The Big Silence

Latest Episodes:

34. What if Mental Health Is Really Brain Health? With Dr. Daniel Amen Oct 26, 2022

Show notes

This one is all about reframing the negative, avoidant, and prescription-driven social programming around mental health, and more importantly, mental illness. Our guest today, Dr. Daniel Amen, asks a question that illustrates a fascinating contrast… What if brain health was mental health?

We parse vocabulary throughout the conversation, how words can mean so much when it comes between a person feeling hopeless in their symptoms and understanding that they are still in control of their health, no matter their diagnosis.

He sheds light on a range of interesting subjects, from categorizing anxiety and depression into seven categories and a deep dive on reading brain scans, to the bombardment of subconscious illness messaging we face in our day-to-day lives and squishing the ANTs in our mind (automatic negative thoughts).

Tweaking our mindset, changing our diets, moving our body – the smallest things can make the biggest difference in our brain health, and as a result, in our quality of life; sometimes it is that simple. Visit brainhealthassessment.com to take a brain assessment for yourself and learn more about your body’s most critical organ.

Resources:

Read: You, Happier by Dr. Daniel Amen
Take a Brain Assessment: brainhealthassessment.com
Follow Dr. Daniel Amen on Instagram: @doc_amen
Follow Dr. Daniel Amen on Facebook: @drdanielamen
Follow Dr. Daniel Amen on TikTok: @docamen
Read: The Big Silence: A Daughter's Memoir of Mental Illness and Healing
Follow Karena Dawn on Instagram: @karenadawn
Follow The Big Silence on Instagram: @The.Big.Silence
Subscribe: The Big Silence YouTube Channel

Donate to The Big Silence thebigsilence.com/donate to be a part of the movement to break the silence and make noise with us!

“The Big Silence” theme song written and performed by James Nicholas Kinney.

Executive Handyman, Bobby Goldstein.

The Big Silence is produced by Crate Media.

33. Learning How To Love Yourself with Gwen Dittmar Oct 19, 2022

Show notes

Our guest today is Gwen Dittmar, an incredibly gifted coach and spiritual psychologist. In fact, she’s my own personal coach, and her work has had a huge positive impact on my life since we first met in 2017 – helping me to align with my purpose and find balance within myself.

She works with entrepreneurs (like me) who struggle to identify that one important thing that’s missing from their lives, and big brands with the foresight to know that they need to see the big picture. She’s also a breathwork practitioner, the guiding voice that led our dear Bobby in such a visceral and heart-opening experience during his very first session.

As is usually the case when we work together, Gwen includes me and my own layers in many of the threads we discuss, including the nuances of inner child work, reparenting, and building one’s confidence as a means to bring volume and clarity to their soul’s true voice.

We learn that she’s always had mystic gifts, and that repressing them during her youth, as she understands it now, was a key influence to her later struggles with identity, alcoholism, and an addiction to success. Yes! We can totally be addicted to success in a negative way – even when it comes to fitness goals and sports achievements – and it’s a topic we spend some time unpacking through the lenses of both our lives.

We also do a deep dive on human design, break down differences in coaching vs. therapy and how they apply to her practice, and touch on the expanding world of psychedelic ceremony as a treatment method – Iowaska, MDMA, ketamine, and the like. Are they ethical with respect to sobriety? Safe or effective for everyone?

This and so much more in today’s fascinating episode of The Big Silence. Thanks for listening.

Resources:

Explore Gwen’s practice: gwendittmar.com
Connect with Gwen Dittmar on Linkedin: Gwen Dittmar
Follow Gwen Dittmar on Instagram: @gwendittmar
Follow Gwen Dittmar on Twitter: @gwencoach
Read: The Big Silence: A Daughter's Memoir of Mental Illness and Healing
Follow Karena Dawn on Instagram: @karenadawn
Follow The Big Silence on Instagram: @The.Big.Silence
Subscribe: The Big Silence YouTube Channel

Donate to The Big Silence thebigsilence.com/donate to be a part of the movement to break the silence and make noise with us!

“The Big Silence” theme song written and performed by James Nicholas Kinney.

Executive Handyman, Bobby Goldstein.

The Big Silence is produced by Crate Media.

32. Sahara Rose: Find Your Dharma & Let the Magic Unfold Oct 12, 2022

Show notes

The Queen of Dharma, Sahara Rose, joins us in studio, for today’s heart-filled episode of The Big Silence. She is co-founder of the Dharma Coaching Institute and Rose Gold Goddesses, guiding women in their spiritual evolutions with an openness and authenticity that makes her such a treat to be around.

We talk about her family’s roots in survival and how that influence has served as a guide in her work as a Dharmic healer. Devoting her life to her mission of saving the world, she describes the hard lessons and failures she encountered along the way, and that – before healing the world, she needed to recognize and respect the never-ending process of healing herself.

