Winter is the perfect time for introspection and restoration. It is a time to slow down and to seek inner peace. During this season, you’re likely to find us wrapped in fuzzy blankets, sipping hot tea, and cozying up to the nearest fireplace.
Since we naturally opt for more indoor activities this time of year, it’s helpful to have a supply of activities to make winter not just a season of introspection, but personal growth as well. And, as many people around the world have, we’ve found podcasts to be an entertaining tool for inspiration and personal growth.
We want to share a few of our current favorites with you.
On Being with Krista Tippett
This podcast is perfect for looking deeper into ourselves and the world around us. Krista (the host) has meaningful, inspiring conversations with poets, scientists, spiritual gurus, authors, activists, and more. Each episode is a treat, but here are a couple of our favorites:
The Power of Words To Save Us - Marie Howe
To Marie Howe, poetry is her exuberant and open-hearted way into the words and the silences we live by. She works and plays with a Catholic upbringing, the universal drama of family, the ordinary rituals that sustain us — and how language, again and again, has a power to save us.
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Silence and the Presence of Everything - Gordon Hempton
Acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton collects sounds from around the world. He’s recorded inside Sitka spruce logs in the Pacific Northwest, thunder in the Kalahari Desert, and dawn breaking across six continents. He defines real quiet as presence — not an absence of sound but an absence of noise. We take in the world through his ears.
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Hidden Brain
This fascinating NPR podcast is hosted by Shankar Vedantam, who uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.
Counting Other People's Blessings
Envy: it's an unflattering, miserable emotion. And it's universal. All of us, at some time or another, will experience that feeling of wanting what someone else has, and resenting them for having it. This emotion can inspire us, or drive us to do ugly things. This fascinating episode dives deep into the topic.
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You 2.0: Deep Work
Many of us react to the buzzes and beeps that come from our phones with the urgency of a parent responding to a baby's cry. We can't help but pick up our phone and look at the latest notification. We know this probably isn't the healthiest nor the sanest response to a vibrating hunk of a metal, so we tell ourselves we should be less distracted. In this episode, Cal Newport, a computer scientist at Georgetown University and author of Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, says we're downplaying the problems created by constant interruption.
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On the quiet days where you just want to stay inside, podcasts are a perfect tool for learning, entertainment, and personal growth. Enjoy!
