Bliss And Grit

Today we are speaking with Will Pye. Will’s first book is titled Blessed With A Brain Tumor; Realizing It’s All Gift and Learning to Receive. So needless to say, he was a perfect guest for us to have on as a follow up to our basic trust conversation from last week. Will is a social entrepreneur, teacher, transformational coach, speaker and author. He leads workshops and retreats around the world. Will’s second book, The Gratitude Prescription; Harnessing the Power of Thankfulness for Healing and Happiness is due for release this May. He is also the founder of the community of awakening and sacred activism, with the title we very much love, The Love & Truth Party: www.loveandtruthparty.org, And of the year-long program and coaching group, Living Impeccably. In our conversation with Will here, the thing we dove most into is surrender: of course surrender gets talked about a lot in spiritual circles, so we wanted to bring you something more useful than “I think you should surrender”. That said, we talk about

Inspired by the teachings of AH Almaas, today we’re discussing a concept he calls Basic Trust. Basic trust is the implicit sense that we are connected, safe, held and supported by life. What fascinated us the most about this concept is the revelation that when Basic trust gets ruptured spiritual aspirations such as surrender, acceptance or letting go can feel out of reach or effortful. Also, how much or how little basic trust you have can affect the quality and experience of your spiritual awakening. In this conversation we explore our experiences and perspectives on basic trust as well as Almaas’s definition, including how it is fed, how it is ruptured, and ultimately how we can go about healing.

We are happily back from our 6-week break, and in today’s conversation we are talking about what we are talking about! In our 6-weeks to integrate, reflect, and deepen what’s up here at Bliss and Grit, we realized that we haven’t spoken so directly that this show is about what we can call awakening. For many of you who are listeners, that’s no surprise at all, but if we choose to get really direct that that’s what we are devoted to, then it makes sense to talk about what IS awakening? Why does it get a bad, or weird, rap, why were we shy about admitting that in the past, and, well what is it again!?! We discuss what it means to us to “wake up” by looking at the difference between object-based reality and subject, or present-moment-experience-based reality. We get at new angles on what the ego is. And we open up about why we care about this, and why we refuse to be slaves to our own conditioning anymore.

We are 89 episodes in, and almost at our 2 year Bliss + Grit anniversary! So in this week’s episode we’re speaking about what it’s been like for us to do B+G over the last couple of years. From following our own mysterious divine calling, to running a business by trusting life and listening to messages, to reframing leadership to a vision of healing in public, we’re chatting about the inspirations we’ve gathered and lessons we’ve learned throughout our time on the show. We couldn’t have done it without you and we’re oh so grateful. We will be taking off for the rest of the summer to refresh and recalibrate. But we’ll be back in September with some next level goodness. One other note, our audio quality may be a little off from usual. We had some technical difficulties that we will straighten out over the break but we thought it was worth delivering.

Today we’re talking about the power of words- how we are shaped by the words we hear and how we shape our worlds with the words we use. in particular we are looking at how we shape people’s view of who we are with the words we unconsciously use about ourselves. Yet when we head into this territory, frequently teachings crop up, particularly in popular culture, about how we need to edit and suppress ourselves, or pretend to be something other than what we feel. We explore shame, blame, and superstition-free inquiries around how we can shift the words we use to describe ourselves and the world we live in.

This week we’re discussing turning towards the ache. We can often either resist the situations that trigger us. Or once we get triggered we can collapse into patterns of shame or blame. What if we instead met our triggers with an attitude of curiosity? What if we leaned into what we were afraid of as an opportunity to grow past the fear? In this conversation we are sharing our recent personal experiences of embracing the attitude of empowerment and moving towards what scares us.

After a recent request from a listener to share some more details about how we are connecting the dots between all of the amazing teachers we’ve had on the show, we’re doing an integration episode. Recently, we have seen so many similarities between teachings that Loch Kelly shared and those that Matt Kahn offers. They use completely different language, come from radically different backgrounds and offer different tools, yet when you boil it down the overlap is obvious. We are jazzed about what we've been experiencing and seeing since we had the pleasure of having conversations with these two luminaries back to back. In this episode we are chatting about how we’ve been integrating the connections between their teachings on what Matt would call ego and soul, or what Loch would call ego and awake awareness, and how we’ve been applying the wisdom to our lives.

