What is the 'A Perfectly Imperfect Union' series about?

It's a series running between May and October where the host connects with everyday people as they reflect on America at 250 years old. Episodes air every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.

A Perfectly Imperfect Union: Reflecting on America 250 with Taylor Lopez

Q: How did Taylor Lopez discover Kintsugi?

She learned about Kintsugi from an art therapist during a stay at a behavioral hospital.

Q: How often does The Whole Again Podcast air?

The main podcast airs every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday with Pause Breathe Reflect Microdose Meditations and mindfulness tips.

The Whole Again Podcast: Mindfulness and Resilience through Kinstugi Wisdom airs every Monday, Wednesday and Friday with Pause Breathe Reflect Microdose Meditations, Growth Mindset and Mindfulness Tips, to help us transform our scars into healing and resilience.

And between May and October, I'm sharing a new series I'm calling: A Perfectly Imperfect Union. It's about connecting with every day folks as they reflect on America at 250. Conversations will air every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

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In this episode of A Perfectly Imperfect Union, we travel to Texas and visit with Taylor Lopez.

She's a Texas native who spends her days helping brands grow responsibly and her nights writing about mental health, especially in women.

Taylor opens up about breaking her life apart in 2019 and rebuilding it into something more beautiful than she could have imagined. She first learned about Kintsugi from an art therapist during a stay at a behavioral hospital, and it became a cornerstone of her healing.

To Taylor, America isn't a place. It's a feeling. Promise, optimism, and the belief that reinvention is always possible.

She also shares how she and her husband turned their home into a safe haven for their kids and any child who needs one, no questions asked. It's a small, local ripple effect she believes can spread outward.

To connect with Taylor, use this LinkedIn link.

Taylor has a question for you and our next guest is:

Do you think people have enough awareness of the different types of therapy available, or does "therapy" get boiled down to just one thing in most of our minds?

Share your thoughts in the comments and share this episode with one of your neighbors.

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With Whole Again: Mindfulness and Resilience through Kintsugi Wisdom, listeners explore mindfulness and resilience through personal stories of trauma, scars, and injury while learning to overcome, imposter syndrome, self-doubt, and perfectionism with self-compassion, self-love, and self-worth. Through insightful discussions on building resilience, fitness, and stress management, as well as mindfulness practices and digital wellness, the show offers practical tools such as breathwork, micro-dose meditation, grounding techniques, visualization, and daily affirmations for anxiety relief and stress reduction. Inspired by the art of kintsugi, the podcast embodies healing as a transformative process, encouraging a shift in perspective from worry and overwhelm to gratitude and personal growth. By exploring the mind-body connection, micro-dosing strategies for emotional well-being, and

Hey there, it's Michael. Welcome to Whole Again, the show that's here in support of you creating a meaningful life and the person you're becoming. And I'm excited to share a new series with you that will air this summer as America turns 250 years old, which is still pretty young relative to many other countries across this big blue marble that we all share.

The series is called A Perfectly Imperfect Union. In 2022, I rode my bike across America from Astoria, Oregon to the Lincoln Memorial. My wife drove our RV, and she had two co-pilots, Jester and Hope, two springer spaniels And when we did it, America was coming out of the pandemic and we were hurting.

Hurting from things that had happened prior to the pandemic, of course, going through what we all went through. And at that time, and this is something I still believe today, is that we were entering an inflection point. An inflection point for us to hopefully pause, breathe, and reflect on who we wish to become as individuals, as communities, and as a country.

As I pedaled across America, I wanted to share America's beauty with others, her natural beauty and the beauty of her people. And I also wanted to share where we were hurting As America turns 250, I believe Kintsugi, which is something we use as a metaphor here at Whole Again, is a perfect metaphor for where we are as a country.

There's so much beauty to celebrate, and we can also acknowledge that parts of us feel broken or are broken. But we can find a way to come back together, just like Kintsugi teaches us. And when we do, we don't try to erase or cover up where we have scars or blemishes. We highlight them in gold, and we celebrate them as symbols of our strength and resilience.

