DAYnamics Show - MIND Dynamics: The Mind We Live In (with Guests)

This podcast is all about the MIND and more. We are so delighted to offer this special Fundamentals and Discussion podcast intertwined, with some amazing guests: Rubina Chadha, Makoda, Brian Sachetta, Lexi Reid and Dr Suzanne Shurbet. They share some of their story and wisdom around the mind. We appreciate their insights and information! The Show includes:

• why definitions of mind matter for daily choices
• gratitude’s role in mood, neurochemistry and perspective
• inner design as aligning breath, body and thought
• technology’s impact on attention, memory and mental health
• anxiety as a ladder and how to climb down
• two-minute creative tools to anchor attention
• state of mind over circumstances as a core practice
• the 15-minute rule for daily mental care
• links to guest resources and sites

Note: This is a podcast created with SpeakPipe, so volume levels may vary

Links for this Show:

Rubina Chadha, CEO & Founder of Inner Design   Congratulations for the recent 'Impactful Woman of the Year Award 2026' Rubina!

Makoda, Educator | MEd 

Brian Sachetta, Mental Health Author & Advocate  

Lexi Reid, Creative Wellness Coach   

Dr Suzanne Shurbet 

Marianna, DYNAMICS Series and DAYnamics Show

Transcript

Defining The Mind Clearly

SPEAKER_02 0:15

Hello, our dynamics community. It's your host Marianna here to welcome you to the Dynamic Show, where personal development meets daily life. On this podcast, we know there's no one size fits all path in life, which is why each episode is crafted for you to align with your own dynamic self on your terms. Our journey here is filled with options, opportunities, and infinite possibilities. So let's uncover the reason that you are here and explore what's possible together. Now, today our fundamentals and discussions are mixed for a special episode, and we also have invited some guests, and we are using the system called Speakpipe to bring forth answers to those that we could not be on Zoom with or over the phone or in person, but still allowed their voice to be heard. And I'm so excited for this episode. So the title we never know what it's about, but it is going to be about mind dynamics and the dynamics of the mind, mindfulness, state of mind, mental health, consciousness, thoughts, intellect, anything again to do with the mind. Now we always usually ask or answer why the subject matter. And for us, it it covers one of our core life dynamics that we have, mind dynamics. And it also is about mind matters. You know, and then and how much attention are you really giving to the well-being of your mind? And as we usually start a new year, it's already into February. However, a lot of us have already set intentions for the new year before January started or in January, and and let's see from a mind perspective, where are you with some of those? Now we always start off with some kind of definition of the mind. Now, as you know, if you've listened to any of our podcast shows before, is that I usually look at two or three different references, and sometimes I'll find ones that match up, but a lot of times they'll say something because they're saying it from their perspective, just like we share from our perspective how we feel about a subject matter. They are in the same sort of category when it comes to some of the definitions, so let's just go over a few of them. Mind element of a person that enables them to be aware of the world and their experiences, to think, feel, the faculty of consciousness and thought, intellect.

SPEAKER_04 3:32

Okay. Pretty straightforward there.

SPEAKER_02 3:37

And then the mind is a totality of psychological phenomena and ca capacities encompassing both conscious and unconscious states.

SPEAKER_04 3:50

Okay. And one more.

Centering Practice And Intentions

SPEAKER_02 3:53

Represents the inner person, their thoughts. Encompasses thoughts, attitudes, intentions. Now how do these connect for you as far as a definition? Do you have to redefine what you saw your mind of? Do we have to redefine what and how you looked at your mind just from some of the definitions? Words seem so limited around the mind in its infinite possibilities. And so these are just something to help us have a feeling around what mind actually means. And it's for our time together. It's as it's more than just a podcast, we are here to remind you that flowing through each one of us is a dynamic energy that is ours to use every single day. That's why the day in dynamics is capitalized. It is a daily choice to live dynamically. Let's take a moment to center ourselves, take a deep breath in, and then out and be fully present and listen with an open heart and an open mind. Since we all know what we focus on expands. A part of being dynamic is constantly changing, being open to new ideas, and knowing we are always becoming something. So let's become more aware of how the mind does matter.

