Stories of Astonishing Light with KJ Nasrul

When was the last time you experienced divine play? "Lila" is a Sanskrit word used in Hinduism and yogic philosophy, loosely translated as "play", and "delight in the moment." Today's new episode explores these concepts and is the first interview of a new mini-series: Astonishing WOC Healers. KJ will share conversations held with healers, social activists and educators who are Women of Color. 

Meet Yasmin Afrazeh, a Certified Kundalini Yoga instructor, Radiant Child-trained Children’s Yoga teacher and Therapeutic Art Life Coach. She is the founder of House of Lila, a space for children to learn mindfulness through Kundalini Yoga and expressive arts including movement and storytelling.

House of Lila grew from Yasmin's vision to help children preserve their natural wisdom and radiance, and regain their inherent state of being--of joy, awareness, creativity.  Spanning across Persia and Australia and solo road trips within the badlands of Montana, KJ and Yasmin recall the lessons on how to wholly surrender with wonder. 

Takeaways:

1.  We already know what to do. We have innate wisdom within . 
2.  House of Lila could be a  mantra and lifestyle. "Lila" means "to divinely play".  Hold the space for delight and embrace the outcome of fluid, creative energy. 
3.  Are we missing opportunities for living in the present? We’re always planning the next step,  doing instead of being. 
4. Our natural state is joy, lightness, innocence and possibility. Observe and admire children, as they are the most wonderful teachers.  Admire their freedom, and their wild imagination. They remind us, Everything's possible. 
5. Bow into service, of something greater than us.  “I am a small part. I am held. I am fine.” 

Please Rate and Review This Podcast if our stories have astonished you as well. https://ratethispodcast.com/astonishingstories  

Episode Mentions: 

• Website: www.houseoflila.net
• Instagram: @house.of.lila
• Poem:  Inquire Within by In-Q
• Ad and show background music: Original piano compositions by  KJ Nasrul 
• Intro  & Outro music: Canada Lo Res by Pictures Of The Floating World 

Connect With KJ and Bliss Begins Within 

• Website: https://blissbeginswithin.com  
• Instagram:  @MusingsOnOther @BlissBeginsWithin @AdopteeSociety 
• Clubhouse: @kjnasrul  
• Facebook & Twitter
• Want to create and send beautiful emails? Try Flodesk for free your first 30 days! Use this link here to get started

Support the show

Follow KJ in her worldly adventures, and receive notifications for when her next events (Creative Recovery Workshops, Bali Wellness Retreats, and Storyteller Evenings) take place.
- Join The Story Squad and receive Love Notes Here
- Visit her website here: Bliss Begins Within.com  

** BIRTHDAY & NEW SEASON CELEBRATIONS  ** Today’s opening episode for the third season of SOAL is the nourishing, concluding conversation with Yoga & Meditation teacher and Certified Sound Healer Deva Munay.  In the first part of this conversation [Episode 49], we learned that Deva’s home community had perished in a California wildfire earlier this year, and friends and neighbors came together in a mission to raise money for a rebuild. And during such already charged times,  Deva separated from her longtime love. We ponder ways we recover from such  layered devastation and grief.  

Takeaways: 

• Deva's mantra: Hold to the center. 
• Inquiries: What is the Divine Plan? Is this for our protection?   
• Response: We must learn to entrust that something will be there to hold us in our journey through destruction and pain. 
• Inquiry: How can we be nourished while we encounter and discard old patterns?
• Response: Follow the sound. 

Please enjoy a mini sound bowl healing session (about 14 minutes long)  Deva created exclusively for SOAL listeners in this soothing, quiet season premiere.

Episode Mentions: 

• Deva's Website SacredSound.Love 
• Listen to excerpts of Deva's  sound journeys 
• Instagram @DevaMunay 
• Ep 52 Background Music: Original Piano Composition by KJ Nasrul 
• Show Intro & Outro Music:  Canada Lo Res by Pictures Of The Floating World 

Support This Podcast

It is our one year anniversary (Happy Birthday, SOAL!)  and we hope this will be just the first of many more years of reveling in these astonishing stories around and within us.  Please consider supporting and celebrating this podcast by subscribing and downloading  your favorite episodes. 

