Bliss and Grit

Latest Episodes:

Ep 132: What If It's All Conditioning? [Flashback Tuesday] Aug 06, 2019

Show notes

[Flashback Tuesday]

In this episode we're excited to catch up with each other and integrate some of what we have experienced recently in the presence of so many amazing guest conversations, in particular our recent one with David Thomas. We're exploring conditioning, again, but after being with David we're posing the question to ourselves "what if it's all conditioning?" What if, while we are in ego consciousness, all of our thoughts are simply products of our culture and lineage that become habitual? And if so, what would that mean about how we can shift out of our chronic patterns of suffering?

For more information on Bliss + Grit, or to get information about one-on-one coaching with Brooke Thomas or Vanessa Scotto, please visit www.blissandgrit.com.

To become a supporting member and join our forum please visit www.patreon.com/blissandgrit

Ep 131: Allowing Heaven: A Conversation with David Thomas [Flashback Tuesday] Jul 30, 2019

Show notes

[Flashback Tuesday]

Today we are talking with David Thomas. David is a self-realization teacher, speaker, and writer living in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Through the practice of Self-inquiry and meditation, he has acquired a deeper understanding of the inner self and true liberation. David now seeks to support individuals in their pursuit of self-realization through his writing and speaking. The insights he shares within his videos, quotes, and poems are created to help nurture the healing of individuals seeking release from their pain and suffering. All of his teachings come from his personal experience, so he gives an inside perspective from being lost in ignorance to finding the truth within.

We were both immediately struck by what a bright light David is. He has a very clear way of pointing out what conditioning actually is- how we are programmed and how we lose connection to life. His clarity on what the Being is- what direct experience is- versus our thoughts about ourselves can really rock your world in this talk if you sit with it. And his insights on the dark times we are living in as a result of how we have been forced to shut down our hearts is spot on. David points out That the heart always sees the truth, is always speaking the truth, but we are so cut off from it that we don't feel it breaking and crying out. He also talks about the power of rock bottom. That when you are really broken, that that is when you are closest to God- and you can use that as a way immediately into God. Listening to David you can really feel what it means to be a Being who is living from the perspective of eternity- who is out of the way we think about time, and who understands the creator natures we all have at core. It was an absolute joy to talk with him. You can find more of his work via his YouTube channel, which is Enlightened Mindz.

For more information on Bliss + Grit, or to get information about one-on-one coaching with Brooke Thomas or Vanessa Scotto, please visit www.blissandgrit.com.

To become a supporting member and join our forum please visit www.patreon.com/blissandgrit

Ep 130: Living From the Heart: A Conversation with John J. Prendergast [Flashback Tuesday] Jul 23, 2019

Show notes

[Flashback Tuesday]

John J. Prendergast, PhD, is a psychotherapist, spiritual teacher, and founder and editor-in-chief of Undivided: The Online Journal of Nonduality and Psychology. John met his first teacher, Advaita master Jean Klein, in 1983 and began studying with one of our favorite teachers, Adyashanti, in 2001.

For 23 years John was also a professor of psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco where Vanessa Scotto went to grad school. He is the author of an amazing book called In Touch; How to Tune In to the Inner Guidance of Your Body and Trust Yourself.

We first came across John on the Buddha at the Gas Pump podcast where we were immediately drawn to his simple, yet profound, integration of Psychology and Spirituality. After Brooke Thomas sat with him on a weekend retreat a few months back we knew we needed to bring him on for a conversation we could share with all of you.

In this conversation we cover so many topics including how to trust yourself and tune into your intuition, how to access genuine safety, and why the Ego is doomed to fail. This conversation is a delight and a revelation that can affect you for years to come.

For more information on Bliss + Grit, or to get information about one-on-one coaching with Brooke Thomas or Vanessa Scotto, please visit www.blissandgrit.com.

To become a supporting member and join our forum please visit www.patreon.com/blissandgrit

Ep 129: The Art of Shifting: A Conversation with Loch Kelly [Flashback Tuesday] Jul 16, 2019

Show notes

[Flashback Tuesday]

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 just hear about it, you can experience it for yourself.

