Two years into the pandemic of COVID-19, many people are feeling overwhelmed and over stressed. Our nervous systems are exhausted, and we can more easily be in heightened states of emotions, including our fight or flight responses. Polyvagal Theory gives us language to help us understand how our nervous systems processes our emotions in states of safety and in fight or flight and can help us navigate how to better process and interact with others.

Deb Dana, LCSW is a clinician, consultant and author specializing in complex trauma. Her work is focused on using the lens of Polyvagal Theory to understand and resolve the impact of trauma and creating ways of working that honor the role of the autonomic nervous system. She is a founding member of the Polyvagal Institute and developer of the signature Rhythm of Regulation Clinical Training Series. Deb is well known for translating Polyvagal Theory into a language and application that is both understandable and accessible - for clinicians and curious people alike.

How do we talk about sex? When thinking about uncomfortable conversations, it’s always one of the first questions comes to mind. How and when do we talk about it with our kids? How do we talk about it with our partner? And in thinking about things like the “Me too” movement and realizing that we’re at an age when we need safer boundaries around sex and pursuing healthier masculinity and femininity, it’s one of the areas of life where we need to have better communication and language.

Over the past 25 years, Erwan Davon and his wife Alicia have successfully taught over 12,000 singles and couples how to have exceptional relationships, and have become the go-to experts for those seeking a higher level of relationship support.

All of us wrestle with finding meaning, fulfillment and purpose in our lives. Empowering people find their purpose while also becoming the best version of ourselves is the passion that led our guest Bob Lessor to write his book, The Peak Performance Formula.

In this actionable guide to achieving one's peak performance, Lesser shares his analysis of the three pillars of success: purpose, values, and vision. He incorporates case studies from real-life peak performers: people and organizations that are the best and the brightest.

The New Year is often a time to take a pause and hit a reset button so to speak. Sometimes this includes new mindfulness practices, sometimes new diet or exercise routines… It seems like the best times to make changes or create new habits are when there is a pivotal moment in your life. Well, for our guest Jo Schaalman, it was when she was literally hit by a truck.

Her recovery process was both physically and emotionally grueling, but through her healing she was able to unlock some universal healing principles that could not only help, but other people as well.

The Winter Solstice is one of our favorite days of the year. While being the shortest day for the northern hemisphere, it also can represent beginnings and new light in each of coming days.

This is a fun and playful reflection where Mary and David share some of their favorite moments this past year as well as inviting you in to play "Two Truths and a Lie" as they look ahead to the year to come.

If you've ever been told "you're too sensitive," you're probably immediately hearing that as a negative comment. But being a highly sensitive person is actually an innate and highly unique trait, and as HSP expert Julie Bjelland points out, it is not a disorder, but rather a trait that has helped us to evolve. People with this trait have specially developed abilities that helped them be good at finding food, mates, and a safe place for the tribe to live.

Nearly 20% of our population is considered Highly Sensitive, and in our conversation, we learn how to understand the experience of an HSP (highly sensitive person) so that we may tap into the gifts of sensitivity.

The Third Place is about creating space to have hard conversations. However, part of what is necessary for creating the element of safety required to even begin to discuss these difficult topics is first ensuring that our basic needs are met. The ability to engage in difficult conversations is also a sign privilege. If you’re hungry and worried about where your next meal will come from for you and your family, then you simply do not have the capacity to think about greater issues. You just need food. So, what are our basic needs? How can we do the work of first helping meet those needs before we try to engage in dialogue?

This week we welcome Kate Morton from Funk It Wellness to talk about menstruation and throughout our conversation, there were several eye opening, paradigm shift moments that came from talking about periods and women's menstrual health in a safe space. Many women are continuing to learn about their health many, many years after they have had their first period. But also, other conversations around work, business, productivity, living one's best life, and even removing the negative effects of patriarchal systems are all connected to having thoughtful and open communication about periods.

The Holiday Season... a time for family, social gatherings, cold nights and warm fires. For many people, these moments are also filled with alcoholic drinks in hand, and the notion is that if you're not drinking along, you're also not having as much fun. For those who struggle with alcohol and other substance use, this is a time that can be a significant struggle where you may wish you could avoid gatherings all together. We are grateful to be able to share an honest conversation about sobriety as we enter this season.

"Hurt people, hurt people." This powerful and profound phrase holds so much truth. When you are a victim of any form of trauma, and you have the healing and ability needed to step back and look at the person who caused you pain, you can often find that the hurtful behavior patterns that someone exhibits stem from pain that another person had caused them earlier in their lives.

Introverts and Extroverts and learning to understand their differences is always a fascinating topic! Do you gain energy from being around a lot of people and processing out loud? OR, do you absolutely crave complete aloneness and silence to replenish your being? Or both?!?

Today we are joined by Karla McLaren, M.Ed. Karla is an award-winning author, social science researcher, and empathy pioneer. Karla shares with us her experiences that led her to becoming an expert of emotions, and shared with us her Emotional Vocabulary List, which gives us insight to our 18 different emotions, how they show up in our lives, and what they are trying to tell us.

Today we welcome Chris and Kim Watson, two active members of Braver Angels who find themselves on different sides of the aisle, but within their marriage. One of the core functions of politics is to work towards figuring out our social contracts with each other… What are our rules as we work, play and all live together. Marriage is similar in that we’re constantly working on how we live together in our homes - so very political, just on a much smaller scale. Mary and I were both very curious to learn from Chris and Kim what they have learned from each other while being on opposite sides of politics.

We welcome back Sara Blanchard and Misasha Suzuki Graham of The Dear White Women podcast to tell us about their new book!

Sara and Misasha have become dear friends to The Third Place and they share with us why they wrote this book, and give their unique perspectives of race in America.

Money is emotional! Spenders, Savers, Planners... we each take a different approach to money. Money can define our self worth. If we're struggling financially, it can dominate our thoughts in other areas of life. Even when we have enough, it's easy to let our internal voices question "what is enough?"

Social Media has become an incredibly large part of our society in recent years, completely reshaping how we interact with one another. This week, Gabby Blitz Rosen, gives us great insight to social media, how it’s used in marketing, and helps us navigate both the good and the bad of this crazy digital world.

Guns are the leading cause of death for those who die by suicide. Yet guns are so interwoven into our culture, thinking about reducing guns is a near impossible conversation to have - and it certainly does not allow for us to actually make an impact on reducing the number of people who die by suicide.

Can you imagine a world with ZERO suicides? In our conversation with Scott Smith, he paints a hopeful picture of how we can make a real difference of lowering the number of suicides.

We had never met a billionaire before and were curious to know what a day in the life was like! While we certainly had a lot of fun asking this question, Jim ALSO gave such great insight about entrepreneurship as we asked many questions about his book, The Innovation Stack: Building an Unbeatable Business One Crazy Idea at a Time.

We continue our conversation with Steven D’Achille of the Alexis Joy foundation.

We do want to let you know that up front that part of this story is difficult to hear... it does have a tragic ending with his wife Alexis dying by suicide.