Life on Purpose Episode #10 is a heart-centered conversation with writer, speaker, and teacher Martha Du’Sage, the best-selling author of Why Bother? Because Self­‐Help is Never Stupid in which we discuss abuse, suffering, heart­‐centered consciousness, forgiveness, and healing.

I believe that we can't fully live our life "on purpose" if we don't deal with wounds from the past and so I thought this was an important conversation to have.

About: Martha Du’Sage is a writer, speaker, teacher, facilitator, and the best-selling author of Why Bother? Because Self­‐Help is Never Stupid. Martha has stepped through the looking glass of dysfunction and sexual abuse to discover, what we can all discover, an end to suffering. Over 20 years of practicing heart­‐centered consciousness has helped Martha aide others in seeing their situations in a new light.

Currently, she is in the process of developing several workshops, including “The Heart Pillar” which was introduced in this book and is a powerful tool in creating a pillar of personal empowerment, and over-riding past hurts. She offers a variety of private sessions to help you discover the “I AM” in you.

To learn more about Martha, visit: http://marthadusage.com.

For Life on Purpose Episode #09, we go back into the archives and pull out one of my favorite conversations from the old show Radio Enso. In August 2012, I was honored to have a conversation with author, research professor, and speaker Brene' Brown, one of world's top experts on vulnerability, courage, worthiness, and shame after studying those topics for more than a decade. She's since been on Oprah, had a New York Times #1 bestselling book, and become known around the world.

About: Brené Brown, Ph.D., LMSW is a research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work. She has spent the past decade studying vulnerability, courage, worthiness, and shame.

Her 2010 TEDx Houston talk on the power of vulnerability is one of the most watched talks on TED.com, with over 15 million views. She gave the closing talk, Listening to Shame, at the 2012 TED Conference in Long Beach.

Brené is the author of the #1 New York Times Bestseller Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead (2012). She is also the author of the #1 New York Times Bestseller The Gifts of Imperfection (2010), and I Thought It Was Just Me (2007).

Brené is also the founder and CEO of The Daring Way – a teaching and certification program for helping professionals who want to facilitate her work on vulnerability, courage, shame, and worthiness. Brené lives in Houston with her husband, Steve, and their two children.

Learn more about Brené at: http://brenebrown.com.

Life on Purpose Episode #08 is an in-depth conversation with Charles A. Francis, the co-founder and director of the Mindfulness Meditation Institute. He has studied the practice of mindfulness with Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. For over 18 years, he has worked to help people find inner peace through mindfulness meditation.

Charles has published numerous articles, and is the author of the new book, Mindfulness Meditation Made Simple. He is also the creator of 12 Steps of the Mindfulness Meditation Practice outlined in the book.

Charles has a master’s degree in Public Administration from Syracuse University, with a focus on health care management and policy. He has worked for the North Carolina State Senate in writing legislation to address childhood obesity, and government efficiency. He has a background in accounting and business management, and has served as CEO of ITC, an international telecommunications company.

He also earned a master’s degree in International Relations while studying in China and Japan. There he studied various facets of Asian culture such as society, history, economics, and politics. He also studied both the Chinese and Japanese languages.

Charles has conducted research in systems evolution, and has made major breakthroughs in identifying key principles regarding the evolution of systems. These systems include organizational, social, economic, and biological systems. His research has significant implications toward not only how organizations are managed and how public policy is structured, but also in how humans evolve physically and consciously.

Charles is a speaker and does consulting to help organizations develop mindfulness training programs, in order to help them realize the cost-saving benefits of the mindfulness practice. He also leads workshops and mindfulness retreats. 

See more at: http://www.mindfulnessmeditationinstitute.org/about-us/about-charles/

Jennifer Louden is a personal growth pioneer who helped launch the self-care movement with her first book The Woman’s Comfort Book. She’s the author of 7 additional books on well-being and whole living: The Couple’s Comfort Book, The Pregnant Woman’s Comfort Book, The Woman’s Retreat Book, Comfort Secrets for Busy Women (The Comfort Queen’s Guide to Life in hardcover), The Life Organizer, and A Year of Daily Joy.  There are about million copies of her books in print in 9 languages.

Jennifer has spoken around the U.S., Canada and Europe, written a national magazine column for a Martha Stewart magazine, been profiled or quoted in dozens of major magazines, and appeared on hundreds of TV and radio shows, even on Oprah.  

Jennifer has been teaching retreats and leading workshops since 1992, and creating vibrant on-line communities and innovative learning experiences since 2000. She married her second husband at 50, and is the very proud mom of Lillian and very proud bonus mom to Aidan.

