There’s a point in life when many of us become disconnected from our spiritual selves until the moment we wake up, when re realise it’s not working for us, and decide to return. Bestselling author, activist and global thought leader Marianne Williamson remembers her own awakening and has inspired millions to do the same.

Her seminal book, A Return to Love, did that for me.

Marianne joins me in this episode of My Spiritual Side, to talk about her latest book, Midlife Awakening - inviting us to see this third chapter of life not as a winding down, but a new beginning - a chance to consciously shape the rest of our lives and reconnect with our true selves. We explore what it really means to live with purpose, the transformative power of prayer, why forgiveness - of ourselves and others - is essential, and why it’s never too late to take a stand for our own unlimited potential.

We also talk about late-life love (yes, the Holy Spirit can work anywhere) and how, when we do the inner work, midlife can be a time of blazing light.

Enjoy this enlightening conversation with one of the most influential spiritual teachers of our time, Marianne Williamson. 

In this episode, Marianne shares: 

• The importance of a morning spiritual practice; start each day by saying ‘Bless the world’. Like exercise, spiritual attention helps work our attitudinal muscle 
• The “spilt” that occurs in our youth - the moment we become disconnected from ourselves
• How A Course in Miracles changed the course of Marianne’s life - a daily practice of mind training
• Why midlife is not an era of ‘data collection’ but ‘application’; we have a choice to consciously shape our next chapter rather than surrender to ‘the prevailing winds’ of ageism and misogyny
• Life purpose. Marianne challenges the ‘faux strain of feminism’ that defines purpose solely through career. “Our purpose is to show up in any given moment with greater love”.
• Why it is not too late; There is no time limit in the quantum field.
• How this awareness brings urgency - and clarity. A desire to heal what needs healing, to speak our truth and contribute to the world future generations will inherit. “If we join together, this can be a time of blazing light”.
• Why forgiveness - of others, and of ourselves - is essential. Carrying grievances into the present denies life the opportunity to begin again. “You can have a grievance or a miracle, but you can’t have both.”
• Spiritual practice is a moment-by-moment choice: to stay anchored in the past, or to open ourselves to the future. To be right, or to be happy.
• Romantic love remains fully available to us in midlife when we do the spiritual work to make us ready
• One of the most powerful sentences we can ever say: “I am willing to see this differently.”
• How to explore our own spiritual side - by staying open.

Key Quotes

“God knows how to be God. Just make room.”

“We’re choosing every moment. We’re choosing consciously or unconsciously - but we’re choosing.”

“Your purpose is the same at 20 as at 80: to show up in each moment with greater love. There is no other purpose.”

Key Mantra:

•          Only what you are not giving can be lacking in any situation

•          You are 100% responsible for your life experience - and if you don’t take that responsibility, the price you pay is that you won’t be able to change it

Books mentioned in the episode:

Midlife Awakening by Marianne Williamson

A Return to Love by Marianne Williamson

A Course in Miracles by Dr. Helen Schucman

The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday

Marianne Williamson Australian tour:

👉 Access exclusive listener discount here (discount codes are embedded)

📍 Brisbane - 22 February: BOOK HERE

📍 Melbourne - 25 February BOOK HERE

📍 Sydney - 26 February BOOK HERE

More Information

Mariannes’s Instagram and Website.

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From The Spiritual Book Club

This is special bonus conversation with the man known as the Zen Millionaire, Ken Honda.

Ken is a global mentor on happiness and prosperity, and the author of more than 200 books that have sold over 9-million copies worldwide.

This interview was originally recorded for The Spiritual Book Club, where each month we explore an inspiring book and speak with the author - some of the most impactful spiritual teachers of our time.

In this conversation, we delve into Ken’s latest book, True Wealth: and talk about intuition, cultivating an abundance mindset, and the idea that every day offers us a chance to change our lives.

From time to time on My Spiritual Side, I’ll be sharing some of our most inspiring book club conversations. Like this one.

Enjoy this uplifting, intimate chat with Ken Honda.

In this episode, Ken Honda shares:

* How synchronicities are everywhere. We can we train ourselves to find meaning in seemingly random events that we call coincidences: ’When you pay attention, there's always a clue”

* The art of decision making. Get curious

* His edict to not die with your dreams. ‘The only responsibility that anybody has is to fulfil your dream’

* Make decisions from intuition rather than rational thought

* How to enhance our Money EQ

* Money is energy. Money has two sides: devil and angel. It’s up to us which side comes out.

* Why money is an ‘inside job’

* What we should do to become wealthy

* How to expand our inner ‘money container’

* Why money affirmations work. ‘Instead of demanding money, you’re willing to receive. It's the same thing, but a totally different energy’. (This is coming from a former accountant!).

