KIZUKI the Podcast

Reflecting on her proudest decisions, Mae discovers that many were made in moments of crisis—times when she felt extraordinarily present, courageous, and connected to Life. Why was that essence harder to access on an ordinary day? Her inquiry reveals a mindset of accounting for what she had given, endured, and received in return. In this episode, Mae explores the expectation that Life should make things right, and the freedom of receiving something good without asking it to settle the past.

Mae Yoshikawa

Mae Yoshikawa is the creator of the Kizuki Journaling®︎, a power...

In this follow-up to Pivotal Kizuki: The Very Premise Behind Striving, Mae reveals how her lifelong longing to be seen and met by her father had unconsciously extended into her relationship with Japanese culture and the world around her. What happened when she finally let go of the hope that one day, someday, she would receive that reflection? Mae shares the visceral freedom and spaciousness of this profound internal shift—one that has undone the very premise behind her lifelong striving—and the heartfelt prayer that emerged when all that energy finally came home.

Mae Yosh...

In this deeply personal episode, Mae shares two pivotal Kizukis that helped her unravel a lifelong pattern of striving to earn her worth. Beginning with the childhood wound of questioning her very right to exist, she uncovers a second, subtler layer: the longing to be truly seen and met by her father. An invitation to examine our deepest longings, reclaim our innate worth, and discover the freedom that becomes possible when we finally stop waiting.

Mae Yoshikawa

Mae Yoshikawa is the creator of the Kizuki Journaling®︎, a powerful tool for self-awareness and transformation. A p...

After a three-and-a-half-hour date with a Japanese man leaves her completely bewildered, Mae discovers that even growing up in Japan doesn’t mean she understands all its romantic rules. From the ritual of kokuhaku to the nostalgic tradition of the second button, she explores the surprising contradictions of Japanese dating culture—and what they reveal about the assumptions people bring into love.

Mae Yoshikawa

Mae Yoshikawa is the creator of the Kizuki Journaling®︎, a powerful tool for self-awareness and transformation. A pioneer in wellness and personal development, Mae was the first Japanese woman authori...

Returning to her childhood school as a parent brings back an unexpected memory for Mae: a track coach who tried to recruit her year after year, despite her repeated refusals. What once felt like an awkward encounter takes on a profoundly different meaning thirty years later, and Mae explores the lasting impact of letting someone know that they mattered.

Mae Yoshikawa

Mae Yoshikawa is the creator of the Kizuki Journaling®︎, a powerful tool for self-awareness and transformation. A pioneer in wellness and personal development, Mae was the first Japanese woman authorized by the fou...

In one of the darkest periods after losing her husband, Mae went searching online for other widows—and encountered a woman whose loss forced her to look beyond the walls of her own pain. Reading directly from her memoir manuscript, she revisits an uncomfortable truth about comparison: sometimes witnessing the depths of what another person has survived can become a reason to keep going.

Mae Yoshikawa

Mae Yoshikawa is the creator of the Kizuki Journaling®︎, a powerful tool for self-awareness and transformation. A pioneer in wellness and personal development, Mae was the first Japan...

After finding herself repeatedly fantasizing about escape, Mae turns to her journal and confronts a feeling she usually tries to transform. This episode explores what happens when she stops searching for meaning, wisdom, or a brighter perspective—and simply allows herself to stay with what hurts.

Mae Yoshikawa

Mae Yoshikawa is the creator of the Kizuki Journaling®︎, a powerful tool for self-awareness and transformation. A pioneer in wellness and personal development, Mae was the first Japanese woman authorized by the founding school of Ashtanga Yoga in India in 2006. Her work bridges Eastern and Weste...

After experiencing both divorce and widowhood, Mae reflects on something people rarely consider at the beginning of a relationship: how someone behaves when it ends. Looking back at the painful dissolution of her first marriage, she explores how endings expose values, boundaries, and character—not only in the person leaving, but in everyone involved.

Mae Yoshikawa

Mae Yoshikawa is the creator of the Kizuki Journaling®︎, a powerful tool for self-awareness and transformation. A pioneer in wellness and personal development, Mae was the first Japanese woman authorized by the founding school of Ashtanga Yoga in In...

