Shows
One Day You Finally Knew: For Folx Breaking AwayBreak Away from Being Okay: 'Cuz No One's on Their Game Right NowPsst. In this episode, Jessica lets you in on a little secret:No one is f**king okay right now. Okay? So let's just make it okay to not be okay. For our own self-care and self-compassion, as well as how we model that for those in our lives who we love. Whether you believe it or not, we're all connected on this planet, and we're all suffering, more or less. Even if your problems are of the first-world kind, you're still experiencing the pain, grief, and general mind-f**kery that the...
2022-01-1724 minOne Day You Finally Knew: For Folx Breaking AwayBreak Away from New Year's Resolutions (Or Ever Being Resolute)After taking a break from the pod for the last month of 2021, Jessica is back with the first episode of 2022, just in time to attempt to spare us all the external/internal expectations around making resolutions for the new year.What if we broke away from that practice entirely, or at least, what it's meant before now.Could we resolve to do less? Could we rest more? To be still and listen for what our bodies want to do next? Can we ask ourselves that question and then have the patience to wait for the...
2022-01-0323 minOne Day You Finally Knew: For Folx Breaking AwayBreaking Away from Pushing the RiverThis is the last episode of 2021 before some time away to clarify the next steps for the podcast and book writing. While all of these projects have been exciting, Jessica is coming clean about how when we push the river, we run the risk of that excitement starting to feel like too much, too fast, and too soon. When we want things to turn out a certain way (and who doesn't?!), we can find ourselves pushing for a particular outcome instead of letting ourselves float down the river's current and letting things unfold naturally. Being available for t...
2021-11-2829 minOne Day You Finally Knew: For Folx Breaking AwayBreak Away from the Holiday BSThe fall and winter holidays are upon us, which can be a mixed bag for many of us. There might be much holly, jolly, and there might be a great deal of stress. Perhaps both. In this episode, Jessica reminds us that whether we're traveling to see family or popping over to a friend's house for holiday festivities, our true home is in our bodies, and we can rely on them to tell us whether something feels like welcome or warning, safety or danger, yum or yuck.We just have to take the time and s...
2021-11-2126 minOne Day You Finally Knew: For Folx Breaking AwayBreak Away from Should-ing On Yourself: Hit Pause on that To-Do ListWe're all so fatigued by living in this world in the current state of affairs. Yet, we still have our to-do lists, waiting and constantly beckoning, despite having little energy to complete the tasks. A couple of episodes back, Jessica talked about getting that sh*t done. Today, we're looking at the possibility and the practice of not getting that sh*t done. We're human beings, not human doings. But, we live in a society that's all about productivity. Goddess forbid we sit down for a moment to feel our emotions and bodily sensations because we might de...
2021-11-0725 minOne Day You Finally Knew: For Folx Breaking AwayBreak Away from Being a Good Girl: Speak Your Truth, WitchRemembering that courage means to take one's heart in their hands and fearlessness means you might be afraid but are doing it anyway, we can stay true to ourselves, despite the potential consequences. Sometimes those consequences involve being burned at the stake. Sometimes we need to take that risk, showing up as our full, complete, witchy selves. In this episode, Jessica offers an example of speaking her truth, even though she risked her reputation with a professional organization. She also shares the story of a client who took a significant leap of faith, hoping that sh...
2021-10-3122 minOne Day You Finally Knew: For Folx Breaking AwayBreak Away from Idiot Compassion: Let Your Fierce Flag FlyThe word compassion means to "suffer with" another, but that is often not what we're doing when we think we're offering compassion to someone who is behaving badly. In this culture of enabling and codependency, in our attempts to be loving, we instead indulge people in that suffering (and create our own), instead of offering them motivation for change that could ease it.Women and folx have been taught to "be nice", to not "rock the boat", to avoid conflict at all costs. We've come by that honestly in this patriarchal society, where cishet white men get t...
