This week we’re hanging with Ivan Bercholz, co-owner of Shambhala Publications, publisher of Bala Kids, and co-author (with illustrator Lasha Mutual) of My Friend Tara, a children’s book that introduces kids to Tara, the Buddhist archetype of compassion.

Ivan set out to create a book that gets straight to the heart of practice: how can kids actually relate to an archetypal quality? How do you help them imagine compassion as something fun, alive, and embodied? How do you make an ancient practice feel natural for modern kiddos?

When Jeff’s rambunctious six-year-old Eden stumbled on the book, he flipped through, chose his favorite of the colorful Taras and, while playing with the visualization, had a profound, whole-body shift.

Jeff describes it as a “rainbow-candy version of internal regulation” that honors children’s natural inclination towards imagination. Kids are naturals at this stuff. Ask them to picture beams of warmth radiating from the heart and they just do it, while adults tie themselves in knots worrying about doing it “right”.

That might be the core thread of our conversation: practice is really about getting open enough to let what’s naturally here come through. Kids, wild lil portals that they are, let that wisdom stream through all the time. Books like this can give them language for what they already know.

We talk about:

* Visualization as a practice playground for kids and adults

* The 5 Taras and their different archetypal qualities (white for calm, green for protection, blue for difficult emotions...)

* Why mantra might be our oldest human practice

* How books can become spiritual oases when teachers aren’t accessible

-------------

We make this show with love, lols, and a lot of curiosity. If it lights you up, help us keep it going with a paid subscription 🌿

-------------

The Adventure:

Ivan walks us through a Green Tara visualization and mantra practice.

We breathe, settle, imagine Tara’s smile and the rays of warmth coming toward us, and repeat her mantra: Om Tare Tu Tare Ture Soha. Then we let those qualities dissolve into us and send them back out to others.

Ivan calls it the workout before the Savasana: the color, sound, imagery build up the energy… and then you release and relax, held in the felt sense of deep meaning.

This is medicine for all of us - not just the kiddos!

Let us know in the comments how the practice lands - is it your first time doing mantra or visualization?

Till next time,

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️

-------------

Know a parent (or a kid at heart) who might dig this? Pass it along 💫

-------------

Ivan’s Links:

* Book: My Friend Tara: And Her Rainbow of Compassion

* Shambhala Publications: shambhala.com

* Bala Kids: shambhala.com/balakids

This week we're hanging with wandering Celtic teacher John Philip Newell and Earth & Soul Director Cami Twilling to talk about what it means to connect to the sacred when you're living outside the bounds of formal religious tradition.

John Philip is an ordained-minister-turned-spiritual-exile who spent years with one foot in the church and one foot out in the wilderness, before finally giving back his ordination. He couldn’t reconcile his experience of the sacredness of humans and nature with Christianity’s history of getting “into bed with empire.”

His book The Great Search asks: What are millions of spiritual seekers actually searching for? And how can we nurture those yearnings?

John Philip talks about philosopher Simone Weil's idea of 'the efficacy of desire': that getting in touch with our deepest longings actually helps bring about what we're yearning for. When we name our hungers with clarity, we become better able to serve them.

We talk about:

* Why the wilderness and the temple need each other

* The 8 yearnings at the heart of spiritual searching

* What happens when you "pray until the tears come" and tap into primal flow

* Why regular retreat matters more than occasional long stints

------------------------------------

We make this show with love, lols, and a lot of curiosity. If it lights you up, help us keep it going with a paid subscription 🌿

------------------------------------

The Adventure:

This one’s subtle and luminous. Cami and John Philip drop us into a contemplative space where the main practice is reconnecting with the light that exists at the heart of all things. We watch how the light moves, and in this simplicity, let our awareness touch eternity.

------------------------------------

Let us know in the comments: what does your “great search” look like right now?

Till next time!

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️

Happy New Year!

One week into 2026 and we’re already firing on all cylinders. So let’s kick it off with some destress tools to keep us all cool as cucumbers when things get spicy. 🥒😅🌶️

This week we sit down with Dr. Aditi Nerurkar, physician, Harvard Medical School faculty member, and author of The 5 Resets: Rewire Your Brain for Less Stress and More Resilience. We talk about what stress actually is, why it gets so dismissed in medicine, and what to do when your diamond finally cracks.

Dr. Aditi knows stress from both sides. As a medical resident working 80-hour weeks in the cardiac ICU, she was taught that "pressure makes diamonds." Then she experienced a stampede of wild horses across her chest that turned out to be... stress! Not a heart attack or low blood sugar. It was her nervous system completely losing it.

When her doctor said "just relax," she realized there was a massive gap between how common stress is (60-80% of doctor visits) and how little support exists for it (only 3% of doctors counsel for stress). So she became the doctor she needed.

We talk about:

* Why calling it “just” stress is medical gaslighting

* How doomscrolling is the modern way to scan for danger

* The “popcorn brain” effect of having too much screen time

* Why breathing is one of the few things you can control (and how to use it)

--------

We make this show with love, lols, and a lot of curiosity. If it lights you up, help us keep it going with a paid subscription 🫶 --> www.mindbodpod.com

--------

The adventure:

Dr. Aditi walks us through three of her Five Resets, including “Stop, Breathe, Be”, a simple practice she did 30-40 times a day as a resident.

It’s a pause and reset you can use every time you turn a doorknob, before Zoom calls, picking up your kids, or brushing your teeth. Any moment works.

Know someone who would appreciate a few new destress tools in their kit? Pass it on!

Let us know how these practices work for you!

Till next time,

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️