Mandyland
80 episodes - English - Latest episode: 12 months ago - ★★★★★ - 2 ratingsan insight into the wonderful people, conversations, and topics that are present in my life. In any given week I end up talking about neuroscience, motherhood, education, feminist and a variety of other social justice issues, gender and LGTBQ2S+, mental health and wellness, community, and yoga and mindfulness.
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Episodes
Season Two Opener
August 28, 2018 14:15 - 6 minutes - 3.66 MBWelcome back! Just a short little introduction to what you can look forward to this season and why!
End of Season Call Out
August 02, 2018 00:47 - 16 minutes - 18.5 MBWell, that's a wrap. It's been a year of this project and it's time to end one season and start anew. There are lots of ideas brewing so I can't wait to start. Therefore, it won't be that long before it starts again.
Death and Dying with Terrance
July 10, 2018 18:17 - 57 minutes - 65.6 MBBackground I hadn’t met Terrence in person before this conversation but Jenn Chan (another regular guest on Mandyland) mentioned him when I was talking about death one day. She told me that Terrence has a brother with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and that his brother was considering Medical Assistant in Dying (MAID). I provoked Terrence with a little facebook comment about having him on my podcast and he took the bait. We chatted a few times on facebook just to organize timing and then here ...
Follow-Up About Depression and Anxiety with Dawn
June 14, 2018 16:09 - 72.4 MBDawn, who shared what it’s like to have depression and anxiety earlier this year, now shares her experience with her gradual return to work and ultimately her having to stop working. She describes her very visceral experiences as she attempts to go back and subsequently the failure she feels not being able to. Like before, this is a great window into the what it’s like to struggle with anxiety and depression. At one point I even admit that I want to help her and fix her and how hard it is fo...
Birds Chirping Mindfulness Meditation
June 11, 2018 14:00 - 5 minutes - 5.9 MBI was walking with my dog Jett one spring day and noticed the beautiful sounds of the birds chirping. So I decided to record them as a 5-minute mindfulness meditation. Background: Mindfulness is paying attention to and sensing the present moment. Every moment is an opportunity to practice this simple act of paying attention and just noticing sights, smells, tastes, sounds, feelings, and even thoughts as they come up inside of us. So just pausing for 5 minutes to hear the sounds of birds ...
Intuition with Emily
June 05, 2018 16:44 - 50 minutes - 39.3 MBTalking with Emily made my friggen week! I didn’t know her before this first encounter except through email briefly. A few weeks before this, I put out a call for training proposals for a retreat that I’m running for my coaching/teaching staff at the Centre for Applied Neuroscience. Emily replied offering a workshop on intuition based on her PhD work in education philosophy. I was OVER THE MOON with her email and before even meeting her I booked her to train us! This conversation was our fir...
The Female Brain with Greer
May 17, 2018 22:42 - 52 minutes - 60.1 MBBackground Greer (another neuroscientist) and I began talking after I posted something on facebook about how I wanted to honour the female brain. She replied to my post with something like “YES!” and so we planned a conversation without any idea of where it would actually go. We went around and around and covered much ground including: 1) what does a woman leader looks like?, 2) valuing women in the workplace, 3) the female stress response of “tend and defend”and the maternal brain, 4) th...
Giftedness with Kandace
April 18, 2018 19:50 - 1 hour - 131 MBI recently started reading about giftedness in children. I came upon it somewhat by accident, more out of a curiosity prompted by many people commenting on Ashar’s unusual alertness since he was a baby, his incredible comprehension even before he was verbal, and always seems to be thinking. A few of these people suggested he might be gifted. So one day I googled it and became almost immediately captivated by what I was reading, mostly about the special needs of gifted children. It’s been a...
Enlightenment in Death with Mike
March 30, 2018 18:21 - 29 minutes - 17.1 MBWe’re on a date night… and this is what we end up doing: talking about death! We talk about it from the perspective of my fear of dying and also from Mike’s perspective of not being afraid and then with respect to (assisted) suicide and enlightenment. Reflective Questions What happens when we don’t take care of our needs or don’t advocate for what we need? Gabor Mate thinks our body will say “no”. How does taking your own life (either by assisted suicide or other) affect our ability t...
Cosmic Consultation
March 16, 2018 20:06 - 1 hour - 57.1 MBI have always enjoyed consulting the cosmos for support. Actually, if I trace my psychology interests back, I can see it within my interests in the paranormal, for example, dreams, ghosts, telekinesis, superpowers, unsolved mysteries, and oracles. Something about these unknowns deeply resonates with me and they bring me great comfort especially when I feel lost in other ways. To me, a session like this IS therapy, a therapy that feels a million times better than any other therapy I have ev...
