But First Me

About But First Me

Husband and wife team Anirban and Mary Ellen heartfelt chats are the positive push every mother needs to update their ME-time. Enjoy authentic stories synced with short and sweet practices, to boost your self-confidence and contentment. Have a laugh, learn stuff, reduce worry and improve your relationships, most significantly with yourself. In series one they talked about self-regulating emotions and self meditation, with a deep dive into guilt, anger, hope, pride, envy, joy, and grief and alone time. In series two they’ll cover self-kindness, self-awareness, self-belief and values.

Publisher

Mary Ellen and Anirban Saha

Category

education

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

22 Jun 2023

Latest episode

9 Mar 2024

Latest episodes

11 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   9 Mar 2024

   LOSS is part of life (Autumn Equinox Edit) Just like the trees letting go of leaves we learn to grow through GRIEF

   Grab our FREE resources from this season here ⁠⁠https://www.maryellensaha.com/free⁠⁠ (https://www.maryellensaha.com/free) MaryEllen grieves openly for her dead parents. Anirban finds purpose in his feelings of LOSS. Anirban talks about finding his purpose after learning to cope with the deaths of two friends. He explores how his Bengali culture embraces grieving and how the stress of these losses led him to follow the path of his Indian ancestors to train in Vedic meditation. We dissect the bad habit of pretending, whether at work or in the street, that we don't feel yearning and longing after a bereavement or a bad breakup. We talk about how Irish culture embraces the storytelling element of loss and how it has healed Mary Ellen. She shares her vulnerability, her tears and the self-growth she has experienced through journaling and mediating since both her parents have died. Mary Ellen coaches us on how it's a happiness habit to sit with uncomfortable feelings like grief. She explores our daily occurrences of loss and how we can reduce our stress if we permit ourselves to feel loss regularly. She highlights how loss occurs often in many ways, big and small and not just when a loved one dies. It includes divorce, job loss and redundancy. She embraces loss as normal and not something we can avoid. She guides us to see it’s human to yearn for what we don't have. RESOURCES We believe in your emotional potential so we're sharing our FREE Feelings Cheat Sheet on hapits.com and on our Instagram hapits_com. We can all have better relationships and more purpose if we practice embracing ALL feelings. If we FEEL IT TO REVEAL IT, emotional flexibility can become one of our happiness habits. We strongly encourage you to try out the happiness habit of labeling and journaling your feelings. Please do let us know how you get on; we'd love to hear from you. Just email us at here@futrnow.org. You can also purchase our Hapits® Online Course, which includes our coaching cards used throughout this podcast; https://hapits.com/buy_hapits/ BOOK etc. Grieving Mindfully by Sameet Kumar. Atlas of the Heart by Brène Brown --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/butfirstme/message

2. 

   9 Mar 2024

   I do not want what I haven’t got. ENVY and our values.

   Grab our FREE resources from this season here ⁠⁠https://www.maryellensaha.com/free⁠⁠ (https://www.maryellensaha.com/free) Like the title of the Sinead O’Connor album - how can we all practice “I do not want what I have not got”? This week’s podcast covers how comparison is truly the thief of joy. Anirban sharing why he feels JEALOUS. He rides the waves of online lows and screen time highs in the age of ENVY. Where does green with envy come from? How is feeling jealous different than feeling envy? MaryEllen feels envious Anirban’s dad’s birthday celebrations now her own has died. Showing how grief ambushes can surprise us at any time. We share our stories about comparison on socials in our crazy over-connected, over-sharing, 24/7 attention economy. We discuss how accepting these feelings can help us to grow, and take action to change, rather than lead us to feeling guilty about partaking in one of seven deadly sins! The antidote to envy is what? Of course with all the usual Bengali flavour and Irish Gaeilge wise words --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/butfirstme/message

3. 

   9 Mar 2024

   Our ANGER feels like 50 shades of red. What’s the use of our emotional rage or silent frustrations?

