Happy Monday … this episode is fresh off the press. Still jagged in my hand. While some episodes are long polished either by time, the work of turning the memories over and over, divine softness … this episode is new stuff, recent stuff, raw edges and rough spots. When I shared about the road trip we took as a family this Summer in a recent episode, I mentioned it would be a story for another time, well that time is today. I woke up with this podcast in my chest, burning in my throat. I hope it meets you along our unfinished road and provides some company for the journey.

Thank you for listening,

Elyse

www.elysesnipestherapy.com

www.elysesnipes.com

I had an iPhone memory pop up in my photos and it felt like a cosmic flick in the head in all the right and hard ways. You know the memories, the ones that make you sputter and ugly cry and spiral into the rest of your 100,000 photos. The memory that came for me this week was right on time, a paper airplane from the past, and it lead to this episode. An invitation to pause, remember, pivot and proceed. What a gift, what a grace, that we can always begin again. And again. And again.

Cheers,

Elyse

P.S. If you are interested in doing some work on your own maternal story, have questions about your timeline syncs up with your child’s, or are wanting to gain some clarity and practical tools in motherhood, I have availability and would love to work with you. You can see all the therapy/coaching things at www.elysesnipestherapy.com.

We can also jump on a free discovery call together to see what you need and what might serve you in this season of life.

Ok, we back. And hopefully with more consistency. This episode is both a pick up of the 40 Things, centering on the ideas of home and belonging to a place, as well as a recapping my 3,000 + plus mile road trip from the summer. I hope you listen, I hope you wonder, I hope you remember your own places of belonging and in turn, offer this sense of goodness to the world around you.

Cheers,

Elyse

www.elysesnipes.com - for all art things

www.elysesnipestherapy.com - for all therapy things

I have been considering where I fit in the intersection of art and therapy. On the one hand, they have felt like separate forms and on the other hand, they keep colliding, becoming one thing. This video is that collision.

I designed and fabricated this chair/throne. I wanted to create a distinct seat, a space for someone to come and boldly inhabit, an invitation to really sit in all their power, all their experience, all their knowing.

This shell throne is still in process, but as I walked by it my backyard, I couldn’t help but feel the pull to sit there. In therapy, we often use the empty chair technique and welcome the living out of the unspoken, the unfelt, the unrecognized. The demonstration or living art in the video above, plays with the direct intersection of art and therapy. Where one becomes the other and then becomes the other and so on.

May this work bless your perspective, bless your seeking, bless your awareness, bless your arriving.

Cheers!

Elyse

Here’s the tea: I officially closed Radical Wellness and that chapter of my life. Which means I am doing two things - art and a small private practice. I’m simplifying, clarifying and distilling my work. I am tasting the medicine I have had the privilege of offering - autonomy, bravery, course correction. I have had front row seats to people’s change for almost twenty years now and I am taking a turn in the “do new things seat”. I am excited and nervous and calm and here and eager and ready and hopeful and patient and alive. What more could I want?

Wherever you are and however you find this email … may you notice something lovely within yourself today. May you know you are equally the art and the artist. The master piece and the process. Well done you.

Cheers,

Elyse

This is episode 230 and is technically the 27th lesson of the 40 things part of this podcast. Next: You actually don’t have to have it all figured out. You don’t have to know what you’re going to do “next”. How could you possibly know that, if you don’t know how to be here now?

Listen to this episode to find out what presence and Fire Horses and the collective unconscious have to do with you.

May you be met this year with really grounded and also really passionate momentum.

Cheers!

Elyse

P.S. I made some big changes last year (sold a business) and am now full circle back in my own private practice. If you have been thinking of doing any work together, I am offering 1:1 coaching, one time sessions for ppl looking to jumpstart an idea, and journey within sessions. You can find all that on my website. Happy New Year!

What would change about the season you are in if you knew it wasn’t forever?

Today’s episode dips into the concept of impermanence and the various seasons we are in simultaneously. I walk you through an exercise on seasons and landscapes and how to use your visual cortex and imagination to take stock of where you are now. This is one of my favorite episodes I have recorded, I hope you enjoy it too!

Cheers,

Elyse

Back at this 40 Things journey with Episode 228: Possibility.

Resolve to not know everything. Commit yourself instead to wonder, to what if, to why not.

May this episode open for you new paths and moments of exploration along your way.

Cheers,

Elyse

Happy back to all the things … I don’t know how your week is going but I am feeling inundated by all the back to school-sports-extracurriculars that are now on my calendar. I was talking to myself in the car about the different carpool schedules, trying to figure out which days would work best to drive when my husband asked me what I was doing … I didn’t even realize I was talking out loud. So there’s that. And then the creation of this episode … finding neutral. In the urgency and good chaos of all that is life right now, I need neutral, I need pause, I need exhale and peace and ease.

This episode moves through two different exercises to help you find your neutral - breath work and guided visualization. I hope they bring you some sweet relief this week as you navigate your To Do lists. May we find neutral so we can find joy.

Cheers,

Elyse

P.S. I just opened my calendar for Fall bookings if you are interested in doing some work together: www.elysesnipes.com. 20% off an appointment when you mention this episode.

Interrupting our regular flow with some back to school thoughts on good grief. Didn’t see that coming huh?

