What does it mean to truly lead not just in a boardroom, but in your relationships, your family, and your own inner life? In this deeply moving episode, therapist and host Molly Carroll sits down with Thomas Droge, executive coach, Chief Mindfulness Officer, mindfulness speaker, and author of The Leader Within, to explore the practices that create real, lasting transformation.

Thomas brings over three decades of integrated medicine, qigong, meditation, and contemplative work into a raw, honest conversation about shadow work, living your core values, the healing power of human connection, and what happens when life cracks you open without warning.

You'll hear Thomas share the moment his wife came out of surgery paralyzed — and what that crisis revealed about love, presence, and showing up. This episode is for anyone feeling stuck, disconnected, or searching for deeper meaning in a noisy world.

Topics covered:

• Shadow work and embracing your "evil twin"
• How to identify and live by your core values (the precepts practice)
• Leadership as a human skill — for parents, teachers, and everyday people
• The psychology of not wanting to be a burden
• Ancient wisdom for modern mental health
• Mindfulness in the workplace and startup culture
• Finding your path when the template doesn't fit

🎧 Tune in now to listen.

xo

Molly

🌱 Please consider supporting the Cracking Open podcast on Patreon.

Resources and Links

Thomas Droge:

Website | Instagram | LinkedIn | Facebook

The Leader Within — available now wherever books are sold.

Molly Carroll:

Website | Instagram | Facebook

Now accepting new therapy clients! Schedule Here

You got a NO this week.

Maybe more than one. Someone said no to you. Or your kid came home with that look on their face. Or you've been trying and trying, and the door just won't open.

Here's what the research tells us: your brain processes social rejection in the same region as physical pain. Neuroscientist Naomi Eisenberger found that the anterior cingulate cortex — the part that lights up when you're physically hurt — lights up identically when you're rejected. You are not being dramatic. You are being human.

And your brain doesn't distinguish between a big no and a small one. The strawberries being out of stock. The email that never came back. Your nervous system treats them all the same way. The small nos stack. By noon, your threat response has been firing all morning — and your fear brain starts whispering: maybe you're not enough. Maybe you should stop trying. That is not wisdom. That is fear doing its job.

A no is information about that moment. It is not a verdict on your worth.

When it happens to someone you love. When your child doesn't make the team, isn't invited to the party, comes home with that look — it hits differently. Research shows that when someone we love is rejected, our brains register it as if it happened to us. Add the helplessness of not being able to take it from them, and it's a lot to carry. So: feel your own pain first. Then sit with them. Listen. Show them what it looks like to get back up. How you handle your nos is teaching everyone around you how to handle theirs.

Four tools for the no you're holding:

1. Name which no it is. A not yet has a crack in it — soft language, an open door, worth showing up for again. A real no feels different in your body: clear, final, repeated. Releasing a real no isn't defeat. It's clarity. It frees up every ounce of energy you've been spending on a closed door.

2. Write it out. Unprocessed nos become stories — nothing works out for me, I always get passed over. Those aren't facts. They're feelings. Write it out and watch it lose its grip. Naming an emotion reduces its intensity and moves you from fear brain back into thinking brain.

3. Burn it. Write it down, read it one last time, say out loud: "This does not define me" — and burn it. Watch it turn to ash. Can't burn it? Tear it up. Delete it. The point is the conscious choice to let it go.

4. Ask what it's making room for. What could this no be redirecting you toward? What are your yeses now? And if all you can write is I don't know yet, but I trust something is coming — that is enough. That is the whole practice.

Every no you have ever survived is proof that you are still here. Something good is ahead of you. I really believe that.

Now go find your magic. 🤍 — Molly

🌱 Please consider supporting the Cracking Open podcast on Patreon.

RESOURCES & LINKS:

Molly Carroll:

Website | Instagram | Facebook

Now accepting new therapy clients!
Learn more or schedule a session here.

Whenever someone asks me for a word that describes how I want to live, my answer is always the same.

Freedom.

Not just personal freedom, but freedom in my mind, my body, and my spirit. Maybe that comes from being raised Catholic, or maybe it’s simply my wild spirit that has never wanted to be contained.

So when I read Shaka Senghor's How to Be Free: A Proven Guide to Escaping Life’s Hidden Prisons, I knew I needed to have him back on the podcast.

Because this message isn’t just for people who have been behind bars. You don’t need a prison cell to feel imprisoned.

It’s for anyone lying awake replaying something they wish they could let go of. Anyone who can’t move past a loss. Anyone whose carefully built walls are keeping even joy out.

Shaka Senghor is known for his remarkable journey from solitary confinement to the C-suite. He is a New York Times bestselling author, a resilience teacher, and one of the most powerful voices we have on transformation, healing, and justice.

In his latest book, he names the hidden prisons that keep us stuck. They are not made of concrete and steel, but of grief, anger, shame, and fear.

And here is the truth that changes everything.

These prisons have doors.

In This Episode, We Explore

Grief
Shaka begins his book with grief for a reason. We talk about loss in a deeply human way, including the death of his beloved dog and his brother. In one of the most moving moments of our conversation, he shares how he refused to let his dog’s passing go unacknowledged, even taking legal action against the care center responsible. This is grief met with both love and accountability.

Anger
What does it mean to be the master of your emotions rather than a prisoner of them? He reframes anger as something that, when understood, can become a source of power and agency rather than destruction.

Shame
In one of the most courageous moments of the conversation, Shaka speaks openly about sexual abuse as a man and the silence that surrounds it. At a time when so many men carry this in isolation, his willingness to name it matters deeply.

Hope and Joy
There is light here, too. This conversation is not just about surviving. It is about learning how to live. He reminds us that joy is not something we earn after suffering. It is available to us now.

Shaka spent nineteen years in the Michigan prison system, including seven years in solitary confinement. Since his release, he has become a leading voice on resilience, healing, and personal transformation. His work has been featured on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday, and How to Be Free is a roadmap for anyone who has ever felt stuck.

Which, if we’re honest, is all of us.

Hidden prisons are real. They are built from our pain, our past, and the stories we carry about who we are.

But as he reminds us through both his life and his work, the door is always there.

You just have to be willing to walk through it.

🎧 Tune in now to listen.

With love,
Molly

🌱 Please consider supporting the Cracking Open podcast on Patreon.

RESOURCES & LINKS:

Shaka Senghor

Website | Instagram

How to Be Free — available wherever books are sold

Molly Carroll:

Website | Instagram | Facebook

Now accepting new therapy clients!
Learn more or schedule a session here.