2021-10-2421 minOne Day You Finally Knew: For Folx Breaking AwayBreak Away from Perfect: Just Get that Sh*t DoneEarlier in the week, Jessica saw a post of Sheryl Sandberg's quote: "Done is better than perfect," and it got her thinking about how we risk getting stuck and even shutting down if we keep picking at a thing endlessly in search of the mystical PERFECT. Perfect doesn't exist, y'all. Just get the thing done. With the extra space that you have created by not tweaking and re-tweaking and tweaking some more., you can unpack and compost your internalization of how society and family have made you question your value and worth.
2021-10-1723 minOne Day You Finally Knew: For Folx Breaking AwayBreaking Away From Overly High Expectations of Yourself (& Others)Our families and our patriarchal society have taught us to have extremely high expectations of ourselves and others. And yet, both can lead to deep disappointment.What if the expectations we set for ourselves are so high that we must eventually fall from the pedestal we set ourselves upon?Could it be that we're actually moving along the current of life, doing just fine, and it's not that we're doing a poor job, but the lens we see ourselves through is the problem? Is it possible that when we get bent out of...
2021-10-1121 minOne Day You Finally Knew: For Folx Breaking AwayCan't Break Away from Mercury RetrogradeI love the Rumi quote, "Try something different. Surrender." I'm applying it here to this week's non-episode. Instead, you're just getting a little announcement.Mercury is retrograde.Everything electronic in my house is fucked.My laptop is not recognizing my USB microphone. I even bought another, thinking the mic might have been the problem. It wasn't. I can't spend more than 5 minutes hunched over my laptop screaming into the internal microphone. I did it last week, but my neck and shoulders are no longer available for that activity.
2021-10-0303 minOne Day You Finally Knew: For Folx Breaking AwayBreak Away From The Binary: From Women To FolxBefore I begin describing this episode, I apologize for the dip in sound quality today. Something is wrong with either my microphone or my computer (computer wiz can't come to sort it out till Tuesday). I decided it was better to choose to record an episode with less than optimal sound quality than skip a week. Hopefully, you'll agree! Now to the good stuff:Because so much of my work experience has been with people who identify as women, that's become my specialty. So it's who I had in mind when I started this podcast tw...
2021-09-2720 minOne Day You Finally Knew: For Folx Breaking AwayRest & Digest: Break Away From the GrindDuring the annual week away in the mountains with the doggos, on retreat Jessica reflects on the need for rest, not just for proper digestion of physical food, but to digest new emotional, psychological, and energetic material. In this episode, she talks about the need for rest and how it is essential now more than ever. When we step away from the grind (even for brief periods), we can more fully digest the new information coming at us all the time. Oh, you think your nervous system isn't dealing with new material right now? If you...
2021-09-1929 minOne Day You Finally Knew: For Folx Breaking AwaySelf-Care Isn't SelfishnessThanks to the patriarchy, folx of all genders have been indoctrinated into the belief that women were put on this planet to nurture others. Moreover, when women choose to care for themselves, they're seen as selfish. Is it any wonder we're just a teensy bit resentful about being assigned that role?!In this episode, Jessica breaks it all down and shares her willingness to put her self-care above everyone else's, even the peeps she loves the most. Because caring for others is how she makes a living, but caring for herself (and her dogs) is how she...
2021-09-1322 minOne Day You Finally Knew: For Folx Breaking AwayIf A Friendship Isn't Nourishing It's Time To Let It GoResearch has shown the importance of cultivating "sister of the heart" relationships and how they can improve our physical, emotional, and psychological health. But what happens when we realize a friendship is no longer nourishing us? In these COVID times, our social circles have naturally narrowed. We've let go of friends, and they've let go of us. We're realizing that we don't have the time or the energy for what isn't nurturing and life-giving. This episode can help you determine if perhaps it's time to let go of a friendship, and offers a sweet reminder that you don...