Please Rate and Review This Podcast if our stories have astonished you as well. https://ratethispodcast.com/astonishingstories 
BONUS- Every review you leave enters you into a drawing to win a FREE 1:1 session with KJ!

Connect With KJ & Bliss Begins Within 

• Instagram:  @MusingsOnOther @BlissBeginsWithin @AdopteeSociety 
• Website: https://blissbeginswithin.com  
• Book A Hello Call with KJ - https://blissbeginswithin.as.me/HelloCall
• Be notified about upcoming Creativity & Healing Gatherings - Newsletter 
• KJ and Bliss Begins Within on Facebook & Twitter
• Want to create and send beautiful emails? Try Flodesk for free your first 30 days! Use this link to get started. 

Support the show

Follow KJ in her worldly adventures, and receive notifications for when her next events (Creative Recovery Workshops, Bali Wellness Retreats, and Storyteller Evenings) take place.
- Join The Story Squad and receive Love Notes Here
- Visit her website here: Bliss Begins Within.com  

**BONUS** Here's a  SOAL Second Listen to hold you until the Season 3 premiere. In the Fall of 2020, KJ was featured on the incredible podcast Go To Gal as hosted by Jaclyn Mellone. Today, just as she did on Go To Gal, KJ shares observations after years of studying resilience: People exhibit common elements which indicate high resiliency levels. Do you possess these elements too? 

In the second part of this mini episode, KJ invites you to connect with your body’s wisdom in stressful moments byway of guidance from resilience expert Linda Graham and Mindful Magazine.  

Takeaways: 

1. Are you able to access your basic needs to be safe in the world? 
2. Name at least 2 supportive resources in your life:  a person or community on whom you can rely for encouragement and kindness.
3.  Do you celebrate your ability to overcome difficult situations? 
4. Natural Breathing is a powerful exercise in regaining control when you’re fearful; Also, it regulates and soothes the autonomic nervous system. 
5. The Heart and Hand Meditation helps restore calm and equilibrium to the mind-body; also summons memory of cherished, safe moments with a loved one- prompting the release of oxytocin. 

Please Rate and Review This Podcast if our stories have astonished you as well. https://ratethispodcast.com/astonishingstories  

Episode Mentions: 

• How To Build Resilience - Go To Gal Podcast Ep 148 
• Mindful.Org  article by Linda Graham on resilience and the body's wisdom 
• Ep 51 background music is an Original Composition by  KJ Nasrul 
• Intro  & Outro music by Canada Lo Res by Pictures Of The Floating World 

Connect With KJ and Bliss Begins Within 

• Website: https://blissbeginswithin.com  
• Instagram:  @MusingsOnOther @BlissBeginsWithin @AdopteeSociety 
• Roundtable Podcast with KJ  & Friends - CONNECTED! 
• Clubhouse: @kjnasrul  Follow KJ's Clubs >> Magical Cartographers Club and Creativity & Compassion Club
• FREE Guide- Connect To Calm  https://bit.ly/4StepsToCalm
• Facebook & Twitter
• Want to create and send beautiful emails? Try Flodesk for free your first 30 days! Use this link here to get started

Support the show

Follow KJ in her worldly adventures, and receive notifications for when her next events (Creative Recovery Workshops, Bali Wellness Retreats, and Storyteller Evenings) take place.
- Join The Story Squad and receive Love Notes Here
- Visit her website here: Bliss Begins Within.com  

“We are ourselves creations. And we, in turn, are meant to continue creativity by being creative ourselves.” -Julia Cameron, The Artist's The Way  

It's Episode 50 and the Season Two Finale for this Listening Gallery of Stories and Healing Salves. KJ celebrates her 11 month journey since starting Stories Of Astonishing Light  by honoring her beginnings and returning to creativity. 