SPEAKER_04 5:51

So let me ask you this, audience.

Why Gratitude Rewires The Brain

SPEAKER_02 5:54

Given the definitions that you heard and and given what the podcast is going to be about, how how do you feel about that? Can you relate so far to what they defined it as far as in the dictionary online? And more importantly, do you want to know how to embrace more of your mind? Because if you do, and stay tuned. We have some great uh guests that are sharing their input with us around different aspects of the mind. So I'll start. The question we seem to receive the most of on our dynamic show podcast and dynamic series websites contact form is how does gratitude and appreciation help your mind? Really great question. And uh the way that I would answer that specifically is it absolutely has an impact on your mind, both psychologically and neurologically. Cause I think when you anyone that has ever practiced gratitude, you just you know that your brain, even though you might not know exactly what's happening, but you definitely feel better because your brain is releasing feel-good chemicals like dopamine and serotonin, and then that enhances your mood and and your your overall sense of well-being. And then over time, this also by the practice of this, I think it just rewires your brain and and helps you focus more on the positive rather than the negative experiences in your life, and when you do that, you know that you're automatically reducing stress and anxiety.

SPEAKER_04 7:59

And then I think it also strengthens our connections with others.

SPEAKER_02 8:11

And on a psychological level, it also shifts our mindset from like uh scarcity and lack to abundance and uh well-being. It I would say it makes us h feel more content and grounded in the present moment, and it just feels better. And I don't know about you, but it feels good to feel good. And it doesn't feel so good not feeling good. And if it comes down just to that, then ask yourself what feels better to you.

SPEAKER_04 8:51

What serves you?

Guest Rubina: Inner Design Origins

SPEAKER_02 8:55

So let's have our first guest, Rabina, CEO and founder of Inner Design. We are so happy that you have joined us, Rabina. A question to you is after following the script of what we have been told is success, why did you start studying, in particular, mindfulness? And second, tell us more about the journey of creating inner design and how it aligns and balances the mind.

SPEAKER_04 9:34

This is Rubina Chatta.

Designing Inner State Before Action

SPEAKER_01 9:37

Thank you so much for having me. When I hear the question about following the script of what we've been told is success, it really takes me back. On paper, I did everything right. I was formally trained in art and design, I built a career in creative industries, I worked hard, I achieved, I checked all the boxes. From the outside, it looked aligned, but internally something felt off. What I began to notice was that even when I succeeded, my nervous system was not at ease. I was productive, but I was not always present. I was creating, but I was not always connected. There was a subtle burnout that achievement alone could not fix. The truth is, I did not start studying mindfulness as a trend. I grew up with it. I was raised in an East Indian household where meditation and mantra were part of daily life. Silence was normal. Breath was sacred. As I've shared in the past on many podcasts, the body remembers how to come home. But like many of us, I drifted from that simplicity when I entered the professional life. And when pressure was built, I returned to what I already knew. I returned to the breath. Mindfulness became less about philosophy and more about survival. It became the difference between reacting and responding, between pushing through and actually listening. What I discovered is you cannot read the label when you're inside the bottle. When we're caught inside stress, ambition, inside the identity of success, we cannot see clearly. Mindfulness gives us space. It allows us to slow down perception just enough so we can step outside the bottle and actually observe our own mind. That is where everything changed for me. And inner design was born from that realization. My background is in design, so I understand structure, composition, visual language. But what fascinated me more over time was not what people were creating. It was how they were functioning while they were creating. So I began merging what I grew up with, the meditation and breath work, with what I was trained in, design thinking and creative process. And inner design came from blending my upbringing with my background in art and design. The inner design method is the practice of designing your internal state before you design your external world. We spend so much time designing careers, brands, schedules, outcomes, but very few people are taught how to design their inner rhythm, their breath, their response patterns, their nervous system. When the mind is overstimulated, it fragments. When the breath is shallow, the body stays in a subtle form of fight or flight. Creativity begins to narrow, and decision making becomes reactive. So the work of inner design is simple but powerful. First, we regulate the nervous system through breath, not in a dramatic way, in a grounded, repeatable way. Second, we create space through mindful observation. I often use creative exercises like visual journaling, mindful looking, even doodling. And I describe photography as the closest thing to mindfulness because it happens in a single instant of awareness. That instant is what we are training: the ability to pause and see. And third, we align action with that clarity. When the mind is balanced, it's not empty, it's steady. It can hold ambition and calm at the same time. It can hold vision without urgency. And inner design aligns the mind by bringing coherence between breath, body, and thought, teaching people to slow down without losing momentum, to achieve without abandoning themselves. So for me, studying mindfulness was never about escaping success. It was about redefining it. If I could leave your listeners with one thing, it would be this. Before you redesign your life, redesign your inner state. Even one conscious breath changes the quality of your thinking. And my question back to you would be this if the mind creates the quality of our life, why are we not taught to work with it from the beginning?

