Tracee Stanley — post-lineage teacher, former Hollywood film producer, and bestselling author of Radiant Rest and The Luminous Self — joins Tamika and Ashley again, this time to talk about her new book, Living Ritual : Infuse Each Day with Purpose and Spirit (Sounds True, August 2026). The conversation moves from grief and devotion into the difference between habit and ritual, why AI can imitate wisdom but never the soul, and what it takes to walk away from a life that no longer fits.
Tracee traces her own path from Hollywood producer to ritual teacher — including a formative trip to Bali in 1994, the moment devotion became distinguishable from discipline, and the example she had of walking away from a secure career to build something of one's own. Ashley and Tamika bring their own recent thresholds into the conversation, reflecting on grief, self-parenting, and the rituals we build (often without naming them) to hold ourselves through change.
Topics Discussed
Grief , sadness and gratitude in lossRitual as the antidote to disconnection, distraction, and the illusion of separatenessWhat separates a mindless habit from a devotional, sacred ritualDevotion as an "open hand," not subservience — and why culture resists softnessLosing someone you were devoted to, and learning to self-parent afterwardMicro-rituals: how five minutes a day builds a felt sense of certaintyWhy pandemic-era ritual (sourdough, slow mornings) didn't carry over — and how to reclaim it in small waysFriction as a signal of an approaching thresholdThe question Tracee always asks: "What in me is dying, and what in me is waiting to be born?"The power and permission of saying "I don't know"Tracee's journey out of Hollywood: trying to marry spiritual and commercial filmmaking, and why it didn't work; and the example she remembers she had to pivot with audacious beliefTitrating change: how to leave a misaligned path without cutting everything at onceThe disappearance of elder wisdom and AI's attempt at soul workShared ritual, belonging, and the modern epidemic of lonelinessThe Purusharthas (four aims of life) as a framework for Tracee's bookThe prominence of spiritual bankruptcy and inner povertyReclaiming rites of passage — menopause, grief, the ceremonies and family rituals that quietly disappear after lossAbout Tracee Stanley
Tracee Stanley is a post-lineage teacher with over 30 years of studentship in Tantra and the teachings of the Himalayan masters. Before turning to this work, she had a career as a Hollywood film producer. She is the founder of the Empowered Life Circle and the bestselling author of Radiant Rest and The Luminous Self. Her new book, Living Ritual, publishes in August 2026 from Sounds True.
Purchase Living Ritual and follow Tracee's work at traceestanley.com. Follow Tracee:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tracee_stanley @tracee_stanley
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/traceeyoga
Substack: https://traceestanley.substack.com/ As Above, So Below