At fifteen, Mae sits across from a psychiatrist as her collapsing family is reduced to circles, lines, and one enormous X. Decades later, the memory raises a different question: after years of learning to understand and explain our pain, have we also learned how to hold it? A powerful episode about the limits of conceptual insight—and the kind of presence pain sometimes asks for instead.

Mae Yoshikawa

Mae Yoshikawa is the creator of the Kizuki Journaling®︎, a powerful tool for self-awareness and transformation. A pioneer in wellness and personal development, Mae was the f...

After discovering that only a tiny fraction of her life feels like pure play, Mae begins questioning the careful management underneath the freedom she has built. What begins as an inquiry into play leads to a deeper realization about falling—what it asks of her, why she resists it, and what that resistance may be costing her.

Mae Yoshikawa

Mae Yoshikawa is the creator of the Kizuki Journaling®︎, a powerful tool for self-awareness and transformation. A pioneer in wellness and personal development, Mae was the first Japanese woman authorized by the founding school of As...

After years of understanding the grief of losing her husband, Mae recognizes a trauma response she hadn’t fully seen before—and the surprising intelligence behind it. If our deepest protections were formed in response to something that actually happened, how do we loosen them when life can offer no guarantee it won’t happen again? This episode explores the difficult invitation to receive, trust, and love anyway.

Mae Yoshikawa

Mae Yoshikawa is the creator of the Kizuki Journaling™, a powerful tool for self-awareness and transformation. A pioneer in wellness and personal development, Mae was...

A child can turn a parent’s limitations into beliefs about their own worth. By looking at how absence is passed down through generations, this episode reveals a crucial distinction: what we did not receive mattered deeply, but it never determined our worth. It explores how inherited pain becomes identity—and how recognizing what was never ours to begin with can help break the cycle.

Mae Yoshikawa

Mae Yoshikawa is the creator of the Kizuki Journaling™, a powerful tool for self-awareness and transformation. A pioneer in wellness and personal development, Mae was the first...

Mae uncovers what may be one of the core kizukis of her life: beneath her patterns of independence, achievement, and difficulty receiving was an old question about whether she was worthy of existing at all. What begins as an exploration of money leads her back to childhood, worthiness, and the realization that she no longer has to apologize for taking up space.

Mae Yoshikawa

Mae Yoshikawa is the creator of the Kizuki Journaling™, a powerful tool for self-awareness and transformation. A pioneer in wellness and personal development, Mae was the first Japanese woman au...

Mae explores how early experiences of feeling unprotected by authority unknowingly shaped her relationship with power and leadership. She discovers that stepping into her own authority doesn’t mean becoming what she once feared; she gets to decide what kind of authority she becomes.

Mae Yoshikawa

Mae Yoshikawa is the creator of the Kizuki Journaling™, a powerful tool for self-awareness and transformation. A pioneer in wellness and personal development, Mae was the first Japanese woman authorized by the founding school of Ashtanga Yoga in India in 2006. Her work bridges Eastern and Western traditions, shap...

After joking that she wanted to “do something bad,” Mae is unexpectedly confronted with a Tokyo exhibition that invites visitors to steal. What begins as a humorous exchange with a friend leads to a much deeper realization: she wasn’t craving rebellion at all. She was longing for freedom from the constant inner supervision that had shaped her life for years. In this episode, Mae explores the difference between self-control and self-trust—and the freedom that begins when we stop constantly watching ourselves.

Mae Yoshikawa

Mae Yoshikawa is the creator of the Kizuki Journali...

After a scene of an Italian family gathered around a long dinner table lingers in her heart, Mae realizes that what she’s been searching for was never romance—it was belonging. Through stories from her childhood and reflections on the communities she has built over the years, she discovers that the table she thought she had lost never disappeared. It only became bigger, making room for others to feel seen, safe, and at home.

Mae Yoshikawa

Mae Yoshikawa is the creator of the Kizuki Journaling™, a powerful tool for self-awareness and transformation. A pion...

Beneath years of healing, grief, and self-discovery, Mae had also been deeply angry with Life itself. Through an imagined conversation with Life, she explores trust, pain, and what becomes possible when we stop resisting our most existential questions and allow honesty to become the beginning of healing.

