GRACEPILLED with Hanna Williams

JOIN ME FOR GRACE 102 ON OCTOBER 27TH AT 6PM MST
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Connect with me, Hanna, your host: 
Instagram: @grace.pilled
hannawilliams.com (bookings, conflict school, etc)
patreon.com/gracepilled
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What is the most worthwhile thing you can do with your entire life? My answer is simple: cultivate a spiritual disposition that can sustain you through everything life brings, from its greatest pleasures to its inevitable difficulties.

In this episode, I explore why making spirituality our primary consideration is not just a good idea, but a practical necessity for anyone who wants to live fully in a world defined by constant change. We examine the cultural obsession with youthfulness, productivity, and avoiding death, and how these attitudes can prevent us from developing a healthy relationship with the realities of human embodiment.

I also discuss the difference between relying on perishable things, like our bodies, material circumstances, and external supports, and cultivating something that can sustain us regardless of what happens. What does it mean to develop a spiritual disposition rooted in devotion, surrender, and perseverance? How can we learn to metabolize grief, struggle, and uncertainty rather than spending our lives trying to escape them?

But this isn't just a conversation about preparing for hardship or making peace with death. It's also about becoming more deeply available to the beauty of being alive. As we take the spiritual process more seriously, we become increasingly capable of finding joy in ordinary moments, deepening our relationships, and appreciating life exactly as it is.

Ultimately, this episode is an invitation to fall in love with the entire spiritual process, rather than constantly chasing its imagined rewards. To stop fighting against the present moment, make friends with the reality of change, and cultivate an approach to life that will serve you for the whole show, from the opening scene to the closing curtain.

Connect with me, Hanna, your host: 
Instagram: @grace.pilled
hannawilliams.com (bookings, conflict school, etc)
patreon.com/gracepilled
(join as a free member to listen to GRACE 101!)

In this episode, I’m talking about Saturn as the force in our lives that teaches us discipline, responsibility, delayed gratification, and ultimately, real satisfaction. Saturn gets a bad reputation because its lessons often arrive through limitation, pressure, hard work, and the things we would really rather avoid, but there’s another way to understand this energy: as the force that helps us build a life we can actually feel good about having lived.

I talk about my own Saturn return and the ways it completely reoriented my life, why instant gratification can keep us from discovering what we actually want and need, and why structure and discipline can ultimately create more freedom rather than less. We’ll also get into impulse control, the satisfaction of doing difficult things, the inconvenient things you know you need, and the responsibilities and dreams that will probably keep haunting you until you finally rise to meet them.

Toward the end, I also explore Saturn through the lens of karma yoga and selfless service, including a simple question to consider: what would it look like to do the necessary work no one wants to do, for people who cannot repay you, without seeking recognition?

Maybe Saturn isn’t here to punish you. Maybe Saturn is trying to help you get your shit together so you can actually live your life.

Connect with my guest, Fiona:
instagram.com/fionanodar
fionanodar.com

Connect with me, Hanna, your host: 
Art store: distantplanetdesign.etsy.com
Instagram: @grace.pilled
hannawilliams.com (bookings, conflict school, etc)
patreon.com/gracepilled
(join as a free member to get access to a collection of talks!)

What if tension isn’t a problem to solve, but an essential part of what makes us feel alive?

In this conversation, I’m joined by writer, mediator, and growth companion Fiona Nodar to explore tension as a spiritual, creative, and relational force. We talk about what happens when we stop organizing our lives around comfort and certainty and instead become more willing to meet the mystery, friction, and resistance inherent in being alive.

We explore tension as the place where we come into contact with reality: in conflict, creativity, sexuality, relationships, change, and the uncomfortable freedom of having choices. We talk about why avoiding tension doesn’t actually make it disappear, the relationship between tension and transformation, and what it might mean to develop a greater capacity for the unknown rather than constantly trying to resolve it.

Our conversation also wanders into love and projection, the humiliation of genuinely pursuing what we desire, free will versus determinism, duality and nonduality, and my perennial spiritual question: Can I have both? Ultimately, we consider the possibility that God may not only be found in moments of peace, unity, and transcendence—but in the charged space between opposing forces, where something new is always trying to emerge.

Connect with me, Hanna, your host: 
Instagram: @grace.pilled
hannawilliams.com (bookings, conflict school, etc)
patreon.com/gracepilled
(join as a free member to listen to GRACE 101!)

What does it actually take to stay on the spiritual path for the long haul? In this episode, we explore perseverance as one of the most essential, and perhaps least glamorous, ingredients of genuine spiritual transformation.

The path is not always filled with profound insights, mystical experiences, or obvious signs that something is working. Much of it is ordinary. You practice, you forget, you come back. You lose the thread and pick it up again. Sometimes nothing seems to be happening at all. And yet, this willingness to continue is precisely what allows the path to deepen over time.

Through reflections on devotion, discipline, death, liberation, and the long arc of spiritual practice, this episode explores what it means to keep choosing the path without demanding constant evidence that you are getting somewhere. Perseverance becomes less about forcing yourself forward and more about developing a relationship with practice that can survive boredom, difficulty, disappointment, and the inevitable seasons when your inspiration disappears.

Ultimately, the spiritual path may have much less to do with becoming a perfect practitioner and much more to do with becoming someone who simply keeps returning.

Connect with me, Hanna, your host: 

What does it mean to take responsibility for your inner state when the world gives you plenty of legitimate reasons to feel terrible? In this episode, I explore the spiritual assumption underneath the question, “How can I be happy when there’s so much suffering in the world?” and why I don’t believe our happiness is meant to be entirely dependent on external circumstances.