Today we are speaking with Matt Kahn. Matt’s teachings are very near and dear to our hearts and have made a tremendous difference to both of us on our paths, so we were thrilled to do this interview. If you don’t know Matt’s work- he is the author of the books Whatever Arises Love That, and his hot off the press book, Everything is Here to Help You. He is also well known for his abundant YouTube channel, filled with video excerpts from the numerous retreats and events that he holds each year. Matt is a rare breed as a spiritual teacher- I would describe him as an energy healer/empath, nondual/mystic, pragmatic and grounded yet interdimensional teacher who- wait for it dear listeners- teaches directly to the needs of the energetically sensitive souls, or what we call the “sensies”. What others have called empaths, or highly sensitive people. In other words, us, our tribe here at Bliss and Grit. If you want a deep dive into what really is the ego and how do we make the journey to living not from ego but from so

This week we’re going deeper on a conversation we had a few months back on Awakening and the nervous system. Through numerous personal experiences, recent interviews and a course we’ve been taking with a teacher named Neelam on the Awakening Nervous System, we’ve been getting an even more profound understanding of the role the nervous system may play in recognizing our true nature. From discussing what it means to be present, to the basics of poly-vagal theory and tools we can use to create shifts, we’re exploring the fascinating world of the human nervous system.

Today we are having a conversation with Loch Kelly. Loch is the author of Shift into Freedom, and the creator of the recent audio course offering through Sounds True, Effortless Mindfulness Now. He is a meditation teacher, psychotherapist, and founder of the non-profit, Open-Hearted Awareness Institute. Loch has collaborated with neuroscientists at Yale, UPenn and NYU. He has been teaching seminars, supervising clinicians and practicing awareness psychotherapy in New York for 30 years. It’s also worth mentioning that he teaches in our favorite lineage, the human being lineage! Which makes him a perfect teacher to have on Bliss+Grit. We so admire how he talks about awakening as a normal developmental potential for all human beings, and how his approach is so practical and available. We talk about how the answer to any question related to relieving suffering is always the same: shift. We also discuss how to shift, and Loch offers several experiential practices throughout our conversation. So you don’t get to ju

In this weeks episode we’re exploring a listeners question around anger. Many people have been exposed to the damaging effects of anger in their world. Others have been taught that anger is at best a useless emotion, and at worst, a dangerous one. Over time, we can begin to label anger as wrong or “unspiritual,” essentially something “evolved people” don’t feel. Yet, as this listener shared in her letter to us, anger can also be an important step in healing and reaching a genuine place of forgiveness. Join us in exploring the differences between feeling and acting from anger, understanding anger as a boundary and how we can meet this often maligned emotion with heart.

This week we had the great pleasure of recording actually live and in person! And we had the chance to be together right after Vanessa’s time on retreat with Matt Kahn. So, needless to say, we spent a lot of our time together like the geeks that we are going over her notes. In this episode we went over a portion of her notes that we found particularly resonant. We’re talking about not knowing; And how and why “I don’t know” is a powerful, clear, open, and relieving position to come from.

In last week’s episode we touched on the benefits of bringing mindful attention to thoughts and patterns. This week, inspired by a quote from Gangaji, we’re taking it deeper with a conversation on the importance of vigilance. If you’ve been listening to us for a while you know we’re usually speaking on how hyper-vigilance can create tensions and feed fears of unworthiness, yet, we also want to stay alert to ways in which our unconscious programs are running. Moreover, we are served in bringing our attention towards our own innate wholeness. In this episode we kick around the concept of sacred vigil, and the deep power of our attention.

We’ve talked recently about bypass in the last several episodes as seeking to only feel bliss, to avoid the messiness of a human life and human emotions. Which can bring up the idea that maybe we really need to double down on the grittiness of life in order to be on a genuine path. What about when suffering becomes the bypass of choice- as always, unconsciously and in innocence- we can subconsciously emphasize the struggle. Or over-tolerate the struggle. In which case we lose access to joy, to ease, to the nourishing movements of life. We talk about the expectations and projections that our paths and lives should look a certain way and how that can play out at the two poles of the bypass pendulum. We also discuss how to discern what habits, expectations, and projections are operating in us, and how to relax into unfolding rather than manage ourselves into what we think it “should” look like.

