From the Heart with Rachel Brathen

What We Spend is back for another season of diving into the financial questions you never get to ask. In Season 2 we’ll ask a brand new set of people from across the country and the financial spectrum to open their wallets — and their lives — and share what they make, what they want, and, for one week, what they spend. If you want to be on What We Spend, we’d love to hear from you. Write us at: [email protected]

Available now: link.pscrb.fm/f0281/WWS_FTH 

We are so close to Halloween now, and in today’s episode, Rachel talks about how she can actually feel the thin veil between the realms of the living and the dead during this time. She shares her personal experiences surrounding loss - and the fear of loss - that has had such an impact on her life. From her beloved pets to her best friend, Rachel touches on the aspects of loss we don’t usually focus on. She also shares a beautiful story of grief and completion about someone close to her.

As we age, we a...

In today’s episode, Rachel has just returned back from Path of Love, and she is still in the process of integrating back into everyday life. She shares a little bit about her experience at the retreat this year, but also what was different this time when it comes to her home dynamics. One of her greatest takeaways is how badly she just wants to live in her body - and how difficult that is in our regular lives.

How often do you leave yourself? How often do you slip into a state of disengagement? How often do...

Is Rachel secretly a right-wing tradwife? A raging, anti-vaxxing liberal? Both? Does she get handouts from her family? Is she controlling in her marriage? Does she have ADHD and endless help at home? Does she do gentle parenting perfectly? In today’s episode, Rachel asked her followers what their biggest judgements and pre-conceived notions were about her. There were many! Some made her laugh, some were triggering because they were incorrect… and some were triggering because they were true. 

After almost 15 years on social media, Rachel is used to people having many ideas about her online. But who i...

It’s time for an Ask Rachel on this week’s episode of the podcast. While the episode started off on a high note talking about pottery and balance, it descended into what is on every woman’s mind right now: our collective rage. Rachel has lost a lot of faith in society. Do the men even want to change? Do they even care about us? She answers questions from listeners on this subject and shares her own thoughts. 

For her, instead of asking herself how she can talk to her daughter about this issue, she is now won...

Listening to your inner voice takes work - especially if you are a female living in this world. We have been raised in a society that expects us to mold ourselves to fit it. We have to look a certain way, act a certain way, and think a certain way. But now, we are trying to raise our kids differently. Is it possible to raise them differently if we grew up being molded and changed ourselves? And if we can, how do we actually teach our children to listen to their own authentic voice? What if their inner voice...

In today’s episode, Rachel has just gotten back from a night of camping in the forest with her kids. Was it a successful camping trip? Yes and no! Rachel had a hard time winding down and letting go of control, so she didn’t sleep a wink. But it was great to connect with nature with her family. She shares the entire experience and everything that happened.

How much of your life do you spend outdoors? And if the answer is not much, can you bring more of your life outside? Rachel shares some ideas in toda...

When you really think about it, there are so many parallels between healing trauma and knitting. If you find a hole or a knot in your project, you have to work backwards. It feels like losing a lot of progress - but you’re actually building something more beautiful in the end. In today’s episode, Rachel opens up about the trauma work she’s been doing lately and how it has brought her to a new chapter in life. Now, more than ever before, she chooses things for joy. She reaches for what her inner child wants. She does t...

It’s time for another episode of Ask Rachel! Today Rachel takes a beautiful and very relatable question from a listener on how to speak more kindly to your body. She shares her history of struggling to speak kindly to herself, and a moment when she was nine years old where she first felt like her body wasn’t good enough. Ultimately, this is a practice! Rachel gives some little things she does in her day to bring out the voice of her inner best friend and quiet the inner critic. 

There are always resources we can use t...

Happy September! Fall has officially arrived in the north of Sweden where Rachel lives. The seasons change quickly here, and Rachel is already finding herself in darker days, wearing heavier clothes (and having wild animal encounters outside!). Things in nature may be slowing down, but are you? In this episode, Rachel shares how important it is to set a fall intention: something to serve as a guiding light, to align you with nature, and help you find a purposeful daily rhythm. For her, that intention is to sit at the pottery wheel each and every day.