*   A perspective shift on debt

*  Why gratitude is the most powerful spiritual practice of all

* A reminder that every day we are given the choice to change our life

Key Quotes

“The only responsibility that anyone has is to fulfil your dream”.

“I love affirmations. ‘Money comes to me easily and effortlessly’. By listening to affirmations, you feel so good. You feel less stressed around money, you feel more motivated to receive more money so you don't feel any greed to ask more. Instead of demanding money, you are willing to receive. It's the same thing, but it's a totally different energy”.

“True joy, true abundance, true wealth happens when you are in total surrender and help others and find it so joyful”.

“Unless it's a thing no human being has done before, go to Mount Everest without oxygen or something, then it's hard. But if it's a dream that somebody has done it, like owning your own store, writing a book, making a million dollars, a billion dollars, somebody has done it, you can do it”.

Key Mantra:

‘Everybody else except me is my teacher’

Books / resources:

True Wealth. 9 Lessons from a Grandfather on Happiness and Abundance by Ken Honda

Happy Money. The Zen Path to a Happy and More Prosperous Life by Ken Honda

Die with Zero. Getting All You Can From Your Money and Your Life by Bill Perkins.

More Information

Website: https://kenhonda.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/happykenhonda/?hl=en

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If you’ve read the hit novel, Tilda is Visible (and if you haven’t, you must) - the story of a woman who becomes invisible in her 50s (sound familiar?), you might have suspect author Jane Tara is channelling her own life.

Turns out, she kind of was.

Jane Tara has written more than a hundred children’s books, novels and plays, but she’s never been as revealing as she is in this deeply personal piece of autofiction. She admits the novel is a thinly veiled invitation for all of us to wake up to the truth that true fulfilment begins with self-discovery.

In this episode of My Spiritual Side Jane opens up about her own quest to find herself - through divorce and kids growing up - and the inner work required to override the relentless negative voices in our head. She shares why she never misses her daily meditation, how she refried her life at 50 and why spirituality doesn’t need to be a chore.

In this episode, Jane shares:

•          Her morning meditation ritual that sets the tone for each day

•          The messages of personal growth, healing and childhood trauma woven through Tilda is Visible

•          Her writing mission: “Make them care.”

•          The many failed attempts at meditation before finally landing on a practice that worked

•          Why spirituality should feel joyful, not heavy

•          How a Dr Joe Dispenza meditation changed the course of her life on her 50th birthday

•          The personal growth tools that helped her rise after divorce and other challenges

•          How to override the negative voices - including her own internal critic, “Pearl”

•          How the brain “value tags” repeated thoughts, and how to interrupt the negative loop

•          The power of vision boards for positive manifestation

•          Her visualisation philosophy: “Visualise beyond what you want.”

Key Quotes

“The older I get, I feel like our journey and our spirituality should be playful. It should be fun. If you find something a drag, it's just not your path”.

“Somewhere along the line, I started to think of this work as an adventure. How lucky are we to be having this life experience and to be on this adventure where we get to, if we put in the work, see the mystical and magical around us”.

“Your life is not going to change because you change where you live or the relationship or the job. You've got to change how you think about it all. You've got to start changing those thoughts”.

“You don't really get what you want, you don't get what you're thinking you want. You get how you're feeling at a vibrational level”.

“Everything goes back to self worth. Do you think you are worthy of these wonderful things or not?”

“We are spiritual beings having a human experience”.

Key Mantra:

“Things as they are, no mortal has ever seen, though the words be familiar as household words and perpetually on the lips of men. We cannot see things as they are, for we are compelled by a necessity of nature to see things as we are”.

Books / resources:

Out on a Limb by Shirley MacLaine

Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself by Dr. Joe Dispenza

More Information

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/authorjanetara/?hl=en

Website: https://janetara.com/

Follow My Spiritual Side online on: Instagram, Facebook. Find out more about The Spiritual Book Club here.

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Chances are, you already know this man’s voice. Grant Lyndon is one of Australia’s most prolific voice artists as well as an actor, meditation teacher and father of four.

But beneath all that, Grant is a seeker.

After chasing his teenage dream of becoming a “rock star”, it was an acting teacher in his 20s who suggested he learn to meditate - a simple practice which changed everything. Grant went on to train as a Vedic meditation teacher, crediting his twice-daily practice with helping him “grow up”, discover his purpose, and shape an identity beyond the shadow of his father, a well known broadcaster.