2021-09-0624 minOne Day You Finally Knew: For Folx Breaking AwayBreaking Away From Negative Self-Talk: You Do It Bird By BirdNegative thoughts about yourself come out of nowhere. You mind your own business, and before you know it, BAM! A giant, intrusive shitty thought about yourself has arrived. As soon as these thoughts show up, they shove themselves all up in your business, then run rampant through your brain like the proverbial bull in a china shop. These thoughts can be Stage 5 Clingers, and it's important to remember that they're never going to go away completely. To be fair. . . Breaking Away(ish) From Negative Self-Talk should be the title of this episode. (Wink) In this ep...
2021-08-3018 minOne Day You Finally Knew: For Folx Breaking AwayBreak Away From Looking Away: The Sweet Spot Between Taking Too Much In & Checking OutWhen something terrible in the world happens that isn't directly happening to us, we have a choice. We can look away, deciding it's too much pain to take in and feel. Or, we can keep looking, deciding to let the pain of the world pierce our hearts and let it be a call to action.If you're someone for whom taking in the pain makes it too much for you to get through your days with at least some moments of peace, you must find the middle way. The middle way means avoiding the extremes...
2021-08-2327 minOne Day You Finally Knew: For Folx Breaking AwayBreaking Away From Not Being Yourself: The Little Girl Inside You Is Welcome At My Lunch TableSo many of us have a little girl that lives inside our hearts. A little girl who could not show the world who she was when we were young because she was misunderstood, told she was too sensitive, and potentially ostracized from peer groups and family. Maybe she was banished from the lunch table. So, that little girl got small to meet the needs and desires of others who didn't have the capacity to meet her needs. It takes self-compassion to cradle that little girl inside. And it takes courage to finally break away from not being yo...
2021-08-1622 minOne Day You Finally Knew: For Folx Breaking AwayCultivating Patience For Your ProcessDeciding to leave something (or someone) is a creative process. It doesn't happen overnight. We must sit and steep in the possibilities, spend the necessary time contemplating the actions, and only then can we make our move. The breaking away is the outcome, but it can't happen without the process. This is a gestational process. Nothing gets born without being gestated first, whether it's an actual living being, or an idea wanting to get birthed into the world. This process, however, will be interrupted if we leave out a deeply important piece, which is to understand that be...
2021-08-0819 minOne Day You Finally Knew: For Folx Breaking AwayFrom the Desert With Love: A Hydration MeditationThe glorious monsoon Tucson is having this summer has Jessica thinking about hydration. After a good long soak, you can almost hear the desert flora and fauna sighing with relief. What would happen if we got to have our own sigh? If we slowed down and really appreciated how fortunate we are to have clean water to drink? Can't be anything but good! A sweet, little combination meditation and gratitude practice awaits you here.P.S. Jessica takes the risk of burping into the microphone because she insists on drinking fizzy water, despite it being a podcaster no...
2021-08-0605 minOne Day You Finally Knew: For Folx Breaking AwayConsent Is Not A Constant: Giving Yourself Permission To Change Your MindAs women, we've been indoctrinated into believing the misogynist demand that once we've consented to something, we don't have the right to change our minds. But, consent is not a constant. If we listen closely to what our body is telling us, moment to moment, about situations and relationships we're currently in, we often realize our bodies are no longer giving consent for us to be in them.This week, Jessica talks about giving ourselves permission to say no after we initially gave a yes. And how to sit with a maybe. There's no shame in the r...
2021-08-0320 minOne Day You Finally Knew: For Folx Breaking AwayTrailerHi there. I'm Jessica Chasnoff, a psychologist & coach with nearly two decades of experience gently walking alongside women through transitions, often as they contemplate ending romantic partnerships that no longer serve them. Grizzly dog mama, mezzo-soprano, bird enthusiast, maker of art, lover of polarities, puns & dark chocolate, I'm here as your host on this journey. One day, I finally knew it was time to leave my marriage. Making that decision propelled me into living my own dreaming more fully. I've been ecstatically exploring un-coupledom for several years, partnering with my beloved canine companions, my dear heart friends, t...
2021-08-0102 min