Is it possible to remove all suffering from our lives? What is the difference between happiness and joy? Danielle LaPorte took this on as a research project for 10 years, and the metaphor she now uses is simple: Joy is the atmosphere, and happiness is the clouds passing through. Joy is foundational. And from that foundation you can begin to unpack your suffering. You can assemble the tools to for your joy. As Danielle says, "When you're in the pit, you forget you have a shovel."

Danielle LaPorte: My name is Danielle. My last name is [LaPorte 00:00:03]. I identify as a planetary citizen, but I live in Canada. What I do is I suffer, and then I get insight out of that, and I package it and I get it to the right people. I get it to the people who want to hear it. And then I also live a lot of sweetness, a lot of joy, and I try and get the wisdom out of that and package that. I exist. I show up to alleviate suffering and amplify joy. It's taken me all this time to figure that out.

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Dr. Mary Pardee is a functional medicine and neuropathic doctor who specializes in gastroenterology. Often these days we hear the words, "gut health". But what does it actually mean? Our bodies, and especially our guts, are all built differently and it can become easy to end up going down the wrong gut health path when you're not aware of what's right for you. Learn how, in working with your doctor, you can get to the root of your own gut health and find ways to thrive both inside and out.

Mary Pardee: My name is Dr. Mary Pardee. I'm a functional medicine and naturopathic doctor, so I see patients, and I really focus though on the root cause, so a nerd when it comes to nutrition, all the new things going on in health, which there are tons of, and I specialize in functional gastroenterology, so looking at integrative therapies for stomach conditions as well as hormone balancing.

Jeff: God, I should come and see you. That's my Achilles' heel.

Mary Pardee: Your weakness, yeah?...

We often consider the fight for global warming as simply the elimination of greenhouse gasses. We need more fuel efficient or electric cars, more solar, and more wind power... But that only slows the dive toward catastrophe. Regenerative agriculture actually sequesters carbon and restores the earth to balance. Finian Makepeace, founder of Kiss the Ground, works with farmers and businesses to show them how to replenish soil, but there's a role for us all to play — as consumers and advocates.

Jeff VO: Welcome to Commune, a global wellness community and online course platform featuring some of the world’s greatest teachers. We’re on a mission to inspire, heal, pass down wisdom, and bring the world closer together. This is the Commune podcast, where each week we explore the ideas and practices that help us live healthy, connected and purpose-filled lives. You can check out our courses, our community and everything we do at onecommune.com. Carbon in our atmosphere has...

What does it mean to live in "The Beautiful State?" Each of our individual lives are full of positives and negatives, of successes and failures, and of suffering. So how might we move past our suffering and enter a more beautiful state of being? Often people think we must overcome entirely our personal sufferings, but the beautiful state isn't about achieving the impossible. It is about creating and nurturing the kinds of lives we want for ourselves. Join our guest Preetha Ji as she helps us explore ways to achieve that beautiful state of being.

Preethaji: So it is important that we nurture, have a very clear vision, we have a clear vision for our external life, about the comforts that we want to have, the achievements that we want to create. But let us have a spiritual vision for our inner state of being that becomes the very foundation on which you can build a beautiful life.

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Jeff VO: Welcome to Commune, where each week we explore the ideas and practices that bring us...

It's our pod-iversary! We've been doing the Commune Podcast one whole year now, and Jeff takes a look back on some of his favorite conversations. What have we learned this past year and how can we weave these lessons into our lives and relationships? We thank you for being such an important part of Commune and hope you're just as excited as we are for the year ahead!

Marianne Williamson is a world-renowned spiritual teacher and bestselling author (Return to Love). She’s also an activist and former congressional candidate. The thread in her career is one of spiritual transformation and political activism, but when Marianne began speaking and writing on those topics, a professional path wasn't really visible. In this episode, we hear about how Marianne carved her own career path, and talk about what happens when we look at the history of American politics through a global, spiritual lens.

Jeff: Hi, I’m Jeff Krasno and welcome to Commune, where every week we explore the ideas, values and practices that bring us together and help us live healthy and purposeful lives. 

What do you want to be when you grow up? I would have loved to be a fly on the wall when someone asked a young Marianne Williamson that question. Today, it can be difficult to sum up everything she has done in her life. 

She’s a spiritual teacher, a...

What does childbirth look like from the doctor’s perspective? And how can women better work with their doctors – and the medical system as a whole – to improve the labor and delivery experience? This week Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz shares insights, stories, and hospital hacks with Schuyler Grant, host of Commune's 21-day program Empowered Birth.

If you are pregnant (or thinking about it), head on over to onecommune.com/birth to take the program completely free from August 12-September 1.

Schuyler Grant: I'm Schuyler Grant, and welcome to Commune, where each week we explore the ideas and practices that bring us together and help us live healthy, purpose-filled lives.

You may have already heard that I've curated a new course that launches this month called Empowered Birth. And to that end, we've been digging into the culture of birth in the US on the podcast, and it's inspired all kinds of questions, some of which I hope I can answer on the podcast today. Yesterday...

Why does our birth culture treat low-risk women like high-risk patients? And how does that impact birth outcomes? Schuyler Grant, host of Commune's 21-day program Empowered Birth talks with midwife Elizabeth Bachner on how to navigate the pressures of the modern medical system and make even a hospital birth more homey.

To learn more about the Empowered Birth course and to take the program completely free from August 12-September 1, go to onecommune.com/birth.

Schuyler VO: Hi, I'm Schuyler Grant and welcome to Commune, where each week we explore the ideas and practices that bring us together and help us to live healthy purpose-filled lives.

I'm taking over the mic from Jeff for a few weeks because I've curated a brand new kind of Commune course. It's a 21-day deep dive into pregnancy, childbirth, and early postpartum called Empowered Birth. We're offering the course for free to mamas, and mamas-to-be, and their partners, and other support team from August 12th to September 1st. If...

Think for a moment about the stories you tell yourself about childbirth… None of us remember our own births, and many of us don’t even know our mother’s (or father’s) story of how we were born. And the births we hear about are usually the dramatic or traumatic, because a smooth, easy birth doesn’t make much of a story.

What’s more, the way babies are born in movies and on TV certainly doesn’t help paint a picture of diversity and nuance in labor… you don’t see many women in a birth tub or crawling around on all fours on Grey’s Anatomy. In fact the power of the imagery most of us have – a woman on her back, screaming bloody murder – is more than pernicious… it is a recipe for stalled labor.

In today’s episode, guest host Schuyler Grant attempts to change that imagery, starting with the story of her birth day.

If you are pregnant or thinking about getting pregnant, check out Schuyler's new Commune...

What does it mean to live a “perfectly imperfect” life? To quote the Tao, “all can see beauty as beauty, only because there is ugliness.” Life is not an "either-or" condition, but a series of "ands." We are beautiful AND may need lose a few pounds. We feel like we are struggling AND we are also exactly where we are supposed to be in our journey. Author and nutritionist Kimberly Snyder is here to help you better understand, through mindset, diet, and self-care rituals, how to create harmony in body and soul.

Jeff VO: Welcome to Commune, where each week we explore the ideas and practices that bring us together and help us live healthy, purpose filled lives. I’m your host, Jeff Krasno.

What does it mean to live a “perfectly imperfect” life? To a lot of us, it can sound like an oxymoron. How can two opposites both be true? But, as we sometimes say of our friends, family or lovers — opposites attract. That the energy of life, much like...