The Metta Interview

Where am I in all of this? with Melissa Dishell

In this episode, Anne welcomes one of her dearest friends: Melissa Dishell — LA native, former professional hip hop dancer, and founder of a boutique entertainment company she has been building for nearly three decades. In their conversation, Melissa and Anne touch on: the early experiences — from competitive horse riding to ice skating to dance — that shaped Melissa into a natural jack of all trades and gave her an unusual work ethic from a young age. How she stumbled serendipitously into entertainment management, driven not by a plan but by a conviction that some people are brilliant and the world just hasn't found out yet. What it takes to spot that kind of talent — and what it costs, over time, to devote yourself so completely to someone else's world. They also explore the question Melissa brings to this conversation: where am I in all of this? — how it first surfaced, why it still feels alive, and how she has been quietly answering it ever since. Including what time and freedom really mean to her now, why she signed up for tennis lessons with no goal in mind, and what led her to step onto a TEDx stage to talk about putting love on her to-do list. Along the way: Arthur Brooks and the second curve, the electric slide as a life philosophy, a MASH anecdote, and Hank the party poodle. About Melissa Dishell Melissa Dishell is a Los Angeles-based multi-hyphenate creative executive with over twenty years of experience in branding, marketing, and entertainment production. A former professional hip hop dancer, she began her career representing a who's who of music personalities — choreographer Fatima Robinson, director Chris Robinson, and the cabaret dance troupe the Pussycat Dolls. She most notably represented burlesque queen and international fashion icon Dita Von Teese for nearly fifteen years, inking deals with MAC Cosmetics, Perrier, and Cointreau; overseeing the expansion into Dita's own lingerie and fragrance brands; and securing her touring deal with Live Nation. Throughout her career, Melissa expanded into event design and creative production, activating for music, fashion, and film clients including Hulu, Apple Music, Searchlight Pictures, Christian Louboutin, Giorgio Armani, Pharrell Williams, Justin Timberlake, and Maroon 5. From 2015 to 2020, she was in-house at Pharrell Williams' creative collective i am OTHER, working on strategic and experiential marketing for Mattel, Barbie, Netflix, American Express, Adidas, and more, as well as the development of festivals including ComplexCon and Something in the Water. Most recently, Melissa served as creative producer for Dita Von Teese's Las Vegas residency at Voltaire at the Venetian. She also gave a TEDx talk — Ditch the Dating Apps: Do This 1 Thing Every Day to Find Love — about applying her career mindset to her personal life. → Watch the TEDx talk: https://youtu.be/eMAXQxVWCc0 Selected links from the episode Connect with Melissa Dishell: * Website: https://www.melissadishell.com Books mentioned: * From Strength to Strength by Arthur Brooks: https://www.arthurbrooks.com/from-strength-to-strength The Mettā Interview: * Website: https://LeTrente.com/the-metta-interview * Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5204m0Z8im7uQOfFG5mk6L * Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-metta-interview/id1832511055 * YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMettaInterview The Mettā View newsletter: https://themettaview.com * Newsletter signup: https://letrente.kit.com/metta-view Le Trente: * Website: https://LeTrente.com * Luma calendar: https://lu.ma/letrente

