Dead Hearts Club

In previous episodes, we've laid into a theme and massaged it from head to toe, but today with this sweet, short episode, we're giving you just a Dose of DHC: sharing real-time examples from our own lives of how we're doing life the DHC way, in the moment. We're also inviting you to share your own stories of DHC living with us, and for the first time, we're answering a listener question -- because ultimately, Dead Hearts Club is about the ways our vulnerability creates connection, when it would be easier to just not do the hard thing, share the tender truth, and be seen in all that raw, unguarded glory.

Join us -- and then connect with us on Instagram @deadhearts.club, or send us an email at [email protected] to share your experiences of living the DHC way. We want to know how you're taking these conversations into your own lives, and maybe more than that, how you're stepping into the ring with your own vulnerable heart. We'd love to hear from you.

Listen and subscibe to Dead Hearts Club on Apple podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher. Leave us a review and help new listeners find us! 

We’re back with Season 2 of Dead Hearts Club, and we’re talking soulmates, love and attachment as the three-piece suite of our hearts. We’re getting into the lived human experience of soul connections in this episode, and I offer up some of what I’ve personally seen and experienced with some of my clients when they contact their soulmates or soul group during spiritual regression — which puts a bit of an esoteric spin on things… and it gets interesting, you guys.

In this episode, we’re upending some of the more commonly-accepted definitions of soulmates — especially in the context of a rom-com culture that tells us how soul connections should behave — because sometimes, love for and attachment to those people can really stir the pot in some confusing ways.

We also explore feeling soul-connected to places, and how those same fire-in-the-belly impulses can lead us into discovery about what we care about and how to listen, empathize and act according to our soul’s directives, and how this inner life force can speak to our calling or purpose, and how to be responsible, compassionate stewards of these human lives.

+ Sungai Watch and land stewardship on Bali

Listen and subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher. Help us get Dead Hearts Club into the earholes of more amazing humans! Give us 90 of your seconds and leave us a review, and come over and join us on Instagram @deadhearts.club.

Surpriiiiise! This is our last episode of Season 1, and we’re rounding it out with a conversation about real-time, embodied emotional presence, and how we intentionally honor Self and Other — without self-sacrificing — when the lines that run between our hearts and the ones we love get blurry. We’re talking about the vulnerability that rushes to the forefront when strong emotion is present, and how we create a healthy adult egoic experience in relating with others. Can we notice our patterns of opening and closing, revealing and self-protecting, even when the moment — or the ones around us — seem to be asking for something different…?

At its core, this episode is about the bedrock Dead Hearts Club was founded on: challenging ourselves to stay so heart open that you kinda feel like you’re gonna die — and doing it in a way that holds impeccable individual (and group) boundaries, taking a sh*t ton of personal responsibility, and allowing ourselves to be held in our unscripted, wildly unpredictable humanity and hearts. Bria is sharing a recent experience on a trip with a group of friends where she found herself asking, “What would the DHC way of doing this be?”

What I really loved about this conversation was the way we were able to slow the pace and access the body-wisdom that it so unbelievably central to our personal practice of DHC, and how this embodied way of consistently revealing our hearts is the vulnerability-in-action guiding our whole process here on this podcast.

And then we wrap up the episode (and the season) with some bone-deep, love-drenched (classic Morgan and Bria) reflection on what’s changed for us since Dead Hearts Club began.

To our lady-listeners of Dead Hearts Club (and all those who identify as female), we wanna hang out with you. I (Morgan) am offering a class called Feminine Body Drop next week, on Wednesday, February 24th that is all about connecting to the very thing we’re always talking about here on the podcast: our hearts, our bodies, intuition, and trust. Join me in exploring feminine sensual movement as an intuitive pleasure practice, and get a chance to connect with other women (because damn, you guys, we really need connection right now). You can find out more and access the link to register (and join my Women’s Embodiment and Healing group) HERE. Tickets are just $15. I’d LOVE so much to see you there.

Listen and subscibe to Dead Hearts Club on Apple podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher, and be sure to leave us a review! We love knowing DHC is reaching your hearts. You can also DM us on Instagram @deadhearts.club, or send us a good ol’ fashioned email ([email protected]) or click CONTACT.

Since lockdown began almost a year ago, many of us have come face to face with lots of time to be with ourselves, and the isolation of that has asked us to contact our emotional landscape without much distraction in a really intense way. What emerged, I thin, was an invitation, and (for me) a pretty significant inquiry into the nature of how we hide from ourselves, and how intentionally practicing emotional sobriety might inform how we show up in intimate relationship — specifically with ourselves.

