In this episode:

- Parenting pitfalls and how to avoid passing on your insecurities to your children
- The science of presence and how it can be used to overcome trauma
- How being "real" is not just an ethical choice, but a psychological benefit
Dr Dan Siegel
Daniel J. Siegel received his medical degree from Harvard University and completed his postgraduate medical education at UCLA with training in pediatrics and child, adolescent and adult psychiatry. He served as a National Institute of Mental Health Research Fellow at UCLA, studying family interactions with an emphasis on how attachment experiences influence emotions, behavior, autobiographical memory and narrative. 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. An award-winning educator, he is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and recipient of several honorary fellowships. Dr. Siegel is also the Executive Director of the Mindsight Institute, an educational organization, which offers online learning and in-person seminars that focus on how the development of mindsight in individuals, families and communities can be enhanced by examining the interface of human relationships and basic biological processes. His psychotherapy practice includes children, adolescents, adults, couples, and families. He serves as the Medical Director of the LifeSpan Learning Institute and on the Advisory Board of the Blue School in New York City, which has built its curriculum around Dr. Siegel’s Mindsight approach.

Today's guest is Margo Lydon. In this episode we cover:

• The most recent insights relating to corporate mental health in Australia from the country's largest wellbeing survey
• An overview of the 5 core domains of a thriving workplace
• What some organisations aren't doing well to support their staff (and what they could be doing more right)
• How COVID has impacted Australian workers (with a surprising finding)
• What leaders can do to serve their team more effectively

About Margo Lydon
Margo has been working in mental health and suicide prevention for 20 years. She is the CEO of SuperFriend - one of Australia's leading Workplace Mental Health Organisations. Margo holds a Master of Science, Positive Organization Development and Change and a Bachelor of Business Degree (Marketing). She was a finalist in the 2019 Telstra Business Women’s Awards (Victoria) in the “For Purpose and Social Enterprise” category.

In this episode:
- what it was like to grow up having a worldwide spiritual guru as a parent
- Mallika shares incredibly beautiful insights around the power of gratitude and what setting an intent really means (beyond just what we may have read in books like The Secret).
- We discuss the usually messy and sometimes dark journey of figuring out who we really are and what we really want
- Mallika gives some invaluable advice and perspectives on parenting, and of course, meditation.

About Mallika Chopra
Mallika Chopra is one of the most prolific meditation teachers in the world. She has spoken at TedXSan Diego and TedXBerkeley, Ideacity, Business Innovation Factory, Wisdom 2.0, Women’s Conferences around the United States, and the Parliament of World Religions. She has been featured in Time Magazine’s Special Issue on Mindfulness, as well as Women’s Health, Oprah.com, Mind Body Green, and Huffington Post. She has worked with companies such as Coca Cola, Disney, LinkedIn and Google. Mallika has published several books – including her most recent project called 'Just Breathe: Meditation, Mindfulness, Movement and More' where she empowers 8-12 year old kids to learn how to deal with stress, sleep better, build self-confidence, and manage the anxiety so many of them face today. She also wrote the book 'Living With Intent: My Somewhat Messy Journey to Purpose, Peace and Joy'. A lot of people would be familiar with her father Deepak Chopra – a.k.a. male Oprah Winfrey. He is essentially the face of self-help globally and a large reason why meditation is mainstream in today’s Western world.

In this episode:

• A world leading expert on attachment psychology gives us a masterclass in how relationships affect our brain
• A Harvard psychologist perspective on why mental health is so bad in our modern world
• We disclose the #1 thing that can affect your mental health
• The 5 attributes of giving secure attachment to others those we care about
• How to overcome conflict and ruptures in relationships through boundaries
• How we can become more mature in our ow=n emotional regulation
• An exploration of child development and the different relational maps as we grow up
• Top psychological traits of high performers and how to cultivate peak states
• Neuroscience insights into attention and how it relates to ADHD
• How parents can “wander out loud” about their kids to help them learn about their mind
• The subtle nuances of meditation to make sure it “works”

About Dr Daniel P Brown

Dr. Brown is an Associate Clinical Professor in Psychology at Harvard Medical School. He has served on the Harvard Medical School faculty for 37 years. He is the senior author of a major textbook on the treatment of attachment disorders in adults, D Brown & D Elliott, Attachment Disturbances in Adults. He has served as an expert witness in the courts in over two hundred lawsuits relating to psychological damages from trauma and abuse; His work as an expert witness or consultant on trauma and memory has included testimony before of International War Crimes Tribunal. He has studied under leading eastern meditation teachers (even meditation originators i.e. people who developed the actual practice itself) and has spent 46 years translating meditation texts from Tibetan and Sanskrit into English. He has the only scientific study identifying the neurocircuitry of the meditative experience of awakened mind. Dr. Brown’s background in both Western psychology and Eastern meditation traditions offers a unique integration of the contemporary Western research on peak performance and positive psychology and the classical Buddhist meditation lineage traditions.

Meet Liz, a Tax Partner at PWC in Texas who gets very real about her experiences with anxiety, clinical depression, medication and OCD. Liz was naturally good at everything she turned her hand to, including mastering the art of living an inauthentic life to please others. Her goal was to be seen and liked. And she was, but it was for the person she thought they wanted her to be, so she had to keep her “true” thoughts and compulsions hidden. She openly talks about her relationship with external validation and how it’s the strongest drug we can come across, as we permanently chase that high to feel loved more than anything else. True to form, Liz is now a leader in driving awareness of mental ill health, particularly in the corporate space.

Topics covered:

• The danger of masking our insecurities with relentless positivity
• Liz’s breakthrough moment of knowing how to combat her obsessive thoughts and impulsive behaviour
• How external validation is limitless and has no rock bottom

This is the link to the “demon duck of doom” that Liz mentioned at the end - https://cutt.ly/vlF6tQC

Liz’s blog - https://seriouslyjerkbrain.com/2020/01/08/beautiful-mind-jerky-brain/