Tech’s Impact On Attention And Mood

SPEAKER_02 14:31

Well, that is a good question. And on our side, I had a similar question when my daughter was very young. And why do we spend so much of our adult life redefining our childhood? So I created a kids' program where mind is one of the themes. Because I think it is so important for all of us to understand how important mind is. Thanks for being part of this show. You can reach Rabina at uh her YouTube channel, and that will be in the show notes below. So again, thanks so much. Next, we welcome back our master degree holder and elementary school teacher, Makota. She was actually our first ever guest when we started having discussions. So thank you for coming back and joining us, Makota. We asked you this question. Since you have been using electronics for both your teaching career and your personal time, what's your view on how technology is shaping the modern mind?

Guardrails For AI And Social Media

SPEAKER_05 16:07

When I think about how technology has shaped the modern mind, I think about social media and AI the most. Social media and AI have both had a very neutral experience in my mind for the mind. On one hand, it has allowed us all to be so much more interconnected, to connect with people that have vastly different lives than us and also similar lives in us. And AI has also been a great tool in some cases to further explanation, to get quicker answers on topics that you might not understand. So on that end, they are very positive, and I feel like they help with your expansion in your mind, being able to look at other people's lives and getting ideas and getting information at such a personalized level through social media. But on the other side, I believe that it is a detriment sometimes for social media and AI specifically. I feel that social media has a hard time keeping our attention spans high when I think about things like TikTok or YouTube shorts or Instagram reels. All of those short-form videos have allowed us to make it easy to skip past things that are not interesting to us or too long for us to care. And that really comes into play when we have to pay attention in other aspects of our life is that, especially at a young age, for the kids that are being exposed to this, they get so used to not needing to worry about their attention span and being able to get whatever they need at the time and the amount that they want, that it doesn't allow them to focus in class or when it's not interesting, they kind of tune themselves out because they're so used to not needing to stay listening. When it comes to AI as well, I feel that especially for the older kids that are maybe in middle school and high school, it's becoming too easy to over-rely on artificial intelligence to get all of your answers for questions or to understand a topic, whereas they won't go back and do research themselves or fact-check the information that they're getting from artificial intelligence. It really impacts the amount of memory and knowledge that they have on a subject that they can recall back in their own heads. Because if they're not able to learn it themselves, then they don't really have that bank of knowledge to fall back on about a topic ever. And finally, with mental health, I feel that social media especially is a very big mixed bag on your mental health. I think that sometimes it can help you feel better about yourself because again, you're finding people that have similar situations than you, and you're able to connect to them on a very mental level. But at the same time, it can also make you feel like you're lesser than, or that your life is not as amazing as someone else's that you're connecting with in terms of something like Facebook or again, Instagram, where maybe if you're a little older, you're seeing all of your friends growing up from school and they have houses and lives, and you don't, that's a situation that I can feel resonating with. Sometimes it can feel like you are falling behind and that you're not enough because you're not doing the exact same thing as everyone else your age, which is not the case at all. Everyone has their own life path, but no one tells you that part, that it doesn't need to be that way. So I think as long as you can separate yourself from knowing that someone else's life is not your life, that social media won't affect your mental health, but it's also so important that you're able to put stops on it for yourself and realize, okay, is this actually going to help me at all? Is this actually making me feel better about anything that I'm learning? Or am I just going into a spiral? And that's the biggest problem with social media, is there's an easy spiral to continue down a bad path. So I think that everything has to be done in moderation for it to be a positive impact on your mind because social media and AI aren't innately horrible. But if you use them too much, or if you use them incorrectly, especially at younger ages or for the wrong reasons, then they can have lasting impacts on your ability to keep memory, to have a good attention span and your mental health.