This conversation will mean something to anyone who’s ever had the experience of shutting down — however unintentionally — their feeling function out of fear that what you feel is too big for you to hold, witness or heal. In this episode, Jessamyn Turgesen and I speak intimately — knee to knee on my couch in Southern California, with the sounds of life orchestrating around us — about this most tender, intricate web of human emotion and healing.

Jessamyn is a trauma-informed, body based healing facilitator using her training in massage and somatic therapies to assist clients in their healing & recovery journeys. She’s literally the perfect person to have this conversation with. Jessamyn and I talk about how we reconfigure our lives after loss, and the very real biological threat of grief as it often tells us, “If you feel all of this pain, you may not survive.”

In this episode, we redefine “safety” from a trauma-informed lens, and get raw about how shame occupies the space where our inner agency might otherwise call us forward when we are in deep, primal suffering. We’re talking about how the wisdom of our bodies can communicate what we need to midwife ourselves through the birthing of who we might be beneath our habits of hiding.

Jessamyn trained as a birth doula as well as a death/grief doula which has informed her capacity to be “with” humans in spaces of high transition. She is a poet, writer and photographer. These skill sets play a significant role in how she shows up with and moves in the world. As certified transformational life coach, she focuses on the work of self-intimacy as a powerful tool of transformation and growth. To get connected with more of her work and writing, you can find Jessamyn on Instagram at instagram.com/jessamynsara and her website jessamynsara.com.

You can also join Morgan's free video series on Emotional Sobriety and watch past videos by subscribing here.

+ The Focalizing Practitioner Training both Jessamyn and Morgan just began. + Jessamyn and Morgan’s mutual friend (and future DHC guest) Jeannette LeBlanc. + Rumi’s poem, The Guesthouse. + Gabor Maté and his work with addiction.

Listen and subscibe to Dead Hearts Club on Apple podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher. Leave us a review or shoot us a message about the episodes that impact you. You can DM us on Instagram @deadhearts.club, or send us a good ol’ fashioned email ([email protected]) or click CONTACT.

As I sat down to think about how to introduce this episode on intuition, I drew a little bit of a blank. I think it's because, as vulnerable as it is to look for what intuition feels like for ourselves, and learning to trust ourselves enough to follow its directives, there's no way to talk about intuition in prescriptive terms.

What is intuition anyway? A feeling? A sense? A knowing? All of it and none of it? Why is it even of any significance at all? As we meander through the kaleidoscope of life, we're dancing with fleeting nudges or guidance that intends to illuminate our path. Whether or not we listen is the name of the game. In this week's episode, Bria and I share a few intimate stories of how our intuition has led us into both the unforeseeable magic AND the “I had a feeling I shouldn’t have” messes that we’ve all face-palmed ourselves to after the fact. We talk about the “feather, brick, bus” affect and how we get to explore what choice looks like when it comes to sensing and being guided. 

Intuition is, for many of us, an ephemeral thing. It speaks to us in a language only we understand, and its gifts are the hidden jewels of our lives -- guiding us toward or away from experiences and people that can alter the entire trajectory of our journey.

Listen and subscibe on Apple podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher. We loooooove your reviews! Take 90 seconds to leave us one, or shoot us a message about the episodes that impact you. We’ll share your stories and messages that kill us in a good way. DM us on Instagram @deadhearts.club, or send us a good ol’ fashioned email ([email protected]) or click CONTACT.

Is it possible to be in a co-dependent relationship with healing? How about a self-destructive relationship with "transformation"? If you sometimes find yourself poking around inside yourself, in search of the next thing to "fix," this episode is for you.

This week, we're talking about the sneaky ways spiritual self-help can convince us that there is a finish line -- and the endless pursuit of something other than what (and where) we are. We're talking about Presence, being with what arises as the ultimate teacher and guide, and the importance of time to integrate after a cycle of healing. Bria shares her ongoing healing with Lyme disease and burnout recovery, and a surprising nuance that showed up for her in her own work with her coach recently.

We're talking about being with emotion vs intellectually processing our feelings, honoring and working with the 3 stages of transition referenced in The Wisdom of Anxiety, and how self-judgement inevitably manifests anxiety. We're getting honest about healing elitism and judgement of people who aren't "doing the work," and what it might mean about our own projections and judgements... of ourselves. 

In this episode, we are deep in the curiosity about the difference between willingness and capacity, and which has the power to blow our hearts wide open.