We get into the difference between actually processing difficult emotions and becoming committed to misery, why unresolved grief, resentment, and conflict are like a room full of crying babies making presence nearly impossible, and why tending to those feelings is part of learning to consciously shift your state. I also talk about the strange idea that our suffering somehow helps other people who are suffering, and make the case that choosing to enjoy your life, do meaningful work, love God, and become a little harder for the world to knock over might actually be a greater contribution to the collective than remaining perpetually disempowered by everything that’s wrong.

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In this Q&A episode, I’m answering your questions about fear, shame, rejection, victimhood, chronic illness, creativity, desire, manifestation, and what it actually means to work with the hand life deals you. We talk about becoming the author of your life, how fear can point you toward your highest potential, why you might not know the “lesson” of a difficult experience until years later, and how to let old parts of yourself stay at the table without letting them run the show.

I also get into the yoga of wanting things: pursuing what you desire, working to change your circumstances, and participating fully in your life without making your peace dependent on getting the outcome you wanted. We talk about accepting the reality of illness without giving up on improving it, making art as a devotional practice, the slippery slope of manifestation and reality creation, and remembering the difference between the side quests of this life and the main quest.

Here is the book list I shared:

Basically, this is an episode about how to want things, fear things, lose things, change things, and still keep your eye on the main quest.

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Kundalini has become one of the most sensationalized—and misunderstood—concepts in modern spirituality. In this episode, I share an essay exploring the classical tantric understanding of Kundalini as it has been taught in my lineage over the last eleven years. Rather than treating Kundalini as a rare energetic event or dramatic spiritual experience, we explore Her as the very power of Grace: the evolutionary force of consciousness that purifies the mind, awakens the heart, and ultimately reveals God.

Along the way, we discuss why Kundalini is synonymous with Grace and prana, the difference between chit kundalini and prana kundalini, why intense "kundalini experiences" are not necessarily signs of advanced spiritual development, and why surrender—not striving—is the essence of authentic Kundalini Yoga. We also examine the emotional side of spiritual purification, the role of a teacher, and how the deepest work of awakening often unfolds far more subtly than the internet would have you believe.

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What if the hardest conflict you'll ever face isn't with another person—but with yourself?

In this conversation, Monika Alanna and I explore the subtle ways we avoid truth in order to avoid conflict. We talk about self-betrayal, people-pleasing, desire, compromise, relationships, nervous system regulation, and why so many of us sacrifice our own authenticity in the pursuit of belonging, love, or peace.

Along the way, we ask questions like: What makes someone a good compromise partner? How do you know the difference between compromise and self-sacrifice? Why do the things we love most about someone often become the very things that frustrate us? And what happens when we finally stop trying to avoid conflict altogether?

More than anything, this episode is an invitation to rethink conflict. Conflict is not a sign that something has gone wrong. It is an inevitable and even transformative part of being alive. The goal isn't to eliminate conflict. The goal is to develop the skills, awareness, and courage to meet it well.

Whether you're navigating romantic relationships, friendships, family dynamics, or your own inner world, I hope this conversation leaves you feeling a little more equipped to tell the truth, stay present through discomfort, and choose relationships that make both people more free.

Connect with me, Hanna, your host:
CONFLICT SCHOOL STARTS JULY 28th 

What happens when a classical Tantrika sits down with someone who has spent years working in the world of Neo Tantra and erotic bodywork? In this conversation, we explore where these two worlds overlap, where they fundamentally diverge, and what questions they raise about intimacy, healing, spirituality, sex work, vulnerability, and the search for God. Rather than trying to arrive at definitive answers, this episode is an invitation into a thoughtful and curious exploration of one of the most misunderstood subjects in contemporary spirituality.

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What is Tantra, really?

In this episode, I sit down with David Yoss for an ambitious conversation: attempting to explain the vast world of classical Tantra in a single sitting. What began as a tongue-in-cheek challenge quickly became an exploration of just how difficult Tantra is to define. Far from being a single religion, philosophy, or practice, Tantra is a diverse family of traditions that has shaped Hinduism, Buddhism, ritual practice, yoga, mysticism, and devotional life across South Asia for over a thousand years.

Together, we explore some of the key themes that appear across Tantric traditions, while also discussing the historical and cultural forces that have shaped modern understandings (and misunderstandings) of Tantra in the West.

Topics include:

• Why scholars still struggle to agree on a single definition of Tantra

• The meaning of the word "Tantra" and its relationship to sacred texts and revelation

• Mantra as a living embodiment of divine power rather than a symbolic prayer

• Initiation, lineage, and the role of the guru in Tantric practice

• Ritual, puja, visualization, and worship in the "temple of the mind"

• The subtle body, chakras, nyasa, and the installation of mantras within the body

• Dualistic and nondual Tantric philosophies

• Why Tantra is often associated with transgression and what that actually means

• Left-handed and right-handed approaches to Tantric practice

• Siddhis, spiritual attainments, and the distinction between liberation and worldly goals

• The historical development of Tantra and its relationship to Hinduism and Buddhism

• How colonialism and Victorian attitudes toward sexuality influenced Western perceptions of Tantra

• The origins of Neo-Tantra and how it differs from classical Tantric traditions

Whether you're completely new to Tantra or have been practicing for years, this conversation offers a broad introduction to one of the most influential, misunderstood, and fascinating spiritual movements in human history.

Or at least our best attempt at explaining it in ninety minutes.