This week I sent my two sons to middle school and my daughter to fourth grade. Cue the memory lane of middle school moments and feeling like maybe parenthood is finally going too quickly. Then I ran into a friend of mine who is sending her first son to college so we both cried, naturally. What hit me after this interaction was the concept of good grief. What if there are good things, really good things that we have been hoping and planning for and praying for and they happen and then we just want our baby back thank you very much? What good things are happening that are also kicking up some grief?

Give this episode a listen and let me know what you think. Do you have any good grief?

Cheers,

Elyse

P.S. I am now accepting appointments for Fall if you have been considering doing some work together. www.elysesnipes.com

Listen to this episode to stretch your experience of accessing joy here and now. Let yourself linger in the good stuff.

Elyse

When was the last time you laughed at yourself? Risked public scrutiny in the name of spontaneity? How could foolishness be a growth edge for you?

There is immense learning and liberation for the beginner’s mind. There is no pressure to be good at whatever the thing is because you’re new to it. You showing up, trying, taking a swing at it, is enough. As adults, we can become obsessed with mastery and being “good” or getting “better” at our hobbies or work. We rarely continue to do things that are fumbly or awkward or foolish … what a bummer. There is so much life to be lived right at this intersection.

Today’s episode is an invitation to your own humanity, to doubling down on joining the fun and giving yourself the opportunity to get to know your own wonderful weirdness. Do something unexpected this week, I double dog dare you.

Elyse

www.elysesnipes.com

What if I asked you, “what do you do for fun?” … be with that for a moment. What do you actually do for fun? When was the last time you did your fun thing? How does fun change your experience of your life?

A couple years ago, as I was planning my children’s fun summer, I realized I didn’t have a single fun thing for myself on my calendar. In fact, I hadn’t even thought about it and couldn’t remember the last time I had. I wasn’t on my own list. How sad. So, I made some changes …

This episode explores finding fun again and prioritizing it, actually doing it, not just thinking about it. So, tell me, what do you do for fun?

Elyse

Happy Summer … I am on a break from social media (that I might not come back from) … so I am happy to still get a chance to connect here. Today’s episode is number 21 on our 40 things journey.

Feel - Don’t be afraid of death or grief or feeling. There is life here. And wisdom. And the very thing you’re after but afraid to face. Feel it. Get to the other side.

Your feelings aren’t the enemy. They are the check engine light of your life. They are turning on so you can deal with what is happening and then have a fully functioning car/life so you can go on. Your feelings are here to heal you. So feel them … and live to tell about it.

Listen and let me know what you think …

Cheers,

Elyse

P.S. I have some limited summer time availability if you wanted to connect, find me here.

P.S.S. Here is the PDF of our 40 Things journey if you wanted to see them for yourself. Enjoy!

Coming in hot with an expletive warning … this episode is riddled with some choice vocabulary, so if you have littles around, consider using some earbuds. The point of this episode is to rile you up, to push on you a bit, to get your goad. So, if you’re not in the mood, listen another time. But if you feel like leaning in … today’s your episode.

Break the rules - challenge your deepest beliefs about the way things are supposed to go and the way you’re supposed to be. If you have rules about what you do and don’t do, who you are friends with or how you wear your hair or what you’re allowed to be … break your rules. See what still fits and live into the next iteration of you.

As always, let me know what you think …

Cheers,

Elyse

This is sticky in my mouth, yet I have to say it. It’s hard to swallow, this idea that I somehow participating in my own suffering. Introducing the option of agency can be challenging and can feel rude/dismissive/uncaring … and yet, I have returned to this grindstone with my own story again and again and have come to this same conclusion. So, here I am … sharing with you, truths that may be inconvenient and unpopular, but here none the less.

May you listen with a ton of compassion for the parts of your story that still feel unbearably hard, may you be met with tenderness and also openness to seeing if there is another way.

Sincerely,

Elyse

www.elysesnipes.com

Also, I probably should have included this already … but here is a link to the entire 40 Things pdf if you wanted to hold them in your hands. Then you can see the whole story unfold.

Cheers!

Elyse

www.elysesnipes.com

Hope you’re having a great week! I am getting caught up with posting and have a few episodes coming your way. It is a funny thing for me to share this series of episodes - I originally had them as a just for me, as journal entries and maybe something to share with my kids one day. But as I looked at each entry, I thought, what if I also shared those here? Even though I have shared a lot of personal things on my podcast, there is something that feels a little extra vulnerable about this series. Maybe because they are just a response to my own human experience versus a question from a listener, or a clients experience … whatever the reason, I am grateful for your listening and sojourning.

Today’s episode is all about LOVE. Love as our origin story, love as every first step, love as where we start and end and return to again and again and again. Love. Nothing you need to do to earn it or keep it … you already are, so loved. What would happen if you lived from here?

Cheers,

Elyse

P.S. In other news, I am working on a couple other offerings … check out the Journey Within Session to see if it is a fit for you.

Today’s episode explores going all in on yourself … choosing something that has been an idea and deciding to actually go for it. I share a couple of my own moments and invite you to consider yours.

Let’s dream together … www.elysesnipes.com

Cheers,

Elyse

Find me here to let me know what you think … www.elysesnipes.com.

Cheers,

Elyse

P.S. I had the opportunity to be on the other side of a podcast interview and wanted to share that with you too … my friends Kristina and Holly’s podcast: Good Girl Gone Human. Enjoy!