+ Stranger Than Fiction with Will Ferrell, and trying to figure out who (or what) is driving the plot of our lives + The Wisdom of Anxiety book + Charles Eistenstein's article, "The Space Between Stories" + Callback to Episode 1 and how the man nicknamed Dragonfly recalibrated Bria's experience of what a "consciousness man" feels like, as well as Episode 7 called This Is Healing + The movie Just Friends and The Hero's Journey

As we plan which topics to bring you each week, we do a little something we call Heart Storm: we get together, we hash it out, talk for a long-ass time, and out of that, a theme emerges. And this week, we realized how often we reference “DHC” as a way of living — but if you’re just tuning in, you might be wondering what that means. We wanted to give you a real-time look into how DHC has become a verb, and what it looks like as we do the vulnerability dance as humans without a plan. This week, Bria and I sit down and just hit record — no theme, no topic, just two girls, two mics and (as you’ll discover), one very prominent camel toe.

We realized that as we plot out these conversations around the theme of vulnerability, we could literally take you ANYWHERE. And in this episode, we do. While recording, one of us sends the other a steamy screen shot of a text exchange that spurred a conversation about need, we deep-dive the difference between need and want, and how to honor our deepest desires both alone and in partnership. We talk de-shaming female sexual desire (without the implication of monogamous relationship), and in this episode more than any other, we wanted to let you in on what it’s like when we sit down as friends, and no agenda — because life isn’t a theme party. And we’re here for all of it.

+ A comprehensive list of the books we’re currently reading right now, including Bria’s: Gene Keys; The Radiance Sutras; Trump In A Post-Truth World. And Morgan’s current reads: American Spy; The Silent Patient; Emotional Sobriety; Love and Awakening; The Promise of Energy Psychology + Jockey thighs and Mail Order Bride catalogues + Honesty and integrity in relating, going theme-less for this episode, and staying present for whatever arises + Morgan’s recent trip to Phoenix and the questions that arose around what DHC means and what it takes for people to change + Morgan’s new Many Moons day planner and intentions around the recent New Moon + The Why Beneath the Why and Bria’s experience coaching clients through to Core Desired Feelings + The difference between a want and a need, deep-diving our personal experience and relationship with them, and John Wineland‘s statement that “needs are enlightened desires” + Bria takes us through an exploration of what had her feeling “spirited” at the start of the episode, we nickname her most recent romantic interest, and explore sexual relationship as facilitating healing + A call-back to Episode 2 as we explore the ways we co-create the fulfillment of needs with one another

Listen and subscibe on Apple podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher. Leave us a review or shoot us a message about the episodes that impact you. We’ll share your stories and messages that kill us in a good way. DM us on Instagram @deadhearts.club, or send us a good ol’ fashioned email ([email protected]) or click CONTACT.

One of the best things about rollin’ around in this DHC landscape is the fact that Bria and I have a really joyful, playful relationship. So we started thinking about the role PLAY has in the practice of vulnerability. Because, as we discuss in this episode, play isn’t easy for everyone. It’s not at all uncommon to feel confronted by how difficult it can be to access these more radiant aspects of self-belonging and self-expression. Self-consciousness and fear of being judged or shut down is a real thing — and plenty of us have had the experience of it not being safe to be our own version of playful, goofy and curious.

In this episode, we’re talking about what bridges we’ve built from self-consciousness into a more open kind of self-expression, how it’s a constantly-evolving process, and how play shows up in our individual lives. This is a thoughtful exploration of how levity and joy might actually be our innate, foundational state of being — and how our inner Wounded Child can help us access our inner Wonder Child — that part of us that is authentic, creative, trusting and spontaneous.

+ The hilarious game Bria and I played one night that had us in stitches + The new Disney movie, Soul, and how personalities / dispositions are assigned + Bria and her #100daysofplay experiment + A call to our listeners to tell us your stories of play and how you relate with it

Listen and subscibe on Apple podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher. We loooooove your reviews! Take 90 seconds to leave us one, or shoot us a message about the episodes that impact you. We’ll share your stories and messages that kill us in a good way. DM us on Instagram @deadhearts.club, or send us a good ol’ fashioned email ([email protected]) or click CONTACT.

Here are some words by Scott Stabile that I came across recently:

And then my sorrow whispered to me… I am not here to crush you. I have not come for your hope. I only want you to feel the deep pain of our world so that you will love everyone in it that much more.

So, can we all just agree that it's time to give "love and light" a flaming viking funeral farewell, and be done with the spiritual bypass...? If nothing else, 2020 taught us that we can't bypass ANYTHING if we're going to actually heal.

