My guest this week is psychologist Dr. Beth Kurland, author of the new book, You Don’t Have to Change to Change Everything: Six Ways to Shift Your Vantage Point, Stop Striving for Happy, and Find True Well-Being (affiliate link). We begin with a calming guided meditation that Beth led.

Topics we discussed included:

• The assumption that not feeling at ease is a personal failure
• Being with our distress without being swallowed up by it
• Cultivating well-being in the absence of happiness
• The role of self-compassion in well-being
• Recognizing and connecting with a deeper part of ourselves, whether we call is Self, spirit, or soul
• Seeing the world from our Wise Self
• Living from our head vs. being more connected to and aware of the body
• Contraction vs. expansion in the area around the heart
• Why we don’t habitually run toward our body and wise Self as refuges
• A simple practice for coming back into one’s body
• Proper breathing for calming the nervous system

Beth Kurland, PhD, is a clinical psychologist with three decades of experience.

She is also a TEDx and public speaker, a mind-body coach, and an author of three award-winning books: Dancing on The Tightrope; The Transformative Power of Ten Minutes; and Gifts of the Rain Puddle.

Beth blogs for Psychology Today and is the creator of the Well-Being Toolkit online program. She lives in the Boston area.

For more, visit her website.