Mae Yoshikawa

Mae Yoshikawa is the creator of the Kizuki Journaling™, a powerful tool for self-awareness and transformation. A pioneer in wellness and personal development, Mae was the first Japanese woman authorized by the founding school of Ashtanga Yoga in India in 2006. Her work bridges Eastern an...

Mae explores the Japanese concept of mottainai (“what a waste”) and the subtle line between reverence and fear. Reflecting on cultural inheritance, nature’s extravagant abundance, and her own relationship with receiving, she invites listeners to consider whether they’ve mistaken shrinking themselves for humility—and what becomes possible when they no longer apologize for abundance.

Mae Yoshikawa

Mae Yoshikawa is the creator of the Kizuki Journaling™, a powerful tool for self-awareness and transformation. A pioneer in wellness and personal development, Mae was the first Japanese woman authorized by the founding school of Ashtanga Yog...

Mae explores the surprising discomfort that can arise when lifelong identities begin to dissolve. Through reflections on old roles, pathless woods, and the freedom of not needing a new job description, she invites listeners to consider that perhaps what’s disappearing isn’t who they are—but who they believed they had to be.

Mae Yoshikawa

Mae Yoshikawa is the creator of the Kizuki Journaling™, a powerful tool for self-awareness and transformation. A pioneer in wellness and personal development, Mae was the first Japanese woman authorized by the founding school of Ashtanga Yoga in India...

A series of quiet evenings led Mae to an unexpected realization: after letting go of old identities built around striving and endurance, the next chapter wasn’t rebellion—it was learning to receive. Through ordinary moments with her family and a heartfelt exchange with her son, she explores how healing may be less about solving life and more about allowing love, happiness, and uncertainty to be fully received.

Mae Yoshikawa

Mae Yoshikawa is the creator of the Kizuki Journaling™, a powerful tool for self-awareness and transformation. A pioneer in wellness and personal development, Mae wa...

Mae shares a powerful realization about how her nervous system unconsciously linked money with her father. Through this kizuki, she explores scarcity, trust, emotional safety, and the moment she began to unlink money from an old father wound so money could finally become what it is: simply a resource.

Mae Yoshikawa

Mae Yoshikawa is the creator of the Kizuki Journaling™, a powerful tool for self-awareness and transformation. A pioneer in wellness and personal development, Mae was the first Japanese woman authorized by the founding school of Ashtanga Yoga in India in 2006. Her work br...

After years of believing she wasn’t an angry person, Mae discovers that anger may have been one of the most repressed emotions in her life. In this episode, she explores what surfaced when she stopped analyzing her pain and began feeling it, uncovering how anger can reveal our deepest values, boundaries, and capacity for gratitude.

Mae Yoshikawa

Mae Yoshikawa is the creator of the Kizuki Journaling™, a powerful tool for self-awareness and transformation. A pioneer in wellness and personal development, Mae was the first Japanese woman authorized by the founding school of Asht...

Mae reflects on a powerful realization: understanding pain is not the same as feeling it. As she explores long-buried anger, grief, and self-abandonment, she discovers that healing may begin not by fixing pain, but by finally sitting beside it.

Mae Yoshikawa

Mae Yoshikawa is the creator of the Kizuki Journaling™, a powerful tool for self-awareness and transformation. A pioneer in wellness and personal development, Mae was the first Japanese woman authorized by the founding school of Ashtanga Yoga in India in 2006. Her work bridges Eastern and Western traditions, shaped by profound life experiences—incl...

Mae reflects on how “The Carrier” became a survival identity rooted in preserving connection. Through her relationship with her family and father, she explores the hidden cost of understanding others too early, and the grief of realizing she had learned to carry instead of expecting to be held.

Mae Yoshikawa

Mae Yoshikawa is the creator of the Kizuki Journaling™, a powerful tool for self-awareness and transformation. A pioneer in wellness and personal development, Mae was the first Japanese woman authorized by the founding school of Ashtanga Yoga in India in 2006. Her work bridges Easter...

Mae shares the first episode in a deeply personal new series exploring a domino effect of transformative realizations. In this episode, she uncovers “the Endurer” identity — a survival pattern formed through emotional abandonment that slowly became intertwined with her sense of self. Through psychological insight, she explores bracing, resistance, self-pressure, and the possibility of no longer building identity around struggle.