So what is healing? As Bria and I roam around in our spiritual and emotional arsenals to bring you these episodes, we dip into some pretty existential waters reveling in what Dead Hearts Club is actually about -- and not all of it makes the cut in our episodes. 

But recently, we were talking about our own journeys through real-time healing, and realized that how we each approach the healing process as individuals informs basically everything we do and are creating in our personal lives -- and in the land of DHC.

In this episode, we explore the question: Who Are We Really? How do we feel that core essence of Self without bypassing all the human reality? And when that buts up against some combination of trauma and story, labels and narrative…? How do you know which is the most reliable captain for your healing ship at any given time? What version of ourselves are we reaching for as our personal definition of "healing"? Who (or what) in us carries us toward an experience of healing that tells healing is taking root?

This is an emotional, very personal episode, as we invited one of my clients to share with us her experience and story, and we explore the labels of "mental illness," depression, and the reality of the kind of pain that makes you want to disappear into it. There is a bit of a trigger warning, here, and we also want you to know how vital not hiding from these topics is to us, because being in the middle of healing -- which is where we all are, in some shape or form -- is honest. 

It's a dance between our dirty, gritty, wounded, beautiful human lives, and the aspect of us all that is intrinsically…. whole. It's an agreement to not stand divided against ourselves.

+ John Welwood, his book Love and Awakening and the term 'spiritual bypass' + Carolyn Myss' book Anatomy of the Spirit and the concept of Woundology + Brené Brown and how you can't selectively repress emotions + Embody Dance by Nadia Munla + Somatic Experiencing founded by Peter Levine + Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness, by David Treleaven + Nick Werber and his work with Family Constellations and Focalizing for working somatically + Bria's powerful experience with Network Spinal Analysis + Morgan's work as a transpersonal hypnotherapist (thanks Bria and Laura!) which you can find more about here and here, and also Morgan's personal Instagram, and as mentioned in the outro, the link to subscribe to Morgan's daily(ish) video series, Emotional Sobriety

Listen and subscibe on Apple podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher, and carve out a few minutes to leave us a review. We love hearing from you!

“If you took astrology, I-ching, Kabbalah, and the chakra system, and pulled the threads of those together, that’s what Human Design is,” said Andrea Berg, when we interviewed her for this episode of Dead Hearts Club.

Andrea is a Leadership Coach, Teacher and Speaker that sparks transformation through Human Design and her 7 Life Elements. She teaches high achievers to become intentional and confident. Andrea says that your ability to follow your inner compass is directly related to how deeply you know yourself. This process provides incredible clarity and loosens the chains of toxic capitalism, white supremacy, and the patriarchy so that you can be your true self confidently and step into your unique ability to help create a world where we all thrive.

I think it’s really important — always, but maybe especially now — that as the lid closes on the dumpster fire that has been 2020, we find ways to honor ourselves, and honor the differences we encounter in other humans, and really consider what it is we’re contributing to the world, and do it in a way that’s authentic, embodied, and deeply respectful of the life force we’re each given to spend and create with in our lives. It’s the energy we create connection (or disconnection) with, and at the core of that, is the connection we’re nurturing with ourselves.

I think you’re really gonna love this exploration of Human Design, if you’re new to it (like I am), you may find yourself feeling validated in ways that really touch you — and if you’re already familiar with Human Design, Andrea will illuminate some of richer components of this system and its implications about what true self-acceptance might look like.

We had a lot of fun recording this episode — and then we got a real-time example of how splenic intuition drops some truth-bombs, as the conversation took a weird, totally relevant turn. 

It’s a good pull up your design at My Human Design before listening so you can follow along and hopefully get even more out of the episode.

+ Our experiences with various typologies, including Enneagram, Myers-Briggs, Strengthfinders 2.0 and Astrology. + Deep-dive into Generators, Manifesting Generators, and the ways Bria and I co-create based on our designs. + Portland Astrology School. + Human Design teacher, Jess Fields. + A call-back to Episode 5 where we talk about inner resource, and how Human Design connects us to how we are naturally called to participate with life. + How to find your design at Jenna Zoé’s new website. + Andrea’s free 3-day Better Human course and ways to book a reading with her.

You can listen and subscibe on Apple podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher. Have you read our reviews? THEY ARE AMAZING! Shoot us a message about the episodes that impact you and we’ll share your stories and messages in future episodes. You can DM us on Instagram @deadhearts.club, or send us a good ol’ fashioned email ([email protected]) or CONTACT.