Bliss and Grit

Latest Episodes:

Ep 102: Healing the Limbic System Dec 18, 2018

Show notes

Vanessa just recently returned from doing the DNRS (Dynamic Neural Retraining System) program. You have heard us talking about this program and the book about it, Wired for Healing, in previous episodes, but this is the first time that we talk in depth about it. And because Vanessa was very freshly back from the weeklong program, it was a great chance for me to catch up with her and ask her all about it as we recorded an episode. Vanessa and I are deeply invested in conversations about where our paths and the habits of our nervous systems intersect, and we have been engaged in a years long, really lifelong, inquiry into how we can most usefully reset our nervous systems in order to have a different experience of our lives.

It's important to note that this is just us talking as friends about the program, not as professionals prescribing the program to any of you listening. We also talk about things that are akin to exposure therapy and so we would like to say that if you are a person with a chronic illness, anxiety, or PTSD please don't take this episode as a suggestion of things to try out at home. It is really a tiny glimpse into a much larger program and that container is needed for safe and effective healing.

Ep 101: Can We Create Through Language? Dec 04, 2018

Show notes

We're speaking today about the implications of the words we choose. Historically, we've bristled at what we perceived as a "turn your frown upside down" approach to language. These days though, we've both been called towards exploring the intersection of language, evolution and creation. Could we have been wrong? Might shifting to the use of "positive" language actual impact our reality? Listen in to hear us share our thoughts on the benefits and cautions of bringing attention to the words you use, the dilemma of bypass and judgement, and how healing might just come through making different choices.

Ep 100: The Good News Nov 27, 2018

Show notes

Welcome to our 100th episode! And I think it's appropriate that our 100th episode is basically a popcorn episode about what transformative nuggets are sticking with us from so many of our conversations and experiences in recent months. In particular, our recent episode with Neelam, but also what has really stuck with us in other episodes and conversations, and even at the SAND conference.

100 makes for a nice even number to create a kind of bookmark- where have we been with this show and in our lives? We have been engaged in a public healing process- which fyi is not what we thought we were going to do when we started the show- but anyway here we are. We've aired a lot of pain, a lot of personal insights... and we want to share where we're at these days- and that there is good news. Healing isn't a forever thing, there is such a thing as healed. and we can have and a new experience of life on the other side of that.

Ep 99: Shifting Co-Dependency Nov 20, 2018

Show notes

In this conversation we're deep diving into the pattern of co-dependency. We've both been co-dependent in our lives and have slowly but surely been working our way through to greater freedom. So in today's episode we're looking at what does it actually mean to be co-dependent, how does it affect us or show up in our lives, and of course, ultimately, how can we begin to shift this pattern that can be exhausting, frustrating and limiting to so many of us?

Ep 98: Being Presence: A Conversation with Neelam Nov 13, 2018

Show notes

Our guest today, Neelam, is a direct disciple of Papaji, and she has been holding satsang internationally since 1996. She runs the non profit, Fire of Truth Satsanga. Neelam's unequivocal commitment to truth helps students turn inward again and again to release underlying patterns of conditioning which block the recognition of their true nature as Presence. The clarity and discriminating wisdom that are intrinsic to this awakened state are given freely by Neelam through Spiritual Inquiry, as she invites her students into the same recognition of truth that her teacher Papaji transmitted to her. In Our conversation with Neelam we talk about coming to know yourself as presence, what trust in your true nature means- and how the genuine experience of that trust can change our lives, what true freedom is, and how we can discern the difference between when past is arising, and playing out it's habitual patterns and using it's built up momentum, and when we are actually present. We discuss in detail what Awakening and the capacity of the nervous system have to do with one another, what trauma actually is, and how to get out of the grooves and charges of the past so that we can truly be here and not in a remembered past or imagined future. We were also grateful that Neelam spoke so eloquently about tenderness and kindness as the true marker of if we are in the present, and how treating ourselves with tenderness can be the real alchemical agent.

Ep 97: What If It's All Conditioning? Oct 30, 2018

Show notes

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?

Ep 96: Allowing Heaven: A Conversation with David Thomas Oct 23, 2018

Show notes

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.

Ep 95: Embodying Yin: A Conversation with Jeannie Zandi Oct 16, 2018

Show notes

In this episode we are speaking with our very special guest and friend Jeannie Zandi. Jeannie has been on our show before and today is offering some profound, must-hear insight on yin and yang that we are so excited to share with you.

Our conversation touches upon so much including what true power looks like, the imbalances our culture has perpetuated, what healing would look like through the lens of yin and how we can move forward together in dismantling the conditioning that has led to so much pain. For anyone exploring healing on both a personal and collective level this episode is for you. She put words to a revolution we're just now realizing we've already been a part of.

Jeannie is truly such a force of love. She is the director of Living as Love, a nonprofit organization dedicated to seeding a culture of the Heart on the planet, inspiring, teaching and supporting people to live from their essence as Love. A year before the birth of her daughter, Jeannie was plunged into a dark night of the soul that culminated in a radical shift of consciousness. She is known for her fearless clarity, tender mercy toward humanness, and a juicy, poetic and often humorous style that draws from Advaita Vedanta, Sufism, Christian mysticism and the ongoing revelation of fully engaged living. Residing in Colorado, she travels widely in the US, bringing a down-to-earth embodied teaching of living as love. For more info on Jeannie and the upcoming course she speaks about in the episode please go to www.jeanniezandi.com

Ep 94: Working with What Feels Unworkable Oct 09, 2018

Show notes

Today we're talking about when we are so contracted by very real things like chronic illness, chronic pain, or PTSD and we can't reach a state of gratitude, or relief, and certainly not joy. Instead, we are coping with responses of our nervous systems and our physiology that feel much more akin to being trapped in a hell realm. These are the dimensions of reality where we can't get any perspective, we don't remember how to meet basic needs, and we spin and deal with quite a lot of suffering on top of the suffering of the illness or of the situation itself. We get into how to survive and work with these states. They are very painful and disorienting, and there are ways to open up some workability even when you are in the midst of one.

Ep 93: Gradual Awakening; A Conversation with Miles Neale Oct 02, 2018

Show notes

Today we are speaking with Dr. Miles Neale. Dr. Neale is among the leading voices of the current generation of Buddhist teachers and a forerunner in the emerging field of contemplative psychotherapy. He is a licensed psychotherapist in private practice, international speaker, and faculty member of Tibet House US and Weill Cornell Medical College. Miles is author of Gradual Awakening: The Tibetan Buddhist Path of Becoming Fully Human along with its audio companion of guided meditations The Gradual Path. The proceeds for both the book and the program go to supporting the Kopan Nunnery in Nepal. He is also coeditor of the groundbreaking volume Advances in Contemplative Psychotherapy. Miles is based in New York City. For more information please visit www.milesneale.com. We'll also have that link in the show resources for you.

In this episode we go deep into what Miles calls the "sickness of paradigm" that he believes is plaguing our modern cultures. We explore whether spirituality has become a necessary medicine for our current crises, what may help us wake up a sense of interconnectivity, and the dilemmas presented to us by the trend towards watered-down meditation practices, which he has termed "McMindfulness". Miles presents us with the possibility that all human beings have the potential to awaken if they are willing to walk the gradual steps of the heroes journey.

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