Dr. Rick joins Forrest on this episode of the Being Well Podcast for a deep dive into harnessing our natural generativity. How can we become more productive and creative, experience greater satisfaction, and lean into our biological drives to get more of what we want out of life? They explore what a drive is, our natural drive states, and what we can learn from models of motivation like self-determination theory, before moving on to what we can do if generativity doesn’t come naturally to us. Rick and Forrest share how we can lean into enjoyable experiences, feel more competent and auto ..read more

This Wednesday Night Meditation included a 34-minute meditation and a 47-minute talk about Right Effort . . . about Right Effort! I hope you find it helpful, and you are welcome to join my free Wednesday Meditations – which are open to everyone! Meditation: Right Effort . . . about Right Effort! Download the Audio of this Meditation Talk: Right Effort . . . about Right Effort! Download the Audio of this Talk Dāna offering: These teachings are offered freely, at no charge. To practice generosity through making an offering – called “dāna” in the language of earl ..read more

Each year I use an issue of the Just One Thing newsletter to offer Twelve Good Things that I think are really wonderful and worth your attention. May you and those you love and the whole wide world be truly well, truly happy, and truly at peace. — ONE — Global Compassion Coalition The Global Compassion Coalition is working to build a better world, with compassion and justice at its heart. Please join me and over a hundred thousand others — it’s free, and growing by several thousand a week — to connect inner and outer, the personal and the political, so that people and the planet are tru ..read more

We’re getting toward the end of the year, and it’s a great opportunity to evaluate where we are and where we’d like to go. On this episode of the Being Well Podcast, Dr. Rick and Forrest explore how we can step out of the way we’ve been, and into a new way of thinking, doing, and being. They talk about self-concept, unconscious beliefs, and how those beliefs affect our behavior. Forrest then shares a model of what this kind of change tends to look like practically, which usually includes relax our attachment to the things that are holding us back. Other topics include getting down to “t ..read more

Just as we can exercise our arms or legs to build physical strength, we can exercise our brains like we do any other muscle. On this episode of the Being Well Podcast, Therapist Amy Morin joins Forrest to help us learn how to regulate our thoughts, manage our emotions, and become more psychologically flexible. These key skills are particularly important for building a healthy relationship. Forrest and Amy explore how couples can work together to identify their issues, deal with effort imbalances, and avoid common mistakes (like having, get this, not enough conflict).  About our Gue ..read more

What can I do if my partner dominates conversations about our relationship? How can I navigate situations where I want to repair, but other people don’t? What’s a “highly sensitive person,” and how does it relate to conditions like complex PTSD, ADHD, and autism? In this episode of the Being Well Podcast, Dr. Rick and Forrest open up the mailbag and answer questions from listeners. If you’d like to have a question answered on the podcast, you can join us on Patreon or send it in to contact@beingwellpodcast.com. You can watch this episode on YouTube. LISTEN WATCH Ke ..read more

This Wednesday Night Meditation included a 34-minute meditation and a 47-minute talk from Rick’s series on Wise Effort, focusing on The Essence of Practice: Loving, Knowing, and Growing. Life happens to us, and we happen in life, in nature, in reality. Then what? We can either be swept along, in ignorance, fueled and poisoned by hatred, greed, and heartache. Or we can practice: In our relationship to and how we respond to what is happening to us our experiences of that, and the nature of reality itself Practice is like a three-legged stool, with three key elements. In Pali ..read more

In one of the most interesting conversations we’ve ever had on the Being Well Podcast, Forrest is joined by clinical psychologist Dr. Jacob Ham to explore what really helps people work with – and be with – trauma. They begin with Dr. Ham’s background and what drew him to trauma work before Forrest asks him how he “conceptualizes” different kinds of traumatic experiences. Dr. Ham then takes them away from the conceptual, and toward the felt.  They talk about cultivating a felt sense of connection, empathy as a way in to relationship, and the value of anger. Dr. Ham shares about his ..read more

This Wednesday Night Meditation included a 33-minute meditation and a 49-minute talk about Wise Effort: Already Home. I hope you find it helpful, and you are welcome to join my free Wednesday Meditations – which are open to everyone! Meditation: Wise Effort – Already Home Download the Audio of this Meditation Talk: Wise Effort – Already Home Download the Audio of this Talk Dāna offering: These teachings are offered freely, at no charge. To practice generosity through making an offering – called “dāna” in the language of early Buddhism – please enter your email and ..read more

Ah the holidays, that blessed time of year when we come together with our highly functional family systems to engage in some good, old-fashioned fun. If that sounded like a joke, this episode of the Being Well Podcast is for you. Dr. Rick and Forrest explore how to survive the holidays with the dishes (mostly) intact. They talk about the pull of dysfunctional family systems, our tendency to return to the way things were “back then,” and balancing the desire to flip the Thanksgiving table with the desire to just make it through another year.  I thought this was one of the most ..read more