Kintsugi is called the golden repair, and in essence, we can see beauty in something that's perfectly imperfect. During this series, I plan to speak to at least two people in each state and the District of Columbia, so 102 conversations with real folk, as I like to say. We're gonna let the celebrities and the big influencers have their day somewhere else.

But here, I wanna reach out and talk to real people and listen to their reflections as they think about America turning 250 years old. And my hope is, is that you'll tune in to at least one, if not all 102, 'cause my theory going into this is that you'll hear different perspectives. Some may be aligned with yours, others may not, but my hope is that you hear the goodness in your fellow citizens and realize, as Maya Angelou shared with us, "We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike."

We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike. I've had the privilege of traveling all over the world and all over this country, and this belief is something that I hold deep inside of me. So yes, I do believe that we are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike. So if you're ready to get to meet one of your fellow neighbors who is perfectly imperfect like all of us, take a healthy breath in and a slow releasing breath out and get to know Taylor Lopez

Taylor, so good to see you. Thanks for joining me here on A Perfectly Imperfect Union. How the heck are you today? 

I am doing well. Thank you so much for having me, Michael. I'm so excited. 

I know. I'm so- ... I'm really excited for our conversation 'cause our conversation was started with, like, a random outreach, just like a message popped into your inbox-

and you said yes, and I was like, "Oh, yes, so cool." So I am, I am pumped for what will unfold in our conversation. So I know a little bit about you, but not everything. But the, for the listeners that don't know you, can you take a minute to introduce who you are, and also what state are you in? 

Yes. So, uh, my name is Taylor Lopez, and by day, I help brands kind of market plan and scale their businesses, um, responsibly.

But by night, as I say, um, I write mainly about mental health, mostly in women, and, um, have a lot of research and writing as it relates to those topics. And I'm born, raised, and still stubbornly located in Dallas, Texas. 

All right. The big state of Texas. 

Yes. 

Very cool. So even though Texas is one of the biggest states in our union, not everyone's been to Texas.

So what's something that's really special about Texas that people might not know about if they've never been? 

I think what's interesting is Texas is definitely one of those states that gets a lot of airplay. People have preconceived notions of what they will find and experience when they're in Texas, and it does live up to the larger than life reputation.

Yes. Um, but something that is not really talked about as much is what a melting pot it is. I've had access to people, to cultures, to cuisines from all over the world without ever having to leave the state, and I'm not sure that that gets kind of talked about or recognized enough. 

I would agree. Like, coming from New Jersey, when I think of Texas, and I've been there plenty of times for work and other travel, I think our default is, like, barbecue, steak- Yep.

Yep ... like meat and potato- 

Yep ... 

cowboy genre, kinda eating like some good chili maybe- Right ... uh, some good Tex-Mex. 

Yeah. 

But at that point in time, the diversity ends. But I love what you're saying is that no, like, Texas has so much to offer. It's not... Yes, it's all that steak and Tex-Mex and barbecue, but it's so much more than that.

Exactly. I have had amazing Indian food, Kor- Korean food, Vietnamese food. Um, I have had incredible Colombian food, Cuban food- Mm ... ran and opened by, you know, people that have immigrated. And so, um, it's been really fun to experience the world through the state as much as I can. 

Yeah, no, I love it. I love it.

So let's say you're, you're at a big pot luck then with, like, all these different food cuisines coming together with all these different... Your friends, your family members, and they ask you, especially this year, as America's already turned 250, but the birthday year lasts a whole year. 

Yeah. 

What does America mean to you, Taylor?

How do you respond to them? 

To me, America is more of a feeling than a place. So to me, it's promise and optimism and the enticement of new beginnings, whether that's from moving from state to state, city to city, or even just changing career paths. Anything feels like it could be possible, um, when you think about the, the feeling of America.

Yeah, I like that. I, I, I... It's the vibe. Yeah. It's like the, the- Yeah ... it's, like, we got great, we have great potential. Yes. It may not be an easy path for all people. Exactly. There's definitely some obstacles in front of many people, or many different t- kinds of people. So the pathways are different But there are, there's potential to reinvent ourselves.

