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Aliveness: Technology, love, money, sex, soul, governance
Aliveness: Technology, love, money, sex, soul, governance episodes
- Connecting to the Love that Creates Inner Richness with Heather Vesey
How can we not only become okay with suffering but welcome it, love it, and appreciate it?
That’s the question that unfolds in this episode with Heather Vesey, a Wisdom Mentor.
Through this emotional and profound conversation, you’ll receive a beautiful call to cultivate your relationship with the Divine and with love itself.
Alison has been supported through Heather’s Wisdom Mentorship since the summer of 2022 and invited Heather to share this wisdom with you in this episode.
“What is your way of relating to the divine inside you? It's a relationship. It's a companion. It's an intimacy. It's knowing that presence, that love that we can just not put words to is there and is yours. It’s with you and for you and in you and ahead of you and behind you and around you. Express your love to that divineness and receive it back.”
CONNECT WITH HEATHER
Heather has always had an interest and a sense of home within the Christian Wisdom tradition. She grew up in the Indian Himalayas, where her father was a doctor, specializing in community health care. These were profoundly formative years for Heather, where her Christian faith was nurtured and where she also developed and absorbed a deep appreciation of other religious traditions and cultures.
After completing her secondary education in the UK, she worked with street kids in Bolivia and Peru, and then in Nursing and Social Work. She soon realized, however, that her deeper heart was in more directly accompanying others in their spiritual Unfolding.
In 2014 she moved to Colorado with her husband Nicholas, and their kids Sam and Jessica (now 19 and 17), to work at the Aspen Chapel, where she is “Director of Contemplative Work.” She divides her time between leading services and small groups there, and doing her own one-on-one “Wisdom mentoring,” a form of spiritual direction and accompaniment. This is her main focus and joy – deeply listening and accompanying people who want to live more fully into their own authenticity and relationship with the Divine.
Join Heather for meditation and contemplative services.
You can contact Heather directly at [email protected]
RESOURCES MENTIONED
• An Interrupted Life by Etty Hillesum
• Christian Meditation by James Finley
• Bill Redfield
JOIN THE EMAIL LIST TO RECEIVE NON-OBVIOUS THINKING ABOUT PERSONAL GROWTH
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HOW TO MICRODOSE FOR TRANSFORMATION GUIDE
APPLY FOR EXPAND TO STEP FULLY INTO THE LIFE YOU DESIRE
If you are ready to step fully into what you are here to do and live every day with the kind of magic you know is possible, apply for Expand.
Expand is an intimate three-month online community experience that supports you through one full microdosing cycle combined with deep mental, emotional and somatic work so that you can fully step into your life in every way you desire.
Learn more and apply at Learn More and Apply for Expand
CONNECT WITH ALISON
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Mentioned in this episode:
Join Write Together November 2025
41 min - What Type of Healing or Therapy is Right for You?
There are so many healing practices and therapy modalities that can support you with on your healing journey, so how do you choose what type of healing and therapy is right for you?
In this episode, Alison shares both her perspective from her personal experience as well as research that highlights the most important consideration when choosing who to work with and why it matters so much on your healing journey.
This insight will help you tune into your own intuition to guide you toward who and what will be most supportive for you right now.
“All of us have a place at which we can't hold what's happening anymore. We may not show it, but you can feel it. What you're looking for in somebody that you work with is a feeling that you can open all the way, as far as you want to open.”JOIN THE EMAIL LIST TO RECEIVE NON-OBVIOUS THINKING ABOUT PERSONAL GROWTH
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HOW TO MICRODOSE FOR TRANSFORMATION GUIDE
APPLY FOR EXPAND TO STEP FULLY INTO THE LIFE YOU DESIRE
If you are ready to step fully into what you are here to do and live every day with the kind of magic you know is possible, apply for Expand.
Expand is an intimate three-month online community experience that supports you through one full microdosing cycle combined with deep mental, emotional and somatic work so that you can fully step into your life in every way you desire.
Learn more and apply at Learn More and Apply for Expand
CONNECT WITH ALISON
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11 min - The Third Stage of Healing
This is a follow-up to episode 16, “The Two Stages of Healing.” If you haven’t already tuned into that episode, start there and then come back to this episode.
This episode is filled with insight that will shape your understanding and open your mind on the deep work that needs to happen to change our state of being in the world.
Here, Alison explores what the third stage of healing is, how you can identify where you’re at in different areas of your life as a way to expand your awareness of what’s possible, and a few ways you can support yourself with moving through to the third stage.
She also offers two refinements to what she’s shared thus far on the stages of healing that provide a layer of nuance to support you with how you think about these stages in your own life and healing work.
