How Are You Doing, Really?

Today, Sam speaks with his friend Chong-hao Fu.

Join us as we talk to Chong-hao about his work, personal experiences during this time, and the hopes he has for a better world:

A national thought leader on teacher leadership and professional learning | Taking care of his mother as she underwent treatment for cancer | Living in a multi-generational household | How an attempt at suicide as a teenager led to his vocational calling in education | Reconnecting with his mom as adult | "So much of life involves healing yourself." | Actively working to undo the deep patterns in my life | Creating a way for teachers to feel whole to increase their capacities to help students | The impact of isolation on kids | Discussing mortality with family | Individuating himself within traditional Chinese culture| Interpersonal connections during this time | Finding little moments in the day to tune into the senses and be filled by gratitude | Working towards a new dominant narrative and socialization & collaboration of community | "You will be more you than you will ever realize in this moment" |

Thank you so much for sharing, Chong-hao! 

Chong-hao's Contact: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chong-hao-fu-a2566758/

Leading Educators: https://leadingeducators.org/

Today, Sam speaks with his friend Joseph Meador.

Join us as we talk to Joseph about some powerful ways to center ourselves and come back into the present moment:

There's no performance in the present moment; "it just is." | Conversation takes 100 percent of mindful activity on both sides. | I can observe or witness my thoughts, but I am not my thoughts. | I am, therefore, I can think. | Anxiety is a product of thinking about the future while depression is the product of thinking about the past. | When one comes to a realization that, "I am not the mind and I am not the body," renunciation is possible. | Learning to be patient, loving, and gentle with oneself is the first place to start for a healthier ego structure. | Learning to breathe | In Ayurveda there are 6 senses, the sixth being the mind. | In yoga, turn off the monkey mind chatter by reorienting with breath. | With practice we can exercise control over our minds and thought processes; the key is watching the breath. | Learning to live from the authenticity inside the heart. | In one's suffering, tremendous love and compassion can emerge. | "It is what it is," in this moment. | 

Thank you so much, Joseph! 

Today, Sam speaks with his friend Jude Harmon.

Join us as we talk about Jude's experience of COVID-19 and how it has impacted him on multiple levels :

“Saint Jude. Not, ‘Hey Jude.’ But please don’t hold me to it…” | Missing in-person gatherings with his community | Experiencing pandemic fatigue | Feeling despair & hopeful simultaneously | Attuned to the meta-level, structural changes in society | There is no substitute for real human contact. | Ministering to people virtually through their last rites as they die | Praying for community members | Holding weekly services online | Participating in a finger labyrinth walk and meditation | Negotiating boundaries in a relationship during this time | Writing a book on marriage equality through the lens of his theological & biblical perspectives throughout history | The importance of marriage for all | Marriage: a moment for people to be joyfully vulnerable in front of everybody while being lovingly held in their vulnerability | There is no replacement for the embodied experience | Finding my way into becoming a priest | Seeking justice in a wider community and coming together to lift everybody up | 

Thank you so much, Jude! 

Jude's Contact: https://www.facebook.com/judeaaronharmon

Resources: https://gracecathedral.org/ & https://www.veriditas.org/

Today, Sam speaks with his friend David Robinson.

Join us as we talk about David's experience of COVID-19 and how it has impacted him on multiple levels :

David is an educator, activist, and bird-lover!  | Falling in love with Modern Dance | Being bullied for being a sissy | Being aware that, "I’m not doing all that I can, yet I’m doing a lot more than a lot of people I know." | Depression, anxious, being semi crazed |Coming back to the present moment | Song lyrics: Wade in the water, because it’s really going to be troubled water  | Birdwatching & activism: “Auk the vote” | Staying practical and taking collective action | Involvement in Act Up | Learning to laugh, have joy, and be sexy in addition to being loud in activism | Recognizing there is so much more that I can do once joining a movement | It’s ok to be gay; it’s a strength and gift to the world | Grief & rage 2-3 years into Act Up | Experiencing the community more powerfully than I ever have in my life as hard as it was | Discovering birdwatching as a spiritual practice | "Act first and the feelings will follow." | 

Thank you for sharing, David! 

David's Instagram: Dvdrobinson

Today, Sam speaks with Caity Reilly, a devotee to the wild feminine call to healing & awakening.

Join us as we talk about Caity's experience during the pandemic. 