How do I stop hiding my creative and spiritual voice? with Lucia Dami

In this episode, host Anne V. Mühlethaler welcomes Lucia Dami, artist, tarot reader and creator of The Light in the Dark Oracle Lucia's work centres on exploring and empowering the divine feminine, not as an abstract concept, but as a lived relationship with the internal world, the unseen realms, emotion, feeling, and spirit. Her practice weaves together visual art, divination, and archetype work, with a particular interest in the symbols and myths that speak to the subconscious: the language beneath language. In this conversation, Lucia is days away from releasing The Light in the Dark Oracle, a 44-card deck and guidebook she describes as a collection of visual prayers designed to call us back to the healing rhythms of nature and our own cyclic wisdom. She also has an art exhibition opening in London in June, and has just launched The Mystic Feminine, her online Patreon community. Three things she has been wanting to do for years, all arriving in the same six months. She describes it as the beginning of something — an awakening. A part of herself that has been hiding, and no longer wants to. Her alive question — How do I stop hiding my creative and spiritual voice? — is the thread that holds everything together. She traces from childhood, talking about the rich imaginative world Lucia inhabited, the drawings and daydreaming, her fascination with tarot. And through a formative turning point at around nineteen, when an ovarian cyst and the surgery that followed became, in her words, an initiation into the divine feminine work she does now. What emerges is an personal account of the push and pull between wanting to be seen and being terrified of it, not as a personality trait, but as something with a much longer history. The conversation also touches on the heroine's journey as distinct from the hero's — the descent rather than the conquest — and on desire as a compass for anyone who doesn't yet know where their creative or spiritual voice lives Selected Links Connect with Lucia Dami: * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lucia.dami [https://www.instagram.com/lucia.dami] * Facbook: https://www.facebook.com/people/LUCIA-DAMI/100083612149274/# [https://www.facebook.com/people/LUCIA-DAMI/100083612149274/#] * Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/luciadami_/ [https://www.pinterest.com/luciadami_/] * The Light in the Dark Oracle — pre-order (releasing April 7th): https://luciadami.com/pages/the-light-in-the-dark-oracle [https://luciadami.com/pages/the-light-in-the-dark-oracle] * The Elysian Tarot: https://luciadami.com/pages/tarot-deck [https://luciadami.com/pages/tarot-deck] * The Mystic Feminine on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/LuciaDami?l=it [https://www.patreon.com/cw/LuciaDami?l=it] * Custom art commissions: https://luciadami.com/pages/custom-art-by-lucia-dami [https://luciadami.com/pages/custom-art-by-lucia-dami] * Lucia on Out of the Clouds * The Myth of Inanna [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descent_of_Inanna_into_the_Underworld] * Maureen Murdoch's the Heroin Journey [https://maureenmurdock.com/articles/articles-the-heroines-journey/] (book) The Mettā Interview: * Website: https://LeTrente.com/the-metta-interview [https://LeTrente.com/the-metta-interview] * Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5204m0Z8im7uQOfFG5mk6L [https://open.spotify.com/show/5204m0Z8im7uQOfFG5mk6L] * Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-metta-interview/id1832511055 [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-metta-interview/id1832511055] * YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMettaInterview [https://www.youtube.com/@TheMettaInterview] The Mettā View newsletter: https://themettaview.com [https://themettaview.com] Le Trente: https://LeTrente.com [https://LeTrente.com]

How do we stay aligned with what truly matters in order to create the life we are dreaming of? with Oana Budica