“In stage three, we definitely have desires for the future and at the same time we know that our faithfulness to the present moment is the only thing that's relevant. We know in our bones that the outcomes are not up to us, and the only thing that's up to us is the moment-by-moment choosing to be present to elevate our being by inhabiting our body and our hearts.”JOIN THE EMAIL LIST TO RECEIVE NON-OBVIOUS THINKING ABOUT PERSONAL GROWTH
Sign Up for Alison's Email List
HOW TO MICRODOSE FOR TRANSFORMATION GUIDE
APPLY FOR EXPAND TO STEP FULLY INTO THE LIFE YOU DESIRE
If you are ready to step fully into what you are here to do and live every day with the kind of magic you know is possible, apply for Expand.
Expand is an intimate three-month online community experience that supports you through one full microdosing cycle combined with deep mental, emotional and somatic work so that you can fully step into your life in every way you desire.
Learn more and apply at Learn More and Apply for Expand
CONNECT WITH ALISON
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Mentioned in this episode:
Sign Up for Alison's Email List
30 min - What Does It Look Like to Thrive in all 5 Aspects of Your Health?
What does it look like to thrive in all five aspects of your health — physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, and sexual?
This episode is intended to serve as a North Star on your healing journey. Alison shares a few of the most important qualities we’re working toward embodying in order to thrive in each of these aspects.
Sharing what a healthy state of each of these five aspects might look and feel like gives you an understanding of where you are currently with each and where you may desire to focus in your healing and growth.
And a reminder — it’s important not to judge or criticize yourself for wherever you may currently be, but rather use this as understanding and inspiration for where you’re able to go.
“On a cultural level, on a societal level, moment by moment, am I able to be true to myself?How often am I pushed out of myself into a more traumatized state where I'm not acting from presence? The more of this work we do and the more connection we have to our physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, and sexual selves, the less we're knocked around by life.”JOIN THE EMAIL LIST TO RECEIVE NON-OBVIOUS THINKING ABOUT PERSONAL GROWTH
Sign Up for Alison's Email List
HOW TO MICRODOSE FOR TRANSFORMATION GUIDE
APPLY FOR EXPAND TO STEP FULLY INTO THE LIFE YOU DESIRE
If you are ready to step fully into what you are here to do and live every day with the kind of magic you know is possible, apply for Expand.
Expand is an intimate three-month online community experience that supports you through one full microdosing cycle combined with deep mental, emotional and somatic work so that you can fully step into your life in every way you desire.
Learn more and apply at Learn More and Apply for Expand
CONNECT WITH ALISON
Website
LinkedIn
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YouTube
Mentioned in this episode:
Sign Up for Alison's Email List
24 min - Anxiety is the Tension Between Our True and False Self
Anxiety is a multi-layered phenomenon. It’s also overdetermined — many different experiences and combinations of experiences can be labeled anxiety.
One aspect of anxiety is the relationship between how we are living our life and our true feelings.
This could look like trying to keep a parent or employer happy or being in a relationship that isn't working for you.
Living in this state of nonalignment in one or more areas of your life can provoke anxiety. The anxiety sits on top of the true feelings which, if felt fully, would demand massive action on our own behalf.
In this episode, I dig deeper into this aspect of anxiety and I share how you can begin to work with experiences of anxiety to heal your trauma and come back to your true self.
“We have our natural sufficient life force energy — our true self — and through different traumatic experiences, whether it's messages such as “settle down and be good” or big traumas that happen in our lives, we come to not be present with ourselves. We tamp down our energy, we dissociate, we numb out, and we do whatever we need to do to not be present, which means we're not being true to ourselves.”
SIGN UP FOR THE GROWING THROUGH ANXIETY AUDIO COURSE
Growing Through Anxiety is a 28-day audio program offering structured support so you can connect to yourself — what you think, what you feel, who you are.
Sign Up for the Growing Through Anxiety Audio Course
JOIN THE EMAIL LIST TO RECEIVE NON-OBVIOUS THINKING ABOUT PERSONAL GROWTH
Sign Up for Alison's Email List
HOW TO MICRODOSE FOR TRANSFORMATION GUIDE
APPLY FOR EXPAND TO STEP FULLY INTO THE LIFE YOU DESIRE
If you are ready to step fully into what you are here to do and live every day with the kind of magic you know is possible, apply for Expand.
Expand is an intimate three-month online community experience that supports you through one full microdosing cycle combined with deep mental, emotional and somatic work so that you can fully step into your life in every way you desire.