Does...

So many of us want to live a slower and more deliberate life. But how do we get there? In today’s episode, Rachel shares her path - it’s to practice it! The life she is living right now was once a dream. It involved a lot of learning, trying new things, and making mistakes along the way. But now, quite a few years in, she is noticing that the things that were once hard are coming more naturally. She can tend to her garden, care for her bees and animals, do pottery, and even knit.

You...

After a long summer, it is finally time to get back to school, back to basics, and back to routine. Rachel has some time now to tackle the chaos and mess that has accumulated over the past couple months, and she shares honestly what the state of her house was like. Her family definitely didn’t start the new school year off on the best foot!

How do the perfect Instagram moms keep their houses clean all the time? Is there some secret trick some of us are missing? Is it possible to keep an entire family or...

In today’s episode, Rachel is fresh off hosting her first-ever retreat in her hometown in Sweden — 58 people from all over the world who came together for a week of yoga, hiking, sauna, campfires, and deep sharing. It felt like a full circle moment: welcoming people into the exact place that shaped her, and stepping fully into what she feels she’s truly meant to do.

Underneath all the beautiful moments, one thing kept surfacing again and again — the reminder that none of us are meant to carry things alone. Community isn’t a nice-to-have, it’s medicine. Wh...

It’s peak harvest season over in Rachel’s life at the moment. In today’s episode, she discusses everything happening in her kitchen thanks to all the deliciousness coming from nature. It’s a long list: kefir, shrubs, fire cider, kombucha, elderberry syrup, elder flower champagne, and St. John’s Wort oil! 

Rachel shares a funny story about how she learned to make kefir, the delicious drinks and mocktails that come from the shrubs, and the benefits of a daily fire cider shot (with a kid-friendly version, too!). Living in this way helps you to be present, co...

In today’s episode, Rachel is just coming out of two days of indulgent alone time. Her husband took both the kids to Stockholm, and Rachel got to bask in a clean, quiet house for the first time since she can remember. She spent the time walking, reading, going inward, doing retreat prep, and simply allowing herself to enjoy things.

Oftentimes, we feel like we have to earn pleasure, joy, rest, and play. We think we have to work so hard until we deplete ourselves - and then we can take time to slow down. But what if...

Joy isn't the reward you earn after all the work is done. Joy is the work. That's what a new series on For the Love with Jen Hatmaker is all about, the Sacred Yes. It's choosing delight, rest, and pleasure on purpose because saying yes to yourself, that's the thing that finally lets you fill your table with everybody else. Come find your Sacred Yes with Jen. Follow and listen to For the Love with Jen Hatmaker wherever you get your podcasts.

This episode brings us another segment of Ask Rachel, where Rachel takes calls from listeners and answers any questions they have. The inquiries today were so beautiful, and all were connected to the theme of returning home to yourself. How can we navigate heartbreak? When life is incredibly overwhelming, how do we settle down and find peace within ourselves? How do we know we are making decisions for us and not for family or friends?

There are also some pregnancy related questions where Rachel shares helpful tips for first trimester exhaustion and how to convince your husband...

For the past few weeks, Rachel has found herself in a depleted slump. But now, she has slowly crawled out to see the light again. Feeling more rested and energized, she shares the tweaks and changes she made in her life that brought about this change (Hint: one of them may have been Bad Bunny).

Sometimes we can get so caught up in trying to make things magical and extraordinary, that we turn something that is already good into something that brings us unneeded work, stress, and exhaustion. And then we lose the ability to enjoy it...

Do mom brains just work differently than dad brains? This is obviously not the case in every family, but in a lot of families - the mother bears the brunt of the mental load. The mother is the one making sure the kids have everything for school, they do all the groceries and list making, they note the things that need fixing and mending and cleaning. So why is that? Do their brains just work differently? Are they just born able to hold everything and multitask endlessly? Or are these dynamics created by society and how family members behave...