   Grab our FREE resources from this season here ⁠⁠https://www.maryellensaha.com/free⁠⁠ (https://www.maryellensaha.com/free) We cross-examine feeling cross about not putting our own happiness first. Anirban talks about how he was taught not to make a fuss, even if he feels vexed about racial injustice. He practices quietize meditation to cope better and connect to his purpose. He shares how learning this life skill has been a lifesaver in combating his parenting stress. A valuable use of our screen time has been watching the excellent Pixar film Inside Out. Like their Anger character, we are often ablaze with relationship and family stress. We also share our lived experiences when others have crossed our boundaries. Mary Ellen questions whether hyper-aggressive male chefs Carmy & Ritchie in the TV show The Bear are a healthy representation of anger or just a bad habit. She coaches on how we can ACE our anger to combat the irritations of unequal emotional labour at work and at home and our feelings of resentment. RESOURCES We believe in your emotional potential so we're sharing our FREE Feelings Cheat Sheet on hapits.com and on our Instagram hapits_com. We can all have better relationships and more purpose if we practice embracing ALL feelings. If we FEEL IT TO REVEAL IT, emotional flexibility can become one of our happiness habits. We strongly encourage you to try out the happiness habit of labeling and journaling your feelings. Please do let us know how you get on; we'd love to hear from you. Just email us at here@futrnow.org. You can also purchase our Hapits® Online Course, which includes our coaching cards used throughout this podcast; https://hapits.com/buy_hapits/ BOOKS etc. Emotional Rollercoaster by Claudia Hammond. Atlas of the Heart by Brené Brown Fix The System: Not The Women by Laura Bates CORRECTION: Psychologist Sandi Mann found that employees reported hiding their true feelings and faking emotions in about 60% of workplace communications. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/butfirstme/message

4. 

   6 Mar 2024

   Season 2 TRAILER But First Me

   OK we've think we've finally got our title sorted....! Find out what we're going to be diving into this season! Grab our FREE resources from this season here ⁠https://www.maryellensaha.com/free⁠ (https://www.maryellensaha.com/free) --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/butfirstme/message

5. 

   25 Aug 2023

   CALM in a car crash thanks to meditation! We shares stories about feeling serene in LA traffic.

   Grab our FREE resources from this link https://www.maryellensaha.com/free (https://www.maryellensaha.com/free) This week we explore the feeling of serenity. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/butfirstme/message

6. 

   11 Aug 2023

   The JOY of silence! Anirban has changed his bad habit of wifi connection into meditation.

   Grab our FREE resources from this season here ⁠⁠https://www.maryellensaha.com/free⁠⁠ (https://www.maryellensaha.com/free) Whatever sparks joy is easy to do! Sitting in silence can be joyful. Can you create a Myfi zone? How meditation can be like running, if you enjoy the feeling of your body as it runs. Let go of end results and idea of meditation as a chore or another thing to do. Simple silence can feel so great, if we let go of destination of what we get out of it or what we achieve There is a lot of active doing even in popular meditation apps. Can we take the app out of happiness? Ancient Irish wisdom and sitting in silence - where the name Quietize Mór meditation comes from. Most of us are tired and busy cause we’re doing mode yet quietize can improve your sleep and is as effective as a nap. How do you feel after you sit in silence? Experience it and check in. The myth of complete silence, sitting upright and other meditation BS. Quietize Meditation can be done anywhere anytime, yes even on the London tube! Sweetness of quiet time, so delicious you’ll want to sticky sweet repeat it! Within busy family life do you help your significant other to carve out silent time? How can you do that? The Song of Amergin, from ancient Irish culture and how those soothing Irish sounds help us connect to our inner creativity. BOOK etc. Thirty Two Words For A Field by Manchán Magan Bliss More by Light Watkins --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/butfirstme/message

7. 

   4 Aug 2023

   Oh BLISS! Anirban journaling dad JOY. We’re eating delicious donuts and dopamine dressing.