Learn more and apply at Learn More and Apply for Expand
CONNECT WITH ALISON
Website
LinkedIn
Instagram
YouTube
Mentioned in this episode:
Sign Up for the Growing Through Anxiety Audio Course
23 min - Working with Triggers to Heal Trauma and Shift into Presence
Last year, I flew to Hawaii to attend a retreat with Eckhart Tolle.
The entire time, I kept getting these signs that I was out of the zone of tolerance. I was triggered again and again in major ways that I hadn’t experienced in years, despite turning to my tools and practices to bring myself back to presence.
I’m sharing my experience with you here so you can witness the value of recognizing your triggers and facing them head-on, even when it can be incredibly uncomfortable.
I share how my practices gave me the self-awareness and compassion I needed to notice when I was out of my zone of tolerance, how I created an intense release of emotion to release the trigger, and the effect this work had on my ability to remain present in my life.
My wish for sharing this experience is that you can see there’s always a juicer, stronger layer for you to step into if you continuously practice the work.
“When we get triggered by things that happen, it's a gift because we have the chance to let those emotions out all the way through… that energy that was stored that was keeping me from being present is released and I'm connected to who I really am.”SIGN UP FOR THE GROWING THROUGH ANXIETY AUDIO COURSE
Growing Through Anxiety is a 28-day audio program offering structured support so you can connect to yourself — what you think, what you feel, who you are.
Sign Up for the Growing Through Anxiety Audio Course
JOIN THE EMAIL LIST TO RECEIVE NON-OBVIOUS THINKING ABOUT PERSONAL GROWTH
Sign Up for Alison's Email List
HOW TO MICRODOSE FOR TRANSFORMATION GUIDE
APPLY FOR EXPAND TO STEP FULLY INTO THE LIFE YOU DESIRE
If you are ready to step fully into what you are here to do and live every day with the kind of magic you know is possible, apply for Expand.
Expand is an intimate three-month online community experience that supports you through one full microdosing cycle combined with deep mental, emotional and somatic work so that you can fully step into your life in every way you desire.
Learn more and apply at Learn More and Apply for Expand
CONNECT WITH ALISON
Website
LinkedIn
Instagram
YouTube
Mentioned in this episode:
Sign Up for the Growing Through Anxiety Audio Course
30 min - Leaning Into What’s “Juicy” to Make Life Easier
Building our capacity for juice and pleasure is a central part of healing.
It breaks apart the conditioning that life is hard, that we have to push, and that we have to obey.
None of those things are juicy.
When we’re leaning into what’s juicy, we’re ultimately moving towards a life of overflow that comes from touching the heart of love and life force energy.
In this episode, I’m sharing what juicy is, why it’s such a prominent aspect of my work and how we change, and how you can find the juice in your life today.
“Juicy is continually unlocking energy that's been tamped down by closed thinking and conditioning. It can have fear and discomfort, but it's sparky.”
JOIN THE EMAIL LIST TO RECEIVE NON-OBVIOUS THINKING ABOUT PERSONAL GROWTH
Sign Up for Alison's Email List
HOW TO MICRODOSE FOR TRANSFORMATION GUIDE
APPLY FOR EXPAND TO STEP FULLY INTO THE LIFE YOU DESIRE
If you are ready to step fully into what you are here to do and live every day with the kind of magic you know is possible, apply for Expand.
Expand is an intimate three-month online community experience that supports you through one full microdosing cycle combined with deep mental, emotional and somatic work so that you can fully step into your life in every way you desire.
Learn more and apply at Learn More and Apply for Expand
CONNECT WITH ALISON
Website
LinkedIn
Instagram
YouTube
Mentioned in this episode:
Sign Up for Alison's Email List
15 min - How Somatic Healing Works With Psilocybin
Somatic healing supports you in releasing imprints, patterns, and memories that have been stored in your body.
Oftentimes, these are memories that we may not even be aware of but are influencing how we’re showing up in the world.
Here I’m sharing how somatic healing works with psilocybin so you can better understand how you can meet the medicine to accelerate the healing process of this stored trauma in our bodies in service of your intention.
“This is how somatic healing works. It's allowing ourselves to have experiences that require us to relax and breathe. It may require the accompaniment of another person for a while to really feel safe and to have help in tracking it, and to allow that sensation to move and to open and go, ‘Okay. I’m okay.’”JOIN THE EMAIL LIST TO RECEIVE NON-OBVIOUS THINKING ABOUT PERSONAL GROWTH
Sign Up for Alison's Email List
HOW TO MICRODOSE FOR TRANSFORMATION GUIDE
Receive the Transformational Microdosing Guide
APPLY FOR EXPAND TO STEP FULLY INTO THE LIFE YOU DESIRE
If you are ready to step fully into what you are here to do and live every day with the kind of magic you know is possible, apply for Expand.