We also spend some time differentiating between the three doshas – Vata (air) , Pitta (fire), and Kapha (earth) – and how understanding our archetype mix can help us identify balancing energies, people, places, and things around us.

Sahara’s an old soul, a quality many of us find in ourselves. It’s allowed her to keep the big picture in mind on her way to touching thousands of lives across the globe. Enjoy.

Resources:

Dharma Archetype Quiz — Which Dharma archetype are you?
Discover Your Dharma — A vedic guide to finding your purpose
The Idiots Guide to Ayurveda — Sahara’s first book
Dharma Coaching Institute — Opening in Spring of 2023!
Rose Gold Goddesses — A divine feminine mystery school
The Brave Table with Dr. Neeta Bhushan — Subscribe to the podcast
The Highest Self Podcast with Sahara Rose — Subscribe to the podcast
Slate Theory Winery — Fill your head

Connect:

Follow Sahara Rose on Instagram: @iamsahararose
Read: The Big Silence: A Daughter's Memoir of Mental Illness and Healing
Follow Karena Dawn on Instagram: @karenadawn
Follow The Big Silence on Instagram: @The.Big.Silence
Subscribe: The Big Silence YouTube Channel

Donate to The Big Silence thebigsilence.com/donate to be a part of the movement to break the silence and make noise with us!

“The Big Silence” theme song written and performed by James Nicholas Kinney.

Executive Handyman, Bobby Goldstein.

The Big Silence is produced by Crate Media.

31. Thoughts Can’t Kill: Understanding the Roots of Anxiety with Dr. Julia Britz Oct 05, 2022

Show notes

Joining The Big Silence, today, is Dr. Julia Britz, a licensed naturopathic doctor practicing in Las Vegas, NV, who specializes in integrative mental health. Her areas of focus include OCD, anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and psychiatric medication tapering.

Her story to personal health and natural healing starts early in her childhood, as we’ve heard is so often the experience for people who’ve overcome mental health challenges. Julia describes a visceral battle with OCD, the repeated compulsions and illogical thinking that clouded her life with dread, anxiety, and panic.

She describes anxiety as stress and fear combined, as we unpack its root causes, the downstream mental and physical toll that its baseline symptoms (like dysregulated eating patterns and poor sleep) can cause, and the difference between good stress and bad stress.

Dr. Britz also shares steps to dampening the impact of anxiety on your life from honesty with self and self-love, micronutrient therapies, structured therapy practices, journaling, visualization, and so much more.

Don’t forget, you can celebrate World Mental Health Day with The Big Silence at Slate Theory Winery for mental health talks, meditation, music, and wine! www.TheBigSilence.com/Events

Resources:

Website: drjuliabritz.com
Linkedin: Julia Britz
Read: Get Your Mind Into Life by Steven Hayes
Read: The Big Silence: A Daughter's Memoir of Mental Illness and Healing
Follow Karena Dawn on Instagram: @karenadawn
Follow The Big Silence on Instagram: @The.Big.Silence
Subscribe: The Big Silence YouTube Channel

Donate to The Big Silence thebigsilence.com/donate to be a part of the movement to break the silence and make noise with us!

“The Big Silence” theme song written and performed by James Nicholas Kinney.

Executive Handyman, Bobby Goldstein.

The Big Silence is produced by Crate Media.

30. Finding Zen: Your Actions Are Your True Belongings with Koshin Paley Ellison Sep 28, 2022

Show notes

Today's guest on The Big Silence is Koshin Paley Ellison. He has devoted his life to the study and application of psychotherapy and Buddhism. He's an author, a practicing monk, and the co-founder, alongside his husband, of the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care.

Connecting on our Ukrainian roots, and shared resulting generational trauma (like we heard about last week with Minaa B.), Koshin highlights the other, more positive side of the same coin – epigenetic courage. It’s a great way to flip the narrative, that we may experience pain, at times in part, at the hands of, or alongside, someone we love – but that the strength within that same person, which was passed onto us, has a hand in our ability to overcome it all.

Putting a poetic spin on the thought-feeling-action matrix, Koshin explains that the brain’s main job is to interpret – that if you’re in a negative headspace, you will end up interpreting things in the same way you have been interpreting them thus far. He offers an easy question-asking practice to help us move into positive spirals and avoid the false promises of negative thinking.

We also chat about his new book, coming out in November, called Untangled, how his grandma inspired his healing center and what’s practiced there, and welcome in some familiar conversational themes – trauma and death, to get a monk’s point of view on these complex realities. Similarly, and as you might expect, his meditation advice hits a little different toward the end of our conversation.