In this episode, Le Trente founder and host Anne V. Mühlethaler welcomes Oana Budica, a Chinese medicine physician, acupuncturist, and herbal medicine practitioner based in Geneva, Switzerland. Originally from Romania, Oana has spent over a decade moving between clinical medicine and serious contemplative training, and the conversation moves freely between both worlds. She spent training across multiple Asian contemplative traditions, including completing two full vassa retreats in Theravāda monasteries in Thailand and Myanmar under the guidance of Pa-Auk Sayadaw, one of the most respected teachers of systematic concentration practice alive today. They begin, as Anne likes to, with childhood. Oana's story starts in the Romanian forests, picking mushrooms with her grandfather, a leather-hat-wearing adventurer Anne imagines as the Indiana Jones of the Carpathians. It is an image that carries through the whole conversation, because Oana's path has been anything but cautious. A comment from a friend at 19 (that she had a big ego) sent her on a journey of self-discovery that took her to India, where she found her teacher. Later, Oana decided to study Shiatsu, acupuncture, and eventually earning a diploma in classical Chinese herbal medicine under Dr A. Lewis, whose lineage-based approach to pulse diagnosis remains one of the things that still surprises Oana in her own practice. Patients ask her: how did you know that? She finds herself asking the same question. Anne and Oana also spend time on the less mappable parts of her formation, meeting her teacher, discovering meditation, yoga philosophy and silent retreats. It was in that silence, specifically in a cave in the Himalayas at 3,500 metres, cooking on open fires, bathing in hot springs between sessions, that Oana discovered something she carries as a north star: the kind of joy and happiness that does not depend on material circumstances. Her “alive” question — the one threading through both the clinic and her own life — is this: how do we stay aligned with what truly matters in order to create the life we are dreaming of? Anne and Oana trace it through Oana's patients, many of whom arrive with burnout, anxiety, and a kind of unnamed emptiness. They also push into what meditation is and is not — not suppression, not spiritual bypassing, not indifference to a difficult world. Oana describes it as effort that eventually becomes effortlessness, and as a way to work with anger, not away from it. In Chinese medicine, she reminds us, anger is fire. It can calcify in the body, or it can be transformed into creativity, into action, into something that moves through rather than settles in. Oana closes the conversation with a short guided breath practice, live on air. And somewhere along the way, Anne discovers that Oana sang in front of 16,000 people at the age of nine, and is also a free diver. This is that kind of conversation. Connect with Oana: * LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/oana-budica-60032827a/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/oana-budica-60032827a/] * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/oanabelove/ [https://www.instagram.com/oanabelove/] At Biomed MTC in Geneva: https://biomed-mtc.ch/en/our-therapeuts-biomed-mtc/oana-budica-therapeute-biomed-mtc/ [https://biomed-mtc.ch/en/our-therapeuts-biomed-mtc/oana-budica-therapeute-biomed-mtc/] The Mettā Interview: * Website: https://LeTrente.com/the-metta-interview [https://letrente.com/the-metta-interview] * Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5204m0Z8im7uQOfFG5mk6L [https://open.spotify.com/show/5204m0Z8im7uQOfFG5mk6L] * Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-metta-interview/id1832511055 [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-metta-interview/id1832511055] * YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMettaInterview [https://www.youtube.com/@TheMettaInterview] The Mettā View newsletter: https://themettaview.com [https://themettaview.com] Selected linksLe Trente: https://LeTrente.com [https://letrente.com]

