Bliss And Grit

In this episode we’re chatting about the glorious nervous system. Recently we heard a spiritual teacher named Matt Kahn say that “the Ego is the imagination of an overactive nervous system.” As longtime mind-body practitioners we found this super interesting, especially because it coincided with our own exploration of the ways our limbic system was affecting our health. This got us thinking about the role the nervous system might play in our awakening to truth. We talk a lot about concepts like fear v love, or fear v clarity, but is there benefit to exploring fear through the lens of our nervous system and limbic brain? Does that exploration create more softness in us or does it trigger a shame spiral that births more fear? All this and more as we explore the beauty that is our body.

In today’s episode we're talking about what actually loving what arises looks like in practice. We’ve all heard the trite spiritual phrases like “meet whatever arises with acceptance” and “Love everything in your experience” “do not judge yourself or others” and trite as they are, and as frequently repeated as they are, genuinely landing in the deep granular practice that these phrases point to is, well, not the most straightforward thing in the world. Certainly it is super duper foreign to everyone livin gin this time and place. Vanessa and I have a highly unprocessed talk about how that’s showing up for each of us as a lived experience. How we are now seeing the million tiny no’s that we say to ourselves all the time, and that we notice everyone saying to themselves and to the world. But what does saying yes to what we find really look like? What’s the difference between tolerance, warmth, and really loving things?

In this episode we’re talking about the need to be liked. Over the years of self exploration it’s become clear how very much our own desires for approval can drive our choices and cloud out our clarity. Of course, it’s pretty human to want to be accepted by others, but what happens when you do it at you’re own expense? When the desire to be likable takes on a full fledge good girl/boy identity? Or when it keeps your past trauma re-circulating in a never ending loop of self-sacrifice or self-flagellation? These questions are just the surface of this conversation. As approval junkies in rehab we’ve got lots to share on the ever fascinating topic of needing to be liked.

The last couple of weeks we talked a lot about living from truth, and about how the body is the most useful way to navigate truth. We got into that in our conversation with Kiran Trace last week, and in our talk about what we were learning as we spent some time with Adyashanti. We, kind of, could talk about the body and about navigating what is true for you from the body, forever... so we had a lot more to say on that! What came up for us is the way we separate ourselves into “me” and “my body”- and how that separation- that perception that we are NOT our bodies- is where we objectify ourselves and lose access to the wisdom of the body. We get into how we can have unconditional love for ourselves, how to make room for the body to just always be in a process instead of “getting it right, finally”, and how to acknowledge the ways we see and treat the body as “other”.

In today’s episode we're talking about a recent weekend we spent together in Ithaca going to an event Adyashanti was having there. We do a general download on what it was like to be with him, but more specifically we point to his lens on what it means to trust your life- a truism that all of our teachers point us to. This is really the heart of this path. In so many ways you could say it IS the journey. Adyashanti also talked about how in many ways awakening is you becoming the most you. So on the path we wind up recognizing how often we are in conflict with both who we are and with what’s showing up in life. What are some of the complexities of how we turn away from the truth? And, another one of my favorite topics of conversation, how is the body our most accurate truth sensing device?

This week we’re talking about our life’s purpose. Recently Vanessa and I have been seeing this differently in our own lives- why do we frequently, in our culture anyway, chase our “purpose” as, some big identity-defining career goal? Part of why it’s been so interesting for us to untie this is that the whole concept of our lives and who we are get woven into the idea of purpose. There is this way that we can create small boxes for ourselves to live in vs letting things have their own lives. Ultimately it leads us to figuring out how we let life come through us instead of grabbing at it and trying to mold it. Which can be surprisingly foreign!

This week is a Dear Bliss and Grit episode. We’re exploring the subtle edges of relationships as we answer a listeners question on love. The major theme of the conversation being- how do we cope in a relationship when our partners difficult circumstances prevent our needs from being met? Do we wait things out and hope for improvement? Or do we give up on a relationship even though we value the person in our lives? Anytime we get into the topic of relationship and love we have lots to say about all those nuances that go into us learning to show up in intimacy.

In today’s episode we're talking about life as an empath. It sprung out of our last episode about energy- we realized how helpful understanding the energetic underpinnings of patterns has helped us to be in our lives as empaths. So if you are an empath- or a highly sensitive person, or a sensey as we like to say- you’ve probably gotten really good at some management techniques for how to not get overwhelmed by the world. Maybe you’ve even encountered a number of well-intentioned people who teach techniques about how to shield yourself from feeling too much. But managing and shielding is hard work. It’s fatiguing. What if instead your could learn how to land in yourself- I mean really inhabit yourself- so that you didn’t feel at the whims of your environment and you didn’t feel like you needed to be vigilant against your environment and your sensey self?

This week’s episode is all about energy. How can we experience energy within and around ourselves? Why is it important- or even interesting- to look at energy in relation to healing and wholeness? Could experiencing the subtle vibrational realms be the birthplace of our intuition? As Sensey people who’ve worked with energy throughout our careers and lives we’ve got a lot to say here about the vibrational reality of things.

