The EnvisionAir Podcast | Personal Wellness, Self Development and Growth Mindset · Nicole Ng Yuen

❤️ COMMUNITY: Cultivating Kindness - A Conversation with Alan Questel, Author and Feldenkrais Practitioner

·50 min·3 clips

Questel turned a distant relationship with his father into three years of daily five-minute calls.

1. The Envisionaire Podcast episode centers on community and kindness with Alan Questel and his book Practice Intentional Acts of Kindness, and Like Yourself More. 2. Alan Questel is the guest, a Feldenkrais practitioner, trainer, and lecturer who says he has taught in over 20 countries on five continents. 3. The episode asks why kindness matters, how people can practice it toward themselves and others, and why the work can be uncomfortable. 4. Questel says his father’s dementia and move to a home in Florida led him to call him every day for about three years. 5. He describes those calls as five minutes at a time, across a three-hour California-to-Florida time difference. 6. He says that daily calling became one of the biggest acts of kindness he had done at that point in his life. 7. The conversation returns to a chapter exercise that begins with the kindness listeners already do well. 8. Questel then moves the reader toward people they think they “could never be kind” toward, but he frames it as approximation rather than forced affection. 9. He says the goal is not to hug difficult people, but not to run away from them either. 10. He describes carrying stories about difficult people and rehearsing those stories internally until they keep the relationship alive. 11. Questel says one option is to let the story go, and another is to have an awkward conversation if the relationship matters. 12. He gives the example of telling a colleague about a work issue, then later realizing he needed to speak directly instead of talking about it repeatedly. 13. He also says challenging people can become teachers if they help him learn to listen more easily and act more compassionately. 14. Questel cites a rabbit study from The Rabbit Effect in which one technician petted and cuddled rabbits while feeding them the same diet as the controls. 15. He says the coddled rabbits did not develop the same plaque and fat buildup in their hearts, which he links to behavior changing physiology. 16. He ties that study to the epigenome idea that genes are not fixed and are affected by environment and practice. 17. The interview style is conversational, with the host sharing personal reactions, examples, and a live attempt at the book’s exercise. 18. Questel answers with direct stories, practical framing, and a patient tone that stays focused on specific behaviors. 19. People interested in self-kindness, habit change, and body-mind practices. 20. Listeners looking for a fast celebrity chat or purely abstract philosophy.

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