From Resilience to Radiance — Meditation as Gateway to Transformation

Today, I’m honoured to introduce you to a guest whose story holds both courage and tenderness—Lynne Goldberg. Her journey doesn’t just inspire—it invites us into our own transformation.

In this episode you’ll hear us journey through:

• The intimate story of Lynne’s heartbreak and the “doorway moment” when meditation became her anchor
• How meditation functions not just as stress‑reduction but as a gateway to transformation—shifting how we live, think, feel and relate
• The simple yet powerful practices you can begin today, whether you’ve meditated before or are just curious
• Why resilience isn’t just bouncing back—it’s becoming someone more whole and alive than you were before

This conversation leans into both the real and the sacred. It invites reflection, yes—but also action. If you’ve ever felt stuck, unseen, overwhelmed or longing for a deeper sense of peace and purpose—this is for you.

Transcript

Mary Louder, DO: Welcome to the Doctor Mary Louder podcast show. Today we have a very special guest. Our guest is Lynn Goldberg and she comes from Montreal. I'm glad that you're here today. Our episode is gentle, powerful, and an invitation to pause as Lynn will take us through as a celebrated mediation teacher and co founder of the breathe app, whose journey into mindfulness began in the depths of personal loss. She'll take us through her story, and we understand how meditation became a lifeline and a gateway of transformation. Not a fix, not a task, but a way to come home to ourselves. So if you've been moving through uncertainty, reinvention, or grief, and if you're simply longing for a more calm and clarity conversation, this is the space to find that. So welcome to our conversation together. Enjoy.

Mary Louder, DO: Welcome, Lynn. It's lovely to have you. Our neighbor to the north in Canada, up in Montreal and and here in Michigan. So it's lovely to be that close. And I appreciate you taking the time out of your busy schedule to come on to the Doctor Mary Louder podcast show. We have a variety of people who listen to us anywhere, people looking for clinical answers to life stories. And I think yours falls in both categories. And so I thought that was really, really fun to delve into because you have well, you've been through the mill and you've also have been very resilient. And so that's really pretty awesome. Um, so why don't you start us where you'd like us to begin in an area that you feel comfortable with and explain to us who and what you are and what you do?

Lynne Goldberg: Sure. So first of all, thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be with you. Um, so I, I started meditating when my mom was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer. And at the time, which was close to thirty something years ago, her doctor suggested that she tried meditation and I thought, it can't hurt. I was going through infertility and people just kept telling me, relax, relax. If you just relax, you'll get pregnant. I was like, well, you try relaxing when your feet are up in stirrups and you're trying. So for me, it was not so self-evident. But I really started loving it. And I used to meditate with like Jon Kabat Zinn with, actually, to date myself, with earphones on and a tape recorder as I was in my doctor's office so many, many, many years ago. And, uh, and then found that it was something that really was part of my daily practice. And, you know, not, it wasn't so obvious at first. At first it was more like, you know, I would wake up and my heart would be pounding and I would meditate to get back to sleep. I call that my emergency meditator phase. And I, you know, I slowly inched into it and my mom died. I had, I did get pregnant. I lost twin girls. I ended up losing my job. Um, and then my marriage fell apart. So it was a perfect storm of just many, many events. And meditation was what helped me. And it really got me through that period of time. And it also at that particular time was where I started to recognize that maybe I, you know, I lost all of my identities. I wasn't a mother, I wasn't a daughter, I wasn't a wife, I wasn't anything. So who was I? So there was that inkling of like, oh, well, I guess, you know, I can't really put my finger on that yet. And I started noticing that, um, that I started to have this sense of. The feeling that I could choose different interesting types of... now I call it an archetype, but at the time I didn't have the language for it, but I did recognize that if I wanted to reinvent myself, which seemed like it was a pretty good idea because my life was decimated, I thought, okay, well, let's see what I want to actually do with my life right now. So at that point, I, I was using meditation far more and the business side of my brain, which had been, um, sort of on hold for a period of time while I was going through all the infertility and everything was more interested in having this meditation be developed. So I started, you know, studying a little bit more and ended up, um, becoming a meditation teacher and then thinking, oh, this is interesting. This really is helping me. I did eventually remarry, have kids and think, oh, if this is helping me so much, imagine what this would do if the kids could learn this. And of course, my kids didn't want to learn anything from me. So I thought, ah, I think I'm going to start going into schools and try to teach the teachers so that they could teach my kids how to meditate. And I ended up doing that until they asked me for something that I could leave behind, and I didn't, I didn't know what to do. I was, you know, very, very, I had tapes, so I would leave them tapes and eventually that became the app. And that's really how the app became, um, what it is today. So yeah, and now it's, we're in ninety countries and we're, we're translated into many different languages. And it's really amazing to me how this has become something that can be so accessible. So that was that.