Brian’s Anxiety Ladder Framework

SPEAKER_02 20:47

And thank you for your viewpoints on the technology and the mind and how they relate to each other. I can see the upside and downside as well. I'm as I'm sure you see a whole lot more being a teacher. It's like you said, finding the balance. And for those younger, just offering some clear guidelines as to the usage of them and the time on them. So, as always, Makota, thanks for being part of this podcast. Your insights are appreciated. Next, what a delight it is to have Brian join us today. Brian's a mental health author and advocate, an owner and author of Get Out of Your Head, a mental health focused brand and book series. So Brian's going to answer the question of how to take ownership of your mental health one daily choice at a time.

Mindful Choices To Regulate Stress

SPEAKER_06 22:04

The question was how do you take ownership of your mental health one daily choice at a time? To answer this question, I think we need to look at The body and the nervous system. So I talk a lot about anxiety. I write a lot about anxiety. And when you look at anxiety, you quickly find that it is essentially a product of the nervous system itself, right? The brain, the spinal cord, the peripheral nerves, all of that. And in terms of the nervous system, right? Inside of the nervous system, we have the acute stress response, the sympathetic nervous system. So what happens is when we face things that stress us out, that scare us, that part of our nervous system revs up. And when you look at anxiety, I think you often see that anxiety is very similar to, it sort of resembles, and it can come from nervous system activation, right? The sympathetic nervous system revving up resembles anxiety and can lead to it. And so from that place, we want to think about okay, if we want to take control or ownership of our mental health one daily choice at a time, then we need to step back on a regular basis and bring something of a mindfulness approach to our lives to say, is what I'm about to do, is what I am thinking, is what I am eating, are those things, or is each one of those things at a time, are those leading to my sympathetic nervous system revving up or revved down, as in, is the opposite of my sympathetic nervous system activating right now, my parasympathetic nervous system, the part of my nervous system that brings me back toward calm. So from this lens, I think we then want to look at anxiety as something of a ladder, right? And in the same way that we looked at the nervous system activating in terms of the sympathetic nervous system or the acute stress response, we can think of it as as that stress response activates, we're climbing up the ladder of stress and towards the peak of anxiety. And as we climb down that, we are moving away from anxiety, we're moving back to calm. So, again, with the mindfulness, right, is we want to not every minute of every day, but on a semi-regular basis, we want to be present with ourselves and think about what we're doing and ask ourselves is the thing that I'm about to go do, is the activity that I'm about to take part in, is the conversation I'm about to have, is you know, something that we're doing at work or something that we're doing at home with our loved ones or spouses or whatever, are those individual things having you climb the ladder right now or walk back down it, right? And so from this place of mindfulness, we can re-evaluate our lives such that we then try to avoid some of that anxiety. And with this ladder, right, we can kind of think of it as going up a scale from zero to 10. So zero is calm and 10 is super anxious. And the thing that I always like to say, or the thing that gets talked about with this concept, is that you don't just go from a zero to 10 in one second, right? Like, sure, there are probably some instances in your life where, for example, you come across a live bear on a hike in the woods. That could send you to a 10 for sure. But most things in our life take us along a slow ascent up that ladder. And so again, bringing in the idea of the mindfulness, we want to bring our attention to this process to say, what am I doing? And is it bringing me up or down the ladder? And am I going from a zero to a two, a two to a five, a five to a 10, so on and so forth. And you also have to remember that the higher up you get on the ladder, the harder it is to come back down, and vice versa, right? So we want to make sure that we're bringing that awareness so that way we don't all of a sudden wake up and find ourselves at a seven, an eight, a nine, or a 10. We catch ourselves before we get to the top of the ladder. So remember to bring that mindfulness to your everyday activities and say, okay, is this helping me climb back down towards calm or is this pushing me back up towards stress and anxiety? And as you bring that lens, that evaluation to the various parts of your life, I think you will find that you start to take ownership of your mental health one little choice at a time.

