Awakening Now

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What if the version of yourself you're trying to become is the very thing standing in the way?

In this conversation, Ilona speaks with Giotto De Filippi about enlightenment as realization rather than achievement. Giotto walks through the beliefs that quietly run our lives, the idea that things should have gone differently, the sense of being in control, the identity we build and defend, and what it looks like to stop taking those stories as absolute truth.

They talk about the difference between spiritual practice done to feel more special and the kind of honest seeing that actually loosens those stories. Giotto also shares why he considers the spiritual ego trap one of the hardest to escape, since there's rarely a single event that breaks it open.

This episode is for anyone who has sensed that awakening isn't about becoming a better version of themselves, but about questioning what they've been calling true all along.

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Music by Valdi Sabev. In loving memory and gratitude for the music he shared.

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http://liberationunleashed.com

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What happens when someone who spent years questioning everything stops arguing and starts listening.

In this episode, I sit down with Sam Kukathas, a former academic philosopher who spent over a decade as a skeptic before finding he could work with the human voice as a kind of frequency, bringing people back into their own body and their own knowing. When I ask him what he actually does, he stops explaining and offers to show me instead.

We talk about readiness, about the difference between searching for something outside yourself and remembering what's already here, and about what happened the day a voice moved through him that he hadn't expected and couldn't fully explain. Sam also leads a short experience during our conversation, so it's worth finding a quiet moment to listen.

If you've ever sensed that the teacher, the method, or the next insight isn't where the answer lives, this conversation may land somewhere familiar.

About the Guest:
Sam Kukathas is the creator of Neuro-Resonance Optimisation and the founder of Soul Purpose Leaders and Resonance OS. With a background in academic philosophy, his work explores the human voice as a frequency that can open us to who we already are. He was recently named one of the Top 5 Spirituality and Mindset Leaders Creating Extraordinary Impact by the High Impact Awards.

Find Sam:
Website: www.soulpurposeleaders.com
Resonance OS: www.resonanceos.io
Instagram: www.instagram.com/samkukathas

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If you want to explore this more deeply, I’ve put everything together here. You’re welcome to subscribe to my email list and be the first to know about the next round of Seeing Through the Separate Self Experience.
https://zcmp.eu/1XWa

Music by Valdi Sabev. In loving memory and gratitude for the music he shared.

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Websites
http://ilonaciunaite.com
http://liberationunleashed.com

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What happens when the person who taught you the most about awakening is also the one who needed you to stay small?

In this conversation with Nicole Wordlaw, we explore the difference between the awakening we imagine, permanent, painless, almost superhuman, and the one that actually happens, ongoing and fully human. Nicole speaks openly about a cage that formed in her mind long before she met her teacher, and how that same cage was later reflected back to her inside a devoted spiritual relationship. We talk about rest as an unexpected teacher, the quiet work of giving herself permission, and what it means to stop looking for a final arrival.

About the Guest

Nicole Wordlaw is an African American clinical psychologist, longtime meditator in the Buddhist tradition, spirited coach, and the author of Waking Up Alone, Navigating the Narrow Passage Through Master-Slave Narratives. Her training at Stanford University and the University of California at Berkeley honed her thinking mind. But the wisdom she needed did not come from a book, nor did it come from staying away from the difficult. The wisdom she needed arose from spirited practice, practices that illuminated the quiet, still voice that always sounds like Love. She lives with her two children and partner on the Indigenous lands of the Monacan people in Virginia.

Website: https://www.nicolewordlaw.com/ 

Substack: https://nicolewordlaw.substack.com/ 

Book Waking Up Alone: https://www.amazon.com/Waking-Alone-Navigating-Master-Slave-Narratives/dp/1591813735

Join my email list: https://zcmp.eu/1XWa

Music by Valdi Sabev. In loving memory and gratitude for the music he shared.

Support the show

Websites
http://ilonaciunaite.com
http://liberationunleashed.com

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There's a question the voice in your head has never been able to answer. Most of us have never actually asked it.

In this episode, the second part of a live Zoom meeting, I work directly with four people, each caught in a different version of the same voice. Shame that's become an identity. Guilt over other people's feelings. The quiet certainty of not being good enough. An inner critic that still feels completely real even when it's seen clearly. Each time, we ask the voice one simple question, and each time, something in it goes quiet.

These live meetings happen every third Thursday of the month, and everyone is welcome to join. Sign up to my newsletter to receive the link. 

If you want to explore this more deeply, I've put everything together here. You're welcome to subscribe to my email list and be the first to know about the next round of Seeing Through the Separate Self Experience. https://zcmp.eu/1XWa

Music by Valdi Sabev. In loving memory and gratitude for the music he shared.

Support the show

Websites
http://ilonaciunaite.com
http://liberationunleashed.com

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The voice in your head has been talking your whole life. But have you ever actually stopped and asked it who it's talking to?

In this live meeting, we look directly at the voice in the head, not as something to argue with or quiet down, but as something worth seeing clearly. We trace how it turns into the inner judge, why it can be so convincing, and where this pattern actually came from in the first place.

Rather than trying to fix what the voice says, this conversation points somewhere simpler: seeing it for what it is. Partway through, I bring in a question I use often in Deep Looking. Mind, are you at peace? It's simple, and it opens something.

If you've ever felt caught between believing this voice and hating yourself for believing it, I think this one will speak to you.

If you want to explore this more deeply, I've put everything together here. You're welcome to subscribe to my email list and be the first to know about the next round of Seeing Through the Separate Self Experience. https://zcmp.eu/1XWa

Music by Valdi Sabev. In loving memory and gratitude for the music he shared.