Mary Louder, DO: Yes. So what did you do before everything hit the fan?

Lynne Goldberg: I was a retailer for many, many years. Um, I, I ran a retail business while I was trying to have kids, and then I ended up, um, being, uh, running a wholesale business for many years after that. Uh, traveling all over the world. I really had a very business minded background and it was, it was fun for me. I loved it until I didn't.

Mary Louder, DO: Yes, yes. And then with, uh, the passing of your mom and the dissolving of your marriage, what age was that? How old were you? Oh.

Lynne Goldberg: I would say thirty eight ish.

Mary Louder, DO: Yeah, we were, before we jumped on this, we were talking about Saturn returns. So that would have been your first Saturn return of when life could really grab your attention to complete things in adulthood that need to be repeated and completed. And then the second Saturn return occurs around age fifty eight to sixty two. So okay.

Mary Louder, DO: So so.

Mary Louder, DO: Dusting and sweeping. What, what you know now is, and, uh, I went through my Saturn return second Saturn return, uh, you know, last few years and one of the big completions was in, in, in my story, one of the things I did was in when I was in university, I was quite religious. I wouldn't say it was faith based, but it was pretty legalistic. And there's a lot of things in my life I let go of that were really a part of me in order to fit in. So belonging versus fitting in are two distinct things, and I gave up a lot of things to fit in. And that happened on a at University of Montana in Missoula and on, full circle. Then going into my second Saturn return-- one of the things I gave up was a lot of rock and roll, right? Because this is what you do. But the point of this is then, you know, and there I was on campus getting rid of all my rock and roll when I was eighteen and blah, blah, blah. So there I am. Second Saturn return. University of Montana campus in the summer. When. When classes start. Going to a Pink concert. And rocking and rolling in the football stadium. Having a fantastic time and totally reclaiming everything that I was and had when I was eighteen.

Lynne Goldberg: Oh, isn't that amazing? Yeah, I love that.

Mary Louder, DO: And so, um, and interesting for meditation, describe your, your, um, app because a lot of people think meditation is hard. Um, a lot of people think they can't sit still. There's the monkey mind that goes along with that. Um, there is, um, you know, just the whole concept of it takes too long to learn. So let's dispel some of those myths. How did you encounter those? How did you tackle those? What did you do?

Lynne Goldberg: Well, one of the things that was really helpful for me was recognizing that I was normal. You know, there was this myth that somehow I was doing it wrong and everybody else was doing it right. But once, you know, I started becoming familiar with what it was, what I realized was the most common refrain was, what's for dinner? What do I need to do on my to do list? Did I, you know that A-hole that did what? You know, someone cut me off in traffic was what my refrain was on a regular basis. And the practice for me wasn't the, the, um, having the, the dialogue, that internal dialogue, it was the coming back to the breath every time I caught myself. And very often it was, you know, ten minutes could go by before I caught myself. But it was that catching myself that became the, the practice. And so that was really important for, for me to explain to people regularly that, you know, there is no such thing as doing this wrong. The fact that you are sitting here practicing, it's like playing the piano. It's a muscle. You will train yourself and over and over and over again, kind of like a little puppy. And each time you do catch yourself and you do come back to whatever the object of your attention is, you're meditating. That's all there is to it. So it's not so mysterious.

Mary Louder, DO: You're right. It's not. That's actually a excellent explanation. So the awareness is the fact that you come back to breath and you're aware.

Lynne Goldberg: Or whatever, or whatever it could be a mantra could be a body scan or whatever it happens to be.

Mary Louder, DO: And so with the awareness of that, that itself becomes the practice of awareness.

Lynne Goldberg: There you go.

Mary Louder, DO: Okay, cool. Excellent. So how did that how did the kids fare? The students in school. What did you notice with that?