In this episode of My Spiritual Side, Grant opens up about the transformative power of meditation, what makes a good dad, and the unexpected plot twist that amplified his gratitude.

In this episode, Grant shares:

• The time he bailed on a Vipassana silent retreat
• How learning Vedic meditation changed his life
• How the passing of his mum became a time of presence, connection and surrender
• His desire to be a present father to his four kids - and inspire other dads to “wake up”
• How his acting and voiceover career became a full-circle moments that felt predestined
• Finding his purpose: to remind people of the light within themselves
• The importance of movement to strengthen our mind and body 
• The shock cancer diagnosis which forced him to reassess his priorities and live with greater consciousness and more peace
• Why we must sit in our pain, physical and emotional, and surrender to it
• His belief that everything shifts when we begin with a single intention: to be more spiritual

Key Quotes

“The moment I actually sat down and closed my eyes with that simple instruction, my life changed. I felt that my life started to make sense. That beneath the noise was something very pure and something with purpose”.

“I felt that when I started meditating, I could be a proper grownup and that the world could take me seriously because I started taking myself seriously”.

“I think my purpose is to remind people of the light within themselves”.

Key Mantra: Be patient with yourself and with others.

Books / resources: Leo Moves (Instagram), Siddhartha by Herman Hesse, Maggie Dent, Steve Biddulp

More Information: Instagram, Website

Follow My Spiritual Side online on: Instagram, Facebook. Find out more about The Spiritual Book Club here.

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Lisa Messenger’s life is an open book. About 40 of them, in fact. Through her bestselling self development books - and as the founder of the globally successful Collective Hub - Lisa has shared almost every part of her story. And that’s entirely intentional.

When her life unravelled in her 20s, she made a vow to learn life lessons, transform herself, and share what she discovered to inspire others. What she didn’t realise then was that her greatest spiritual lessons were still in front of her. In this episode of My Spiritual Side, the entrepreneur, thought leader and now mum, opens up about reinvention, breaking generational patterns and why it’s essential to ‘do the work’.

In this episode Lisa shares:

• How raising a child has become a spiritual practice
• The tattoo she got as a reminder that intergenerational trauma ends with us
• The promise she made to herself to share the lessons to help others.
• Why doing The Hoffman Process - twice - was life altering
• How her ‘why’ has evolved through different seasons of her life
• What her gruelling IVF journey taught her about surrender and resilience
• The power of vulnerability - and the Instagram post that unexpectedly went viral
• The lessons in adversity and why being in alignment creates flow
• How her best friend, Sarah Megginson, became the surrogate for her son, Hugo
• What it’s like juggling a toddler with a thriving global career
• The role intuition plays in her business and everyday decisions
• The duality between spirituality and AI
• Why spirituality is an inside job—and how to begin exactly where you feel called

Key Mantra: “Rise, illuminate the world”.

Books / resources:

The Power of Two: A life-changing story of friendship, surrogacy, and connection by Lisa Messenger and Sarah Megginson , The Hoffman Process, It Didn’t Start With You, Mark Wolynn, Not To Blame: Who You Become is Not Who You Truly Are, Daniel Laporte, Simon Sinek, Creative Visualisation by Shakti Gawain, You can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay, Digital Dharma: How AI Can Elevate Spiritual Intelligence and Personal Wellbeing by Dr. Deepak Chopra:

More Information Follow lisa on Instagram or her website.

You can get involved with

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A whole generation knows Rachael Coopes as the vivacious, engaging Play School host. Their parents may remember her as an actor in shows like McLeod’s Daughters, All Saints, and her work as a celebrated playwright. But for the spiritually inclined, Rachael is best known as a yogi and an author, writing books that distill complex spiritual teachings into relatable, modern wisdom - including Find Your Strength and The Art of Forgiveness. Rachael credits her years of spiritual practice with preparing her for the role of her life: raising her young son as a single mother. It wasn’t the life she once imagined for herself - but it’s a path she has grown to embrace with grace and surrender.

In this episode of My Spiritual Side Rachael shares:

* Why drinking coffee, and small daily rituals, can be a spiritual practice

* The power of yoga to shift our state and what inspired her to become a yogi

* Why we can all meditate, even if we think we can’t.

* The formative week she spent with her grandfather as a teenager which opened her world

* The psychiatrist who prescribed spiritual books instead of medication - and changed the course of her life

* How she made peace with becoming a single parent, and the spiritual tools that helped her embrace

* How an injury reframed a dream trip to Paris with her son, and revealed a deeper lesson

* The art, and science-backed benefits, of forgiveness

* Why learning to forgive herself has been the most profound practice of all

Key Mantras: “Let go and let God” - Pade Pade: step-by-step - Swaha: I offer it up to something sacred - What would love do?