Alternative (Elementary) Schools & Learning Styles with Jenn
February 14, 2018 02:48 - 38 minutes - 21.9 MBA few days before this conversation Jenn and I (along with our partners and kids and friends) attended an open house for an alternative school in our neighbourhood that we both want our kids to get into. The conversation natural meanders through a variety of topics including school ratings, learning styles, starting a new school, starting a summer school, tracking how kids learn, neuropsychoidiology, strength-based approach to learning... Resources Equinox: https://equinoxschool.ca/ ...
3 Part Series on Quitting Ultimate: Part 3 with the Community
February 02, 2018 20:37 - 17 minutes - 10.2 MBSo I made a big decision recently, which was to quit playing competitive ultimate this summer. The process was gruelling for me and it brought up a lot of interesting things for me. I start with wrapping my mind around letting go of an identity (in my own monologue) to discussing my body with Mike and ending with confidence in how I want to grow old with my body and try to embrace death with Mike, Lindsey, and Bronwyn (and the kids in the background). Who knew it would be a spiritual journey...
3 Part Series on Quitting Ultimate: Part 2: Getting Out of My Head with Mike
February 02, 2018 20:36 - 13 minutes - 7.76 MBSo I made a big decision recently, which was to quit playing competitive ultimate this summer. The process was grueling for me and it brought up a lot of interesting things for me. I start with wrapping my mind around letting go of an identity (in my own monologue) to discussing my body with Mike and ending with confidence in how I want to grow old with my body and try to embrace death with Mike, Lindsey, and Bronwyn (and the kids in the background). Who knew it would be a spiritual journey ...
3 Part Series on Quitting Ultimate: Part 1 Saying Bye to My Sports Identity with Mandy
February 02, 2018 20:36 - 12 minutes - 5.96 MBSo I made a big decision recently, which was to quit playing competitive ultimate this summer. The process was grueling for me and it brought up a lot of interesting things for me. I start with wrapping my mind around letting go of an identity (in my own monologue) to discussing my body with Mike and ending with confidence in how I want to grow old with my body and try to embrace death with Mike, Lindsey, and Bronwyn (and the kids in the background). Who knew it would be a spiritual journey ...
Process Learning (take 1?) with Jenn
January 02, 2018 02:23 - 33 minutes - 19 MBBackground Jenn and I were meeting for a brainstorming session over “report cards” for home learning. We both highly value the importance of process a long with the outcome or the product. We decided to start discussing a tool to help parents (including ourselves) document the process of learning in their children, with a focus on learning that’s done at home. We don’t cover the nitty gritty of what we come up with — we’ll save that for later — but we discuss the value of process, other way...
Depression and Anxiety with Dawn
December 09, 2017 15:34 - 57 minutes - 54.1 MBThis is mine and Dawn’s first public discussion about her life with depression and anxiety. There are so many things I love about Dawn sharing all of this but one thing that I think deserves extra attention is how articulate and wise she with her mental illness. It’s like she sees it both through her own eyes and experience but also through the eyes of some looking from outside and also someone looking with a clinical lens. We cover quite a few topics including what it actually feels like t...
Everything is exactly how it should be
November 18, 2017 01:44 - 35 minutes - 20.3 MBBackground We’re at Merchants of Green Coffee in Toronto. Just before I started recording Mike said that he had the thought that everything is exactly how it is suppose to be. So I start recording as we are launched into a conversation about enlightenment, objective truth, and activism. Because we’re at a coffee shop, we have some great background music that sets a nice atmosphere, I think. The conversation ends with Mike's distraction. Resources Merchants of Green Coffee: https://me...
Privilege with Bronwyn, Lindsey, and Mike
November 08, 2017 03:31 - 36 minutes - 20.7 MBBackground: We’re having a house breakfast. It starts off with Ashar and Nyjah getting stuck while crawling under the couch. We’re talking about our white privilege and some of our resistances to our white privilege, particularly in comparison to disadvantages we might feel because of our gender and/or sexuality. Throughout the conversation you also get to hear us parenting our kids squabbles and requests. Around the 30-minute mark, I stop the audio and then when not recording Bronwyn launche...
Craft, Apprenticeship, & Mentorship with Mike
November 01, 2017 17:53 - 30 minutes - 17.4 MBSummary Mike and I somehow end up in a debate on “what is a hipster?” It’s an old conversation, from 2014. I honestly can’t remember how it started but it did lead to a deeper (?) conversation about craftship, apprenticeship, and mentorship. You have to wait about 10 min to get to that part but I found listening to us figure out what a hipster is, kind of amusing. Then, we talk about the difference between craft, apprenticeship, and mentorship compared to design-based problem-solution-type bu...
The neuroscience lens of coaching with Coach Quinn
October 25, 2017 16:16 - 58 minutes - 66.6 MBSummary This was a planned discussion about the role of neuroscience in coaching between myself and my friend and colleague Quinn Simpson. Quinn is a coach who works primarily within education. We cover a lot of topics including creativity, neuroplasticity, change and capacity for change, stress, decision-making, intuition, empathy, how to be present with others, and how to self-reflect on our own biases as a coach. We end with a look at how neuroscience can provide tolerance and compassion f...
Podcast coaching with Paul
October 20, 2017 04:05 - 1 hour - 49.5 MBWho would be interested in this? * people considering starting their own podcast * people who like to think about the process of podcasting * content people * people who like to watch other people’s projects unfold, kind of like Start-Up Podcast audience. 😉 Paul’s coaching me to start my Mandyland podcast. We recorded it in the summer before it launched. We start this session with Paul discussing his proposed coaching process and then we talk about Mandyland. He helps me figure out some of ...
Talking about work with Jenn
October 15, 2017 18:39 - 51 minutes - 24 MBBackground Jenn rants about her job for the first 13 minutes. So skip ahead if you don’t want to hear that. We eventually cover topics such as leadership, managing others, reference letters, challenges of being a working mom, brining your whole self to work, working/busy too much, life in balance, being addicted to work. (BTW, my former student DID get the job that I’m referring to with that reference letter part of the conversation!). Resources * Money & Happiness: http://harvardmagazin...
Prototyping Your Career? with Mike
October 11, 2017 09:54 - 13 minutes - 7.76 MBThis was recorded back in the summer of 2014, long before Mandyland was conceptualized. At the time, I thought I would have a podcast with mine and Mike’s conversations. You can tell it’s old because I refer to Jian Gomeshi as the host of the Q back before we knew what kind of asshole he was. Most of what we talk about is the career of ranting and my desire to have pursued that, had I known about it at the time.
Do You Have To Be Passionate About What You Produce? Talking With Life Coaches
October 07, 2017 15:03 - 27 minutes - 15.9 MBBackground We are all over the map in our conversation. We spent a great deal of time talking about poop, which I’m actually not ashamed of. I think we should talk about EVERYTHING as a culture, poop included. And this isn't even about baby poop. Just plain old regular adult poop. And the anxiety that provokes it! But that’s not all we talk about it. We started talking this conversation with a focus on authenticity in our writing and other projects and we actually do come back to that. I thi...
Thinking about new models of child education with Jenn
September 29, 2017 18:26 - 20 minutes - 11.6 MBShow Notes: Background This is an older recording from when our babes were under a year old and you can hear them in the background. What feels like a long time ago, Jenn and I were very active in alternative education systems, but at the time it was focussed on Post-Secondary Education. In this conversation, we talk about early childhood education. We play around with some ideas for how can we create a new education system distinct from the public school system and distinct from the homesc...
The Effects of Early Life Experiences on Mental Health and Self Regulation in Children with Fellow Neuroscientist, Greer
September 24, 2017 09:54 - 1 hour - 45 MBGreer currently lives in LA and was back in Toronto so we decided to meet at Riverdale Park to discuss parenting practices. We cover a lot of parenting topics in our hour and 20 min conversation including sleep training, responsive parenting, discipline, self-regulation, co-sleeping, childcare, and how to balance being a mom with work. We include personal anecdotes about my 2 year old and her dog! Resources * Dan Siegel’s The Whole Brain Child: https://www.amazon.ca/Whole-Brain-Child-Revolut...
Privilege with Jenn
September 17, 2017 09:54 - 42 minutes - 24.4 MBThe conversation starts off with a reaction that Jenn had to a facilitator that I brought in for a retreat day for the staff of my company, the Centre for Applied Neuroscience. It sparked a whole conversation on privilege, which I admit was tough for me to have. I personally feel like it’s hard to talk about this, especially publicly, because out of fear that we might say the wrong thing. So I venture into this conversation feeling vulnerable. I think we dive into a few good points about it a...
Doing what you love without any other agenda with Mike
September 15, 2017 11:59 - 12 minutes - 11.3 MBWe’re up at the cottage driving back from town. We start talking about my podcast but that leads into talking about doing things just for doing them, without another agenda. This leads into a conversation about science and how basic science is just for the sake of curiosity and how there is value in that. Despite this deviation into science, the conversation actually relates to people doing what they love and seeing where it goes. This is a belief I have held for a long time and it is the fou...
Expanding Identities In Motherhood with Lindsey
September 15, 2017 00:46 - 12 minutes - 6.99 MBWe started off with Lindsey reflecting on her maternity leave (which is about to end) and the anxiety she felt during her time off from work. It fed into a discussion about body image, which Lindsey and I have covered to a great extent through our co-founded organized, Body Monologues. The theme of this conversation was our “Expanding Identity”.
Welcome to Mandyland
August 08, 2017 14:27 - 12 minutes - 7.14 MBOverview of what to expect on Mandyland