Lynne Goldberg: I noticed that kids are a lot more receptive than their parents might have been and that, you know, kids had a very open minds. They were curious, they were interested. They weren't so full of self-judgment, and they really wanted to learn something that was interesting to them. And it was kind of fun. And we would practice with all different sounds. And so they were excited when they caught the sound and they were interested. You know, when we did it with kids, we, we made it so that it was something that they could focus their attention on. And in that particular experiment or, you know, practice, it was sound based, but there were many different types. There was, uh, pictures that we did with kids or, you know, often different exercises so that they had to pay attention and it was fun for them. Kids are kids were fun. And she, you know, practicing with kids is fun because there's something very exciting about seeing a little kid get all animated about something new that they're learning.

Mary Louder, DO: Yes. So then did your kids, your kiddos, your, your two, your children pick it up, then eventually.

Lynne Goldberg: Not for me.

Mary Louder, DO: Are they just for any peeking behind the curtain? Are they meditators today?

Lynne Goldberg: Uh, my daughter will meditate from time to time. She understands what to do. It's not her. Her regular practice. My son, although he will never admit to it, does have a regular practice of of mindfulness and he's quite disciplined about it. And then one son lost cause. Just.

Mary Louder, DO: Sounds like the cobbler's kids and shoes. Yeah. The doctor's kids that never. Oh. You're fine. You're not dead. Transfusion along here? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, you know, there's so much, um, you know, in the literature about the value of meditation.

Lynne Goldberg: Yeah.

Mary Louder, DO: And so then putting it so simply, well, simple is different than easy. So I want to make sure you understand that from the perspective I'm coming from there. But so simply to put it on an app that's available, that transformation, focus, awareness could be as simple as holding something in your hand as a tool.

Lynne Goldberg: Yeah.

Mary Louder, DO: So did people. Was that kind of hard from a business standpoint to share with people to, you know, were they trying to think it was harder than that and it couldn't be this easy?

Lynne Goldberg: And well, in twenty fourteen, which is when we launched the app, meditation wasn't really a thing. Yeah. No, just the awareness. Now it's, you know, everybody talks about mindfulness meditation and thankfully so because, you know, that's a, that's a wonderful tool that is much more accessible to a lot more people right now. But at the time, it was like something that weirdos did. And so it was fun to explain to people, well, not weird, just, you know, a wonderful, wonderful tool. What I find interesting today is that from my perspective, you know, in twenty fourteen, teaching people to meditate was teaching people how to be calm. That was what people were most interested in. Okay. People were interested in finding calm, sleeping at night. Um, you know, things that. What kept them up at night? Mhm. And today, uh, I think that as that's evolving and that's really where I'm excited about what I'm excited about. It's far more than just teaching people how to get calm. Mhm. To, to me, now, this is a tool of self-awareness, and it becomes the ability to really understand yourself in a very profound way and understand what patterns are coming up over and over and over again so that you don't have to repeat them. And that that in itself is real freedom. So when you talk about liberation or, you know, depending on how you describe that, there's a very, um, interesting tool, I call it, you know, what's on your playlist. And if you keep getting the same songs over and over again, then you know, time to time to switch the records.

Mary Louder, DO: Yeah, you're kind of stuck in a loop, aren't you?

Lynne Goldberg: Mhm.

Mary Louder, DO: And so it's interesting because I heard someone say the other day that, you know, the universe when you're trying to, um, uplift your life up, spiral your life. Um, I would think meditation would be a key component of that awareness. And then in terms of like manifesting, I'm not saying give me a red sports car. I'm saying, you know, how can you know our lives be better? Yeah, yeah, we want abundance. Yes, we want health. Yes, we want solid relationships. All those things are, are things that we can have, as you know, in common as a common humanity, right? But the universe is not directed morally. And so the same thing with this meditation. It's not driven by a belief system or a set of rules or, you know, a religion, which is man's approach to a belief system or faith. And so it really can sit in this area that people can really, really adapt. What you've got for them to really take it and run, right?

Lynne Goldberg: Absolutely. What I find interesting is I think people put different language on depending on how they're oriented. So, you know, and that's the book that I'm in the process of writing right now is this is speaking different languages to different people so that it's adaptable to, you know, if you tend to be science based, then I understand that that's the way you're going to interpret information. And if you tend to be spiritually driven, that's going to be another lens that you might put on it. But ultimately, everybody's saying the same thing in different languages. And so it's just finding the language that resonates.