Her latest book is A Year of Daily Joy: A Guided Journal to Creating Happiness Every Day. "This lush journal’s powerful prompts and quotes – organized by monthly themes like courage, authentic, and faith – along with stunning National Geographic photos will inspire mindfulness and joy into your daily life. Positivity in practice!"

We talk all about the book, along with her life journey, her evolving career and endeavors, and how she lives her own life “on purpose.”

For more information on Jennifer, visit: http://jenniferlouden.com.

The first Life on Purpose Roundtable, which will be a monthly feature of the show, was a great conversation with Kristoffer Carter, Emiliya Zhivotovskaya, and Eric Zimmer on how they define living a “life on purpose” and what that means to them, as well as various ways that we can EACH do that in our daily lives.

Kristoffer Carter is an outspoken advocate of mindfulness in business, a Kriyaban Yogi (from the Self Realization Fellowship), a husband and Father of 3, a marathoner, and multi-instrumentalist since childhood. He designed and released a multimedia manifesto called The Framework, which outlines his approach to what he calls Full Life Integration. He launched a mindfulness & meditation program called THE PAUSE for his company Centro, and he's faculty for Jonathan Fields' Good Life Project.

Emiliya Zhivotovskaya is a leading voice in the world of positive psychology & the science of flourishing. She's a widely sought-after speaker, educator, facilitator & coach. Jonathan Fields himself says, “he offers that astonishingly rare blend of deep insight, wisdom beyond her years, a fierce grounding in science and the heart of a teacher.”

Eric Zimmer has been helping to build companies for the past 15 years and has been involved in technology for longer than that. He's led a major software program for a Fortune 20 company, he started a solar energy company called Tipping Point. and he'sthe host of a podcast called The One You Feed that's currently the #1 philosophy podcast on iTunes! He's also a musician, a passionate leaner, and loves to meet new people.

For more information on Kristoffer Carter, visit http://www.thisepiclife.com. For more info on Eric Zimmer, visit http://www.oneyoufeed.net. For more info on Emiliya, visit http://www.emiliya.com.

For more information on Life on Purpose, visit http://www.lifeonpurposeshow.com.

Dr. Eric Maisel is a bestselling author, psychotherapist, and creativity coach. He's the author of 40 books on a wide variety of subjects, from the challenges of living the creative life to natural psychology, the new psychology of meaning; those books including Fearless Creating, The Van Gogh Blues, and Coaching the Artist Within. A licensed psychotherapist, he reaches thousands through his Psychology Today and Fine Art America blogs, his print column in Professional Artist magazine, and workshops in the United States and abroad. He's an advocate for a changed and revitalized view of mental health services, one that does away with our current mental disorder naming system. He's also an advocate for a global paradigm shift from seeking meaning to making meaning, a very crucial distinction that we'll talk about today.

His latest book, LIFE PURPOSE BOOT CAMP, recently released on New World Library, talks about that very shift, as he helps readers who are seeking meaning in their lives understand how, by adopting certain ideas and engaging in specific practices, they can effectively meet their pressing life purpose challenges.  To do that, he suggests that readers do three things, which he explains in great detail in the book: get clear on what their unique life is all about, upgrade their personalities, and manage their circumstances as mindfully as they can.

We talk all about that, along with his life journey, and how he lives his own life "on purpose". For more information on Eric, visit: http://ericmaisel.com.

Emiliya Zhivotovskaya is a leading voice in the world of positive psychology & the science of flourishing. She's a widely sought-after speaker, educator, facilitator, and coach. Jonathan Fields says, "she offers that astonishingly rare blend of deep insight, wisdom beyond her years, a fierce grounding in science and the heart of a teacher."

Backstory: At the age of 5, Emiliya and her family fled from Kiev, escaping the fall of Communism and the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl. She found herself in a new land, faced with challenges completely foreign to the average kid growing up in a New York suburb.

Then, 9 years later, she faced yet another tragedy, the sudden loss of her brother as he ran to save his fiancé from drowning and lost his life in the process of saving hers. And years later, the loss of her mother.

From this place of deep challenge, she could have turned to the dark side. She could have given up, blamed the world and walked away from joy. From happiness. From possibility. Instead, she found awakening, strength and a renewed sense of gratitude.

She discovered within herself a wellspring of resilience and a relentless desire to understand where this came from and how to bring a similar lens to others. She was determined to help others flourish.

For more information about Emiliya, visit her webste at http://www.emiliya.com.