What is my intention? with Giulia Galli

In this episode of The Mettā Interview, host Anne V Mühlethaler welcomes Giulia Galli, a London-based parental and mental fitness coach, author of When a Parent Is Born, and founder of Reegal Coaching.  After more than 20 years in international fashion and communications, working with global brands like Alberta Ferretti and Dunhill in roles focused on strategy, storytelling, and experience design, Giulia now brings that same attention to intention, coherence, and the impact of choices to the way we raise children. Her method is rooted in neuro-linguistic programming and combines intentional questioning, language awareness, and practical tools to help parents slow down, think clearly, and make conscious choices. Giulia co-founded Reegal with her father, whose lifelong work in personal development and responsibility represents a beautiful continuity of values across generations.Giulia and Anne kick off their conversation with a passionate reflection on the state of the world, generational differences in how people respond to current events, and the responsibility she feels as a parent to help her children think critically. Giulia traces her roots back to growing up in 1980s Italy, where her parents broke with tradition in remarkable ways, like choosing not to baptise her, encouraging her to form her own opinions, and creating a household where questions were welcomed.  The heart of the episode explores Giulia's central question: "What is my intention?" She unpacks how intention functions as both purpose and accountability — like setting a destination on a map that helps you navigate whatever comes up along the way. She explains how most parenting happens in what Virginia Satir called "the familiarity zone" — not comfortable, but familiar — and how stepping out of autopilot reactions transforms the parent-child dynamic. Anne and Giulia both feel strongly about the skill of listening to understand rather than to respond or fix. Giulia credits Nancy Kline's Time to Think as revolutionary for her practice, and she and Anne explore how allowing space and silence in conversation unlocks deeper thinking for clients, for children, and for ourselves. They discuss the possibilities available to us all when we are allowed the opportunity to finish our thoughts, silence as a space of emergence, for responses so deeply human, an important skill in a world increasingly shaped by AI.  The episode closes with Giulia's message: be kind! In actions, in words, and especially in the space we offer one another. A warm, thought-provoking conversation about intention, listening, and the quiet revolution of raising children who can think for themselves. Happy listening! Selected links from episode Your Story Your Map: Hey, it's Anne: as promised, here's Your Story, Your Map — a contemplative guide to help you trace the arc of your life with intention. You get the ebook, an audio recording (for those who'd rather listen), and an editable PDF to journal your way into recalibration. $5.Get it here [https://letrente.kit.com/products/your-story-your-map] The Mettā Interview: * Website: LeTrente.com/the-metta-interview [https://letrente.com/the-metta-interview] * Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5204m0Z8im7uQOfFG5mk6L [https://open.spotify.com/show/5204m0Z8im7uQOfFG5mk6L] * Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-metta-interview/id1832511055 [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-metta-interview/id1832511055] * YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMettaInterview [https://www.youtube.com/@TheMettaInterview] * Full transcripts and show notes: https://letrente.com/the-metta-interview [https://letrente.com/the-metta-interview] The Mettā View newsletter: https://themettaview.com [https://themettaview.com] * Newsletter signup: https://letrente.kit.com/metta-view [https://letrente.kit.com/metta-view] Le Trente: * Website: https://LeTrente.com [https://letrente.com] * LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/le-trente/ [https://www.linkedin.com/company/le-trente/] Connect with Anne V Mühlethaler: * Website: https://AnneVMuhlethaler.com [https://annevmuhlethaler.com] * LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anne-v-muhlethaler/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/anne-v-muhlethaler/] * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/annvi/ [https://www.instagram.com/annvi/] * BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/annvi.bsky.social [https://bsky.app/profile/annvi.bsky.social] * LinkTree (events & free Mettā course): https://LinkTree.com/annvi [https://linktree.com/annvi] Connect with Giulia Galli: * Website: https://reegal.co.uk [https://reegal.co.uk] * Substack: https://giuliagalli.substack.com [https://giuliagalli.substack.com]