   Grab our FREE resources from this season here ⁠⁠https://www.maryellensaha.com/free⁠⁠ (https://www.maryellensaha.com/free) Joy Part 1: This week’s podcast covers how the feeling of joy comes in many shapes and sizes as well as many types of pizza slices! Bliss can come from brown bread fresh from the oven or a drum beat, guitar lick or jazz notes. We chat about our mother tongues and how joy is often associated with childhood pleasures and memories. Parenting joy or parenting grind? How Anirban has become a more emotionally intelligent parent. Present moment awareness is where joy truly lives. We access joy via our our five senses; through smells, tastes, sounds, tastes and of course sights. Are you aware of your fleeting moments of bliss with others or with nature? Joy allows us to connect the dots creatively and relationally. How positive emotions can lift us up, to feel SO BRILLIANT. Joy and the flow state are connected (see previous podcast on pride for flow state info). Joy also is a motivator and increases our self-confidence. Activism and protesting can be pleasureful and blissful. Joy can be found in minimalism and tidying and organising. Mary Ellen has been dopamine dressing since 1990, or even before with her mum’s clothes, which brings her daily joy. Try a mindful moment with your favourite CUPPA or a teddy shower with your kids! Resources: Soul film by Pixar Disney Song of The Sea (in Irish Amhrán na Mara) 2014 by Cartoon Saloon by Tomm Moore Amelie 2001 French film Motherland TV series written by Sharon Horgan BBC Redefining Feminism - Masterclass with Gloria Steinem et al. Mad Men HBO series - Don Draper lead character Feeling Myself by Nicki Minaj featuring Beyoncé Less is Now by The Minimalists on Netflix Books: Atlas of the Heart by Brené Brown Tree Dogs, Banshee Fingers and other Irish words for Nature by Manchán Magan Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting by Jon Kabat Zinn Emotion Coaching by John and Julie Gottman Pleasure Activism by Adrienne Marie Brown Spark Joy by Marie Kondo --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/butfirstme/message

8. 

   21 Jul 2023

   HOPE in rainy Rochdale, cruising on a supermarket skateboard and the optimism with donuts!

   Grab our FREE resources from this season here ⁠⁠https://www.maryellensaha.com/free⁠⁠ (https://www.maryellensaha.com/free) Anirban talks about how learning to do a flick grab on his Asda skateboard built his resilience. Hope is actually developed through discomfort and adversity. Being part of the Happy Place festival in Chiswick House with Fearn Cotton has increased our personal hopefulness. Positive emotions expand our minds, in turn, increasing our sense of connectedness to our community both online and in West London. Hope is a way of thinking, anyone can learn to be optimistic. Mary Ellen simplifies the 3P’s of the pessimistic perspective using 3 delicious donut puns, so you can understand and use it, without your eyes glazing over! Her sweet puns to dispute your bad habits of thinking are: 1. Donut be so hard on yourself 2. Donut fear the future. 3. Keep your eye on the donut not on the hole! Hope is also a character strength. Is it in your top 10? See link below for Strengths Survey for both adults & kids, it takes 10 minutes. Anirban feels hopeful that men CAN be more emotionally flexible, and that happiness and wellbeing doesn’t need to be for women only. Remember Brim Full of Asha, the 90’s indie hit or dancing to the Norman Cook remix? Mary learns that title has nothing to do with ashtrays or spliffs! Embedded in the immigrant story is hope, Anirban recalls his parents coming to UK in 1972 from Kolkata for a better life. Mary Ellen wonders if optimism is in her Irish blood. Her ancestors set sail over many generations to many destinations. Most known is the exodus of one million people from Ireland during An Gorta Mór (famine). BOOK references: Atlas of the Heart by Brène Brown Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman Fall Off, Get Back On, Keep Going by Clare Balding ⁠ Films Milk 2008 The Shawshank Redemption 1994 --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/butfirstme/message

9. 

   14 Jul 2023

   Women feeling RAGE. We take a road trip with Mary Ellen to the cliff edge of repressed and stressed.