That's a theme that's come up with other people I've chatted with, the chance for opportunity and re- reinvention. Uh, which, like, I, to me, how that all lands is, is very hopeful. Like, you know- Yes ... we can, we can hope, and with hope we can take action, that we can create something better tomorrow. 

Exactly. And I know you and I kind of connected earlier about, um, Kintsugi and our kind of through line and the meaning of that.

Sure, yeah. And I joke that I had to break my life apart, um, in 2019 in order to build it back together again to be- Wow, yeah ... a, a life that is more beautiful than I could have ever dreamed of that I have now. And so I think that very much, of course, there are more or less obstacles for some than others, and everyone's path is different.

So I don't want to say it's a one size fits all, but it's very much a, um, we can fix this together vibe and feeling, um, that I think America gives off. 

Yeah, so I think we, I think Kintsugi is... Like, we'll stay on this whole theme of Kintsugi 'cause we share this passion for the art form and just the overall metaphor.

I think it can be a really great metaphor and apt description of where we are as a, as a country. Do you re- do you recall when you first learned about what Kintsugi is? 

Yeah. So I learned about Kintsugi in 2019. I, um, had been struggling with some mental health issues and learned about it, um, eh, in a behavioral hospital that I stayed at.

And it's interesting because, uh, w- one of the things I kind of talk about in one of our later questions is access to mental health and awareness of mental health resources. Um, but that Kintsugi, it was just something that one of the art therapists talked u- us about, and I jotted it down in my notebook, and it just kind of stayed with me as I was going through this process of healing, which we know is not a linear one.

Um- Yeah, no, absolutely not. And so um, gosh, I wish it was, but- Yes. ... it's beautiful that it's not. 

I share that, I share that wish 

with you. Yes, 

yes. 

Um, and so it's definitely... It was just something that stayed with me, and then as I was, again, rebuilding my life, uh, I kind of kept that as a cornerstone of- Mm resilience almost 

Yeah, no, I love it.

I love it. Thanks for sharing that. I w- I'm always curious for th- those that know about it, like how they, how did they discover it? Yeah, so very cool. So when you think about, well, you know, connection, which Kintsugi is about reconnecting, i- is there, uh, are there times where you feel connected to your fellow, metaphorically speaking, uh, your fellow neighbor, or maybe it's your literal neighbor?

E- even if we happen to disagree on perspectives, but d- you know, what, what are some times where you f- you really feel that connectedness with your, uh, fellow citizen? 

My answer may seem off-putting at first, but um- No problem ... ironically, I feel the most connected When I'm falling apart. Okay. And I think that it makes sense because there's such a vulnerability in feeling kind of untethered from yourself that you, especially in, like, this digital age where everyone's kind of being, uh, performatively perfect and, and just kind of, you know, everything is curated for everything, um, there's a real sense of closeness that comes when you can look at someone, whether it's a, a cashier at the store or your neighbor, and just be like, "This sucks," or- 

Yeah, it hur- 

it's hard

"I'm not doing great," or, yeah- Yeah ... "Today, today was hard at work." Yes. Yeah. "If I hear the word mom screamed at me one more time- 

Yes. ... 

I may explode," like 

Yeah, yes. "Mom, what's for dinner?" "I don't know. Like-" Yes ... "cereal." 

Yes. 

That's it. It's, we're, we're having Frosted Flakes for dinner and- Yes ... that's gonna be it, and we're all gonna be happy.

Exactly. 

But there is, like, I think that's all part of it is, like, we're, like, uh, m- most folks, if not all, like, we, we go through something. I think the data is 82 to 87% of us go through something traumatic in our lifetime. So we're, we all sort of know that feeling of hurting and having something feel hard or be hard, or when it just sucks.

Right. And we can- And that's just capital T trauma. I mean, there's- 

Yeah ... 

I like to call it capital T- Little stuff too ... or little stuff too, exactly. It could just be- Yeah ... you know, my filling fell out of my tooth this morning before this podcast. Oh, no. You know? It's like Yeah. It's one of those things where it's like, hey, you know, not the best start to the day, but- 

No

we're gonna get through it. Not, not the way you 

want it to go. 