In today’s episode, Rachel is the type of tired that you feel in your soul, in your bones, and in your identity itself. It’s a feeling that stems from the roles and responsibilities she has in her life right now, but it goes even deeper and older than that - into the trauma she felt as a child and the burdens placed on her back then. Rachel attempts to unpack this experience by sharing specific examples from her own family. 

If you are a woman or a mother, you may understand exactly what...

When you reflect on your personality, why do you think you are the way you are? Is it due to your nature or your experiences? In today’s episode, Rachel reflects on this question with her own personality - much of which she thinks is the result of her childhood. She opens up about codependency and a sense of internal stress and urgency that never seems to leave, no matter how little there is on her to-do list.

On a journey of healing and upheaval, she talks about the therapy she is doing right no...

There’s a lot happening in Rachel’s life at the moment! You probably feel it too. This weekend has so much momentum and high energy. It’s the peak of the season, summer solstice, and the midsummer celebration in Sweden. All of the events happening sent Rachel into a sickness spiral where she realized something important: this was her first felt experience of aging.

With the high highs of summer we can usually expect a crash at some point. Rachel shares the entire story, and how she is learning to harness the energy of thi...

Today’s episode is about going back to basics, full circle moments, and a new chapter intertwining with the old. Rachel has just launched a summer retreat after some serendipitous circumstances. It has her reminiscing back to her twenties when her and Dennis first launched retreats together from their kitchen table. She shares some old stories and why she’s feeling so nostalgic: she now feels integrated back into a sense of community that she somehow lost along the way.

Rachel has been great at creating community and then standing on the outside of it...

This episode of From the Heart is all about AI and how it is infiltrating every corner of our lives. After a few upsetting encounters with AI, Rachel was left wondering: do the bad parts of the internet outweigh the good? Where are we headed as a society? And is it even our fault if there’s no way to stop it? 

It can be so hard to balance the desire to live without the internet while our lives have become so intertwined with it. But maybe there is something we can do. We can...

In today’s episode, it’s the end of May, Rachel’s energy is buzzing, and things are happening all around! Rachel talks about the momentum that this month brings to the Scandinavians, and just how that momentum has met her: it’s come bearing so many ideas and epiphanies.
Rachel has been initiating a million things lately, and she talks about different projects she has going on the farm, how her day looks juggling the store, podcast, garden, gym, and being a mom, and what her human design tells her about the way she works. It all culminat...

If you are a mother, you probably know the feeling of fear well. In today’s episode, Rachel talks about the biggest trauma her nervous system is still experiencing today - the fear of something happening to her children.

Lea had surgery this week which was a huge experience for their entire family. Rachel shares the entire story from start to finish, and beautifully puts the terror moms can feel into words. It’s a vulnerable episode about the root cause of our fears, a mother’s never-ending love, and how to regulate your nervou...

Family Lore is a weekly narrative podcast that celebrates and investigates ancestral mystique. Each episode begins with a guest sharing a fascinating family legend, followed by a historical deep-dive to uncover the truth and meaning behind the tale. Available now: link.pscrb.fm/f0281/FLFD

Can we build confidence in our children? Or is confidence something they have to figure out for themselves? This episode brings us another segment of Ask Rachel, where Rachel answers questions from listeners that have called in. She shares her future vision and dreams for the store at Ala Farms and how to deal with roosters so they don’t ruin your life.

Then she answers a really beautiful question on how to build confidence in our children- especially if they are very sensitive. The answer may not be in lifting them up and ta...

In today’s episode of From the Heart, Rachel shares her process of getting things done and how she stays productive in her daily life. It looks a lot like this: manifesting with the energy of a thousand suns, side questing on the way to another side quest, and then falling apart on the couch with a tub of ice cream once all is said and done. 

We all have different ways that we generate and create. But it all comes down to how we can rest and recover. Do you know what true res...

In today’s episode, Rachel shares many opposing thoughts that we are all thinking right now: the world is absurd, crazy and scary - but the world is also full of so many beautiful things. Everywhere we look there is war, genocide, starvation, and terrifying men in positions of power. But there are also children laughing, flowers blooming, and ducks in Rachel’s house! How can these polarities exist at once? And even more so, how can we find happiness and joy amidst the chaos and uncertainty?

