others’ assets before you witness their deficits.