Caity is a "human committed to being in [her] heart in integrity."  | Creating safety and connection with/through honesty | Being in the descent of the Heroine's journey | Seeking the deepest level of integrity | Experiencing safety and privilege during the pandemic | "The great pause" as a gift | Creatively channeling writing during this time | “Loves Embrace," a co-created field committed to honesty | Facing aloneness as an experience of profundity | The paradox of aloneness and connection | "Being human is all about love" | Recognizing the depth of longing, aloneness, and connectedness | Studying under Loren Roche and his teachings of the Radiance Sutras | Sutra #26: The One Who Is at Play Everywhere says | Naming what I’m doing is the quickest way to come into connection | Recognizing that I have a choice about how I meet challenging experiences | 

Thank you for sharing with humility & grace, Caity! 

More about Caity: serpentandrose.com

Today, Sam speaks with his dear friend Ophir Haberer.

Join us as we talk about Ophir's experience of living during the time of COVID-19 :

Self-publishing a poetry book, The Essence Underneath | Living and thriving in an intentional-living community | Unlearning + deconditioning beliefs around masculinity | Facilitating men's groups | Inviting men to be vulnerable in safe spaces | Sharing the womb & life with a twin brother | "The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference." (Elie Weisel) | Channeling | Listening to all emotions and exploring them | Weaving together different truths | Dismantling practices and rediscovering them | Rejecting formative beliefs in order to rediscover his own true voice | “My inner voice has been my greatest teacher” | Listening to all the different parts that comprise me | The descent has been one of the biggest learning experiences | Having an emotional experience during sexual growth | Integrating into an understanding of all parts of ourselves |  

Thank you for sharing from your heart, brother! 

Ophir's recent article: https://www.jta.org/2020/07/10/lifestyle/at-virtual-retreat-men-embrace-vulnerability-and-reckon-with-patriarchy

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Today, Sam shares some of his processes around self-inquiry during this week's episode.

Facing uncertainty | Lacking a sense of safety & security | Peeling back the emotional layers | Longing for a deeper connection to myself | Developing a practice of coming into presence | Missing communication through touch | Guiding people through self-massage | Inviting others into self-inquiry | Recalling my initial response to COVID | Being put in touch with my mortality | Experiencing grief around the loss of my brother | Gradually feeling the severity of the pandemic | Navigating life-changing experiences | The great pause during this time | Waking up to the injustice, inhumanity, and fear of others | Collective experience of mortality | Embracing our shadows | Tracking the continuum of awareness |

Thank you all so much for listening!

Today, Sam speaks with one of his closest friends, Chase.

Join us as we talk about Chase's experience during COVID-19 & social/civil justice movements:

Feeling trapped at home during COVID | Jogging as an outlet to get alone time and reset | The murder of George Floyd + COVID bringing light in the darkness | Being bi-racial having a white mom & black dad | Bringing DEI into the workplace | Experiencing rage around the murder of George Floyd | Using humor as a means to fit it | Identifying as black from junior high onwards | Being called the "N" word by peers & adults | Being run off the road by a truck while walking home from school | Identifying how the world sees you | Being assaulted as a toddler because he of his blackness | The complexity of racism | "You can’t necessarily change the past; you only have the future to make things better. " | Human=not perfect | Being mirrors for each other |

Thank you so much for sharing so vulnerably, Chase, I love you!

Today, Sam speaks with one of his teachers from Esalen, Ellen Watson.

Join us as we talk about Ellen's experience during COVID-19 & social/civil justice movements :

Teaching in Bali when COVID emerged | Coming home to the US and preparing for the worst | Shifting her work to online platforms | Stepping into Transpersonal facilitating | Studying under Stanislav Grof | Transpersonal healing while suffering from a personal emergency | Being part of a renaissance since the 80's | Political activism | Being quieted as a child | Experiencing educational freedom at Esalen | Through breathwork, having regained permission to make sound | Dancing with the shadow | Growing up in the South as a white woman | Global racism | The ability to create a future that is good for all is in our hands | Finding a way to solve human conflict other than war |

Thank you, Ellen, for sharing your experiences with us all.

More info. on Ellen: https://www.movingventures.org/

Free Racialized Trauma Course: https://culturalsomaticsuniversity.thinkific.com/courses/cultural-somatics-free-5-session-ecourse

Today, Sam speaks with his friend Diane Taylor.

Join us as we talk about Diane's experience of the recent death of her mother and life during COVID-19:

Losing her mother to cancer & dementia | Taking care of her mother throughout the process of her death | Mother/daughter intimacy that evolved from the overall experience | Humor & gratitude are healing | The healing gift of caring for her passing mother | Finding deeper compassion for her complex relationship with her mother | Seeing people from new perspectives | Longing for a more integrated relationship with her mom | “There’s a gift in all of it that I do see.” | Sharing her mother's last breaths with her siblings | Grief as a private internal process | Part of love is being able to receive it and take it in. |

Thank you for sharing such an intimate story with all of us, Diane, I love you!