Takeaways:
 
1. Spotlight Listener Review  from AJ Optimist

• Receiving your words wholly and gratefully, AJ! 
• Reviews invite you into a chance to win a 1:1 session with KJ 
• Reviews help spread the word about this 

2. Four Universal Healing Salves 

• Did you stop 𝓭𝓪𝓷𝓬𝓲𝓷𝓰?
• Did you stop 𝓼𝓲𝓷𝓰𝓲𝓷𝓰?
• Did you stop being 𝓮𝓷𝓬𝓱𝓪𝓷𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓫𝔂 𝓼𝓽𝓸𝓻𝓲𝓮𝓼?
• Did you stop finding comfort in the sweet territory of 𝓼𝓲𝓵𝓮𝓷𝓬𝓮?

3. When You Quit Your Job... 

• Return to your most aligned, creative purpose 
• Opportunities and invitation flows often and easily  
• Joyful replenishment in abundance 

4. Bliss Begins Within Psychotherapy is Open 
Work with KJ in whole-person, self compassionate practices by way of Expressive Arts Therapy for trauma informed care.  

• Day Retreats of art, music, sound and story exchanges
• Healing Our Healers: Small Group Live Coaching and Community 
• Creativity & Compassion Sessions 

..... all of these events are available for August and September! 

Please Rate and Review This Podcast if our stories have astonished you as well. Your review could be read on the show, AND you're qualified for a FREE private 1:1 call with KJ! https://ratethispodcast.com/astonishingstories  

Episode Mentions: 

• The Four Fold Way by Angeles Arrien 
• The Magical Cartographers 
• The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron 
• Ep 50 Outro music, performed by KJ, Featuring  Ning Recio 
• Intro Music: Canada Lo Res by Pictures Of The Floating World 

Connect With KJ & Bliss Begins Within 

• Instagram:  @MusingsOnOther @BlissBeginsWithin @AdopteeSociety 
• Connect With KJ https://blissbeginswithin.as.me/HelloCall
• Website: https://blissbeginswithin.com  
• Follow KJ on Clubhouse: @kjnasrul 
• Facebook & Twitter
• Want to create and send beautiful emails? Try Flodesk for free your first 30 days! Use this link here to get started

Support the show

Follow KJ in her worldly adventures, and receive notifications for when her next events (Creative Recovery Workshops, Bali Wellness Retreats, and Storyteller Evenings) take place.
- Join The Story Squad and receive Love Notes Here
- Visit her website here: Bliss Begins Within.com  

Sound is one of the oldest and most natural forms of healing known to our planet. Sound frequencies can restore one’s mind, body and spirit back to a state of balance. KJ welcomes Certified Sound Healer Deva Munay to explore what this means today in our Pandemic-riddled world. 

Deva has traveled and studied healing modalities across many landscapes, including Belize, Peru, Indonesia, and Egypt with the hope of incorporating the wisdom of these cultures into her sound journeys. Her mission is to create a unified field of pure awareness, with the intention of invoking deep states of healing, transformation, awe and wonder.

In this first half of a two part conversation, KJ and Deva recall discovering the restorative properties of sound--- calm and tranquility; a technique to quiet the mind chatter!-- through extensive travel to post -injury recovery. 

The ladies also acknowledge that while this was a year of heartache and grief (on a personal and global level), it introduced new resources for wellness to a new audience. Somehow the world crisis prompted a return to a common mode of communication, a bond through an ancient language. 

Takeaways:
1.  Seek surroundings completely different than your known, familiar world. 
2. There is this collective consciousness. Whether we're physically touching or not, we are constantly impacting our world and one another. 
3.  Even in grief, this is what I can understand: destruction and transformation can lead to a higher good.
4.  Nothing is ever truly lost; it is transformed. 

Please Rate and Review This Podcast if our stories have astonished you as well.
https://ratethispodcast.com/astonishingstories  BONUS- Every review you leave enters you into a drawing to win a FREE 1:1 consultation with KJ!

