Podcasts

This week on the Let Yourself Sparkle Podcast, Alison Hughey: Board Certified Music Therapist and advocate for creative mental health self care shares how we can use music to manage stress and anxiety and boost connection. Alison is the  founder of Carolina Music Therapy, and Compose Your Self Care where she Guides people to use music as a powerful catalyst for comfort, coping, and motivation, and can not only help us heal, but helps us feel seen and heard, feel connected to other people, to our culture, and to ourselves. She shares practical tips that are scientifically [...]

This week, I share an interview with my grandfather, who passed away when I was 15 years old. My grandfather, Jay Shalmoni (I called him "Zayde"), was the most resilient person I've ever met. He survived the Holocaust, lost his entire family, 8 siblings and parents all murdered, and he suffered the worst traumas anyone could have experienced in the death camp Aushwitz where he was tortured for years. Despite all of that, he chose to push himself to get up, look towards the future, wake up excited and smile. He would draw a happy face on [...]

Do you ever feel so overwhelmed trying to take care of your kids, while trying to balance their education at home, keeping the house clean, and worrying what the long term effects of social isolation will be on them? Are you also completely drained from all the horrible things happening around the world? Well I know what that’s like. This week, I share my story of how I hit the lowest part in my life and how I was able to pull myself from darkness to light. Special thanks to Cathy Heller and her podcast “Don’t Keep [...]

You know that old saying- you are what you eat? Well if you’re feeling sad or anxious or tired, it really could have something to do with what you are eating. In this episode I talk about foods that are scientifically proven to boost happiness, as well as foods that are known to make you feel off balanced, impair your cognitive function, leave you feeling fatigued, dizzy, weak and even irritable. 17.3 million American adults were diagnosed with depression each year BEFORE the pandemic! You can imagine that number has skyrocketed since March 2020. Here are some [...]

This week on The Let Yourself Sparkle Podcast, we talk about the connection between art and happiness. Research tells us that greater creativity breeds greater happiness and that the creative process alone is a source of joy for a lot of people. It was discovered by neuro-biologist Semir Zeki, at the University of London, that even looking at art created by someone else is correlated to an increase in dopamine and activity in the brains frontal cortex, which boosts feelings of joy! "Flow"- when you're completely immersed in what you're doing, is noted by psychologists to be one [...]

This week on The Let Yourself Sparkle Podcast, we talk about the scientific link between sleep and happiness. In her book, The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin shares that "millions of people fail to get the recommended seven to eight hours of sleep a night, and one study revealed that along with work deadlines, a bad nights sleep was one of the top two factors that upset peoples daily moods. Another study suggested that getting one extra hour of sleep each night would do more for a person's daily happiness than getting a $60,000 raise." Certified Sleep Consultant [...]

This week, the focus is doing what makes you happy. Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat Pray Love-  shares a story (in her book Big Magic), about how so often we tend to throw away the activities and hobbies we love because we realize we might never become a champion. She shares a story of a friend of hers who used to figure skate in her youth but stopped because she realized there were so many people who were so much better than her. Through soul searching -- years later in life, she started skating again and it [...]

This week, I am sure I am NOT alone when I say I am anxious about what this school year will look like for my little ones! With the pandemic, I am finding myself on the fence between Distance Learning through our school district and putting together my own home school program for my kids. I have a two spunky little kids, a toddler and a kindergartner, and I am NOT a teacher! This whole concept of needing to find time in my day to figure out how to not only keep them happy and entertained and [...]

In this episode, Dr. Stephanie Snyder,  a six figure intuitive life and business coach, gives us a road map to living an Opulent Life. Dr. Stephanie Snyder is a Navy wife and mom to four beautiful kids. She has her hands full and she has such a big heart.She is the host of the Opulent Life Podcast, and also started the brand overjoyed mom, She is all about connecting with people on a soulful level to encourage them to not only wake up excited, but to live an abundant life. She talks about living a rich life [...]

Being present means fully enjoying the moment that you are in without thinking about anything else. When you allow yourself to be in the moment, you can bring a sense of calm and even happiness to the stress that surrounds you. This show will give you tips to get yourself to be more present and live in the moment to help you change how you feel, and boost your own happiness. Special thanks to Cathy Heller and her podcast “Don’t Keep Your Day Job” for the inspiration to put this show together.  Her song “Gonna Make a [...]