Mae Yoshikawa

Mae Yoshikawa is the creator of the Kizuki Journaling™, a powerful tool for self-awareness and transformation. A pioneer in wellness and personal development, Mae was the first Japanese woman authorized by the foun...

A tender bedtime conversation with her son Ayden turns into an unexpectedly funny and profound reflection on family, normalcy, and the way children make sense of the world. Through Ayden’s innocent logic, Mae explores how our personal experiences shape what we believe reality is.

Mae Yoshikawa

Mae Yoshikawa is the creator of the Kizuki Journaling™, a powerful tool for self-awareness and transformation. A pioneer in wellness and personal development, Mae was the first Japanese woman authorized by the founding school of Ashtanga Yoga in India in 2006. Her work bridges Eastern and Western trad...

Mae explores the subtle but life-changing difference between living from preference and living from permission. Through reflections on desire, self-expression, and personal power, she examines how easily people unconsciously place their fullness behind external conditions—and what shifts when they stop waiting for permission to become themselves.

Mae Yoshikawa

Mae Yoshikawa is the creator of the Kizuki Journaling™, a powerful tool for self-awareness and transformation. A pioneer in wellness and personal development, Mae was the first Japanese woman authorized by the founding school of Ashtanga Yoga in India in 2006. Her work bridges Eastern and...

Reflecting on the disorienting process of untangling herself from lifelong patterns of pressure, perfectionism, and survival, Mae explores who she is beyond those things. Through a deeply personal exploration of identity and self-worth, she shares the terrifying yet liberating realization that she may not be losing herself at all, but rather the pressure system she once believed was her identity.

Mae Yoshikawa

Mae Yoshikawa is the creator of the Kizuki Journaling™, a powerful tool for self-awareness and transformation. A pioneer in wellness and personal development, Mae was the first Japanese woman authorized by th...

A deeply personal two-week loop comes to a close with an embodied realization: what once felt like hope was, in part, a subtle form of fear. Through physical release and self-inquiry, Mae reflects on long-held patterns of bracing for pain—and the shift into meeting life as it is, without preemptive fear.

Mae Yoshikawa

Mae Yoshikawa is the creator of the Kizuki Journaling™, a powerful tool for self-awareness and transformation. A pioneer in wellness and personal development, Mae was the first Japanese woman authorized by the founding school of Ashtanga Yoga in India in 2...

A sweet moment between her two sons has Mae reflecting on a deeper truth about growth, control, and connection. Through parenting, she uncovers how a subtle shift from “no” to a “basis of yes” can keep relationships open—and how this same principle applies to the way we live our own lives.

Mae Yoshikawa

Mae Yoshikawa is the creator of the Kizuki Journaling™, a powerful tool for self-awareness and transformation. A pioneer in wellness and personal development, Mae was the first Japanese woman authorized by the founding school of Ashtanga Yoga in India in 2006. Her...

In this quieter, more introspective episode, Mae chooses not to rush clarity while in the middle of a personal process. Instead, she offers a poem that reflects surrender, trust, and the unfolding nature of becoming.

Mae Yoshikawa

Mae Yoshikawa is the creator of the Kizuki Journaling™, a powerful tool for self-awareness and transformation. A pioneer in wellness and personal development, Mae was the first Japanese woman authorized by the founding school of Ashtanga Yoga in India in 2006. Her work bridges Eastern and Western traditions, shaped by profound life experiences—including the loss of her...

Mae shares two grounded shifts around self-love: moving away from self-improvement as a form of self-rejection, and learning to stand by yourself most when results aren’t showing. A concise and practical reflection on what it really means to love yourself.

Mae Yoshikawa

Mae Yoshikawa is the creator of the Kizuki Journaling™, a powerful tool for self-awareness and transformation. A pioneer in wellness and personal development, Mae was the first Japanese woman authorized by the founding school of Ashtanga Yoga in India in 2006. Her work bridges Eastern and Western traditions, shaped by profound life...

Mae reflects on how early life experiences shaped her sense of living with depth. Through personal stories and a gentle but powerful realization, she explores how it may not be depth itself that isolates us—but how we hold it in relation to others.

