Buying and selling houses is an intimate experience that brings up lots of stress, and relationship tension. Familiar and unhelpful habitual mindset patterns come up in both home buying and selling and healthcare.  This episode features lessons from a wise and mindful real estate agent, Cynthia Cummins.   Cynthia offers a mindful, caring, and loving approach to buying and selling homes - even and especially in the Bay Area and its wild and crazy real estate market. Mindfulness and self-compassion are key to smoothing our journey in real estate. Cynthia describes herself as a "sloppy Buddhist."  She brings love, humor, mindfulness, and common humanity to the real estate journey.  These are key in both real estate and medicine. Like doctoring, residential real estate requires human caring during times of extreme stress and feeling threatened.  At its core, residential real estate is not about sales, assets, interest rates, inspections, and money. It is about an important human journey back to oneself. "The quest for home is a quest for self " The process of home buying and selling is a window into the “vibrant microcosm of what it means to be humans looking for love, nourishment, meaning, and shelter.”     Self-compassion, common humanity, mindfulness, and kindness are deeply integrated into healthy home-buying and selling.  A scarcity mindset, urgency, not-enoughness, imposter syndrome, fear of making a mistake, catastrophizing, “what if’s”, uncertainty, and the stress of feeling out of control show up in almost every house-buying journey.  Real estate agents and physicians both hold space for the human condition and spirit in stressful and intimate life moments. We both also get “disenchanted” (AKA burnt out). Cynthia shares how she rediscovered her purpose as a real estate agent through narrative and reflective writing. And humor. “What we are doing here is so important we better not take it so seriously.” -Suzuki Roshi. Over the last few years, Cynthia has been writing a blog called Real Estate Therapy.  In it, she shares all things human + real estate.  It's a delightful read that will become a book shortly.  I  highly recommend checking it out.  www.realestatetherapy.org Even if you aren't planning on moving, buying, or selling a house soon, this episode is still worth a listen.  We share many useful strategies to stay out of common mindset pitfalls when buying anything. We include tips on how to not buy things we don't really want.  Cynthia also shares some very helpful strategies to help you connect with what you really want as well as tips to enjoy the “home” you already have (AKA "wanting what you have.") If you live in the SF Bay Area and need a Real Estate agent, reach out to Cynthia at Kindred Homes. I get nothing if you work with her except to know that you will be well-cared for. https://kindredsfhomes.com/ Everyone, even those not looking to buy or sell a house, should scroll through her Real Estate Therapy Blog- it's a fascinating window into humanity with many helpful and enlightening parallels to medicine.  https://www.realestatetherapy.org/ If you need coaching around old or current real estate dramas and dreams, struggles with where you live or how you want to be living, or you simply need or want a mindset upgrade, reach out to me for coaching. www.jessiemahoneymd.com/coaching *Nothing in this episode is medical advice. #mindfulrealestate #mindfulminimalism