For more on Loch Kelly, please visit: https://lochkelly.org.

For more information on Bliss + Grit, or to get information about one-on-one coaching with Brooke Thomas or Vanessa Scotto, please visit www.blissandgrit.com.

To become a supporting member and join our forum please visit www.patreon.com/blissandgrit

Ep 128: Our View of Healing and Transformation Jul 09, 2019

Show notes

For this episode we zoomed out and explored: What is Bliss+Grit about exactly? More specifically, after nearly three years, 127 episodes and lots of personal healing, inquiry, and exposure to different teachers and practices: What is our working model of healing and transformation? How does conditioning store in us and how to we untangle that? And, importantly, if we aren't our conditioning, what are we? It's an ongoing lived inquiry more than a nailed down blueprint, and it's more about building bridges between systems that are evocative of human potential rather than of picking a team and declaring it the winner. But here you go, at this juncture, this is where we're at!

In this episode we talk about:

How conditioning stores in the body, the mind, and our energetic patterns
What do we consider optional suffering?
How do we de-condition ourselves?
What the nervous system has to do with it.
What are we when we aren't our conditioning?
Our view of building bridges and connecting disciplines so that each of us can have our unique lived inquiry into our own lives, rather than a blueprint system.

For more information on Bliss + Grit, or to get information about one-on-one coaching with Brooke Thomas or Vanessa Scotto, please go to www.blissandgrit.com.

To become a supporting member and join our forum please go to www.patreon.com/blissandgrit

Ep 127: Energy Medicine: A Conversation with Jill Blakeway Jul 02, 2019

Show notes

In this episode we are sharing our conversation with our guest Jill Blakeway.

Jill is the founder and director of The YinOva Center in New York City and the author of several books, including her most recent book Energy Medicine. She is the host of CBS Radio's popular weekly podcast, "Grow, Cook, Heal", which Vanessa Scotto has been a guest on, a teacher of gynecology and obstetrics at the Doctoral Program at Pacific College of Oriental Medicine and a renowned authority on alternative medicine and women's health. For more information on Jill Blakeway go to www.yinovacenter.com.

In this week's episode with Jill, we discuss her new book Energy Medicine.

Together we discuss:

What resonant bonds are and why they're important to understand
Research that shows how the power of our minds can affect machines
Teachings Neale Donald Walsh with Jill on manifestation and choosing love vs fear
Proven healings that can happen through energy fields
How interconnected we all are and the research that proves it
How to adjust your energy field in working with patients
How "energized" cell medium was found to change cancer markers in cells
What a "meaning field" is and why that's important
Research on charlatans in the healing and spiritual worlds

This conversation is fun and full of research and interesting facts on the existence of energy. We're really excited to share it with you.

For more information on Bliss + Grit, to become a show patron, or to get information about one-on-one coaching with Brooke Thomas or Vanessa Scotto, please visit www.blissandgrit.com.

Ep 126: The Fawn Response Jun 25, 2019

Show notes

This is one of our favorite kinds of conversations: where the nervous system, trauma responses, and the spiritual path intersect. We are looking at the four F's of trauma response: fight, flight, freeze, and fawn. We are talking about how these normal, healthy responses can become identities and therefore keep us from fully nourishing lives. And in particular we are honing in on fawn, also called please, appease, or tend and befriend, since we haven't spoken in as much detail about this particular response. But boy howdy do we know it from the inside out! If you consider yourself an empath, this one might strike a chord for you too.

In this episode we discuss:

The fawn trauma response, also known as please, appease, placate, or "tend and befriend".
How we can continue acting out "stuck" trauma responses so frequently that they become meshed with our personalities and identities.
Examples of what the 4 F's look like as identities.
How shame holds these responses in place.
How you can't put down by swinging the pendulum to the opposite extreme, which can be re-traumatizing, and ways you can instead tenderly begin to shift out of chronic states.

