Authentic Living

So, we are just now beginning to see some light at the end of a long dark tunnel. Business are coming back, deaths from Covid are way down, the number of people getting Covid is also down. We have a new government and some new hope for fairness and equity. But we have been through some really dark days. And each individual who has walked through this darkness has been through his or her own personal darkness—which may have included many other forms of darkness. It would not have been uncommon during these dark times for us to ask the question: Where is the Divine in all of this? Why is this happening? Well, I won’t pretend to have all the answers here, but I do think we can find out today if the Divine is really taking care of us. Be here for it.

We have been taught to believe that any refuge, any safety can only be found outside of us—through external events, circumstances and people. We strive, therefore, to find the “right” circumstances, the “right” people and the best possible events for our lives. We want to make the “right” amount of money, the “right” jobs, the “right” level of prestige and power, and of course, the “right” relationships. And, of course, we want to be smart about all of these life decisions, but they cannot provide the kind of refuge that can only be found in the Self. So, what do we mean by Self? And how can it create a refuge bigger, broader and more profound than any of life’s circumstances, events or relationships—and, indeed, can even guide us to making aligning life choices? Don’t miss this show.

We have lived for centuries now trying to win the battle of good over evil. But as we can see, as we look around the world, all the same kinds of atrocities that were happening centuries ago are still happening. In fact, we might say that there are worse travesties since we have developed nuclear weapons and greater technology. Are we just losing the battle? Or is it possible that we are fighting the wrong fight? Is there any possibility that fighting the so-called “good fight” is not the right path? Is it possible that there is something more true, more healing than that grand battle between good and evil? Today we are going to answer that question and pose another theory for living that might offer not only greater truth, but greater peace. Don’t miss it!

Most of us were taught that we were supposed to love all people, right? But what does that mean when it comes to those difficult people in our lives? Are we meant to pretend that we “love” them when we really just wish they would go away and leave us alone? How are we to deal with this? Well, there are lots of ways we do deal with difficult people. Some of those are healthy ways of dealing and others, not so much. Today we will not only discover some of the unhealthy ways of dealing, but we are going to talk about some practical and healthy ways of dealing with the difficult people in your life. You don’t want to miss this one.

Historically, “the church” minimized the frequency and validity of mystical experiences, especially when the experience downloaded different information than that put forth by the church. And since Sigmund Freud associated mystical experiences with narcissism, wishful thinking and delusion, the mental health world has mostly steered clear of any association with these experiences. But more recently there have been rigorous studies done and it has been learned that these experiences are common, frequent and grounding. Research has also found that mystical experiences offer certain very mental health benefits to the persons who have these experiences. Researchers have also developed tools for measuring these experiences and differentiating them from states of psychosis—which used to be the way we looked at all mystical experiences. Can we now finally begin to validate our own experiences to the point of living into them? Be here for this enlightening discussion.

Does spirituality really have anything to do with resilience? Resilience demonstrates how well we adapt to difficult life challenges, such as illness, trauma, relationship problems, workplace issues or financial stressors. Does spirituality help? Or can it interfere with resilience? It turns out that, depending on the nature of the religious or spiritual practice, we can be made either more or less resilient. Today we are going to talk about how resilience can be built through spiritual practice and along the way we will discover the ways that religion/spirituality can get in the way of true resilience. Don’t miss it.

Why do all of the great spiritual leaders down through history and many of the present day teach of silence and stillness? Why is silence even a thing? Aren’t we supposed to be working hard, striving after a righteous life? Aren’t we supposed to be working hard to serve our brothers and sister? Aren’t we supposed to be doing the work of growing at all times? Why do they talk about stillness? About silence? About effortless effort? Perhaps it is because silence, stillness is the answer to everything. Don’t miss this important show.

What the world needs now…. It’s love. And at the same time, love is all there is. So, let’s talk about this paradox. Are you looking for a relationship? It’s love. Do you have family problems? It’s love. War? It’s love. Politics? It’s love. Love is the answer and love is all there is. Where do we find it? What is it? How do we implement it? It’s not at all what you think. Be here, you don’t want to miss this.

Many of us are living through these difficult times on the mantra, “I just have to get through today.” We put one foot in front of the other and we keep our heads down and go and go until we crash. We are just trying to survive in these difficult times. But what if these difficult times are offering us another way of looking at today? What if today were to become the essential life, the essential moment, the NOW? What if, because the future is currently so uncertain, we must forego the future and live fully into NOW? Well, that would be nice, you say, but HOW does a person forget about the future and live in the now? Well, today we are going to talk about that very thing and learn how living in the now is the essential life. Don’t miss it.

At this special juncture of time, when we, as a collective, have perhaps been a bit more self-reflective than usual, today’s timely topic might reach into that part of us that longs for a connection to a deeper transformative essence of our nature. Our guest today, Dr. Beverly Lanzetta has come to talk to us about her latest book, “A New Silence: Spiritual Practices and Formation for the Monk Within.” Beverly’s radical wisdom about how to access this inner silence and how that practice transforms and renews us is a welcome balm in this unprecedented time of suffering. Don’t miss this important conversation.

There’s a lot going on today in our world, indeed, some pretty scary stuff. Far too many people are either ill from the virus or trying very hard to avoid getting it. Many of us are isolated at home, or even quarantined. Many single people are desperate during this time, which because of the serious contagion of the virus, makes it all the harder to find that mate they are longing for or even hang out with friends. This period of time is exacerbating a problem already a pandemic of its own: loneliness. In many cases people are even dying of Covid, alone in a hospital bed unable to be with family members because of the contagion. Well, I wish I had a remedy for Covid that could work faster than the vaccines. Unfortunately, I don’t. But there is a remedy for loneliness and we are going to reveal it today. Don’t miss it.