Mary Louder, DO: Mhm. Oh that's fascinating. So if you know. So let's, let's follow through on that app. If folks want to get involved with that, is that a monthly or do they purchase and then there's upgrades or how does that sort through?

Lynne Goldberg: Yeah. Um, it's a, it's a monthly based app.

Mary Louder, DO: Mhm.

Lynne Goldberg: And, um, where you could buy it, you know, there's a lifetime membership as well. So it's at your discretion and it's, it's a tool. It's one more tool. Yeah. And, and I think that having tools at our disposal that are simple and easy to use is really important because when life gets complicated, we don't want to start getting complicated too, you know?

Mary Louder, DO: Yeah. And it's, it just strikes me as something that people can have that they can reach for no matter what. That's what it strikes me. It just feels so, you know, hearing about this and being intrigued by it just feels like something is just so readily available that would be such a help and support.

Lynne Goldberg: Absolutely true. Yeah.

Mary Louder, DO: Okay. So we'll put we'll put in the show notes how people can, you know, connect with that. And I think that that's just really important because I think, you know, a lot of people ask me questions about, you know, what, what technology, you know, and how AI influences clinical medicine and certainly healing and things like that. So this would be one of those tools that would be, you know, no matter where, like you mentioned, because you began meditating when your mom was terminally ill.

Lynne Goldberg: Right?

Mary Louder, DO: Right. And so even if an individuals facing terminal illness themselves.

Lynne Goldberg: Most definitely. I think that's when having, um, a practice that is, that helps you get in touch with something that's bigger than yourself in whatever format that might be. It could be religion. It could be, um, recognizing that, you know, this universe is bigger than just little old me. And understanding that can be a source of comfort, particularly when you're in the process of recognizing that the time we have is finite. Yeah. And even the, the belief around that finite life, you know, when you start to really recognize what that looks like, it's also very, you know, interesting. Um, I recently spent some time with Robert Thurman, um, the author of the Tibetan Book of the Dead and found his work to be extremely interesting. Um, on so many levels, because when you're in that liminal space, when you're in that, you know, that time before death, when you recognize that this physical body might be coming to an end, but, you know, what's next? It's a fascinating mind shift.

Mary Louder, DO: It is. Jane Goodall spoke of that a lot in the last year of her life. And, um, she did a there there is a special put out where she did an interview. That that aired after her passing.

Lynne Goldberg: Oh, interesting. I have to watch that.

Mary Louder, DO: Oh yeah, it was it was fantastic.

Lynne Goldberg: Oh, I would love to see that.

Mary Louder, DO: Um, and she, you know, not so, you know, and I'm drawn to the, the natural world a lot and to the Celtic world and really at, at my soul and in my soul, I really am a, you know, a Celtic healer type of person. And, uh, and that's really been fun. So the meditation that comes there in that realm. And one of the things that I've learned that's always been a great comfort and, and support to me is being able to sit quietly for five minutes and, you know, understanding as the the thoughts come through, you just don't attach to them. Right? And that's the same thing as coming back. And I would imagine I came back to a, a focal point I did and usually, and usually it was breath and usually just a stillness I could see and feel and get centered with. And when, you know, and that I remember when I started that, boy, I squirmed a lot and just was, I'm like, I'm sure it's not going to work. And whose idea was this? And, and now, um, that happens very easily. And then to, you know, as you look at some of the aspects of Celtic, uh, beliefs, which is really kind of the oldest religion, which is fascinating. And then the shamanic work that can go along with that. You spend time in the liminal spaces a lot.

Lynne Goldberg: Interesting. And tell me more about that. I don't know much about Celtic.

Mary Louder, DO: Yeah. Well, you know, it's I don't either, to be quite honest. Was it li vast? But, you know, coming out of Northern Europe the, the Gaels out of um you know, middle upper North Europe. And then you've got the Scandinavians as well as, you know, Scotland in the British Isles and really kind of in there. Um, and it was a religion that was well established in folk medicine, folk lore, in gods and goddesses and beliefs of the universe and of, um, sacredness of man. Um, and then it kind of got wiped out during imperial, the rise of imperial religion across Europe.

Lynne Goldberg: Um.

