Just because your eyes are open doesn’t mean you’re awake.

Many of us move through our days alert, productive, and busy while still feeling disconnected from the moment we’re in. Our bodies show up, but our attention drifts. We respond, scroll, and rush on autopilot, mistaking motion for presence.

In this episode, we explore what true wakefulness actually means and why modern life makes it harder to access.

We talk about:

• The difference between being alert and being truly present
• Common signs you’re running on autopilot
• Why constant stimulation erodes clarity
• How quiet and stillness can sharpen awareness
• Simple ways to practice wakefulness in everyday life

This episode continues the Season 2 theme of slowing down, noticing what’s actually happening beneath the surface, and gently returning to yourself when attention drifts.

Looking for additional information? Read the blog article: Discover True Wakefulness: How To Be Fully Present Every Day

Support the show

Looking for more insights? Check out my book, Still Human: Staying Sane, Productive, and Fully You in the Age of AI

If you are looking for more information on mental health support, check out our Mental Health Resources page.

Dive deeper and subscribe to the newsletter at The Mental Lens.
Short essays and practical frameworks on mental health, boundaries, and decision-making at work.Built for humans navigating complexity, not hustling harder. Includes early access to tools, essays, and select subscriber-only resources.

Follow and subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or whever you get your podcasts!

⚠️ Disclaimer:
This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not a substitute for professional mental health advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Please consult a licensed professional if you need support.

Loneliness doesn’t always look the way we expect.

You can be surrounded by people, busy schedules, and familiar faces and still feel deeply disconnected. In this episode, I explore an important distinction most of us were never taught: the difference between feeling lonely and experiencing loneliness.

Lonely is a temporary emotional signal.
Loneliness is a longer-term state tied to belonging and connection.

In this episode, we talk about:

• Why you can feel lonely even when you’re not alone
• How loneliness differs from momentary disconnection
• Why comparison and expectations intensify these feelings
• How to respond to lonely moments with care instead of judgment
• What it takes to heal loneliness over time

This is the first episode of Season 2. If you’ve ever wondered why connection can feel missing even in a full room, this conversation is for you.

Want to learn more? Read the blog article: Lonely In A Crowd: Why You Can Feel Disconnected And How To Heal Loneliness

Support the show

Looking for more insights? Check out my book, Still Human: Staying Sane, Productive, and Fully You in the Age of AI

If you are looking for more information on mental health support, check out our Mental Health Resources page.

Dive deeper and subscribe to the newsletter at The Mental Lens.
Short essays and practical frameworks on mental health, boundaries, and decision-making at work.Built for humans navigating complexity, not hustling harder. Includes early access to tools, essays, and select subscriber-only resources.

Follow and subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or whever you get your podcasts!

⚠️ Disclaimer:
This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not a substitute for professional mental health advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Please consult a licensed professional if you need support.

We don’t quit our goals because we lack motivation. We quit because we build them on pressure, fear, and unrealistic definitions of success. In this episode, Chris breaks down why New Year’s resolutions fail, how rigid goal-setting quietly fuels burnout, and what it looks like to set goals that actually survive real life.

Chris shares personal examples from mental health, endurance training, creative work, and unfinished goals, then introduce a more flexible approach built on clarity, consistency, and adaptation.

This episode also introduces The Mental Lens Goal Setting Framework, a practical system for setting sustainable goals, and connects these ideas to his book Still Human: Staying Sane, Productive, and Fully You in the Age of AI. If goal setting has ever left you discouraged instead of motivated, this episode is your reset.

You can also read the blog post for more insights and access the Goal Setting Framework: Revamp Your Goal-Setting: Sustainable Strategies Beyond New Year Resolutions

Support the show

Looking for more insights? Check out my book, Still Human: Staying Sane, Productive, and Fully You in the Age of AI

If you are looking for more information on mental health support, check out our Mental Health Resources page.

Dive deeper and subscribe to the newsletter at The Mental Lens.
Short essays and practical frameworks on mental health, boundaries, and decision-making at work.Built for humans navigating complexity, not hustling harder. Includes early access to tools, essays, and select subscriber-only resources.

Follow and subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or whever you get your podcasts!

⚠️ Disclaimer:
This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not a substitute for professional mental health advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Please consult a licensed professional if you need support.

What if mental toughness is not about pushing harder, but knowing when to stop. In this episode, Chris unpacks how the traditional grind-it-out definition of toughness quietly leads to burnout, injury, and mental exhaustion. Drawing from a moment during training for his first 70.3 Ironman, he explores the blurred line between discipline and self-destruction, the psychology behind overtraining and overworking, and why grit without mental health is a losing strategy.

We talk about rest as a skill, self-compassion as a performance tool, and how real toughness is built by listening, recovering, and choosing sustainability over ego. This episode is for anyone who has ever confused resilience with exhaustion and wondered why pushing harder stopped working.

You can also read the full article for more insights - The Ultimate Guide To Mental Toughness: Rest, Recovery, And Self-Compassion

Support the show

Looking for more insights? Check out my book, Still Human: Staying Sane, Productive, and Fully You in the Age of AI

If you are looking for more information on mental health support, check out our Mental Health Resources page.

Dive deeper and subscribe to the newsletter at The Mental Lens.
Short essays and practical frameworks on mental health, boundaries, and decision-making at work.Built for humans navigating complexity, not hustling harder. Includes early access to tools, essays, and select subscriber-only resources.

Follow and subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or whever you get your podcasts!