Lexi’s Shift And Creative MBSR

SPEAKER_02 26:48

Thank you, Brian. Some really great points there. And I love the latter analogy. Again, something that you can think of visually as well, and something I'm sure that our community can easily remember. I do agree that sometimes we need reminders. It is a daily choice to focus on our mental health and our well-being. So thank you for all you do and being part of the show. You can reach Brian on his website, get out of your head.com, and again, it'll be in the show notes. So again, thanks so much for being on the show. We also have the pleasure of welcoming Alexandra or Lexi to the show. She's a creative wellness coach. But before that, a scientist turned creative wellness coach. So first we asked her, tell us about the moment you knew in your mind that the shift would be happening in your career. And second, you use the words mindful mindfulness based stress reduction. So tell us about that, what that entails through your creative expression process.

Simple Art Tools To Calm The Mind

SPEAKER_00 28:20

Hi, Marianna. Thanks for having me. I'm Lexi Reid, a scientist turned creative wellness coach, and I support high-achieving women, especially those in STEM, science, technology, engineering, and math, with practical creative tools for reducing stress. So the moment that I knew in my mind a shift was happening, it became obvious during the pandemic. My company took on a large emergency ventilator contract, and it was all hands on deck. We were working 24-7 from home. And at the same time, I was trying to homeschool my kids. I felt like my life had no boundaries, and I was just working on pure adrenaline. And what I noticed in my mind is I had this constant mental scanning. Like I couldn't switch my brain off. I, you know, I'd fall asleep thinking about work. I'd wake up thinking about all the things that I hadn't got done the day before. But I was also feeling numb even when I was accomplishing things. You know, nothing, everything felt very gray. There was no highs, there was no lows. And I remember realizing that I could keep pushing and still perform my job, but I just felt like I was losing myself in the process. That was the mind shift. So not super dramatic, but it started becoming very clear that I needed a different way to continue to live and work and make this make it work for myself. I also had hit a wall creatively. And one day, on a super long Zoom call, I just started drawing simple shapes and patterns without overly thinking about it. And I could feel my body settle, like my shoulders dropped, my breathing slowed down, and my science brain immediately went, okay, that's some data. Something's happening here. And I started digging into looking at art therapy and mindfulness-based stress reduction. So MSBR. And what that is through creative expression, it's training attention on purpose, you know, being in the present moment and with less judgment. This helps you notice stress responses earlier so you can respond instead of just simply reacting. And creative expression really supports MSBR because drawing gives your attention a place to land when your brain is racing. You can focus simply on making lines, colors, the movement of your hand, the texture of the paper, your breathing, just that simple feeling of hand and holding the pen moving on paper. This is an anchor that gets you out of that mental looping. And it's really not about making good art, it's about creating enough breathing space to notice what's coming up for you. You know, where does your attention want to land, basically? You know, one simple example I use is just doing two minutes of slow repetitive mark making while tracking your breath. You know, drawing in the time of your breath, and you'll find it slows down. You'll go from making maybe sharp, jagged lines to slow looping lines. Another great example that I use is drawing a quick stress map. You know, draw a simple, you know, gingerbread figure, and you can use color and shapes to map where stress is coming up in the body. You know, it could be, you know, pink, sharp, prickly lines in the brain. It could be, you know, blue, jagged lines in your shoulders. And it kind of maps out and you can kind of reflect on where is the stress showing up for you in your body. And what changes is you get this, the mind gets quieter, you get a little bit more clarity about without forcing it. And, you know, you can start sort of trusting your internal signals again as well. So that's why I now teach these creative practices to high-achieving women through my creative reset program. You know, they don't need another big task. They just need small, repeatable tools that calm the mind and support emotional regulation. And what I want to throw back to your listeners is when your listeners think about mind, do they struggle more with overthinking, mental fatigue, or feeling emotionally disconnected? And thanks again for having me on the show.

