Every family has a culture. The question is: are we creating it intentionally, or simply inheriting it?

In this episode of Rooted & Wild, I welcome back Elisabeth Stitt, author, award-winning parent educator, certified life coach, and founder of Joyful Parenting Coaching, for a conversation about one of the most powerful things parents can shape: the culture of their home.

Family culture isn't created through one big conversation or a perfectly articulated set of values. It's built quietly, every day, through the rituals we repeat, the behaviors we model, the expectations we establish, the stories we tell, and the ways we respond to one another when life gets difficult.

Elisabeth explores how parents can become more conscious of what their family is actually communicating about love, responsibility, belonging, conflict, connection, and what matters most.

We also look at the cultures we inherited from our own families. What do we want to carry forward? What no longer serves us? And how can parents intentionally create something different without feeling like they have to get everything right?

Because ultimately, family culture isn't about creating a perfect home.

It's about creating a place where children know who they are, what their family stands for, and that they deeply belong.

In this episode, we explore:

• What “family culture” actually means
• How family culture develops whether we're intentional about it or not
• Identifying the values you want your household to embody
• The influence of our own childhoods on how we parent
• Deciding which traditions and patterns to carry forward
• Breaking family patterns that no longer serve us
• How everyday rituals create connection and belonging
• Modeling values rather than simply talking about them
• Creating meaningful family traditions
• Navigating differences between parents and blended families
• How families approach conflict, mistakes, and repair
• Helping children feel safe, secure, and connected
• Creating culture through millions of seemingly small moments
• How family culture evolves as children grow
• Building a home children continue to feel connected to into adulthood

About Elisabeth Stitt

Elisabeth Stitt is an author, award-winning parent educator, certified life coach through the Coaches Training Institute, retired public school teacher, mother, and stepmother.

After spending 25 years teaching in the San Francisco Bay Area, Elisabeth saw firsthand how much responsibility parents carry and how little meaningful support they're often given. Today, through Joyful Parenting Coaching, she works with parents around the world to develop practical parenting strategies grounded in child development principles, strong family values, and meaningful connection.

She is the author of Parenting as a Second Language and brings more than three decades of experience working with children of all ages, from the toddler years through adolescence and the transition into adulthood.

Her philosophy is simple but powerful: good parenting is created through millions of small gestures that help our children know they are safe, secure, and connected.

Connect with Elisabeth Stitt

Website: www.elisabethstitt.com
YouTube: @elisabethstitt
Instagram: @joyfulparentingcoaching
Facebook: Elisabeth Stitt
LinkedIn: Elisabeth Stitt

Rooted & Wild provides general information for educational and informational purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by guest speakers are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Henry Hawk. The content shared on this podcast is not intended to replace individualized medical, psychological, or therapeutic advice, nor should it be used to diagnose or treat any health condition. Listeners are encouraged to consult with qualified healthcare professionals regarding any medical or mental health concerns.

What if the challenges of our time aren’t only asking us to do more, solve more, or move faster, but to remember something we’ve lost?

In this episode of Rooted & Wild, I welcome back Michael Kass, founder of Story & Spirit, for a conversation about what it means to re-member the Sacred and why restoring a sense of connection, meaning, and reverence may be essential to how we meet this moment in history.

We live in a time of enormous complexity. Our attention is fragmented, our institutions are shifting, technology is transforming how we relate to one another, and many of us feel increasingly disconnected from ourselves, our communities, and the living world around us.

Michael invites us to consider another way forward.

Rather than treating the Sacred as something confined to religion, ritual, or a particular spiritual tradition, we explore it as a way of being in relationship with life itself. A recognition that we belong to something larger than our individual identities, ambitions, fears, and stories.

And the word re-membering matters.

Because perhaps the work isn’t about discovering something entirely new. Perhaps it is about bringing the fragmented pieces back together. Remembering our bodies. Remembering one another. Remembering our relationship with the natural world. Remembering meaning, mystery, and the things that cannot always be measured.

Drawing from 25 years of work spanning storytelling, embodied leadership, breathwork, organizational transformation, and coaching, Michael explores how these ideas can move beyond philosophy and become something we actually practice in our relationships, workplaces, communities, and everyday lives.

Because meeting the times may require more than better strategies.

It may require remembering what we consider sacred in the first place.