Support the show

Websites
http://ilonaciunaite.com
http://liberationunleashed.com

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Can awakening happen through relationship, or only in solitude? In this conversation, Guy Sengstock, founder of the Circling® Institute, makes the case for the former. For almost thirty years he's built a practice around real, unmanaged contact between two people, and he traces what happens when someone stops performing and actually lets themselves be met.

We talk about wonder as the root of his work, what it means to listen to someone's deepest humanity rather than just wait for your turn, and a line that stayed with me after we stopped recording: I find being a self a strange thing to be. Guy also shares the idea that you could sit with another person for a thousand years and still not get to the bottom of who they are. 

Guy shares the main principles of Circling®  and invites you to try it out through his website.

This episode marks three years of Awakening Now, and I want to thank you for being part of that, for listening, sharing, and writing in with what's landed for you.

If you've done real inward work and find yourself wondering whether it holds up under contact with another person, this conversation is for you.

About the Guest
Guy Sengstock is the founder of the Circling® Institute, a relational practice rooted in wonder, authentic presence, and deep listening that has been running for nearly 30 years. He teaches people how to meet each other and themselves with more honesty, curiosity, and genuine contact.

🔗 Self-study courses: https://circlinginstitute.com/self-study-programs/
🔗 Live courses: https://circlinginstitute.com/programs/
📧 Contact Guy directly: [email protected]

Music by Valdi Sabev. In loving memory and gratitude for the music he shared.

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Websites
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http://liberationunleashed.com

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What happens when the last illusion falls away, and it doesn't feel like peace?

In this conversation, Christiane Michelberger returns two years after her first appearance to talk about what actually happened when her final fetter fell away. Rather than the bliss she expected, she describes hours of disorientation, the sudden loss of a place to withdraw to when things got hard, before it resolved the next morning into something she calls relief.

We talk about the difference between direct pointing and direct experience as paths to seeing through illusion, why awakening doesn't mean the end of anger, fear, or being triggered, and why no teacher can transmit realization to another person. Christiane also shares a striking way of thinking about illusion itself, as a kind of hallucination, sensory experience without sensory input, and what it means to keep returning to what is actually here.

This one is for anyone who has had a glimpse and is quietly wondering what a fuller shift might cost.

Music by Valdi Sabev. In loving memory and gratitude for the music he shared.

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Websites
http://ilonaciunaite.com
http://liberationunleashed.com

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Something in you is looking for relief right now, whether you call it awakening, peace, or simply wanting to feel okay again. If that's where you are, you're welcome to join Deep Looking Immersion: [LINK]

What are you really looking for underneath the hope for awakening? This episode comes from a live meeting, opening with a short talk on where seeking actually begins, not curiosity, but suffering, and the quiet hope that once the self is seen through, everything difficult will finally stop.

From there, four real conversations unfold. Ben, George, Swen, and Tammy each bring something different to look at, an old assumption about awakening, a fear of feeling good, a belief that something is wrong with them, and each one is met directly, as it happens rather than talked about from a distance.

Music by Valdi Sabev. In loving memory and gratitude for the music he shared.

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Websites
http://ilonaciunaite.com
http://liberationunleashed.com

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Here's the Buzzsprout description for episode 133, in your voice, mentioning the live Zoom recording and the open invitation to join next time.

You can already understand that there is no separate self, clearly and without doubt, and still feel that nothing has changed. The understanding sits in the mind like a fact you have memorised, while life keeps arriving with the same fears, the same upsets, the same quiet sense that something still isn't right.

This episode is a recording of a live Zoom meeting, and it moves through three parts. It opens with a talk for the seeker who looked for the self, found nothing, and quietly decided that meant they had failed. We look at the expectation waiting underneath the search, and at what happens when you turn back toward the very nothing you keep dismissing.

From there I sit with a few people, and two of those exchanges stay with me. George is eighty-five and has understood for over ten years that there is no separate self, yet still wants to know how to get there. Together we look at how an upset is really an energy moving in the body, and how the me is a story that borrows its weight from the feeling underneath it. Then I speak with Sebastian, and we follow a lifelong guilt down into the body, into the shame beneath it, and into the young child who first learned it. This is where the looking becomes a kind of healing.

If you understand all of this clearly in the mind and still feel it hasn't quite landed in the body, this conversation may speak to where you actually are. These meetings happen live, and you are warmly welcome to join the next one. You can find the details and stay in touch here: https://zcmp.eu/1XWa

Music by Valdi Sabev. In loving memory and gratitude for the music he shared.

Support the show

Websites
http://ilonaciunaite.com
http://liberationunleashed.com

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There is a particular kind of loneliness in believing you are in here, and everything else is out there. Most of us carry that feeling for years without ever asking where it came from, or whether it was ever true.

In this episode of Awakening Now, I'm speaking with Sabina Witzel, a German awakening guide and author who has spent years supporting people through the awakening process. Early in our conversation, I ask Sabina what awakening actually means to her, and she offers something simple that stays with you: "awakening to me is like closing the gap."

Together, we spend real time in direct pointing and self-inquiry, searching for the actual line between inside and outside, self and world, the illusion of a separate self most of us never think to question. Sabina describes what she found when she looked closely: "there was no dividing line, there was just an idea, like inside, outside. There is no line in experience." Near the end, she says it even more plainly: "all of it is just an idea, all of it."

This conversation may speak to you if you've had a glimpse of this seeing but still feel the old sense of separation returning, or if you're drawn to nonduality and direct inquiry but want it explored simply, without unnecessary jargon.

You can find Sabina at www.sabina-witzel.com/en

Music by Valdi Sabev. In loving memory and gratitude for the music he shared.

Support the show

Websites
http://ilonaciunaite.com
http://liberationunleashed.com