Amoda Maa is a contemporary spiritual teacher, author, and speaker. After years of spiritual seeking, meditation, and immersion in psychospiritual practices, an experience of the dark night of the soul led her to a profound inner awakening. Her teachings are free of religion and tradition, and she brings to them a deep understanding of the human journey, born out of her own experience. Amoda is the author of several books her newest being Embodied Enlightenment, a book that Brooke and I both loved. It is about the journey of being fully awake and fully human, and we highly recommend it. Amoda offers private meetings and retreats, and is a frequent speaker at conferences and events. To find out more about Amoda Maa please go to, visit http://www.amodamaa.com. In this episode with Amoda we cover so much. We speak of course about being fully awake and fully human, we touch on spiritual bypassing, agendas, tenderness, and common misconceptions about the spiritual path. The whole conversation is a treasure that yo

Today we’re diving into the issue of spiritual bypass. As I mention in the episode, I have beef with how common bypass is held up as what the spiriutal path IS. When in fact, it is in direct opposition to what the path is. As Dorothy Hunt says in her book Ending the Search, spiritual concepts and spirit are not the same thing... It is the use of an idea of spirituality that keeps us unconscious” Or as Vanessa says, bypass is using the spiritual path to avoid your shit. Usually while wearing the identifiers we call “spiritual person” Now, of course, bypass is something we will all do to some degree as we walk this path. I have done it plenty. So we’re not trying to create vigilance against this thing called bypass, But having a good working understanding of what the path is and what bypass is- and that they are not at all the same thing- can help us to have a deeply meaningful and transformative path and to stop unconcsious harm towards ourselves and to the world.

In today's episode we are sharing a conversation that we had with our special guest, Dorothy Hunt. Dorothy serves as spiritual director of Moon Mountain Sangha and is the founder of the San Francisco Center for Meditation and Psychotherapy (SFCMP). Inspired by the legendary sage Ramana Maharshi and Adyashanti, she is the author of several books, including her latest Ending the Search. Dorothy currently offers meditation and satsang gatherings, weekend intensives and retreats, and also sees individuals for both psychotherapy and for what’s called dokusan- a private meeting with a spiritual teacher. For more on Dorothy, please visit dorothyhunt.org. In this conversation we explore with Dorothy what the term awakening means to her and what it would look like to “end the search.” We also speak on unconditional vs conditional love, how we can come closer to our true identity, what it means to be fully human, and so much more. We're so pleased to offer you all this beautiful, heartfelt conversation with Dorothy Hun

Today we’re talking about agendas that we are frequently, unconsciously and in innocence, acting out in our lives. These agendas may have helped our younger selves to feel safe but they are not who we fundamentally are, and they can create exactly the opposite of what we are desiring in our lives. We discuss how to have tenderness when we greet our own shadow, what is the difference between agendas and who we are? And we call out some of the top agendas that we all take on- the tough one, the victim, the martyr, the good girl or boy. Importantly, we ask the question why are we talking about this- because it is not because we believe anyone is broken and needs to fix themselves actually. But on a relative level these agendas are creating repetitive painful patterns in our lives. And it’s nice to have lives that hurt less and are more satisfying on a soul level.

In today’s episode we’re speaking about what we’re calling Micro-shaming; which we could describe as the subtle ways we can inadvertently shame people for being different than us. If you’ve been listening to us for a while you know that exploring and dismantling shame is dear to our hearts. In this conversation we cover a broad expanse of topics such as “sick shaming,” shaming others for their emotions, beliefs or relationships, as well as how shame can show up in our medical and wellness industries. This topic felt especially relevant in this day and age where we have so many “gurus” out there giving well-intentioned, but sometimes unhelpful, advice that may be creating patterns in shame in us without us even noticing.

Today we are being with our heartbreak, grief, rage, and helplessness after the latest US mass shooting. With our work on Bliss and Grit we do our best- as fallable humans who are subject to all the fallable human things- not to promote a spiritual path that is a bypass. That is not about up and away to that magical no suffering place over there. To be human is to have a human experience and that includes suffering. And it also includes heaven on earth. And everything in between. In this conversation we really just inquire about how to be with the really massive, raw emotions when they do come.