Hello and welcome to What is a Good Life? A project exploring big questions around what really matters to people. Over the last 5 years, I have interviewed over 300 people around this question.
This week, I am reflecting on my conversation with Angela Jenkins, a registered dietitian and founder of Health Is Local, who believes healthier people, communities, and environments are deeply interconnected. We talk about how convenience and cosmetics are harming our health, why hyper-diligent biohacking can keep the body in fight or flight, and the simple practices that bring us back to ourselves: deep breathing, time in nature, and hands in the soil. Angela also explains why putting a face to your food matters so much.
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Take care, Mark
1. My Weekly Reflection
“That’s not good for your heart. That’s just not good for your heart.”
Our guest this week, Angela Jenkins, said this about her last couple of years working in conventional medicine while exploring more holistic approaches. With one foot in and one foot out, she kept running into moments where the old way no longer matched how she now saw treating people.
Have you ever considered life through the lens of what it does to your heart? It has become a big curiosity for me in recent years. I often wonder what is this particular moment doing to the well-being of my heart?
Before this project I would have only really thought of the health of my heart in terms of cholesterol, stress, diet, and exercise.
I was then enamoured with the idea of following your heart and living a life led by your heart. It often has connotations around doing something meaningful or finding purpose in your life.
Through several of these interviews I am picking up on a different sense of paying attention to the heart. It is less about the heart being a tool for navigating life and more an in the moment noticing and responsiveness to what it is experiencing.
I recall interviewing a woman whose work led her to focus on the significance of how the heart feels in response to our lives. She lamented the passing of two family members years ago in terms of the lives they were living and what she knows of the heart now.
“Had I known how separated they were from the needs of their heart, I would have loved to be able to do something.”
It is interesting to consider when we feel our hearts thrive and expand, and when we notice them contract and harden.
An afternoon surrounded by people I enjoy and really care about versus an afternoon in a board meeting attempting to defend or sell something I care very little for?
The feeling of stress in the body from a financial insecurity versus having to think little about money. Then also the potential tension between the benefits of security and compromises of getting it.
Yesterday morning I woke up very early as I slept at 9 pm the night before. My daughter had a relatively early sleep and rise too. I found myself spending the first hour of my day drawing and colouring flowers on demand from a three-year-old who seemed more interested in being the director than the artist. I am no Picasso but I couldn’t help but notice how good this felt for my heart.
An unexpected hour before Monday morning kicks into gear, sitting at the dining room table, it still dark outside with my daughter who had her legs wrapped up in her duvet.
I couldn’t help but contrast that with how my heart felt when watching a recruiter’s YouTube video, in which she dispensed advice that often came with the caveat of, “this isn’t lying, this is just showing your best side.”
And I felt my heart contracting a little ahead of the portion of my day I have assigned to a job search.
This doesn’t feel like a mission about doing the easy or the enjoyable things all the time. I have noticed my heart soften simply through the act of crying when witnessing a child and father being reunited after their community was destroyed by a flash flood.
I also noticed it last week when I had to tell someone I collaborated with that I didn’t think we should proceed. It felt good to nip it in the bud and say out loud the decision I had come to and not to unnecessarily draw it out any further for both of us. I felt something in my chest relax after I had dealt with it.
It is an interesting mix or concoction of things that we seem to have to consider in navigating this world without feeling like our heart is paying the price for our life choices and actions. Sometimes the heart thrives through joy, sometimes through grief, sometimes through courage, and sometimes through doing something difficult that you know needs to be done.
Throughout these interviews, I’ve heard people talk about the heart in a way that has made me reconsider my own understanding of it. I’ve begun noticing it in all sorts of ordinary moments in my own life. It has been instrumental in helping me experience a good life through one of my more materially stressful periods.
Our busy world may not make the subtleties of the heart seem all that worthwhile. Yet, that same busy world doesn’t seem to be making us any more content, connected, or free of anxiety.
It might be time to tune into the heart once more.
After recording a couple more interviews this week, I can say that making this project has been good for my heart, and I hope reading and listening along to it is good for yours.
2. This Week’s Questions
Do you ever notice the sense of your heart expanding and contracting?
Have you ever been talked out of honouring your own experience – how did it feel? (as per the clip below)
3. Weekly Clip From The Podcast
4. Full Episode - Your Health Is Local with Angela Jenkins - What is a Good Life? #196
Listen to or watch the full conversation with Angela Jenkins below.
About Me
I am a coach, writer, facilitator, and podcast host, based in Berlin, via Dublin, Ireland. I started this project in 2021, for which I’ve now interviewed over 300 people around this question. What is a Good Life? is a podcast and newsletter that invites us to question what we’ve been told makes for a good life, and to pay more attention to what really matters: our relationships, the moments that make us feel more human, and the experiences that connect us to one another. After hundreds of conversations, I’m increasingly convinced that the good life we are sold and how people actually experience it are very wide apart. These conversations and reflections offer another way of seeing the world, and an invitation to live a little differently.