Mae Yoshikawa

Mae Yoshikawa is the creator of the Kizuki Journaling™, a powerful tool for self-awareness and transformation. A pioneer in wellness and personal development, Mae was the first Japanese woman authorized by the founding school of Ashtanga Yoga in India in 2006. Her work bridges Eastern and Western traditions, shap...

Mae reflects on the Japanese concept of ma and the power and beauty of intentional space. Through everyday moments like walking, cooking, and choosing to be without needing to do, she explores how leaving room in life allows awareness, insight, and experience to truly land.

Mae Yoshikawa

Mae Yoshikawa is the creator of the Kizuki Journaling™, a powerful tool for self-awareness and transformation. A pioneer in wellness and personal development, Mae was the first Japanese woman authorized by the founding school of Ashtanga Yoga in India in 2006. Her work bridges Eastern and Western tr...

Mae shares a school incident with no clear truth and expands it into a wider realization: in moments where life offers no “correct answer,” what matters most is how we choose to show up—not only for others, but in the way we live, respond, and listen to each other.

Mae Yoshikawa

Mae Yoshikawa is the creator of the Kizuki Journaling™, a powerful tool for self-awareness and transformation. A pioneer in wellness and personal development, Mae was the first Japanese woman authorized by the founding school of Ashtanga Yoga in India in 2006. Her work bri...

An evening at a chic Tokyo restaurant unexpectedly revealed a deeper realization in Mae. As she navigates feelings of belonging, authenticity, and preemptive judgment, she uncovers how our assumptions about how others will receive our truth can limit our world before anything even happens. Through this moment of awareness, she explores how embracing the “dissonant note” in ourselves may be what allows real connection to emerge.

Mae Yoshikawa

Mae Yoshikawa is the creator of the Kizuki Journaling™, a powerful tool for self-awareness and transformation. A pioneer in wellness and personal development, Mae was the fi...

In this milestone episode, Mae responds to two listeners navigating quiet misalignment in careers and relationships. She introduces the four-step Kizuki Cycle—insight, choice, embodiment, and connection—explaining how meaningful change happens not by chasing a destination, but by becoming who you truly are.

Mae Yoshikawa

Mae Yoshikawa is the creator of the Kizuki Journaling™, a powerful tool for self-awareness and transformation. A pioneer in wellness and personal development, Mae was the first Japanese woman authorized by the founding school of Ashtanga Yoga in India in 2006. Her work bridges Eastern and Western traditions, shaped...

Mae reflects on growing up in a vertical culture of hierarchy and unexpectedly becoming “sensei” herself. Through her resistance to pedestals and followers, she explores how hierarchy soothes anxiety but distorts worth, and why true leadership is not about standing above — but standing level.

Mae Yoshikawa

Mae Yoshikawa is the creator of the Kizuki Journaling™, a powerful tool for self-awareness and transformation. A pioneer in wellness and personal development, Mae was the first Japanese woman authorized by the founding school of Ashtanga Yoga in India in 2006. Her work bridges Eastern and Western traditions, shaped b...

Mae shares a striking realization from her Life Brief retreat: that beneath her ambition and talk of alignment was a subtle fantasy of being “carried” by the right opportunity. In this episode, she unpacks the modern damsel archetype—not waiting for a prince, but for a breakthrough—and explores the grief and power that come with choosing sovereignty instead.

Mae Yoshikawa

Mae Yoshikawa is the creator of the Kizuki Journaling™, a powerful tool for self-awareness and transformation. A pioneer in wellness and personal development, Mae was the first Japanese woman authorized by the founding s...

Mae explores the subtle but critical difference between taking responsibility and turning inward with blame, using a vivid dream to show how the same mistake can lead to grounded repair or unnecessary self-punishment. The episode invites listeners to grow through clarity, not inner violence.

Mae Yoshikawa

Mae Yoshikawa is the creator of the Kizuki Journaling™, a powerful tool for self-awareness and transformation. A pioneer in wellness and personal development, Mae was the first Japanese woman authorized by the founding school of Ashtanga Yoga in India in 2006. Her work bridges Eastern and Western traditions, sh...