Celebrate World Mental Health Day with The Big Silence at Slate Theory Winery for mental health talks, meditation, music, and wine! www.TheBigSilence.com/Events

Resources:

Zencare Website: zencare.org/sensei-koshin-paley-ellison
Read: Untangled: Walking the Eightfold Path to Clarity, Courage, and Compassion
Learn at Zencare: Contemplative Medicine Fellowship
Follow Koshin on Instagram: @koshinpaleyellison
Read: The Big Silence: A Daughter's Memoir of Mental Illness and Healing
Follow Karena Dawn on Instagram: @karenadawn
Follow The Big Silence on Instagram: @The.Big.Silence
Subscribe: The Big Silence YouTube Channel

Donate to The Big Silence thebigsilence.com/donate to be a part of the movement to break the silence and make noise with us!

“The Big Silence” theme song written and performed by James Nicholas Kinney.

Executive Handyman, Bobby Goldstein.

The Big Silence is produced by Crate Media.

29. Talk It Out: Overcoming Intergenerational Trauma with Minaa B. Sep 21, 2022

Show notes

In this week’s new episode of The Big Silence, the inspiring and informed Minaa B joins us from the last semblance of summer in New York City to talk about her therapy journey, grieving a loved one, her advanced perspective on trauma, and burnout.

She specializes in anxiety and depression, an understanding that’s informed by her own experience with self-harm as a teen. We talk about the harsh environment she faced as a young person, challenged by cultural differences as her family gained footing in America after emigrating from Panama. We swap mother/daughter dynamics to illustrate shared experiences, and more importantly, a shared resolve to help others avoid our suffering.

Zooming out from the past, we also spend some time in the present. Even as the panic of the pandemic has cooled, the psychological impact of the work-from-home model remains a serious one. Minaa points out how the extended isolation impacts our brains, and how lacking something as simple as a morning routine can uproot a person’s sense of order.

Resources:

Website: minaab.com
Writing: wellandgood.com/author/minaab
Follow Minaa on Instagram: @minaa_b
Follow Minaa on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jessminaarchbold
Follow Minaa on LinkedIn: @MinaaBe
Read: The Big Silence: A Daughter's Memoir of Mental Illness and Healing
Follow Karena Dawn on Instagram: @karenadawn
Follow The Big Silence on Instagram: @The.Big.Silence
Subscribe: The Big Silence YouTube Channel

Donate to The Big Silence thebigsilence.com/donate to be a part of the movement to break the silence and make noise with us!

“The Big Silence” theme song written and performed by James Nicholas Kinney.

Executive Handyman, Bobby Goldstein.

The Big Silence is produced by Crate Media.

28. Rebuilding Beautiful: Bringing Suicide Out Into the Daylight with Kayla Stoecklein Sep 07, 2022

Show notes

Kayla Stoecklein had it all – then, it was gone in an instant. She joins The Big Silence today to share her tragic experience with suicide and how she’s rededicated her life to exploring grief and understanding the signs that might lead a person to take their own life.

Her husband Andrew, processing the recent passing of his father and facing enormous pressure at their ministry to fill his shoes, began experiencing severe panic attacks in 2017. Kayla shares each step they took along the way – medication, counseling, rest, time away from work – before he committed suicide the following year.

Through renewed hope and a deeper understanding of herself and the world around her, she explains how surprising it was, even amid his struggles, to wake up one day and be alone with her three young sons. Now, she’s rebuilding her beautiful life – and has released a book with the same title. Her perspective is inspiring and empowering, even, and especially, considering the heartbreaking circumstances which have led her to this moment.

If you are experiencing suicidal ideation or need someone to talk to, text “HERO” to 741-741 to reach The Big Silence Crisis Line. You are not alone in your suffering; please reach out to kickstart the positive momentum that could change your life forever.

Resources:

Read: Rebuilding Beautiful by Kayla Stoecklein
Find Community: Never Alone Widows
Get Help: Text “HERO” to 741-741 to reach The Big Silence Crisis Line
Read: The Big Silence: A Daughter's Memoir of Mental Illness and Healing
Follow Karena Dawn on Instagram: @karenadawn
Follow The Big Silence on Instagram: @The.Big.Silence
Subscribe: The Big Silence YouTube Channel

Donate to The Big Silence thebigsilence.com/donate to be a part of the movement to break the silence and make noise with us!

“The Big Silence” theme song written and performed by James Nicholas Kinney.

Executive Handyman, Bobby Goldstein.

The Big Silence is produced by Crate Media.

27. Being Big Sis: My Sister’s Voice & Perspective with Rachel Sahaidachny Aug 31, 2022

Show notes

My talented and beloved sister, Rachel Sahaidachny, runs the show here at The Big Silence and takes time to sit with us today for a deep dive sharing her perspective on the events and dynamics detailed in my memoir. In fact, we delve into a handful of great questions posed to me at a recent book club event (shout out to the TIU Books & Babes!).