Who am I and what do I need? with Jessica Faith Graham

In this episode of The Mettā Interview, host Anne V Mühlethaler welcomes Jessica Faith Graham, a counselor, holistic life coach, mindfulness mentor, and author of the children's book The Love Inside. With degrees in counselling, psychotherapy, fine arts, and education, Jessica's work builds self-compassion in children and families — a mission that emerged from her deeply personal journey of self re-discovery. The conversation starts with Jessica sharing memories of making little books at age six, a creative spark that would lie dormant for decades before finding its way back to her. She speaks to Anne about a period when life had slipped into autopilot, the daily rhythms of caring for three children leaving little to no room for herself. As it happens, she recalls reaching a point of crisis which led her to ask these surprising questions: who am I anymore? What do I actually need? She walks Anne to the answers that followed. Daily walks. Music. Returning to meditation after twelve years away. Small acts of self-care that, over time, created space for something unexpected: writing returned, and with it, the seed of her children's book, The Love Inside. Anne and Jessica explore the central question: "Who am I and what do I need?" They discuss why we so readily anticipate others' needs (especially as caregivers) yet forget to ask the same of ourselves. They touch on the tension between security and authenticity, the courage required to keep showing up creatively, and a Buddhist teaching from their shared mindfulness training: "If we are suffering, we are believing something untrue." This episode is for anyone who has lost themselves in the service of others. For caregivers, parents, and those who've found themselves on autopilot wondering where they went. It's a reminder that we can always come back to ourselves—and that sometimes the simplest questions open the most important doors. Happy listening! Selected links from episode The Mettā Interview: * Website:  [https://letrente.com/the-metta-interview]https://LeTrente.com/the-metta-interview [https://letrente.com/the-metta-interview] * Spotify:  [https://open.spotify.com/show/5204m0Z8im7uQOfFG5mk6L]https://open.spotify.com/show/5204m0Z8im7uQOfFG5mk6L [https://open.spotify.com/show/5204m0Z8im7uQOfFG5mk6L] * Apple Podcasts:  [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-metta-interview/id1832511055]https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-metta-interview/id1832511055 [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-metta-interview/id1832511055] * YouTube:  [https://www.youtube.com/@TheMettaInterview]https://www.youtube.com/@TheMettaInterview [https://www.youtube.com/@TheMettaInterview] * Full transcripts and show notes:  [https://letrente.com/the-metta-interview]https://letrente.com/the-metta-interview [https://letrente.com/the-metta-interview] The Mettā View newsletter:  [https://themettaview.com/]https://themettaview.com [https://themettaview.com/] * Newsletter signup:  [https://letrente.kit.com/metta-view]https://letrente.kit.com/metta-view [https://letrente.kit.com/metta-view] Le Trente: * Website:  [https://letrente.com/]https://LeTrente.com [https://letrente.com/] * LinkedIn:  [https://www.linkedin.com/company/le-trente/]https://www.linkedin.com/company/le-trente/ [https://www.linkedin.com/company/le-trente/] Connect with Anne V Mühlethaler: * Website:  [https://annevmuhlethaler.com/]https://AnneVMuhlethaler.com [https://annevmuhlethaler.com/] * LinkedIn:  [https://www.linkedin.com/in/anne-v-muhlethaler/]https://www.linkedin.com/in/anne-v-muhlethaler/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/anne-v-muhlethaler/] * Instagram:  [https://www.instagram.com/annvi/]https://www.instagram.com/annvi/ [https://www.instagram.com/annvi/] * BlueSky:  [https://bsky.app/profile/annvi.bsky.social]https://bsky.app/profile/annvi.bsky.social [https://bsky.app/profile/annvi.bsky.social] * LinkTree (events & free Mettā course):  [https://linktree.com/annvi]https://LinkTree.com/annvi [https://linktree.com/annvi] Connect with Jessica: * Website:  [https://jessicafaithgraham.com/]https://jessicafaithgraham.com [https://jessicafaithgraham.com/] * Instagram:  [https://www.instagram.com/jessicafaithgraham/]@jessicafaithgraham [https://www.instagram.com/jessicafaithgraham/] Jessica's Work: * The Love Inside: A Self Love Book for Kids [https://www.amazon.com/Love-Inside-Self-Book-Kids/dp/1634897382]  [https://www.amazon.com/Love-Inside-Self-Book-Kids/dp/1634897382]– available on Amazon * Counselling and holistic life coaching * Mindfulness mentorship * Family services and youth events Referenced in the Interview: * Thich Nhat Hanh [https://plumvillage.org/thich-nhat-hanh/] – Vietnamese Buddhist monk and author * Teachings on Love [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/263320.Teachings_on_Love] by Thich Nhat Hanh * Tara Mohr's Playing Big [https://www.taramohr.com/book/] facilitator training * Martha Beck [https://marthabeck.com/] – life coach and author (integrity/alignment concepts) * Pixar's [https://www.pixar.com/feature-films/soul]Soul [https://www.pixar.com/feature-films/soul] (2020 film) * Banyan Global [https://www.banyanglobal.com/] – mindfulness mentor training * AmeriCorps [https://www.americorps.gov/] Concepts Discussed: * The circular (not linear) career path * Autopilot living vs. intentional driving * Security vs. authenticity tension * "If we are suffering, we are believing something untrue" * Self-care as self-parenting * Perfectionism as holding on too long * Building a supportive village for creative pursuits * Allowing change vs. forcing it * Reading your own cues (like reading a baby's cues) * Opening doors through practice The Central Question: "Who am I and what do I need?"