Expand is an intimate three-month online community experience that supports you through one full microdosing cycle combined with deep mental, emotional and somatic work so that you can fully step into your life in every way you desire.
Learn more and apply at Learn More and Apply for Expand
CONNECT WITH ALISON
Website
LinkedIn
Instagram
YouTube
Mentioned in this episode:
Receive the Transformational Microdosing Guide
15 min - 18: The Breakthrough with Alyssa: I'm Safe. I'm Thriving.
When Alyssa started working with me, she had been on anxiety medication for a year and knew that while it was a supportive tool to get her through a challenging year, it was a bandaid and she wanted a solution.
She described it like she was in a tsunami of emotion that she couldn’t swim away from any long: “Who am I? Where am I? Why is life like this? I can't manage.”
Throughout her year of intentional work with herself and the medicine, she stepped into a grounded, whole, and in safer physical, mental, and spiritual space.
Alyssa shares so many insights for those of you who are curious about this type of work, especially inner work supported by sacred medicine.
She touches on what made her feel safe, how to approach medicine work, how even though her transformation was massive and fast, it didn’t feel like a lot and why it likely won’t feel overwhelming for you either, plus how you can navigate doing this work when others in your life aren’t.
Alyssa committed to exploring herself and her inner work through both Expand and two rounds of Empower in 2022.
“Working with the medicine is kind of like having a magic wand. I say this because it's not magic, but you have a wand. With the wand, you can sit there looking at it, but until you actually activate and interact with and figure out how to utilize the wand, it doesn't do as much as it could for you.”JOIN THE EMAIL LIST TO RECEIVE NON-OBVIOUS THINKING ABOUT PERSONAL GROWTH
Sign Up for Alison's Email List
HOW TO MICRODOSE FOR TRANSFORMATION GUIDE
Receive the Transformational Microdosing Guide
APPLY FOR EXPAND TO STEP FULLY INTO THE LIFE YOU DESIRE
If you are ready to step fully into what you are here to do and live every day with the kind of magic you know is possible, apply for Expand.
Expand is an intimate three-month online community experience that supports you through one full microdosing cycle combined with deep mental, emotional and somatic work so that you can fully step into your life in every way you desire.
Learn more and apply at Learn More and Apply for Expand
CONNECT WITH ALISON
Website
LinkedIn
Instagram
YouTube
Mentioned in this episode:
Learn More and Apply for Expand
41 min - 17: Working with Psychedelics to Heal Your Trauma
What keeps us from being present is the inability to experience the present fully. We experience the present when we feel emotions, experience physical sensations and are aware of what is happening.
When we are unable to be present we are in a traumatic reaction — a separation from our life force energy.
When we’re holding trauma, we can’t see that within ourselves.
Sacred medicine, along with other healing practices, supports us to see, feel, and embody what we weren’t able to before and thus to heal the traumatic reaction and come into presence.
In this episode, we’re exploring the ways medicine can support you in healing trauma, including trauma you may not be aware of that is holding you back from embodying your intention.
“Everything that's keeping you from the connection with yourself is being pulled away, layer by layer.”JOIN THE EMAIL LIST TO RECEIVE NON-OBVIOUS THINKING ABOUT PERSONAL GROWTH
Sign Up for Alison's Email List
HOW TO MICRODOSE FOR TRANSFORMATION GUIDE
APPLY FOR EXPAND TO STEP FULLY INTO THE LIFE YOU DESIRE
If you are ready to step fully into what you are here to do and live every day with the kind of magic you know is possible, apply for Expand.
Expand is an intimate three-month online community experience that supports you through one full microdosing cycle combined with deep mental, emotional and somatic work so that you can fully step into your life in every way you desire.
Learn more and apply at Learn More and Apply for Expand
CONNECT WITH ALISON
Website
LinkedIn
Instagram
YouTube
Mentioned in this episode:
Join Write Together November 2025
18 min
About Aliveness: Technology, love, money, sex, soul, governance
From the publisher's feed
The Aliveness Podcast explores how we live, love, and think in a changing world. Every weekday brings Session Notes from The World’s Therapist - a fictional series about the inner life of our time. Each week I share an essay and a conversation with someone else who is thoughtfully exploring how we live. Dry humour lives here. Marion Woodman coded.
The problems of our time are complex. Developing the inner capacity to withstand confusion and conflict in service of connection and growth is central to our collective thriving.
More than one thing can be true at once.
www.alisoncrosthwait.com
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