The Power of Ritual
with Casper Ter Kuile
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After just five swipes of your newsfeed, and you’ll immediately see ideology and groupthink dominate just about every conversation. As the world becomes more and more digital, we’re simultaneously becoming more tribal.

The negative fallout is obvious, but what about the positives? What about a sense of purpose, belonging, ritual, and community? Can we find deep meaning and connection on our own terms? On this week’s podcast, a Harvard researcher joins me to share his work on ritual and religion.  

Listen & Learn: 

• Why agnostics are growing in numbers - but these are not atheists
• How it’s human nature to gather, share, celebrate, and establish norms
• Is there such a thing as a leaderless tribe? 
• How to take the good and avoid the bad of organized groups and religion 

Links & Resources

• The Power of Ritual Book

ABOUT OUR GUEST
Casper is a Ministry Innovation Fellow at Harvard Divinity School. He holds Masters of Divinity and Public Policy from Harvard University. With his team at Sacred Design Lab, he co-authored a paper How We Gather (2015), and his work has been featured in The New York Times, Atlantic Magazine, and Washington Post.

He's the author of the new book, The Power of Ritual (2020). 

Nutritional Tip of the Week:

• Fruit Until Five

Got Questions?

• Send me a voicemail here: Ask Lucas a Question
• Or write to us: podcast@yogabody.com 

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Leave us a Review on iTunes

Time Off 

with John Fitch

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“You can have anything you want in life, but you can’t have everything.” Most of our biggest dreams are totally unsustainable, but they come with a price. Want six-pack abs? Are you willing to skip carbs and spend 2 hours a day in the gym each day?

Want a 7-figure bank balance? Are you up for 70-hour work weeks for the next 10 years? Want to start your own business and work for yourself? Are you prepared to become your own worst boss?

I love my work and family. I rarely dream about leisure. And yet, I need it. We all need to rest and recharge. We need to step back so we can step back in more fully. On this week’s podcast, you’ll meet  the author of the new book, Time Off: A Practical Guide to Building Your Rest Ethic and Finding Success Without the Stress.

Listen & Learn: 

• How the future of work might look more like leisure
• How an ethical rest ethic is just as important as a work ethic 
• How work, schedules, and the future are changing
• How to recontextualized the idea of downtime

Links & Resources: 

• Time Off Book
• John’s Website 

ABOUT OUR GUEST

John Fitch is a coach, writer, and angel investor. He’s the co-author of a new book, Time Off: A Practical Guide to Building Your Rest Ethic and Finding Success Without the Stress.

Nutritional Tip of the Week:

• Fruit Until Five

Got Questions?

• Send me a voicemail here: Ask Lucas a Question
• Or write to us: podcast@yogabody.com 

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• Leave us a Review on iTunes

The Children of the Future
Jay Belsky, PhD
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“I don’t know the meaning of life, but I know the purpose of life. It is to create more life.”
- Jay Belsky

We’re cavemen pretending to be academic, political, cerebral, and romantic when really we’re mostly motivated by survival and procreation. This is simultaneously depressing and relieving since it explains away some of our most ridiculous actions. On this week’s podcast, Professor Belsky will share with us his life’s research around adaptation, the importance of fatherhood, and a potential “better way” than the American model for child-rearing.

Listen & Learn: 

• How behaviors often labelled maladapted are really perfectly adapted given the environments some children are raised in
• How to think about the role of the mother vs. the father in a child’s life
• Why fathers run away and mother’s stay
• The hardcore truth about the purpose of life  

Links & Resources:

• Jay’s new book, The Origins of You

ABOUT OUR GUEST
Professor Jay Belsky is an expert in child development and family studies. He specializes in daycare, parent-child relations during the infancy and early childhood years, the transition to parenthood, the etiology of child maltreatment and the evolutionary basis of parent and child functioning. He is the author of more than 300 scientific articles and chapters and the author/editor of several books, including, The National Evaluation of Sure Start: Does Area-Based Early Intervention Work.

Nutritional Tip of the Week:

• Eating Essential Oils

Got Questions?

• Send me a voicemail here: Ask Lucas a Question
• Or write to us: podcast@yogabody.com 

Like the Show?

• Leave us a Review on iTunes

Detox Your Thoughts
with Andrea Bonior

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The COVID-19 pandemic has dominated the news for months as a quiet crisis, one of mental health, has spread even faster and further. Depression, anxiety, and loneliness are at all-time highs. And what happens when you take away work, school, and social events on top of that? What happens when your usual support and self-care tools are unavailable to you?

For many of us, it means swimming through endless days of uncertainty, worry, and loss. On this week’s show, we’ll talk about down-to-earth strategies for how to reign in your head trash.

Listen & Learn: 

• How “all or nothing” thinking can create negative spirals
• How to consciously separate yourself from your negative thoughts and observe them from afar
• The real risk of not sleeping enough right now
• How naming your feelings can be the first important step toward growth

Links & Resources

• Detox Your Thoughts Book
  
  

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Andrea Bonior is a licensed clinical psychologist, speaker, professor, and writer. She writes, "Baggage Check," the mental health advice column and live chat for The Washington Post. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, NPR, Good Morning America, USA Today, CNN, USA Today, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, and Self. Her blog for Psychology Today has been viewed more than 16 million times. Her latest book is called, Detox Your Thoughts. 

Nutritional Tip of the Week:

• How Much Fiber to Eat

Got Questions?

• Send me a voicemail here: Ask Lucas a Question
• Or write to us: podcast@yogabody.com 

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• Leave us a Review on iTunes

How to Control Your Attention 

with Nir Eyal
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How is it possible that with social distancing, telecommuting, and almost zero social events right now, you can still go an entire day and get nothing done. Exercise was forgotten, healthy meals didn’t happen, and the work projects continue to pile up. Can you relate? 

Distraction was endemic before the pandemic and will continue long after. Our neural wiring makes us highly-prone to shiny object syndrome where every phone notification and salacious news story glimmers like a fleck of gold. Oh, what’s that? 10 minutes lost. And what about that? 30 more minutes gone.  On this week’s podcast, we’ll explore distraction, and its opposite, traction. 

Listen & Learn: 

• How to make technology your slave 
• Why the opposite of distraction is not focus - it’s traction
• Why we should stop blaming technology and start thinking about fundamental behaviours 
• How to put yourself first
• Why schedules are so important

Links & Resources: 

• Nir’s website
  
  

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Nir is a writer and the author of Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products and Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life. Previously, he taught as a Lecturer in Marketing at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.  

Nutritional Tip of the Week:

• Spinal Fusion

Got Questions?

• Send me a voicemail here: Ask Lucas a Question
• Or write to us: podcast@yogabody.com 

Like the Show?

• Leave us a Review on iTunes