In this episode, we explore:

• What Michael means by “re-membering” the Sacred
• How the Sacred can exist beyond traditional religious frameworks
• Why modern life can leave us feeling fragmented and disconnected
• The relationship between story, meaning, and belonging
• Reconnecting with ourselves, each other, and the wider living world
• Embodiment as a pathway back into relationship
• Creating space for mystery, reverence, and wonder
• What leadership looks like when humanity and connection come first
• Bringing the Sacred into organizations and everyday work
• How storytelling shapes the worlds we create together
• Meeting uncertainty without immediately trying to control it
• The role of ritual and intentional gathering
• What our current moment may be asking us to remember
• Moving from individual transformation toward collective connection

About Michael Kass

Michael Kass, founder of Story & Spirit, is a convening designer, facilitator, consultant, and embodied leadership coach who works with organizations and individuals to weave new stories that bring us into greater connection with ourselves, each other, and the wider world.

Over the past 25 years, his work has ranged from touring an award-winning solo storytelling show across the United States to helping teams navigate periods of intense growth, facilitating breathwork rituals around the world, and coaching founders and multinational CEOs through profound transitions.

Michael is an ICF Certified Executive Coach, Certified Breathwork Facilitator, author of Story Maps: Wayfinding Tools for the Modern Seeker, and serves on the Board of Directors for Wild Gift.

Connect with Michael Kass

Website: www.storyandspirit.org
Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/5PEqbjjjA6gkwnMvQiz2bq?si=74c2aaf18f6a4ecb
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/michaelkass1

Rooted & Wild provides general information for educational and informational purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by guest speakers are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Henry Hawk. The content shared on this podcast is not intended to replace individualized medical, psychological, or therapeutic advice, nor should it be used to diagnose or treat any health condition. Listeners are encouraged to consult with qualified healthcare professionals regarding any medical or mental health concerns.

What if an oracle card isn’t simply something we interpret, but a doorway into what we’re already being invited to see?

In this episode of Rooted & Wild, I sit down with Kari Balderston, mystic, healer, medicine woman, and energy counselor, to explore the intuitive and energetic world of oracle reading.

We move beyond the idea of cards as simple fortune telling and into something deeper: how oracle cards can become tools for channeling, reflection, energetic awareness, and spiritual connection.

Kari shares how she approaches a reading in partnership with Spirit, angels, guides, and intuition, allowing the imagery and symbolism of the cards to help illuminate patterns, questions, and messages that may be waiting beneath the surface.

We explore what it means to channel energy through a reading, how a reader learns to distinguish intuition from their own thoughts, and why the same card can carry profoundly different medicine depending on the person, moment, and energy surrounding it.

We also talk about developing your own relationship with oracle cards, choosing and working with a deck, trusting what comes through, and allowing the cards to become less about predicting the future and more about creating a conversation with yourself, Spirit, and the unseen.

Because sometimes the medicine isn’t in knowing exactly what comes next.

Sometimes it’s in seeing what is already trying to reveal itself.

In this episode, we explore:

• Oracle cards as tools for intuition and spiritual connection
• The difference between reading cards and channeling through them
• How Kari prepares energetically for a reading
• Working with Spirit, angels, guides, and intuitive messages
• Learning to trust what comes through
• Distinguishing intuition from your own thoughts and expectations
• How imagery, symbolism, and energy interact during a reading
• Why the same card can hold different meaning for different people
• Using oracle readings for clarity, reflection, and personal transformation
• Developing your own relationship with an oracle deck
• Moving beyond fortune telling and prediction
• The role of ritual and intention in intuitive practice
• How oracle work can illuminate patterns we may not consciously recognize
• Finding the “medicine” within the cards

About Kari Balderston

Kari Balderston is a mystic, healer, medicine woman, and energy counselor whose work blends intuitive channeling, energy healing, and herbal medicine to support transformation of both spirit and body.

Rooted in partnership with Spirit, angels, and guides, Kari works with clients to illuminate patterns, reconnect with their authentic selves, and create greater clarity, calm, purpose, and inner freedom.

She is a Usui Reiki Master, ThetaHealing® practitioner, graduate of the Angel Alchemy Academy, certified oracle card reader, and trained in The Science and Art of Herbalism through Rosemary Gladstar.