We kick things off with a chat about her background in non-profit work and why it was so important, on both a tactical level and an emotional one, for us to join forces in this effort. Rachel shares what art means to her, and has meant, through her childhood. And, of course, we hold nothing back when it comes to reminiscing on our family life.

The questions posed are no softballs, to be sure. We get painfully honest in this one, about what we remember about our lives back then and what the events mean to us now. As much as my own perspective has been discussed, both on the show and in the book, what was it like to be the big sister during the hard times?

Resources:

Rachel Sahaidachny: RachelSahaidachny.com
Questions submitted by: @tiubooksandbabes
Read: The Big Silence: A Daughter's Memoir of Mental Illness and Healing
Follow Karena Dawn on Instagram: @karenadawn
Follow The Big Silence on Instagram: @The.Big.Silence
Subscribe: The Big Silence YouTube Channel

Donate to The Big Silence thebigsilence.com/donate to be a part of the movement to break the silence and make noise with us!

“The Big Silence” theme song written and performed by James Nicholas Kinney.

Executive Handyman, Bobby Goldstein.

The Big Silence is produced by Crate Media.

26. Schizophrenia, Sobriety & Making Art From It All with Emil Nava Aug 24, 2022

Show notes

Today’s guest on The Big Silence, Emil Nava, is an award winning director and out-of-this-world creative storyteller who’s worked with big brands, like GAP, and big names, like Alicia Keys and Pharrell. His specialty is film, music videos – kaleidoscopic and bursting with energy and color, his work is packed with expression and emotion.

In this one, we unpack where some of that inspiration was seeded. Emil lived a tough early life in London, getting in trouble a lot (sound familiar?). In fact, we learn that his father was also diagnosed with schizophrenia. The similarities in our experiences are both surprising, and not, at the same time. In years past, issues like these were not as visible as they are now.

Emil tells of his upcoming project, titled Snorkeling, which will cover youth and drug use. We also discuss how staying sober, practicing transcendental meditation, and eating well help him perform better in his work and keep the momentum going on his exciting nomad lifestyle.

In May, Emil joined NumberStory.org as an Artist Ambassador for their #MyArtStory campaign to help spread the word that art can be a powerful healing tool. Most people don’t realize how childhood adversity and toxic stress can have long term impacts on our mental and physical health. It was important for Emil to help get the message out and share his story to help others heal and find a brighter future.

NumberStory is the first national campaign to raise awareness about the impacts of childhood adversity, and is now focused on making a difference on a local level, starting with a grass-roots effort in Sacramento. For more information on overcoming childhood adversity, visit NumberStory.org.

Resources:

Watch: Emil’s #MyArtStory Journey
Number Story Website: numberstory.org
Number Story Instagram: @mynumberstory
Watch: Calvin Harris - Stay With Me (Official Video) ft Justin Timberlake, Halsey & Pharrell
Ammolite Studio: ammoliteinc.com
Instagram: @emilnava
Website: emilnava.com
Read: The Big Silence: A Daughter's Memoir of Mental Illness and Healing
Follow Karena Dawn on Instagram: @karenadawn
Follow The Big Silence on Instagram: @The.Big.Silence
Subscribe: The Big Silence YouTube Channel

Donate to The Big Silence thebigsilence.com/donate to be a part of the movement to break the silence and make noise with us!

“The Big Silence” theme song written and performed by James Nicholas Kinney.

Executive Handyman, Bobby Goldstein.

The Big Silence is produced by Crate Media.

25. Create a To-Be List (Not a To-Do List) with Monica Berg Aug 17, 2022

Show notes

Today's guest is Monica Berg. She's an international speaker, spiritual thought leader, the author of Fear Is Not An Option and Rethink Love, and the host of the Spiritually Hungry podcast. She joins us for an extra special episode as my husband and The Big Silence Executive Handyman, Bobby Goldstein, sits with me for a mini therapy session that’s revealing, honest, and at times, a little uncomfortable.

No one said the good work would be easy, after all. Still, it’s important to share these kinds of moments. No relationship is perfect and that’s okay. Monica walks us through some thought exercises with regard to our relationship and opens a few doors that have us thinking we’ll go back to her in the future.

As mental illness also runs in her family, we share and compare our experiences with the very real social stigma of the generation. She gives listeners a few powerful questions to keep top of mind as a grounding practice throughout the day, dishes on self-parenting in a special needs household, unpacks the root of fear within us, and drops three tips for maximizing your potential:

Appreciation for waking up (gratitude practice)
Intentions (of what you want the day to be)
Include an aspect of kindness and sharing within your day

We also talk about her new children's book coming out in October, The Gift of Being Different (pre-order below), and she has a great story about her own children that she shares in the podcast – no spoilers!

Resources: