Unconditional Healing with Jeff Rubin
42 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 2 years ago - ★★★★★ - 20 ratingsCan a person embrace immense adversity in their life to not only cope, but to thrive and discover their most authentic self?
As a teacher of Buddhist meditation and psychology for four decades, and someone "blessed" with a chronic illness for two of those decades, Jeff Rubin has been obsessed with answering this question. This obsession led him to develop a program called Unconditional Healing, a new model of health that has helped countless people transform their relationship to pain, adversity, and illness, and unlock their own storehouse of confidence and resilience.
In this podcast, Jeff explores the principles of Unconditional Healing with talks, healing practices, and interviews with those who have discovered how to thrive in the face of adversity. He also features guests who are experts or thought leaders in a particular aspect of health and well-being. If you are dealing with an acute or chronic illness, the loss of a loved one or your livelihood, the dissolution of a relationship, or any other adverse circumstance that has you feeling anxious and confused, then this podcast is definitely for you. Especially if you’re looking for a more nuanced, more spiritual way to work with life's inevitable difficulties.
Please note the podcast is currently on hiatus, but all episodes remain available on all the major podcast platforms.
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Episodes
Commentary on the 5-line Aspiration for Unconditional Health
February 15, 2022 01:00 - 45 minutes - 31.5 MBThis will be my last episode for a while. I’ll be placing the podcast on hiatus to pursue my other interests of writing, working with individual students, and spending more time with family and friends as the pandemic lessens. It’s been a wonderful experience creating and hosting this podcast and I’m very proud of the work. The episodes will remain available on all the major podcast platforms as well as the Unconditional Healing website, so please share the podcast with any friends who mi...
Interview with Toni Bernhard - On the Art and Science of Living with Chronic Illness
January 31, 2022 20:00 - 1 hour - 45.4 MBJeff welcomes Toni Bernhard to talk about her journey with chronic illness, the loss of identity and self-blame that inevitably follow, and her dive into writing. To her surprise, that innocent endeavor spawned four Buddhist-inspired books - three on living well with illness and chronic pain, and one on walking the Buddhist path. Two of those books are on the Unconditional Healing recommended reading list. We begin with Toni’s trip to Paris with her husband in 2001, where she shockingly d...
Meditation is Not Therapy, Sanity is Not What You Think
January 17, 2022 16:00 - 30 minutes - 20.6 MBThis episode is another solo show, featuring a talk Jeff gave at a Healing Circle in June of 2021. The full title is “Meditation is Not Therapy, Sanity is Not What You Think”. Jeff chose this topic because in our materialistic society, everything gets filtered through the idea of winning, betterment, and constant improvement. Which at its face makes sense - no one intentionally wants to lose or trend downward. Except there is a flaw in that thinking which is an inability to bravely face t...
Interview with Gustavo Serafini - Empowering Disability for Himself and Others
January 03, 2022 18:00 - 1 hour - 41.5 MBGustavo Serafini was born with an extremely rare birth defect known as proximal femoral focal deficiency (PFFD). ). At birth, he had only his left arm and two shortened legs, one supported using a prosthesis and the other with a brace. In spite of that beginning, Gustavo has gone on to become a successful entrepreneur with the company he co-founded with his brother, pureaudiovideo.com, providing exceptional home entertainment experiences in South Florida and beyond. He is also the creato...
Finding Your True North: Integrating Intention with Mindfulness Practice
December 20, 2021 14:00 - 30 minutes - 21.1 MBThis episode is a solo show, featuring a talk I gave recently at the Healing Circle. It’s entitled “Finding Your True North: Integrating Intention with Mindfulness Practice", and is especially timely given the resurgence of the pandemic. It has to do with contemplating and sussing out our most deeply held beliefs, especially when feeling uncertain and discouraged. Intentions, as I explain, are different than goals, although the latter are best served when they spring from the former. In ...
Interview with Tim James - Nutritional Expert and Health Coach
December 05, 2021 21:00 - 1 hour - 43.9 MBI’ve wanted to have a cutting-edge dietary and nutritional expert on the show for a while as diet plays such a prominent role in our health and well-being, and has played a huge role in stabilizing my own chronic illness. Enter Tim James, aka The Health Hero, and founder of Chemical Free Body, through which he offers nutritional coaching, podcasts, and customized nutritional supplements. Tim learned his craft the hard way, having existed on the Standard American Diet for years (and Tums...
Interview with Jeremy Sherman - On the Power of Language to Enlighten or Destroy
November 21, 2021 23:00 - 1 hour - 47.6 MBJeremy Sherman is an out-of-the-box thinker who has made it his life’s work to contemplate and write about humanity’s most challenging dilemmas. He has spent decades of study on the human condition, and is an expert on the many ways we employ language to advantage and also to make our lives more difficult and painful. Jeremy has invented over 2000 novel terms for those times when current terminology just doesn’t suffice. He has also published over 1000 articles on Psychology Today and writte...
Interview with Sam Thiara - On the Power of "Story-Sharing"
November 08, 2021 14:00 - 1 hour - 42.7 MBSam Thiara is a master storyteller, using that honed skill very effectively in his role as mentor, teacher and coach to thousands of people over the years. This skill was on display in Sam’s two TEDx talks, “Discovering the Extraordinary in the Ordinary”, and “Activating the Voice Within to be Louder than the Noise Around”. Exposed to adversity as a small boy of nine years old when his father became paralyzed from the waist down, Sam learned to live in the present at an early age and to s...
Interview with Dr. BJ Miller, Palliative Care and Hospice Warrior
October 25, 2021 16:00 - 1 hour - 46.9 MBI try never to use the word “warrior” lightly. But Dr. BJ Miller is a warrior of the first order, having overcome and thrived after a near-fatal electrical accident took half his arm and both legs below the knee. BJ talks about how that life-shattering experience proved to be a foretaste of what it means to confront death, a taboo subject in our culture. BJ utilized his accident as a launch point to pursue medicine as a career and to become one of the world’s leading experts and thought l...
Interview with Ann Cason - On the Art and Science of Quality Caregiving
October 11, 2021 13:00 - 1 hour - 48.8 MBNow retired, Ann Cason has spent most of her adult life cultivating, refining, and writing about the art and science of caring for the elderly and the ailing. Her book Circles of Care is generally accepted as the benchmark for how to provide at-home care for an elder, but at the time of publication (2001) was still considered somewhat revolutionary. Ann’s involvement with the elderly was an accident. Suffering from a hallucination, (not all that uncommon in the go-go 1970's), Ann’s psyc...
Interview with Ann Cason - On the Art and Science of Quality Caregiving
October 11, 2021 13:00 - 1 hour - 48.8 MBNow retired, Ann Cason has spent most of her adult life cultivating, refining, and writing about the art and science of caring for the elderly and the ailing. Her book Circles of Care is generally accepted as the benchmark for how to provide at-home care for an elder, but at the time of publication (2001) was still considered somewhat revolutionary. Ann’s involvement with the elderly was an accident. Suffering from a hallucination, (not all that uncommon in the go-go 1970's), Ann’s psyc...
Interview with Laura Khoudari - Healing Trauma One Rep at a Time
September 26, 2021 16:00 - 1 hour - 47.4 MBLaura Khoudari came by her profession as a trauma-informed personal trainer through a circuitous route. No gym rat, Laura avoided working out and weight training until the unresolved pain in her spine from a herniated disc while in college left her no choice. Today, she works exclusively with clients who identify as living with trauma and uses embodied strength training and other mindfulness practices to help them heal and transform. In Laura’s own words she describes her work as “turning ...
A 9/11 Tale of Transformation, Awakening and Healing
September 10, 2021 21:00 - 1 hour - 41.7 MBThis episode is a very special one! I so wanted to commemorate the anniversary of 9/11, when the World Trade Center Towers shockingly came down twenty years ago on this day. Being that I live in close proximity to New York City, it’s impossible to ignore the anniversary each year, and it is especially hard this year with the end of the “Forever War” in Afghanistan that was launched in response to the 9/11 assault. My guest this week is a gentleman who was in the Tower that day and lived t...
Transforming Bad Circumstances: What to do When the Roof Caves In
August 29, 2021 18:00 - 38 minutes - 26.2 MBWhen we experience great difficulty in our life, we tend to panic and “catastrophize”, because we’re so stuck on expecting our life to unfold in a certain way. So, this talk, originally given to a Healing Circle, is very much about looking at our attitudes and realizing just how much we are addicted to comfort and security, and how little we are prepared for the opposite - discomfort and uncertainty. It is based upon Buddhist teachings first formulated by an 11th century master from Indi...
Interview with Dr. Jeanne Michele - Spiritual Change Agent
August 16, 2021 11:00 - 1 hour - 44.5 MBHow does one bring spirituality to the task of counseling clients at moments of crisis or loss? Can one move beyond the standards of traditional counseling to identify what a person needs and wants in life and then design a plan to achieve it? These are the questions that Dr. Jeanne Michele attempts to answer during each of her counseling sessions with individuals and couples. Jeanne is considered part coach, part teacher, part mentor, part change agent, but spirituality is at the heart...
Interview with Andrew Holecek - On Demystifying Death and Dying
August 02, 2021 13:00 - 1 hour - 49.2 MBAndrew Holecek is a prolific author and spiritual teacher who writes and teaches extensively on navigating the Buddhist path. He is able to present this tradition from a contemporary perspective, by skillfully marrying the ancient wisdom of the East with the scientific findings and knowledge of the West. I first encountered Andrew years ago when I read his first book, The Power and the Pain. Drawing upon his years of intensive study and practice, the book teaches the value and opportuniti...
The Wisdom of Adversity
July 18, 2021 18:00 - 31 minutes - 21.8 MBThis episode is about attitude. How do we face adversity when it inevitably comes into our life? What tools do we rely on when the going gets rough? In answering these questions, we need to begin where we are, by looking at our current state of mind. How much of our views of the world are wrapped up in our biases, and what others think about us? One bias that we typically share is a belief in a solid “self” that seeks to maintain control, and around which, the world revolves. At every mo...
Interview with Madeline Bruser - On the Art (and Science) of Making Music From the Heart
July 04, 2021 15:00 - 1 hour - 41.5 MBPlaying a complicated classical piece on the piano can be amongst the most complex and difficult feats of human hand-eye coordination and cognitive processing. In attempting to master their art with painstaking diligent practice, 75% of professional musicians suffer injuries, compounded by trying to play through the pain. Enter Madeline Bruser. Raised as an exceptionally talented pianist, Madeline performed as a soloist with the Denver and San Francisco Symphony Orchestras at a young age. ...
Interview with Dr. Elaine Yuen - Buddhist Minister, Interfaith Chaplain and Artist
June 21, 2021 16:00 - 1 hour - 43.7 MBDr. Elaine Yuen is an educator, interfaith chaplain, Buddhist minister, and artist. She is the former chair of the Wisdom Traditions Department and associate professor at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. Now retired, she continues to teach and write on pastoral caregiving (chaplaincy), contemplative education, and Buddhist studies. She recently moved back to Philadelphia where she was an associate professor, researcher, and interfaith chaplain at Thomas Jefferson University. Our con...
Chaos and Uncertainty: Steppingstones on the Spiritual (Healing) Path
June 07, 2021 02:00 - 41 minutes - 28.3 MBNone of us openly welcomes chaos and uncertainty into our life. Even hearing those words can send a shudder through our bodies. Yet, eventually, they will come unbidden for all of us. This solo episode comprises a talk I gave right before the USA presidential election of 2020 at the New York City Shambhala meditation center when chaos and uncertainty reigned from a global pandemic and a polarized electorate in the United States. When we face adversity in our life, we often see it through ...
Interview with Chungliang Al Huang: Tai Ji Master Extraordinaire
May 24, 2021 14:00 - 58 minutes - 40.3 MBChungliang Al Huang is a human dynamo and just listening to him raises one’s spirits about what is possible. He is one of the most skilled masters of Tai Ji in the world but has also made his influence known in many other disciplines throughout his life. He was born and grew up in Shanghai in the 1930s and his family moved to Taiwan early on and he was trained in many of the classic disciplines. Longing to move to the West, he came here in the roaring ’60s ostensibly to study Architectu...
Interview with Hackie Reitman - Humble Renaissance Man
May 08, 2021 19:00 - 59 minutes - 41.2 MBHarold “Hackie” Reitman is one of the most interesting and multi-talented folks I've ever met. In his very “out-of-the-box” career, Hackie has been a distinguished orthopedic surgeon, a professional heavyweight boxer, an author of books and screenplays, a filmmaker, and an advocate, mentor, and entrepreneur for the neuro-diverse community. With all that under his belt, Hackie is humble, self-effacing with a great sense of humor, and I came away thinking someone should make a movie about t...
Interview with Hackie Reitman - Humble Renaissance Man
May 08, 2021 19:00 - 59 minutes - 41.2 MBHarold “Hackie” Reitman is one of the most interesting and multi-talented folks I've ever met. In his very “out-of-the-box” career, Hackie has been a distinguished orthopedic surgeon, a professional heavyweight boxer, an author of books and screenplays, a filmmaker, and an advocate, mentor, and entrepreneur for the neuro-diverse community. With all that under his belt, Hackie is humble, self-effacing with a great sense of humor, and I came away thinking someone should make a movie about t...
Interview with Peggy Horan - Master of the Art of Massage
April 24, 2021 16:00 - 52 minutes - 35.7 MBPeggy Horan launched her career as a masseuse at a time when a massage was associated with prostitution rather than contributing to one’s health and well-being. She is highly regarded as a pioneer in the profession which has exploded from those very early days into a multi-billion dollar industry. Peggy began her career at the highly regarded Esalen Institute and has continued her work there for over 50 years, refining her techniques and practice of presence-based awareness methods into a ge...
Living in the Challenge: Beyond the Comfort Zone
April 10, 2021 16:00 - 39 minutes - 28 MBWe all want to want to feel safe, comfortable, and free of stress. That’s universal. However, without venturing out of our so-called “comfort zone”, we grow stagnant and soft, and unable to handle setbacks and adversity. What’s more, as we know from personal experience, we need a certain amount of manageable stress to grow and learn and prosper. In this episode, a talk I originally gave to the Healing Circle early in 2021, I discuss moving beyond our comfort zone using a model first devel...
Interview with Allie Cashel - A Journey of Self-Discovery
March 27, 2021 16:00 - 57 minutes - 39.7 MBThis episode is about one young woman’s coming of age while battling a chronic illness (Lyme and tick-borne infections in this case) and her journey of self-discovery. Allie Cashel is a Lyme disease warrior, advocate, and author. I also was diagnosed and treated for Lyme in my own healing journey and encountered many of the same obstacles that Allie describes, so I was very interested in having her as a guest on the show. With chronic Lyme, one needs to be a warrior because there are s...
Interview with Erika Berland - Meditation Meets Somatic (body awareness) Education
March 13, 2021 18:00 - 1 hour - 45.4 MBErika Berland is a senior teacher and meditation instructor in the Shambhala Buddhist lineage and is an expert in applying somatic education and practices to the art of meditation. Somatics, in case you’re not familiar with that term, is the field of study which explores our internal perception and experience of the body rather than the external objective sense of it, that say, a doctor might assume. Erika’s new book “Sitting, the Physical Art of Meditation” explores this topic in great de...
Interview with Erika Berland - Meditation Meets Somatic (body awareness) Education
March 13, 2021 18:00 - 1 hour - 45.4 MBErika Berland is a senior teacher and meditation instructor in the Shambhala Buddhist lineage and is an expert in applying somatic education and practices to the art of meditation. Somatics, in case you’re not familiar with that term, is the field of study which explores our internal perception and experience of the body rather than the external objective sense of it, that say, a doctor might assume. Erika’s new book “Sitting, the Physical Art of Meditation” explores this topic in great de...
Discipline: Gateway to Freedom and Joy
February 27, 2021 16:00 - 30 minutes - 21.2 MBDiscipline is often misunderstood, or rather, it’s only partially understood. It is normally associated with orderliness, efficiency, organization, and completion of a specific task. While of course it can be all of those things, very often we lose the sense of the journey aspect, and solely focus on the end-goal, on what we’re trying to achieve. This unfortunately leads to short-term thinking, and often times the end-goal is short-lived, whether we’re talking about loss of weight or ac...
Interview with Dr. Ken Dychtwald - World's Foremost Visionary and Thought Leader on Aging-Related Issues
February 13, 2021 16:00 - 1 hour - 48.4 MBWith this podcast, I’m excited to introduce a new theme, namely, conversations with experts in disciplines and issues that are in a simpatico relationship with Unconditional Healing issues and themes. I can think of no better way to start than by bringing on the leading spokesperson and thought leader for aging-related issues in the United States and many other countries in the world, my good friend, Dr. Ken Dychtwald. Over the past 40+ years, Ken has emerged as the foremost visionary and...
Disappointment: Friend and Ally on the Unconditional Healing Path
January 30, 2021 13:00 - 32 minutes - 22.6 MBDisappointment might seem, on the surface, to be a strange topic for a podcast about healing. But at the beginning of every great difficulty, we face a profound disappointment. We are not getting what we wanted, or we are getting what we don’t want. Either way, we are disappointed. But how we respond to that disappointment holds the key to what happens next. The typical reaction is to move on quickly, sometimes pretending or denying we’re even disappointed. Or we just “solve” it by rec...
Interview with Lauren Marcus - On Discovering Ordinary Magic
January 16, 2021 16:00 - 1 hour - 49 MBLauren Marcus, a gifted and immensely talented stage actress and singer, was three days from starting a Sondheim show when she noticed the bald spot. It was only a bit later that she lost all her hair and was eventually diagnosed with the auto-immune disease, alopecia, an illness affecting almost 150 million people worldwide. Lauren bravely, and with raw vulnerability, recounts the pain of losing one’s identity, the crux of the matter whenever we receive a shocking, unexpected loss. We ...
Freeing Ourselves from Hope and Fear
January 02, 2021 15:00 - 35 minutes - 24.4 MBHope and fear play a huge role in our lives. In fact, they are prime motivators and affect almost everything we do. However, both hope and fear are future-oriented and when we obsess about either one, we lose sight of the present moment. In addition, we often forget that hope and fear are not separate, that one invariably accompanies the other. We hope for a particular result, and we fear that it won’t happen. Or we fear a particular result and hope that it doesn’t transpire. Thousand...
Interview with Nikol Rogers- On Discovering Unstoppable Confidence
December 19, 2020 12:00 - 1 hour - 46 MBThis episode is a deep dive into one woman’s reinvention of herself along the Unconditional Healing path. Nikol Rogers was an aspiring actor/dancer from a very young age and hit success in New York City right out of the gate. But along the way, in the span of only one year, her entire world fell completely apart - her marriage, her career, and even her sense of who she was. I met Niki at a Healing Circle at this lowest point in her life, and we both share a laugh as she almost left that...
What a Pandemic Can Teach Us
December 05, 2020 16:00 - 30 minutes - 21.2 MBThis episode is a talk entitled “What a Pandemic Can Teach Us”, which I gave to a virtual Healing Circle in March 2020 (at the very onset of the pandemic). Unfortunately, it is still quite relevant and timely as the virus rages and worsens globally in December 2020. While being frightening and horrific, a pandemic also provides an opportunity to take a look at ourselves, how we live, and what we’re avoiding or ignoring in our lives. On the societal level, the virus, being wild, untamed, a...
Interview with Dan Cayer - On Relaxing with Adversity
November 21, 2020 17:00 - 1 hour - 49.5 MBThis episode is my first time hosting a guest on this podcast. It’s my intention to engage with people who have undergone hardship and adversity in their life, and used it to discover a renewed sense of purpose and intention dedicated to inspiring and helping others. The first guest that came to mind was my good friend and colleague, Mr. Dan Cayer, who was a participant at my initial Unconditional Healing retreat 14 years ago. As a young man in his 20’s, Dan sustained a crippling ailment ...
Pain is Inevitable - Suffering is Not
November 07, 2020 16:00 - 39 minutes - 26.9 MBAs human beings, our mindset of ”maximize pleasure and avoid pain” is deeply ingrained into our psyche and consistently reinforced by our culture. But this attitude, mainly based on fear, limits our experience of life as we try to deny, avoid, and even ignore those parts of ourselves that are hurting or wounded. In this episode, I differentiate pain from suffering, since they are often used interchangeably, and discuss the futility of pursuing a life of permanent happiness and fulfillmen...
Why We Meditate
October 24, 2020 15:00 - 29 minutes - 20.1 MBMeditation practice is a core principle and activity of the Unconditional Healing path and lifestyle. While the reasons that we meditate are varied and personal, there is one important reason for practicing meditation with which many are not familiar. We’ll explore that reason in this episode, which I think you’ll find very interesting. I gave this talk to the virtual Healing Circle in June of 2020. Some of the topics covered include: · Meditation as the antidote to the habitual ...
Working with Difficult Emotions
October 10, 2020 22:00 - 26 minutes - 18.3 MBWe live in uber-stressful times where emotional distress is an almost everyday occurrence. We very much need simple practical ways to work with our emotions, and in this talk I gave at a virtual Healing Circle in August of 2020, that’s exactly what I tried to provide. The topics I covered include: · Using embodiment meditation as an antidote to “living in our head” · Tuning into the emotions directly as a “felt sense” · Emotions as vehicles for transcending logic and “figu...
Building a Resilient Mindset
September 28, 2020 17:00 - 31 minutes - 22 MBBuilding a Resilient Mindset Confronting adversity with resiliency and a positive attitude is the topic for this episode. This was a talk I gave to the virtual Healing Circle in June of 2020. The topics that I covered included: · How “framing our experience” is critical to resiliency · The real meaning of “positive thinking” · Overcoming isolation and stigma · Using a checklist and scheduler to stay focused and in the NOW · The power of self-reflection
Unconditional Health: Fact or Fiction?
September 14, 2020 13:00 - 30 minutes - 20.8 MBWe have been led to believe by our culture that "good health" is equivalent to the absence of disease or any difficulties in our life. And yet that very conditional definition is exactly the cause of so much needless suffering, since achieving it is impossible and goes completely against the way things really are. It's very limited and completely ignores mental, emotional, and spiritual health as part of the equation. We'll explore the principles of unconditional health and the notion tha...
Welcome to Unconditional Healing
September 02, 2020 00:00 - 15 minutes - 10.4 MBEpisode 1 is an introduction to Unconditional Healing, an expansive model of health that includes mental, emotional, and spiritual health, as well as our physical situation. We'll discuss what it is, how it came to be, what to expect on future podcasts, and where you can learn more. Jeff will trace his own healing journey and how he came to develop the Unconditional Healing program and teachings altogether.