⚠️ Disclaimer:
This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not a substitute for professional mental health advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Please consult a licensed professional if you need support.

In a world where AI can juggle fifty tasks at once, our minds are struggling to keep up. This episode explores why mono-tasking is becoming a lost art and why reclaiming deep, focused attention might be the most human thing we can do. We look at the neuroscience behind task-switching, how technology is reshaping our pace of work, and practical steps to rebuild depth, presence, and meaning in a machine-accelerated world. If you’ve been feeling scattered, overstimulated, or pressured to “keep up” with your own tools, this episode offers a quieter, steadier way forward.

Want more? Read the blog post: The Power Of Mono-Tasking: Staying Human In A Machine World

Support the show

Looking for more insights? Check out my book, Still Human: Staying Sane, Productive, and Fully You in the Age of AI

If you are looking for more information on mental health support, check out our Mental Health Resources page.

Dive deeper and subscribe to the newsletter at The Mental Lens.
Short essays and practical frameworks on mental health, boundaries, and decision-making at work.Built for humans navigating complexity, not hustling harder. Includes early access to tools, essays, and select subscriber-only resources.

Follow and subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or whever you get your podcasts!

⚠️ Disclaimer:
This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not a substitute for professional mental health advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Please consult a licensed professional if you need support.

This Thanksgiving-inspired episode explores how gratitude can be more than a seasonal idea: it can be a grounding force during a year of change, growth, and vulnerability.

Chris reflects on the people who carried him, the small moments that mattered, and why support and kindness are essential to our mental wellbeing. You’ll learn how gratitude functions as a practical mental health tool, plus a simple challenge to help you slow down, reconnect, and stay human in a season that can feel both warm and overwhelming.

If the holidays feel heavy, this episode also includes resources and encouragement for getting the support you deserve. And if you’ve been considering therapy or looking for tools to support your mental wellbeing, I recently wrote a guide to five recommended online therapy platforms.
It breaks down how they work, what they offer, and how to choose the right fit.

Want more? Read the blog post: Embracing Gratitude: Easy Ways to Feel More Thankful This Thanksgiving

Support the show

Looking for more insights? Check out my book, Still Human: Staying Sane, Productive, and Fully You in the Age of AI

If you are looking for more information on mental health support, check out our Mental Health Resources page.

Dive deeper and subscribe to the newsletter at The Mental Lens.
Short essays and practical frameworks on mental health, boundaries, and decision-making at work.Built for humans navigating complexity, not hustling harder. Includes early access to tools, essays, and select subscriber-only resources.

Follow and subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or whever you get your podcasts!

⚠️ Disclaimer:
This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not a substitute for professional mental health advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Please consult a licensed professional if you need support.

This is the final episode in the Still Human series on Through the Mental Lens. In Part 3: Embracing Humanity in an AI World, Chris takes a direct look at artificial intelligence — its power, its pitfalls, and what it means for our creativity and identity.

You’ll hear:

• A personal story of how AI unlocked a long-stalled creative project and why that was both exciting and unsettling
• Why AI can be a powerful co-pilot but a terrible compass
• The hidden cost of skipping the creative struggle with AI “shortcuts”
• Three practical ways to protect your voice and keep the human at the center of your work
• A reflection exercise to help you identify the parts of your life and creativity that should remain fully human

AI can speed us up, but it can’t give us meaning. Holding on to our quirks, reflections, and struggles is what keeps us truly human.

You can also read the companion article, Finding Clarity in a Digital World: How to Stay Human and Sane in the Age of AI at The Mental Lens.

Support the show

Looking for more insights? Check out my book, Still Human: Staying Sane, Productive, and Fully You in the Age of AI

If you are looking for more information on mental health support, check out our Mental Health Resources page.

Dive deeper and subscribe to the newsletter at The Mental Lens.
Short essays and practical frameworks on mental health, boundaries, and decision-making at work.Built for humans navigating complexity, not hustling harder. Includes early access to tools, essays, and select subscriber-only resources.

Follow and subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or whever you get your podcasts!

⚠️ Disclaimer:
This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not a substitute for professional mental health advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Please consult a licensed professional if you need support.

This is Part 2 of the Still Human series on Through the Mental Lens. In this episode, Chris explores the hidden cost of chasing productivity and why checking every box doesn’t always lead to peace of mind.

You’ll hear:

• The personal story of “performing productivity” while quietly unraveling inside
• Why busyness culture and AI tools feed what Chris calls productivity theater
• How chronic stress shows up in your body — from elevated heart rate to burnout
• A simple tool: The Peace Filter — three questions to help you choose work that adds clarity, not chaos
• A reflection exercise to redefine productivity on your own terms

Productivity only matters if you still feel human at the end of the day.

You can also read the companion article, Finding Clarity in a Digital World: How to Stay Human and Sane in the Age of AI at The Mental Lens.

Support the show

Looking for more insights? Check out my book, Still Human: Staying Sane, Productive, and Fully You in the Age of AI

If you are looking for more information on mental health support, check out our Mental Health Resources page.

Dive deeper and subscribe to the newsletter at The Mental Lens.
Short essays and practical frameworks on mental health, boundaries, and decision-making at work.Built for humans navigating complexity, not hustling harder. Includes early access to tools, essays, and select subscriber-only resources.

Follow and subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or whever you get your podcasts!

⚠️ Disclaimer:
This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not a substitute for professional mental health advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Please consult a licensed professional if you need support.