Mary Louder, DO: And so that had to do with the march of Constantine and, you know, the canonization and different things that occurred, all for the state to control beliefs versus, you know, people that had a belief system where they lived in harmony with the earth and with one another. And at the heart of it was the sacredness of man and the sacredness of the earth, and everything being sacred.

Lynne Goldberg: Beautiful.

Mary Louder, DO: And so imagine that getting turned upside down. And then that's still surviving. And, and it's interesting because what I found is when I did meditation, it might, one of the areas I entered in meditation was contemplative prayer.

Lynne Goldberg: Mhm. Okay.

Mary Louder, DO: And sitting quietly. And when that occurred, I kept being drawn deeper and deeper into different ages. You know, it's like, well, it's not just nineteen seventy six when this was kind of, you know, came about. Not just the eighteen hundreds. It's not just back to, you know, the, the, you know, middle, middle, Middle Ages. I just kept getting pulled back deeper and deeper and keep thinking this. I just, you know, feel that it goes way back. And that's really then how I understood and, and was like, oh, there's this whole concept of the Celtic beliefs and Celtic spirituality. And once I got back there, as I, you know, opened my awareness up, it's like, that's just where I anchored. Like, oh, I get this fascinating, you know, and, um, so I think, you know, looking at that from a meditation standpoint and looking at, um, the effects of how that has, has, I think we use a lot of different words for meditation sometimes, you know.

Lynne Goldberg: You're as you're describing what resonates with you. I'm thinking of forest bathing, which is this Japanese practice of walking through nature and, you know, connecting in whatever way is, is, Resonates with you. Yeah, I know for me, it's vital for me to be in nature every day. If I don't have some sort of connection to the earth, I don't feel grounded in my body. And so that seems to be something that is part of most cultures, you know, at, at, at some indigenous people, um, Celtic seems to have that thread running through it, this Japanese forest bathing, it seems to be throughout human nature. And I, and I think that when we find things that come up over and over again in different places, it's because it's a universal truth.

Mary Louder, DO: Yes.

Lynne Goldberg: Yeah.

Mary Louder, DO: Yeah. That that rings true. Absolutely. That absolutely rings true. Um, okay, so let's see, I, I've, I have blasted through and around my bullet points. So let's, let me-- go ahead.

Lynne Goldberg: You know, I, I would tell you that, and this is what I'm curious about that that you talked about this idea of, of, um, coming through a life cycle and getting to this Saturn rising, what the universal truth for me is this idea of midlife and this idea of, you know, young called it the midlife awakening. We call it a midlife crisis. Uh, there's, uh, lao-tzu that had this idea of wanderers coming through and, and, you know, having this time to leave the householder. This seems to be a universal truth as well. And I, and I'm curious how that resonates. Like what you, you know about that from a Saturn rising because it seems to be part of the same thread.

Mary Louder, DO: It does. And it's interesting because I took, you know, some questions that would lead us in a conversation. And then I wrote one big question, do you think midlife is a curse or an opportunity? And here we are right at that question.

Lynne Goldberg: There we go. Yeah.

Mary Louder, DO: So yeah, so you know, the Saturn. The Saturn return is just a cycle that's set in the stars and our birth chart. It's calculated. And folks who are gifted and skilled in astrology know how to read the sun, the moon and the stars.

Lynne Goldberg: Okay.

Mary Louder, DO: And I have availed myself as my husband to folks who are well trained and really know their their work to different points in our life. There's things we can figure out by the stars. Where is the best place for us to live on this planet? That's called Astrocartography. And then there's just a there's astrology and there's variations on all that theme. There's the Enneagram. And you can put that with astrology and just so many wonderful tools to gain insight for guidance and things that become a point of awareness, a point of growth, a point of, oh, that's why that's happening. That's why I keep seeing that lesson. Yeah, I need to take care of that. Haven't really done that. And you look back and then it's interesting because even in the literature on PTSD, they talk about things occurring in seven year cycles. And so it's kind of like, okay, there's just cycles. And I've had even eleven year cycles mapped out that certain things happen again and again. I always just paid attention to that. And I think pattern recognition is just one of the things I do. So it was super easy. And so I do think that there's these opportunities at midlife that were meant to pay attention to. And if we don't, I do think it's like the Continental Divide. You know, the Continental Divide divides the continents. You stand at the very top, the Continental divide. You go one way and there's just a natural flow of everything. You can't fight that. That's the natural law that follows.