So, now that we have a new President, we can clearly look back on the past 4 years and discover the collective shadow of America. That shadow has been exposed, a shadow of racism, misogyny, homophobia, fear of difference of all kind, a shadow of hate, bigotry and a shadow of a politic made of quid pro quo for money and power. And it is a shadow which has fixed an economy around destroying the earth for more money and power. It’s dark, this shadow, and long, for these atrocities have gone on since the birth of America. While we have said and believed that we are a fair nation where all people are treated equally, we have not lived that. But we are launching a new reality with the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Will we now begin to live the soul of America? And how will be integrate this dark, dark shadow? Be here for this show.

Philip Goldberg is our guest today, here to talk about his latest book, “Spiritual Practice for Crazy Times: Powerful Tools to Cultivate Calm, Clarity, and Courage.” And this is definitely the year for it! We are all hoping for an end to the pandemic in the next 6 to 8 months through the power of vaccines, but it is currently surging and there is widespread anxiety and depression regarding that, the racial problems, the on-going political divide—despite the change in leadership, the economic concerns that continue to rise and may worsen if leadership does not intervene and the potential for disaster if we do not address the climate change issue. These are potentially transformative times, but we are still in the chaos stage of such change. Goldberg’s intervention is to offer us the “sanctuary of the self” and to teach us how to access it. Be here for it—you won’t want to miss it.

Caroline Myss returns to the Authentic Living show today to talk to us about her latest book, “Intimate Conversations with the Divine: Prayer, Guidance and Grace.” The book allows us to peer into our own psyches and see both our struggles and the grace we find through prayer. Caroline has taken the risk here to allow us to see her own soul and to show us her own struggles as her prayers are flashes of her own intimacy with the Divine. Today we will discuss the depth and power of intimacy with the Divine. You don’t want to miss this one.

We hear it every day now on the news, see it in our social media sites, it’s literally everywhere: we are a divided nation. So divided are we that we have two different realities, or so it seems. One media gives us one form of reality and all the other medias give us an entirely different form of reality. This has made it possible for the people on both sides of the divide to call the other side liars—and absolutely believe that they are telling the truth. There is hate on either side of this divide. So, how will we ever get beyond it. Well, first we absolutely need leadership that does not promote the divide, but encourages our Oneness. Hopefully, we will get that leadership in a few weeks. But beyond that there is much to see in the Oneness that is a critical and deeply spiritual element of even our very division. We are going to locate and elucidate that Oneness during this show. Don’t miss it.

Everyone is saying it these days, “When are we going to get back to normal?” We are suffering several different crises all at once, the pandemic, the economic crisis, the crisis related to the freshly seen revelations of abuse to persons of color and black people, the political crisis and the climate crisis. And all we can think about is going back to the way it used to be. But the way it used to be is what got us here. We got ourselves here through our denial and our bias and our irresponsibility for our government. And if we go back to the way it was, we will just end up here again. No. This is a time that calls for transformation, mental, emotional, and soulful transformation so that we are forever changed by these multiple crises. This show is all about how we can make these transformations to create a new and much more spiritually accurate ordinariness. Don’t miss it.

The shadow of the American culture is exposed. We are reminded now that while we said we were a nation that supported every person’s equal right to the pursuit of happiness, rather, we were founded upon the death of over 50 million indigenous people and we built our nation on the backs of slaves. We’ve been a two-faced nation from the onset. And now we are beginning to see what we've only suspected before in all the darkness, the lies, the bribery, and the danger hidden beneath the veil of some smiling political faces. The racial unrest, the political unrest, the economy and the physical health of a nation are dependent on us to become aware, to wake up to our own collective shadow and to integrate it in a way that makes us into the nation we said we were when we started this noble experiment. This is a spiritual quest (not a religious quest) and it will require that we handle it from a spiritual perspective. Tune in to learn how we might do this spiritual work.

There is much that is going on right now in the United States, which is impacting the entire globe, and which would make us believe that evil has surely won—that the end of goodness and hope for goodness has come. Our President is lying to us. The Majority Leader of the Senate is lying to us and betraying his own precedent. The Attorney General has changed his entire job description in order to defend the President against charges of sexual assault. The fact that so many continue to defend the President despite his betrayals and lies. Those things are facts. But do these facts represent evil? Indeed, are goodness and evil really real? Or, are these just concepts we made up to in order to find some safe mental construct to deal with behaviors we didn’t understand? Is it time we begin the process of putting away the good/evil paradigm in favor of a truer, more realistic paradigm? Tune in to find out.

We are living in very uncertain times. It is very difficult in these circumstances for we cannot seem to establish a routine that can be assumed to be “normal.” Everyone is talking about what it would be like to “return to normal.” And yet we continue to face uncertainty. But is it possible that uncertainty is one of spirituality’s best tools to facilitate our growth? Is it possible that living in uncertainty forces us to have to turn to something else on which to rely? What is that something else? Where will we find it? And what exactly will it give us? We’re going to answer those questions during today’s show. Don’t miss it.

The collective that is the United States of America is currently experiencing a dark night of the soul—a night so dark that we fear we will never awaken from this nightmare. But like every dark night of the soul, this one has an end, which is a beginning. A beginning of a whole new version of that same collective. The dark night of the soul is meant to root out shadow material, expose it and deal with it appropriately so that we can awaken to a new reality. But we are just now in the darkest part of that dark night—where we can see with our own eyes the deepest, most vile aspects of the collective we have previously believed to be functioning well. Before this dark night we thought we lived in the light—but all the while the shadow was corrupt at its base. But exposing that shadow will bring us to the solid object that is blocking the light. Today we will peer into the darkness to find that block and the light within us. Don’t miss it.