Episode Mentions: 

• The Seven Wonders of Sound Esalen Retreat This Weekend  July 16th-18th! 
• Deva's Website SacredSound.Love 
• Listen to excerpts of Deva's  sound journeys 
• Instagram @DevaMunay 
• Intro  & Outro music: Canada Lo Res by Pictures Of The Floating World 

Connect With KJ & Bliss Begins Within 

• IG:  @MusingsOnOther @BlissBeginsWithin @AdopteeSociety 
• Website: https://blissbeginswithin.com  
• Roundtable Podcast with KJ  & Friends - CONNECTED! 
• Clubhouse: @kjnasrul  Follow KJ's Clubs >> Magical Cartographers Club and Creativity & Compassion Club
• Facebook & Twitter

Support the show

Follow KJ in her worldly adventures, and receive notifications for when her next events (Creative Recovery Workshops, Bali Wellness Retreats, and Storyteller Evenings) take place.
- Join The Story Squad and receive Love Notes Here
- Visit her website here: Bliss Begins Within.com  

How do you dig deep and summon your resilience in a crisis?  Today's SOAL friend Sophia Noreen Syed returns to the show to share her experience as she witnessed the incredible success and then the halting of her product-based start up company Also Sophia  during the pandemic.

Sophia Noreen is a Toronto-based physiotherapist, podcaster, multi-business owner, mama and mentor for women entrepreneurs. 

KJ and Sophia Noreen became fast friends last year as they launched podcasts and created coaching courses together in the midst of a world health crisis. Today the ladies catch up, support each other’s accomplishments and detours, and return to the drawing board as women entrepreneurs embodying resilience through creativity and compassionate reassessment.

Takeaways: 

1.  Be willing to be introspective; self assess. 

• Question: What am I willing to do? What might I delegate elsewhere? 

       2.   There are projects, people and places who deserve the BEST of you.  

• Question: Where is my zone of genius? Where are my skills and talents best utilized?

       3.  Essential Self Compassion is doing something else. 

• Question: How might I start small to re-engage in my wellness routines? 

Please Rate and Review This Podcast if our stories have astonished you as well. https://ratethispodcast.com/astonishingstories  

Episode Mentions: 

• Website Also Sophia 
• Podcast  Boss It Podcast 
• Instagram:@BossItClub 
• Ad and show background music: Original Compositions by  KJ Nasrul 
• Intro  & Outro music: Canada Lo Res by Pictures Of The Floating World 

Connect With KJ and Bliss Begins Within 

• Website: https://blissbeginswithin.com  
• Instagram:  @MusingsOnOther @BlissBeginsWithin @AdopteeSociety 
• Roundtable Podcast with  KJ  & Friends - CONNECTED! 
• Clubhouse: @kjnasrul  Follow KJ's Clubs >> Magical Cartographers Club and Creativity & Compassion Club
• FREE Guide- Connect To Calm  https://bit.ly/4StepsToCalm
• Facebook & Twitter
• Want to create and send beautiful emails? Try Flodesk for free your first 30 days! Use this link here to get started

Support the show

Follow KJ in her worldly adventures, and receive notifications for when her next events (Creative Recovery Workshops, Bali Wellness Retreats, and Storyteller Evenings) take place.
- Join The Story Squad and receive Love Notes Here
- Visit her website here: Bliss Begins Within.com  

How do you move forward as an adult after experiencing a childhood filled with abuse and trauma? We discuss this in today's SOAL.  Our guest is Terri Kozlowski, a Native American Warrior,  certified life coach, blogger, and author of the book "Raven Transcending Fear". She is also founder of the Soul Solutions Podcast and YouTube Channel. 

Terri specializes in empowering women by teaching them to set personal boundaries, reframe the stories they tell themselves, overcome their fears, and push past their limiting beliefs.  

In a conversation that honors intuition and healing creativity, KJ and Terri explore how to untether from the fears that hold us back from living genuine, enriched  lives. Terri shares her exquisite reframing inquiry (a simple question composed of  two words)  that shaped her courage as an adult to finally begin healing wounds caused by nearly unspeakable childhood trauma.

Note:  There are references to experiencing childhood abuse, which may be triggering for some listeners.