Lynne Goldberg: Right?

Mary Louder, DO: You go the other direction. It just flows the other way. And you can't fight that. And the Continental Divide, I think metaphorically is there. I know it's there geologically and geographically, but metaphorically it's there for us to when we come at a point of decision, we make the decision and then everything else after. That's a natural flow.

Lynne Goldberg: Yeah.

Mary Louder, DO: You know, and so it and there's never a bad decision. It's just a decision because you don't really know what's next. And I think one of the things I gained about all these cycles in meditation was the ability to be comfortable with the uncomfortable.

Lynne Goldberg: Yeah.

Mary Louder, DO: And the ability to become comfortable with uncertainty because it's like, what's coming next if I'm sitting here? What's going to happen? What's going to pop in? What, who? You know what, I can't, I just know I can't sit this still, all those things. And really, I think at the heart of it, we're anticipating or anxious, meaning asking for more information about what's next.

Lynne Goldberg: Right? I think there's that illusion of control that we all have as humans, right? So we all want to have that sense of, well, if I do this, then that will happen next. And so we, we live our lives. You know, it's pattern recognition. As a little kid, I did this and my mommy gave me a lollipop. And so if I keep doing this, then maybe I can get my lollipop. And so we go around life looking for the next lollipop and we got it as a kid. And, and so we expect the same behavior to work. And sometimes those adaptive behaviors as kids don't necessarily work today. So it's fascinating to me. That's what to me midlife gives us. It's the ability to say, hey, you know, I did have a lot of those patterns as a kid. And the control that I think I have when I keep repeating them isn't really working for me anymore. I get to try a new pattern. You know, this is a shift for me. That lollipop isn't there anymore.

Mary Louder, DO: Mhm. You're right.

Lynne Goldberg: Yeah. Yeah. So to me, midlife is like this fabulously wonderful opportunity because you've been doing the same thing over and over and over again. And a lot of people get there and they're like, well, this isn't working for me. And so they think, ah, time to buy a Porsche or, you know, time to leave everything behind and go travel the world or whatever it is. But ultimately that finding yourself, that authenticity that we get when we get to a certain age, coming home to what truly lights you up, that is the ability that if we're lucky, we get to discover.

Mary Louder, DO: Yes. Yes. And then do you think that, you know, and this is and certainly this is something that I've often, you know, I, I care for and, and be care and I'm careful to share with my patients is that when things happen to you, rarely, if ever, is it your fault. Because if you're not aware of it, how can it be your fault? It's only when you're aware of it and choose to like, do it over and over again, right?

Lynne Goldberg: Yeah. It's such an interesting that idea of fault, you know, and meditation, uh, we believe very strongly in this compassion practice, this idea of really loving yourself and recognizing that we all mess up. Every single one of us is human. We do it over and over again. And of course, it's not your fault. Of course it's not your fault. And then if you continue, as you said, to still make those same mistakes even then. There's so much that's happening below the line. You know that you're just not aware of that. That's what meditation helps us do. It helps us bring it above the line. It helps us see, oh yeah, that's coming from me. I'm going to get my lollipop or whatever that might be. Right. And I, and I, and I have so much. Compassion for myself first because I think if we judge ourselves harshly, then we're going to be doing it to everybody else. I think when we start to understand how human we all are, then then we have a lot more compassion for the people around us.

Mary Louder, DO: Mhm. Do you think that the challenges that you went through?

Lynne Goldberg: Mhm.

Mary Louder, DO: Um, do you think you were self-compassionate non-judgmental prior to that stuff. All kind of--

Lynne Goldberg: Oh, this has been an evolution, right? It's not like one and done. You know, I think that when I was in my thirties and something bad happened, I was should-ing and, you know, I should have, could have, would have all over myself. Yeah. So I was really not easy on myself. And now I, I don't know what, you know, obviously there's, there's stuff that I might mess up on, but of course I'm, I recognize that all of us do. So of course, I'm much softer today than I was then. Um, I also think, listen, I had cancer, I had two cancer scares. And I think that having a, a brush with my own mortality really gave me a sense of what was important.

Mary Louder, DO: I think.

Lynne Goldberg: That--

Mary Louder, DO: Yeah. Yeah, I think that that's true. And speaking of brush with so many things you had, the app was all available during the pandemic.

Lynne Goldberg: Yes. Oh, yes.