Today’s episode is a little different! This episode is actually an interview with Judith Blackstone, the founder of The Realization Process- which Vanessa and I both became certified in this spring. I did this interview originally over on my other show, Liberated Body. If you haven’t discovered her work, allow me to introduce Judith to you. She is the creator of The Realization Process, which is an integrated approach to embodiment, psychological, relational, physical healing, and spiritual awakening. Judith is a clinical psychologist and a meditation practitioner and student of contemplative traditions with more than 40 years of experience. She is the author of several books including Belonging Here and The Enlightenment Process, and she is also the co-founder of the Non-Duality Institute which is dedicated to the science and practice of non-duality. In this conversation we’re talking about “the issues in the tissues”, or how emotional pain gets bound in the body- and also how it can be released, what fundam

In today’s episode we're talking about the identity crisis that can arise as you heal and transform. Whether we’re talking about gaining more psychological health, or the big ole wake up call of the spiritual path, either way you are eventually going to shed some part of yourself that used to feel like you- both to yourself and to those around you- and then... what happens next?! Vanessa and I are talking about navigating the identity crises that are a natural part of any healing journey.

Today's episode is a "Dear Bliss+Grit" in which we’re responding a listeners question on Self-Compassion. Is there no place for self-discipline? For pushing yourself to do things that you know could be good for you even though you don’t want to? How can you differentiate between fear holding you back from taking an action vs a genuine yearning for another experience? We're chatting about how we can listen better to what’s the right medicine for ourselves at any given time, and exploring the subtle edges of compassion, indulgence and discipline on the spiritual path.

In today’s episode we're talking about the importance of having “people” with you on the spiritual path. If you’re getting curious about- and no longer fully living by- the conditioning of your own life and your culture’s preferences it can be strange... and lonely sometimes. In Buddhism one of the key “jewels” of the path is called the sangha. For those of you who don’t skew Buddhist- it’s basically about having a community of people who can be with you on the path. People who are committed to being with reality. Essentially- people who get the journey you are undertaking. Today Vanessa and I are talking about a number of things related to this- coming out of the spiritual closet, all the typical human things that come up in real sanghas, how to find your people or even just one person, and why supportive community is so important.

Today’s episode is all about Self-Compassion. We got a lot of responses after our Pain Bodies in Action episode and we thought it was time to speak about what to do as you’re noticing these old wounds- which includes a whopping dose of self-compassion. From breaking down the nuance of self-compassion to karmic patterning to discussing how to find safety in the body, we’re all up in the compassion conversation.

In today’s episode we're talking about a snippet of Eckhart Tolle’s book A New Earth that caught my eye. He says that if we approach everything in life with acceptance, enjoyment, or enthusiasm then we will- essentially- not be suffering and will be in the present moment. I usually hate things that feel like a blueprint to a happy life but, I gotta say, this one’s got some good bones! Vanessa and I dive into the nuance of what we think exploring this way of being means.

In this episode we’re talking about the experiences we’ve had on the embodied spiritual path- including touching into our own pain bodies. Actually we’re literally experiencing our pain bodies while recording making for an extra revelatory talk! We know you’ve heard us use the term before so in this episode we share some definitions of what a pain body actually is. And as usual many stories about what we’ve both been facing, and shedding in recent times. It’s personal, it’s philosophical and well, you’ll just have to tune in to see what we mean.

In this episode we’re talking about what Vanessa playfully calls the “Bubble of Pain”- aka a circular pattern of self-referencing that leaves us feeling at the center of a painful reality. Many of us have felt how much it hurts to take things personally. Yet even after recognizing the cost, we still can find ourselves stuck, habitually believing that everything is about us- most commonly about how we’re not enough in some way. We’re sharing lots of personal experiences and ideas about how we get stuck in our own bubbles of pain, and more importantly, how we can become more available and free.

In today’s episode we're talking about holding space for not knowing. Why are we- culturally- people who think we need to know things? There is an underlying assumption that we can know definitive capital T truths- and we want bedrock answers. We want to avoid the feeling of groundlessness that comes with not definitively knowing things. The trouble with that is that we look outside of ourselves for prescriptions of how to live, and we create a society where the stronger your opinion the more right you must be. We wind up without space for sourcing our own answers, or for differing viewpoints, or for the experience of evolving understandings that can shift over time and be alive in their unfolding... so let’s delight in some groundlessness today!

In this episode we’re responding to a dear Bliss + Grit inquiry on one of our favorite topics- boundaries! How do you know what’s truly right for you? What happens when you say yes only to later feel tired and grumpy? Your ability to stay true to your inner yes and no is the most basic affirmation of your right to exist as you are, yet so many of us are challenged in this arena. With all our cultural conditioning around earning love and being of service you can imagine this conversation is full of stories and tools we’ve collected along the way.

We’ve had a good number of episodes lately that are about the more challenging emotions- things like grief and despair, or heartbreak. We’ve really dug into how to feel all the feels, especially those ones we like to avoid in our culture. A funny thing though, for all of our happiness chasing, we’re actually not exactly whizzes at pointing the compass towards ease or true pleasure. The same striving that keeps us chasing happiness keeps us from actually resting into the more delicious and delightful parts of being human. So lest you think we’re glorifying suffering- in today’s episode we're talking about navigating towards some more of the yummy that life has to offer.