Correct. And, but- Exactly ... but 

it's the way it's going, and then- 

Exactly. ... 

we, we learn acceptance along the way. But we, we, we can, we can l- learn how to get stronger at dealing with some of those minor bumps, and then also with, with that, we get a little bit better of handling our big moments too.

Exactly. So, 

you know, when we practice that. So when we think about, again, going back to Kintsugi, and this is more about, like, steps we can take to reconnect. You sort of touched upon it a bit ago. But if you could, like, take one thing, and it might not be a perfectly, uh, a perfect repair, but a meaningful first start to help us heal, help us, uh, potentially connect, to g- grow, what would it be?

There's so many things. Um, 

but- Yeah, no. The, the list is long. Right. So I've, I've, I've, like, when I've talked to people, I'm like, "It's just one thing," because we all have so much on our to-do list. If we could all just do, like, one thing, we can, uh- hopefully create a ripple effect 

I think, um, what... I, I grew up in kind of like the girl boss era where hobbies- Yes

had to be monetized, and things that you loved, if you weren't making money off of it or trying to, or scale a business out of it, it was kind of deemed unworthy. And so I almost feel like getting back to money not being the sole valuation of our lives, but rather w- our hobbies or what we create or our relationships, our community, those having a much higher valuation when we're looking at Life versus just the money that we're able to bring in.

Yeah. And that's not to say money's not important. Of course, it, it has to be for, you know, obvious reasons for necessity. But, um, outside of that, being able to do things just for joy- 

Sure ... 

I think can create a pretty big ripple effect. 

Yes. I ... When you were sharing what came up with when, when you mentioned girl boss, and it's, it's not just limited to women, it's like everyone.

Right But that general genre, I ... What came up was like h- the need to have like seven lines of revenue or seven sources of revenue. Like, like you- Yes. Yes, exactly ... like every- everything that, everything you did had to be monetized. Like you gotta- Yes ... have all these different ways to make money, and it just kept people churning out stuff, just chasing, chasing more money and status.

And the wh- the whole like myth of it is that you never, you never get satisfied. You're always chasing. Yes. And if you're always- Yes ... chasing, then you're probably never truly content or happy, you know? And it's just- Mm-hmm. 

And you're not content or happy with what you're creating either- Yeah, 

yeah, 'cause there's always-

from an artistic standpoint. 

Yeah, 'cause you're always comparing your s- what you're, you're putting out to someone else that has more. And you're- 

Mm-hmm ... 

and then, then you beat yourself up for like not being enough, and it's just like it's a whole slippery slope or- It's cyclical ... yeah. Yes. A snowball effect.

The whole, the whole nine, the whole nine yards. I love that you brought that up. So- 

Yes ... 

earlier, uh, today, I spoke with Ashley from Maryland, and we actually had- Yes ... a chance for the three of us to be on video together. Her question, uh, to you is, what are some examples where you've seen community building taking shape?

It, it can be small, it could be big. But her ... From her perspective, like we, we still need to work on building local community 'cause there's resilience in local community. So what have you seen, or maybe what are you currently doing, Taylor, to help build community in your local area? 

I loved crashing that party.

Yeah, that was really cool. Thank you for letting me. That was a great moment. Yes. That was a special moment. That was such a really fun- Yeah ... mo- moment. Um, and it's such a great, thoughtful question. And I would say Uh, one thing is realizing that the biggest changes are going to come when we start small. So for me, I always looked at things from a large look at the whole pie and try to fix the whole problem at once perspective, and especially when it comes to repairing relationships and community and things like that, they really need to start small, kind of within our four walls and slowly expand from there.

So what we have done in our home is we have, um, nine almost 10-year-old twins, and we have really instilled in them that this is the home of safety in the sense of if they have friends, if they hear of anyone, even if they're not friends with them, that needs extra food for lunch or dinner, if they need a safe place to stay overnight, if they need clothes or anything for school, no questions asked, no judgment, no nothing.

This is the house that can help if anyone at any point in their life as they're growing up needs anything. And I think starting small with those small safe spaces and then slowly bringing it out into the community is where we can really affect the most change. 

Yeah, I love that ripple effect that you're creating 'cause like we- 

Thank you

we need places where we feel safe. 

Yep. 