Connect with Kari Balderston

Website: www.apothekarihealingarts.com
Instagram: @apothekari_healing_arts
Email: kari@apothekarihealingarts.com

Rooted & Wild provides general information for educational and informational purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by guest speakers are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Henry Hawk. The content shared on this podcast is not intended to replace individualized medical, psychological, or therapeutic advice, nor should it be used to diagnose or treat any health condition. Listeners are encouraged to consult with qualified healthcare professionals regarding any medical or mental health concerns.

What if the life you actually want is waiting on the other side of a risk you’ve been afraid to take?

In this episode of Rooted & Wild, I’m joined by executive coach, leadership consultant, speaker, and author Rachel Burr for a funny, candid, and deeply human conversation about risk, transformation, and what it takes to stop settling for a life that merely feels comfortable enough.

With more than 20 years of experience working with leaders and organizations—and master’s degrees in both clinical psychology and organizational development—Rachel understands the complicated ways we keep ourselves safe, even when that safety is keeping us stuck.

We explore the space between knowing something needs to change and actually being willing to change it. Why do we remain in “comfortable discomfort”? What happens when fear of failure becomes fear of fully living? And how do we distinguish reckless risk from the intentional risks that move us toward the people we actually want to become?

Rachel is also the author of Butterfly Goo: The Down and Dirty Truth of Transformation, a humorous memoir about the messy reality of change. Because transformation rarely looks graceful while we’re inside it. Before the butterfly emerges, everything familiar has to dissolve into something Rachel affectionately calls the “goo.”

And maybe that’s the part we don’t talk about enough.

You don’t get the wings without going through the goo.

This conversation is about getting honest about what’s working, acknowledging what isn’t, loosening our grip on certainty, and finding the courage to deliberately risk something familiar in pursuit of something more alive.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why meaningful change almost always involves risk
• The difference between intentional risk and recklessness
• How “comfortable discomfort” keeps us stuck
• Our fear of failure—and what it costs us
• The question of whether we truly believe we’re enough
• Why transformation is messier than we like to admit
• Learning to move through uncertainty instead of avoiding it
• Rachel’s concept of “Butterfly Goo”
• Using humor to navigate difficult seasons of change
• Recognizing when the life you’ve built no longer fits
• Taking purposeful risks toward the life you actually want

Connect with Rachel Burr

📘 Butterfly Goo: The Down and Dirty Truth of Transformation
https://ButterflyGooBook.net/

🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelmburr/
📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rachel.m.burr.1
📸 Instagram: @catamentum

Rooted & Wild provides general information for educational and informational purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by guest speakers are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Henry Hawk. The content shared on this podcast is not intended to replace individualized medical, psychological, or therapeutic advice, nor should it be used to diagnose or treat any health condition. Listeners are encouraged to consult with qualified healthcare professionals regarding any medical or mental health concerns.

After 100 conversations about health, healing, spirituality, the body, relationships, identity, and what it means to live a meaningful life, one question keeps rising to the surface: What does it actually mean to be well?

In this special 100th episode of Rooted & Wild, Henry steps behind the microphone alone—not to celebrate a number or look back at favorite moments, but to reflect on the deeper patterns that have emerged across one hundred conversations.

We live in a time with seemingly endless information about how to optimize ourselves. Heal your nervous system. Improve your sleep. Fix your hormones. Strengthen your body. Work through your trauma. Set better boundaries. Eat differently. Meditate. Take supplements. Find your purpose.

But somewhere along the way, wellness itself can become exhausting.

What if being well isn't about finally fixing everything?

What if wholeness isn't a destination at all—but our ability to remain in relationship with ourselves as life continues to change?

In this deeply personal and practical solo episode, Henry explores what Rooted & Wild has revealed about the relationship between body and mind, healing and becoming, ancient wisdom and modern knowledge, curiosity and certainty, and perhaps most importantly, knowing something versus actually living it.

Because information about transformation isn't transformation.

Understanding boundaries isn't setting one. Knowing you need rest isn't resting. Learning about grief isn't grieving. Knowing who you are isn't necessarily living as that person.

This episode invites you to move beyond consuming more information and instead consider four deceptively simple questions:

What does my body need from me now?

What belief or story am I ready to question?

Where am I being invited into greater honesty or connection?

What makes me feel meaningfully alive?

Then comes the challenge: choose one—and do something with it.