Takeaways:

• Release attachments, release your suffering
• Reconnect with and remember your intuitive, healing gifts with creativity 
• Reframe the "Why me?" question into an empowering declaration of transformation 

Please Rate and Review This Podcast if our stories have astonished you as well. Your review may be shared on the show, AND you'll be in the running for a FREE, private 1:1 call with KJ! https://ratethispodcast.com/astonishingstories  

Episode Mentions: 

• Website  www.TerriKozlowski.com
• Podcast  www.SoulSolutionsPodcast.com
• Book  www.RavenTranscendingFear.com
• Instagram https://www.instagram.com/terrikozlowski/
• LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/terrikozlowski/
• YouTube  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbT3ygWLAxEcPqOOgCflL_A
• The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron 
• Episode 47 Outro music, performed by KJ and Ning Recio 
• Intro Music: Canada Lo Res by Pictures Of The Floating World 

Connect With KJ & Bliss Begins Within 

• Instagram:  @MusingsOnOther @BlissBeginsWithin @AdopteeSociety 
• Connect With KJ https://blissbeginswithin.as.me/HelloCall
• Website: https://blissbeginswithin.com  
• Follow KJ on Clubhouse: @kjnasrul 
• Facebook & Twitter

Support the show

Follow KJ in her worldly adventures, and receive notifications for when her next events (Creative Recovery Workshops, Bali Wellness Retreats, and Storyteller Evenings) take place.
- Join The Story Squad and receive Love Notes Here
- Visit her website here: Bliss Begins Within.com  

KJ Nasrul realized she was Asian when she was 11 years old. KJ has suffered bouts of depression throughout her life, most markedly at age 17. Today, KJ has turned in her notice and is leaving her corporate job to open the doors to her trauma-informed, expressive arts healing practice. 

In this personal solo episode, [Tiny Astonishment], KJ shares what happened when she returned to her rituals of morning writing and musical composition. She found herself examining her roots including her Asian ethnicity and the prevalence of mental health issues in her life. 

Today’s show is a celebration of reconnecting and rediscovering our inner wisdom and resources for healing, even in heartbreaking times. 

It’s our experiences and decisions to show up, even while messy and scared, that can still be the beginnings of countless astonishing stories of light.

In closing of SOAL's 46th episode, enjoy a sampling from the impromptu and inspiring jam session with KJ's friend and fellow #aapi musician, Ning Recio. 

**KJ invites you to rediscover your innate wisdom for healing **
Her Creativity & Compassion Session, [Summertime Edition] takes place this Saturday, June 26, 2021. 

In the 90 minute gathering, KJ and a small group of healers/artists will: 
*uncover our resilient stories

*reclaim our self-healing abilities

*unearth embedded creativity

Please Rate and Review This Podcast if our stories have astonished you as well. Your review could be read on the show, AND you're in the running for a FREE private 1:1 call with KJ! https://ratethispodcast.com/astonishingstories  

Episode Mentions: 

• Ning Recio http://www.smarturl.it/ningrecio
• Ning on Instagram @NingRecio 
• Grab your FREE seat in the 6/26/21 Summer Sesh * Creativity & Compassion https://livecreativityandcompassion.com 
• Episode 46 Outro music, performed by KJ and Ning Recio 
• Intro Music: Canada Lo Res by Pictures Of The Floating World 

Connect With KJ & Bliss Begins Within 

• Instagram:  @MusingsOnOther @BlissBeginsWithin @AdopteeSociety 
• Connect With KJ https://blissbeginswithin.as.me/HelloCall
• Website: https://blissbeginswithin.com  
• Follow KJ on Clubhouse: @kjnasrul 
• Facebook & Twitter
• Want to create and send beautiful emails? Try Flodesk for free your first 30 days! Use this link here to get started

Support the show

Follow KJ in her worldly adventures, and receive notifications for when her next events (Creative Recovery Workshops, Bali Wellness Retreats, and Storyteller Evenings) take place.
- Join The Story Squad and receive Love Notes Here
- Visit her website here: Bliss Begins Within.com  

“If the ocean can calm itself so can you. We are both salt water mixed with air.”
 ~Nayyirah Waheed

Today's #SOAL guest Dani Richards has known KJ for many years, having  first met in an online community based on monikers and screen names built to protect identity and distance. Today's episode is their first face-to-face conversation in nearly a decade, exploring  ways we can overcome barriers and connect authentically.

Dani is a 200 hour trained yoga teacher,  a varsity swim coach and she is First Aid Certified in youth mental health. Dani's master's degree is counseling-based in higher education and her mission is to practice and share lessons of self-compassion and resilience to help recognize and combat stress and anxiety.
 
