We are unconsciously conditioned throughout our lives to protect ourselves. Of course we are! Being in pain...well...HURTS. This episode explores, however, the possibility that the ways we have unconsciously learned to protect (things that served us in the past) may actually be creating more harm and pain than protection. We look at a new possibility for the greatest protection imaginable (at least the greatest I've ever experienced as of yet!).

We often have experiences in our lives that "bring us back to ourselves" or some in way grant us a feeling that we had "lost" part of ourselves. For those of us on the spiritual or self-help paths, we tend to lean into feelings of needing to be better, to grow, or to constantly be moving toward some healthier version of ourselves. This episode explores what may feel like a paradigm shift toward recognizing that we already are everything we seek: already whole, never lost from ourselves. What would our experiences with ourselves and one another look like if we could trust our innate wholeness?

Most of us move through our lives with a sense of seeking. Whether it's happiness, success, satisfaction, love - it seems in all our seeking, throughout our whole journey we just have never quite found "it".

This episode explores the possibility that we already ARE that which we seek. That all our seeking outside is perhaps just a confused quest because we have simply been removed from what we really need, which has been right here waiting for us all along. If you reflect on the best moments in your life, what is the one thread that weaves through them all, and could THAT possibly be the answer to all our searching?

Life is NOT under our control. Our emotions are not under our control. Often even our minds are not under our control. Yet we have given our minds the impossible task of controlling everything in lives in order to avoid hurt and pain. This episode explores the possibility that it's actually our need for control that hurts us more than anything else. By trying to control, we remove ourselves from ourselves and from our lives because we think we need ourselves and life to be a particular way in order to be happy. What would living feel like if we were capable of staying open to all of life rather than tensing against it and trying to control what we feel and experience in every moment and where we go and get to in our lives?

What is TRUE freedom? Is it having everything we want and nothing that we don't? No, then we're either dead or an awakened being. So how do we find it while still alive and fully human? This episode explores a depth of being WITH ourselves and our experiences that is REAL and accessible to us all. It is a radical awakening to the truth of ourselves and what creates our suffering and our freedom.

This episode is also offered with a hopefulness that we can even learn to hold ourselves through our learning and growth until we taste this freedom for ourselves.

We live in a society that tells us we are worthy, we have made it, we are successful when we experience less and less suffering, hurting, moments of pain. Though this is a quiet undercurrent, social media and what see all around us paint a picture that to suffer means we are in some way bad or failing. This episode is all about breaking that concept - recognizing that to be human is to suffer, but suffering doesn't have to be BAD, doesn't have to be the end of the story.

It seems only human to wonder, "What gives life meaning?" Though we tend to consider this question on the larger scale, something more like "How do we lead a meaningful life?" It often does not occur to us to wonder what creates meaningful moments, the meaning we experience in people, places, and objects in our world. This episode explores just that - is there "inherent" meaning in anything at all?

This episode is also dedicated to a dear friend who is constantly an emblem to me of living fully, a wild fascination with learning, and the purest outpourings of love. Scott Steiner, thank you for being you.

In this episode we explore the difference between experiences that are uncomfortable and those that deeply cause us pain. Together we tease apart the opportunities that discomfort offer us in terms of growth, leaning into our edges, and discovering new truths and wisdom in the breaking of our concepts and shells. What's your growing edge?

Welcome to our Welcome Back episode! It's been several months since the last episode, so I wanted to come back in a way that honored those of you who have shared this journey with me. This episode is an honest exploration of the experiences that led to the space between the last two episodes. I'll talk about my personal experience with depression, fear, and anxiety as well as what helped me reconnect to the beauty of the life right in front of me.

We can't forget that no matter how far along this path we are, we're all still invariably human. Hardship comes, hardship goes - how we treat ourselves and others along the way is what becomes paramount.

This is episode is the second in our inter-podcast series called Happiness Hacks. Rather than giving away the hack here, you'll just have to listen to how to radically bring more happiness into your life with this hack. Learned through living, tested through experience, every Happiness Hack is (almost) guaranteed to bring more moments of joy into your wellbeing.