Mary Louder, DO: So share with me. I'm just curious what happened during the pandemic with all of this.

Lynne Goldberg: Pandemic was such an interesting period of time for so many reasons. Should we start with loneliness? Should we start with, uh, I mean, what I find so fascinating about that sense of, of, um, you know, people, people who were alone weren't necessarily lonely.

Mary Louder, DO: Mhm.

Lynne Goldberg: I can say, I, if I can talk about myself for a second, when I was going through, um, the pandemic, I was also, that was when I was diagnosed and going through treatment. And it was a really interesting time because there was like this thing inside of me that I was told could be fatal, but there was also this thing out there that was also dangerous. And there was-- and the hospital that I was receiving my treatment in was also ground central for Covid. So that feeling of danger, potential danger, and being needing to isolate and having to stay away from people, um, was an interesting idea because it wasn't necessarily true. You know, there was, there was, um, there was this period of time where people were so terrified and, and it was rightfully so in certain cases. And then, you know, that that idea of just being, of creating this culture of, of loneliness that has become so prevalent for so many of us now as a result of it. So, so I, I find that Covid was a very interesting time. And what was very helpful was things like Zoom calls, right? Or, or apps, because all of a sudden technology became this ability that gave us the ability to interconnect or to connect with people in a very meaningful way that probably wasn't as available to us before, before Covid.

Mary Louder, DO: Yeah. Right. And I would think too, that because of the anxiety around all of that state. I mean, that would be--

Lynne Goldberg: Yeah. So anxiety is such an interesting thing. Of course, people were anxious. Yeah. Of course. And of course, people on, on so many levels. There were so many things that happened to so many people during Covid, right? So obviously anxiety was a huge part of it also. This whole, um, you know, women having to carry the lion's share of household, um, duties, if you will. And, you know, being responsible for work jobs and also home jobs. And, um, so there was a lot of people and then illness, people that had illnesses that had, um, all of the, the anxiety, but also all of the, um, the practices that we could help support them with, with something that was an app. So people who weren't sleeping, people who were, uh, feeling lonely, uh, creating community, allowing people to have opportunities to connect with themselves. Um, recognizing that there's a difference between being alone and feeling lonely. Um, which I think is a big thing that it is.

Mary Louder, DO: And, and the research is pretty solid now that loneliness is an independent risk factor for, you know, an early mortality.

Lynne Goldberg: Yeah. What is it like equivalent of smoking a pack of cigarettes a day? So yeah. Yeah.

Mary Louder, DO: So that's significant. That's significant.

Lynne Goldberg: Yeah.

Mary Louder, DO: Yeah. Interesting. Well, I, I think that, um, this has been absolutely fascinating to talk about this because, um, again, it what strikes me is that, and it's not even a paradox, but the simplicity and yet the profound, uh, impact of what you've brought to the world in a technology way. Um, and I really am appreciative of that, that you had the vision to do that, that you had the entrepreneurial spirit to do that and that you really had determination because behind all those good ideas. I'll tell you what, there is a lot of steps that go up and down and in and out before anything gets to market and gets to market well and gets to market successfully and gets to get around the world. So well done by sticking to it. That is a lot of that's a lot of determination and a lot of doggedness, as I call it, to really follow something through. So I, I know what it takes to do that. And so I just really want to honor you for doing that and bringing to the world something that has been such a gift and such a tool and such, so helpful to transform lives. Thank you. I really appreciate it. Yeah. And thank you for taking some time out to to share your story with us today. I appreciate it very much.

Lynne Goldberg: Mary, it's great to meet you. And I'm going to go do my research now on.

Mary Louder, DO: On Saturn spinning around. That sounds good. Report back. Tell me what's next. Thank you very much. We'll see you. Bye.

Lynne Goldberg: Okay, bye.

Mary Louder, DO: Our guest today, Lynn Goldberg, reminded us that meditation isn't just about stillness. It's about meeting life exactly where we are. Her story is powerful. It's a testament to what's possible when we choose presence, even during pain. So if today's conversation stirred something in you, I hope you'll sit with it. Breathe with it. Let it take root. You can learn more about Lynn and her work at her website. Lynn Goldberg meditation dot com. Otherwise, please rate and review this podcast wherever you listen. Let us hear from you if you have questions or feedback. Thanks for listening. Be well and we will see you next time.