The reunited friends explore so many themes in this chat including: showing up, "showing face", and granting radical acceptance and forgiveness to ourselves and in turn, others. 

Takeaways: 

1. Observe what it might mean for you, to overcome the fear of showing up, and deciding to "Show Face". 
2. Using reframes, how might our “disabilities” be our greatest gifts? Could these be opportunities to learn something more about our own resiliency?
3. Practice Self Kindness.
4. Reacting is human. Instead of judging our instinctual responses, perhaps practice these kind statements: 

“I forgive myself”
“I forgive myself for having this reaction.” 
“I forgive myself for falling into this belief.” 
“I forgive myself for being caught up in this false judgment."

Please Rate and Review This Podcast if our stories have astonished you as well. https://ratethispodcast.com/astonishingstories

Episode Mentions: 

• Bloom Yoga & Wellness Website  
• Instagram  @bloomwellyogi 
• Dani Richards, Bloom Well Yogi  Facebook 
• Episode  Background music: Original composition 'Butterfly' by  KJ Nasrul 
• Episode Intro & Outro music: Canada Lo Res by Pictures Of The Floating World 

Connect With KJ & Bliss Begins Within 

• IG:  @MusingsOnOther @BlissBeginsWithin @AdopteeSociety 
• KJ's Upcoming Creativity Workshop Info:  here
• Website: https://blissbeginswithin.com  
• Listen in to KJ & her friends on their new Roundtable Podcast- CONNECTED!
• Clubhouse: @kjnasrul  Follow KJ's Clubs >> Magical Cartographers Club and Creativity & Compassion Club
• Facebook & Twitter
• Want to create and send beautiful emails? Try Flodesk for free your first 30 days! Use this link here to get started

Support the show

Follow KJ in her worldly adventures, and receive notifications for when her next events (Creative Recovery Workshops, Bali Wellness Retreats, and Storyteller Evenings) take place.
- Join The Story Squad and receive Love Notes Here
- Visit her website here: Bliss Begins Within.com  

KJ embraces her inner fangirl as she welcomes today's guest, clinical psychologist, yoga teacher, international speaker and author, Dr. Arielle Schwartz.  Dr Schwartz is a leading voice in the healing of PTSD and complex trauma and she is the author of six books incorporating an integrative (somatic psychology, EMDR, mindfulness practices), strength-based approach to trauma treatment. 

In a compassionate conversation, KJ and Dr. Schwartz honor the courage it takes to practice true self compassion.

Takeaways: 

1.  Notice your body’s coping mechanisms. 
2.  Take the risk to put your gift in the world. Someone will be impacted by it. 
3.  Self Compassion practices means a willingness to let go of prescription and of trying to protocol or predict where we're going. 

Episode Mentions: 

• Web:  Dr Arielle Schwartz
• Insta:  @ArielleSchwartzBoulder 
• Dr. Schwartz on Facebook 
• Dr. Schwartz's Blog Here 
• Dr. Schwartz's Book: The complex PTSD Treatment Manual 
• The Mind-Body Therapy Summit from  Embody Lab (join KJ there today!) 
• Integrative Somatic Trauma Therapy Certificate Program in which the world’s leading trauma therapy experts (Peter Levine, Stephen Porges, Pat Ogden, Arielle Schwartz and more!) offer a holistic framework for working with trauma from a body-centered perspective.

Connect With KJ and Bliss Begins Within 

• IG:  @_KJCreates_ @BlissBeginsWithin @AdopteeSociety 
• Learn about KJ's upcoming workshops here
• Web: https://blissbeginswithin.com  
• KJ & Friends have a Roundtable Podcast- CONNECTED!
• Clubhouse: @kjnasrul 
• Facebook 
• Want to send beautiful emails? Try Flodesk for free your first 30 days! Use this link here to get started

Support the show

Follow KJ in her worldly adventures, and receive notifications for when her next events (Creative Recovery Workshops, Bali Wellness Retreats, and Storyteller Evenings) take place.
- Join The Story Squad and receive Love Notes Here
- Visit her website here: Bliss Begins Within.com