Henry also shares what's ahead for the solo episodes of Rooted & Wild, which will increasingly become spaces for integration: exploring the connections and contradictions between guest conversations, examining ideas he's wrestling with, questioning assumptions, exploring seasonal and spiritual themes, and asking how everything we're learning can become something we actually embody.

One hundred episodes later, perhaps the goal isn't to have fewer questions.

Perhaps it's to have better ones.

And maybe becoming well isn't about accumulating enough information to finally perfect ourselves.

Maybe it's learning to hear ourselves beneath all that information—to know when we need medicine and when we need rest, when we need discipline and when we need tenderness, when we need another person's wisdom and when we need to trust our own.

When we need roots. And when it's time to grow wild.

Rooted & Wild provides general information for educational and informational purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by guest speakers are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Henry Hawk. The content shared on this podcast is not intended to replace individualized medical, psychological, or therapeutic advice, nor should it be used to diagnose or treat any health condition. Listeners are encouraged to consult with qualified healthcare professionals regarding any medical or mental health concerns.

What if aging well has less to do with trying to stay young—and more to do with becoming stronger?

In this episode, I sit down with Jody Florman, Certified Wellness Coach and living proof that vitality doesn’t have an expiration date, to explore strength, resilience, body confidence, and what it really means to thrive as we age.

At 68, Jody challenges many of the assumptions women are handed about getting older. Rather than accepting midlife as the beginning of inevitable decline, she sees it as an opportunity to consciously rebuild—to become stronger physically, clearer mentally, and more grounded in who you are.

And Jody knows something about rebuilding.

Her life has taken her through a creative career spanning design, mural work, entrepreneurship, London, Los Angeles, and now Sedona, alongside divorce, financial collapse, burnout, reinvention, and more than one experience of starting over.

Those experiences ultimately shaped the work she does today.

Together, we explore why physical strength becomes increasingly important as women age, but also why strength is about much more than muscle. It influences confidence, independence, energy, resilience, and our relationship with our changing bodies.

We talk about the stories women absorb around aging, body image, fitness, beauty, and what we're supposedly capable of after a certain age—and what happens when we decide those stories no longer belong to us.

Jody also shares her approach to creating sustainable wellness without punishment or perfectionism. Instead of chasing impossible standards or temporary transformations, she encourages women to build habits and lifestyles they can actually carry forward for the rest of their lives.

Because aging is inevitable.

Declining into a smaller version of yourself doesn't have to be.

Perhaps getting older isn't about desperately holding onto who you used to be.

Perhaps it's an invitation to discover how powerful you can still become.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why strength becomes increasingly important as women age
• Rethinking cultural narratives around women and aging
• Building and maintaining physical confidence in midlife and beyond
• Strength, energy, mobility, and independence
• The relationship between physical strength and emotional resilience
• Body image as our bodies change
• Moving beyond punishment-based approaches to fitness
• Why perfectionism can sabotage sustainable wellness
• Creating habits you can maintain for the rest of your life
• Starting over without believing you've started too late
• Mindset and the stories we tell ourselves about aging
• Reclaiming creativity, confidence, and possibility
• What Jody has learned about vitality at 69
• Why your strongest years may still be ahead of you

About Jody Florman

Jody Florman is a Certified Wellness Coach who works with women in midlife who are ready to feel strong, vibrant, and fully at home in their bodies again.

A lifelong creative, designer, muralist, entrepreneur, and problem-solver, Jody's unconventional career has taken her from London to Los Angeles and through multiple chapters of personal and professional reinvention.

Today, she brings that same spirit of rebuilding to women's wellness, helping clients improve physical confidence, energy, strength, body image, and the mindset patterns that can keep them stuck. Her approach combines health and wellness coaching, breakthrough tools, and intuitive energetic work with an emphasis on sustainable change.

Based in Sedona, Arizona, Jody coaches privately and continues to expand her work around fitness, mindset, aging, and women's empowerment.

Her philosophy is simple:

Aging is inevitable. Feeling old is optional.

And midlife isn't a crisis.

It's a reclamation.

Connect with Jody

Website: https://www.jodyflorman.com

Rooted & Wild provides general information for educational and informational purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by guest speakers are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Henry Hawk. The content shared on this podcast is not intended to replace individualized medical, psychological, or therapeutic advice, nor should it be used to diagnose or treat any health condition. Listeners are encouraged to consult with qualified healthcare professionals regarding any medical or mental health concerns.