You know, 'cause we're so, we're so jacked up on like cortisol and a- and adrenaline from like all the things trying to grab at our attention, and a lot of that stuff is really scary stuff. Like I'm, I come from a generation, the first generation that had like missing kids on milk, milk boxes.

Like- Right ... from a Gen X perspective. And that was, uh, uh, at least for the Gen X generation, that was like, "Oh my God," like, and we s- started to freak out a little bit 'cause you saw that as you were having your morning Cheerios. But now because of social media and other forms of media, all the scary stuff is all right there, like all the time.

So for you to create like a safe haven, a, an oasis that people could come, the kids could come to, yeah, that small step, but if we do those small steps consistently over time, that's the, the ripple effect I talk about, and then we start to make things feel safer more broadly. So I love- Exactly ... I love that you're doing that.

That's awesome. 

Thank you. 

So what question do you have for the next person I chat with? 

So the next person that you chat with, I would love to know his or her perspective on, this is gonna sound a little crazy, but, um, different types of therapy. So one thing that I think is kind of underplayed or there's not enough access or awareness of is so many different types of therapies that are out there and available.

Um, and w- it's not a one size fits all. And so what does the next person think about or have awareness of with different types of therapies and Is my thought on kind of the awareness being low, uh, correct, I guess. 

Okay, cool. 

So yeah, the- Can you validate if I'm right, Michael? 

Yeah, I will definitely, I will definitely ask our next guest that very question, just around like we think of, you know, when we hear the word therapy, we tend to go in like one place.

Correct. 

And there are so many different forms of therapy, ways for us to heal. And- Mm-hmm ... we, as I like to say, I think we all have our own Toll House cookie recipe, right? Yes. So there are some basic ingredients, but we all add to the recipe and our own little, our own little flair. And so what works for someone, like art therapy, as you mentioned earlier, might not work for everyone, but there's a whole bunch of different ways we can, um, find a way to heal and grow again and see our beauty, like Kintsugi teaches us.

Yes. 

Exactly. And one form may not work for everyone for the rest of their lives as well. Yeah. Yeah. You know? 

I think that- Yeah, we go through stages, yeah Yes ... seasons. Yeah. 

Yes. 

Very cool. Taylor, thanks so much for joining me- 

Yes ... 

on our series, and thanks for the ripple effect that you're putting into the world and helping us form a more perfectly imperfect union.

I really appreciate you, and I'm so glad you answered that random outreach from me all those weeks ago. So thanks for being here. 

It was an amazing, uh, random outreach. Thank you so much for having me and also for doing this podcast. I think it's such a beautiful thing. I've really enjoyed listening along.

I'm not sure if you caught our last episode in our series with Ashley, but there was a really cool moment as I was chatting with Taylor where Ashley was also on our recording platform. So the three of us were there, and it turns out that Ashley and Taylor have this beautiful Texas connection with Plano.

It was really awesome to witness their exchange, their connection. In that moment, I felt like the world was getting a bit smaller, and I simply loved my conversation with Taylor and her vulnerability and how she shared that things really had to break down or break apart to rebuild. And the fact that she knew about Kintsugi and writes about it well before I reached out to her was also very cool.

And her question is an important one, because I do think that when we think of therapy, we think of one thing. But therapy can mean many things to many people, and there are different ways to access therapy or different modalities. So I would love to know your thoughts. You can put them in the chat. And as always, thanks for being here.

Thanks for listening in, and I hope you'll check out the next episode of Whole again and continue to listen in to our series here called A Perfectly Imperfect Union. But until then, remember to celebrate your scars as golden symbols of your strength and resilience, and don't forget to have fun storming the castle.

And if you wish to learn more about creating beautiful ripples and how to prevent a bad moment from turning into a bad day, please visit my website, michaelobrienshift.com, and sign up for my newsletter called The Ripple Effect. And join us each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday here at Whole Again, and discover how you can heal, grow, and become more resilient, and celebrate our scars as golden symbols of strength and resilience.

Until then, remember, you can always come back to your breath. You've got this, and I've got you.

A Perfectly Imperfect Union: Reflecting on America 250 with Taylor Lopez

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