   Grab our FREE resources from this season here ⁠⁠https://www.maryellensaha.com/free⁠⁠ (https://www.maryellensaha.com/free) Anirban confesses he didn't realize there is a gender difference with expressing feelings of anger. He changes his view as he discovers how women are often silenced in his own Indian community, including his Bengali mum. Ironically, his parenting stress is reduced as he learns his tween daughter used anger to stand up to sexual harassment at school. Mary Ellen recounts stories of everyday sexism at home and at work in 1990s Ireland and in London before Me Too. She shares how many women have a bad habit of not expressing their anger, which reduces their happiness, including herself. She explores why 'Mum's the word' is toxic and may lead to serious illness. She believes it did with her own mother. Mary Ellen coaches on what to do when we feel powerless within the patriarchal systems of our workplace and our homes. She shares her lived experience of using Quietize meditation as the antidote to her rage and her feelings of frustration about the stereotype of the feisty Irish woman. In short, it’s been a game changer for her. RESOURCES We believe in your emotional potential so we're sharing our FREE Feelings Cheat Sheet on hapits.com and on our Instagram hapits_com. We can all have better relationships and more purpose if we practice embracing ALL feelings. If we FEEL IT TO REVEAL IT, emotional flexibility can become one of our happiness habits. We strongly encourage you to try out the happiness habit of labeling and journaling your feelings. Please do let us know how you get on; we'd love to hear from you. Just email us at here@futrnow.org. You can also purchase our Hapits® Online Course, which includes our coaching cards used throughout this podcast; https://hapits.com/buy_hapits/ BOOKS etc. Hysterical: Exploding the Myth of Gendered Emotions by Pragya Agarwal. Raising Girls in the 21st Century: Helping Our Girls to Grow Up Wise, Strong and Free by Steve Biddulph. Atlas of the Heart by Brène Brown Everyday Sexism by Laura Bates What About Men? by Caitlin Moran TV and film references: - Thelma and Lousie - Promising Young Woman - I May Destroy You. TED talks: Ted talk by Soraya Chemaly. The power of women’s anger Ted talk by Deepa Narayan. 7 beliefs that silence women and how to unlearn them Other mentions: Soma Sara founder of Everyone's Invited. Michael Conroy founder of Men At Work. Nuala MGovern presenter on BBC Women's Hour. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/butfirstme/message

10. 

    30 Jun 2023

    Showing PRIDE on the street, feeling satisfaction, and is boasty as a bad habit?

    Grab our FREE resources from this season here ⁠⁠https://www.maryellensaha.com/free⁠⁠ (https://www.maryellensaha.com/free) Anirban is feeling proud of his parenting life skills and also unpacks how Indian pride in appearance relates to immigrant assimilation in the UK. We discuss how positive emotions help us strengthen our brains' neural pathways, reducing our stress and fostering more connections to improve our relationships and creativity in the workplace. Mary Ellen gives her coaching guidance on how we can feel pride in small things; you don't have to be a gold medalist or CEO. She also shares her lived experience of Gay Pride, as well as its history. And she earns a Mancunian 'chufty badge'! RESOURCES We believe in your emotional potential so we're sharing our FREE Feelings Cheat Sheet on hapits.com and on our Instagram hapits_com. We can all have better relationships and more purpose if we practice embracing ALL feelings. If we FEEL IT TO REVEAL IT, emotional flexibility can become one of our happiness habits. We strongly encourage you to try out the happiness habit of labeling and journaling your feelings. Please do let us know how you get on; we'd love to hear from you. Just email us at here@futrnow.org. You can also purchase our Hapits® Online Course, which includes our coaching cards used throughout this podcast; https://hapits.com/buy_hapits/ BOOKS etc. Atlas of the Heart by Brène Brown Listen To The Land Speak by Manchán Magan --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/butfirstme/message

11. 

    22 Jun 2023

    The upside of feelings of GUILT and why our bad habits with the emotion of SHAME need to change.

    Grab our FREE resources from this season here ⁠⁠https://www.maryellensaha.com/free⁠⁠ (https://www.maryellensaha.com/free) Anirban confesses how his bad habit of perfectionism can really stress him out. He talks about how this impacts his relationships within his own Indian community and his parenting. Mary Ellen coaches us on how lack of self-awareness and too much screen time often leads to a cycle of stress with negative feelings. We tune out and turn away fron tricky feelings instead of trying to learn this key life skill. RESOURCES We believe in your emotional potential so we're sharing our FREE Feelings Cheat Sheet on hapits.com and on our Instagram hapits_com. We can all have better relationships and more purpose if we practice embracing ALL feelings. If we FEEL IT TO REVEAL IT, emotional flexibility can become one of our happiness habits. We strongly encourage you to try out the happiness habit of labeling and journaling your feelings. Please do let us know how you get on; we'd love to hear from you. Just email us at here@futrnow.org. You can also purchase our Hapits® Online Course, which includes our coaching cards used throughout this podcast; https://hapits.com/buy_hapits/ BOOKS etc. Atlas of the Heart by Brène Brown Feelings Magnets from Manuela Bolton Fix The System: Not The Women by Laura Bates Listen To The Land Speak by Manchán Magan --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/butfirstme/message

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Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

1 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

5 ratings

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