Whatever you are doing to take care of y...

In today’s episode, Rachel answers a very specific question: does she hate men? The answer to this is… no, not all men. But the truth is, the male population as a whole is not giving women a lot to feel confident in right now. From charlatans in the healing space preying on the vulnerable, to the lack of prosecutions resulting from the Epstein files, and the shocking rape academy online, we live in a misogynistic system that is meant to protect men and allow women to be harmed and abused. But what can we actually do about it?

If you want to try Activations, now is the perfect time. Visit activations.com/rachel for more.

When you envision your most authentic self, who do you see? What is that person like? What are their daily habits? How do they feel? In this bonus episode, we are re-releasing one of our favorite past episodes with Mimi Bouchard, the creator of Activations. Mimi transformed her life from one of self-hate and drug use to living her fullest potential, and she is here to share how you can do it too.

...

Does it feel like time is just moving quicker and quicker? Are you yearning to slow down the clock and enjoy each moment as it comes your way? In today’s episode, Rachel is about to celebrate her husband’s 40th birthday. After meeting in their twenties, having two children, and spending decades together - this feels like a big milestone. Rachel shares her thoughts on growing older as she takes a trip down memory lane.

With every passing year it feels like time is moving faster. How can we slow it down? How can...

What would you do if you woke up tomorrow and had no power? Or the grocery stores had no food? Or there wasn’t any clean water anymore? What would you do if all of a sudden you were expected to live a completely different lifestyle than you are used to? Can we really rely on the government or anyone else to take care of us?

In today’s episode, Rachel talks about prepping for the end of the world. Over the past couple of months, she has felt a deep urge to protect her...

Today’s episode will inspire you to put your hands in the soil and grow something. Rachel shares her entire history with gardening, from how she got started to her intuitive process now. The beautiful thing about gardening is that you can just begin, and nature will take it from there.

Tending to a little plot of land has changed Rachel’s life for the better. This daily work of time spent in the garden working with her hands is shifting something so primal inside of her - and showing her maybe there is anot...

It’s time for another Ask Rachel episode of the podcast - and the questions that came today were really incredible. It was a very mother-centered episode, with guests asking about setting boundaries with their mothers, how to find moments of self-care when you’re a new mother, and how we can really make a change in the world when we are so immersed with raising our kids.

Rachel also opens up about a topic she doesn’t speak on much - her relationship with her own mother. It’s a very intimate episode focused...

Are you standing at a crossroads? Today, we’re sharing Becoming You, hosted by the brilliant Suzy Welch. Known for her wildly popular self-discovery class at NYU, Suzy is the guide we all need when the "big life questions" start feeling heavy. Find Becoming You with Suzy Welch everywhere you get your podcasts.

Happy Spring Equinox! Today marks the balancing of night and day, the halfway point between winter and summer solstice, a new astrological year, and of course, the first day of spring. With this untapped potential, this episode offers you a full practice and ritual. It’s an opportunity to grab your journal and pen, reflect on what happened to you over the winter, and manifest what you want to invite into the new season.

It’s time to metaphorically air things out and plant new seeds. Spring brings things to life, it allows for new...

As spring inches closer, Rachel has a personal realization about this time of year: it is always filled with a mixture of grief and celebration. With her daughter’s birthday and the anniversary of her best friend’s passing both taking place, there are always many conflicting feelings being felt at the same time. This week brought its share of challenges - but did the universe do that on purpose so all the feelings could be felt?

Rachel shares the entire story. From losing her beloved chicken Lotta, to taking care of Ringo after his...

Welcome to another episode of From the Heart. Today Rachel begins with a meditation - something all our hearts need - to settle into the moment and open ourselves up to receive. When the world feels dark, when our days feel like a never-ending to-do list, we have to make sure that we are making joy a priority in the small moments we have for ourselves. There is no other way to carry on. 

Rachel talks about how she is leaning into joy as her life accelerates. Spring is getting closer, she’s preparing to...