Rachael’s books: The Art of Forgiveness, Find Your Strength, Paris for Beginners

Books Rachael mentions: Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, Buddhism Without Beliefs by Stephen Batchelor, When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron

More Information about Rachael: Head to her website or Instagram.

You can get involved with My Spiritual Side online

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Acclaimed Australian actress Susie Porter contemplated giving up acting when she reconnected with her spiritual side and decided to trust the universe.

After realising that seeking external validation was a trap that was keeping her stuck, Susie began turning inward, practicing surrender and allowing her life - and career - to unfold. 

With a celebrated career spanning more than 30 years across theatre, film and television, her credits include Two Hands (1999), Better Than Sex (2000), Puberty Blues (2012-2014), Wentworth (2103-2021), The Artful Dodger (2023,2025), Apple Cider Vinegar (2025), The Travellers (2025).

Today, Susie’s motivation for success comes from a much deeper, more authentic place.

In this episode she shares:

* The spiritual practice that starts her day

* How giving up alcohol made her a better actor

* How The Artist’s Way inspired her creativity

* Learning to overcome her desire for external validation

* The career ‘desert’ that became a time for healing and growth

* How she has learnt to surrender and ‘trust the universe’

* Her tips for cultivating presence

Books / resources Susie mentions:

Abraham Hicks daily emails

Gabby Bernstein

The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

The Hero’s Journey: Joseph Campbell

Key Quotes

“When you rely on external validation, they shift and move all the time, so you're stuck. It’s a trap. That’s been a very long lesson that I've learned”.

“I remember having these prayers to the universe saying, if I'm not meant to be an actor, show me. Maybe there's something better for me. Maybe there’s something better for my higher self that I’ll actually be happy [with] and I'm pushing against it”.

“I just always say universe, show me the truth of who I am”.

“If things aren’t working and you’re pushing, pushing, sometimes it’s best to have a little surrender prayer to the universe, like ‘Help me’.”

More Information

Follow Susie on Instagram

You can get involved with the podcast online

Follow the podcast on:

Instagram, Facebook

Find out more about The Spiritual Book Club here.

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Tara Rae Moss has been to some dark places. A chronic eight year physical illness brought her to the brink of despair and led to what she describes as ‘overwhelming suffering’ from which she could see no way out. What she didn’t realise at the time was that this was her wakeup call - a catalyst to find the light, evolve and ultimately become a healer herself.

After a self described profound metamorphosis, the author of 15 bestselling books, former model and fearless activist is now embracing a whole new chapter of her life.

Tara Rae Moss is now a healer, and a seidkona (a modern-day Norse witch — yes, really), and a Rune reader, sharing the practices and modalities that have transformed her own life.

In this episode of My Spiritual Side she shares:

* How deep suffering and chronic physical pain became her greatest teachers

* What inspired her to become a spiritual healer

* Why reading the Runes - and crafting her own from tree branches - felt like an ancestral calling

* The potential we all have to transform our lives

* Single motherhood as a conduit for personal growth

* Returning to her birth name as a step in reclaiming her authentic self

* Her belief in the afterlife and how the spirit of her late mother continues to guide her

Key Quotes

“I think all of us have the capacity to change. I don't think we necessarily give ourselves credit for how much there is inside of us, how much we can change, how much the world can change and how much we can adapt”.

“It does seem to be part of the human condition that we will sometimes be confronted with massive amounts of grief or pain.. You can either descend to the underworld and never come back, or you can look for the light, look for the gift. And that's a choice as you keep making”.

“My belief is very much that there's more that is after this life. I don't claim to know precisely what it is, but our loved ones never really leave us. And I know that now”.

Books / resources Tara Rae mentions:

The Fictional Woman by Tara Moss

Wild Soul Runes: Reawakening the Ancestral Feminine by Lara Vesta

More Information

Websites: https://www.tararaemoss.com/

https://thespiritofhealing.ca/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/taramossauthor/?hl=en

https://www.instagram.com/thespiritofhealing/?hl=en

You can get involved with My Spiritual Side online

Follow the podcast on:

Instagram, Facebook

Find out more about The Spiritual Book Club here.

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Introducing My Spiritual Side, a podcast where journalist and author Jacinta Tynan speaks with inspiring people about their spiritual awakenings, insights and the practices that have transformed their lives.

From breakdowns to breakthroughs and the moments that changed everything, as well as the simple steps you can take to elevate your own life.

If you’re seeking more awareness, purpose or connection, these enlightening conversations might just change your life. 

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