Dr. Suzanne: State Of Mind First

SPEAKER_02 32:43

Thank you. This is great information and will inspire many. So, listeners, which do you have the most concern with? For me, I would say overthinking. I can relate to the different times in my life where I could get so busy and it seemed gray. Like I'm just going through the motions. So thanks for sharing some examples of what to do now and about your creative reset program to help. Re reach Lexi at her website, mindArtwellness.com. Again, her link will be in our show notes. Thanks so much. Our next guest answering a question on the dynamics of the mind is back again by popular demand, as there was such a great response from the podcast, the two podcasts that we did together, which was her first podcast. Welcome back, Dr. Suzanne. Dr. Suzanne is a retired chiropractor of over 35 years, yet she still works with many healing modalities. So the question that we had for her was, how do you personally quiet your mind when it feels overwhelmed?

SPEAKER_03 34:11

Hello. Hey, thanks Marianna for having me back. I appreciate it. When I was thinking about the answer for the question that you sent me, yes, I utilize a whole plethora of different ways, modalities, breath work, yoga, meditation, quantum biofeedback, hot baths, hot tub, chromotherapy, movement dance. There are so many things that are wonderful in our lives that we can do to help us to relax and unwind in our mind.

SPEAKER_04 34:53

And then I had an aha moment. Yes. What are you thinking? What are your thoughts?

SPEAKER_03 35:03

Bottom line circumstances don't matter. It's all about our state of mind.

SPEAKER_02 35:14

Thank you, Suzanne. Is this where I should say mic drop? It's all about our state of mind. What would you rather have? Feel good states of mind, like optimism, clarity, emotional stability, or not so good states of mind that could be stress, anxiety, and self-doubt. Lots of great options to quiet the mind. Yes, there are so many things that can help us soothe our mind and find that balance.

SPEAKER_04 35:50

So thank you for sharing. I guess we always have to ask what works for you, right?

SPEAKER_02 35:59

So as always, thank you again for being part of the show. You can reach Dr. Suzanne on her website at butterflyjourneyshealth.com.

The 15-Minute Rule For Mental Care

SPEAKER_04 36:12

And again, the link will be in the show notes. So thanks again. And the last question why should my mind matter?

SPEAKER_02 36:29

I have this 15-minute rule, so it's whether it's being out in nature time, a bath, exercise, meditation, breathing exercises, being creative, any of the information that our guests have shared on this show. I focus on it for 15 minutes or more. From how we think and how we feel and how we make decisions and interact with the world. And if you look at scientifically, your mind shapes your reality by interpreting experiences, forming beliefs, rewiring itself through neuroplasticity, which means your thoughts can literally change your brain. And then if you look at the mind from a spiritual point of view, it is a seat of awareness and the tools through which we connect with higher consciousness and purpose. So caring for your mind does matter because it can, it will, whether we want to be aware of it or not, determine parts of quality of our inner and outer life. So we want to have that balanced mind, that that mindfulness, that state of mind, that consciousness, this the thoughts, the mental health. All out of balance. Clarity, creativity, resilience, allowing you to live an intentional, joyous, and deep connection with yourself. Just having so many different perspectives of the mind. And I'm so appreciative for those that chose to come on and really share their gifts, share who they are, the expression that came out through their voice or energy, and uh the information that you can now go and research for yourself. And I just want to note as well that we're using again speakpipe for the first time, so you may have some variations in the voice.

SPEAKER_04 39:26

And that is okay because what you need to hear will be heard. So as we start to close up, what now?

SPEAKER_02 39:40

We challenge you to take action, share this episode with someone who needs it, or explore our past recordings to keep the discussion alive. Your dynamic journey doesn't stop here. There's so much waiting for you. So we invite you to follow, subscribe, share, support, shift. You have dynamics show.info. The links again are in the show notes to dive into our resources. Also, dynamics series.com. Keep in mind all materials are shared on the show are copyrighted and meant for informational purposes only. Again, I just want to say I can't thank our guests enough for taking the time, be willing to go on this special episode journey with me. First time using this speak pike process. And I really feel it's it's an expression, your energy comes through, your gifts come through, and it's just so grateful to have so many guests that are focused on the well-being of the mind. And so we are forever grateful for you. So thank you. Until next time, dynamics community. Thank you, thank you, thank you for tuning into the dynamic show. Align with your dynamic well being every day and make this a dynamic day. Bye for now.