For more information on Bliss + Grit, or to get information about one-on-one coaching with Brooke Thomas or Vanessa Scotto, please visit www.blissandgrit.com.

To become a supporting member and join our forum please visit www.patreon.com/blissandgrit

Ep 125: The Gratitude Prescription: A Conversation with Will Pye [Part 2] Jun 18, 2019

Show notes

This is the second part to last week's conversation with the author, speaker, and teacher Will Pye on his newest book, The Gratitude Prescription. We first interviewed Will almost a year back on his book Blessed with a Brain Tumor and enjoyed our talk so much that we invited him back to hear more about what he calls 'radical gratitude.' As someone who had a spiritual awakening in the aftermath of receiving a diagnosis of brain cancer, we find his teachings and recommended practices of gratitude to be very embodied, grounded and deep.

We left off last week discussing why truth can be difficult to meet if we don't have self-compassion. We pick up again with Vanessa asking Will to speak more on how personalizing our suffering can be problematic.

In this episode we are speaking about:

How personalizing our narratives and experiences of suffering can increase our pain
How Will dealt with his own suicidal thoughts and depression
How removing the label from experiences like depression can shift our relationship to it
How building resilience is important in building the capacity to navigate difficult circumstances with a state of gratitude
Why a regular practice can be so important in shifting our experience of life
How to become more "grace-prone"

We also have an extra bonus for you because towards the end Will guided us through a beautiful gratitude practice that you can listen to over and over again.

To find out more information about Will Pye please visit https://willpye.com/

For more information on Bliss + Grit, or one-on-one coaching with Brooke Thomas or Vanessa Scotto, please visit www.blissandgrit.com.

To become a supporting member and join our forum please visit www.patreon.com/blissandgrit

Ep 124: The Gratitude Prescription: A Conversation with Will Pye [Part 1] Jun 11, 2019

Show notes

Today we are speaking with Will Pye for a second time! Will is an author, speaker, and teacher, and we had our first conversation with him about his first book, Blessed with a Brain Tumor, and today we are talking about his most recent book, The Gratitude Prescription. The embodied practice of gratitude has become a centrally important part of our own practices this year, and so we wanted to talk with Will about the deeply experiential practice of gratitude and how it is fundamental to the functioning of the human being, and how it can actually change your life.

We had so much fun talking with Will that this is a conversation in two parts. Part 2 will air next week. And if you want to find more of Will's work, visit willpye.com.

In this episode we are talking about:

Gratitude as the realized state of God: the peace, love, and joy of what we are.
The setup of this realm that we tend not to look for the good or the abundance.
Gratitude as the mental practice of clarity.
The data on gratitude as a remedy for depression.
Gratitude is not a directive to bypass what is happening in the world.
How to absorb, or digest, gratitude and get its full nourishment.

To find out more information about Will Pye please visit: willpye.com.

To become a show patron, please visit: www.patreon.com/blissandgrit

For information on Bliss and Grit, including information about one-on-one coaching with Brooke Thomas or Vanessa Scotto, please visit www.blissandgrit.com.

Ep 123: Neurosculpting: A Conversation with Lisa Wimberger [Part 2] Jun 04, 2019

Show notes

Today we are sharing the second part of our conversation with our guest Lisa Wimberger. Lisa is the creator of Neurosculpting, which is a self-directed neuroplasticity protocol. Specifically, it is a mental training process that quiets our fight-or-flight center and activates our prefrontal cortex, which is the mind's seat of our compassion and empathy. We had so much to discuss that we made this interview a two-parter.

In this episode we are talking about:

How energy relates to your nervous system.
The importance of focusing on your body in your spiritual practice.
How our past narratives filter our present moment experiences.
The trouble technology creates for your vagus nerve.
How your "spirits design" can influence your choices.

To find out more information about Lisa and Neurosculpting please visit https://neurosculptinginstitute.com/

For more information on Bliss + Grit, to become a show patron, or to get information about one-on-one coaching with Brooke Thomas or Vanessa Scotto, please go to www.blissandgrit.com.

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