This week’s episode is about positivity; and wow do we have a lot to say. After reading a question from a listener who was exploring the merits of being a “positive person” versus embodying a state of authenticity, we got deeply curious. Given that spiritual teachers and traditions, even neuroscience, point us towards the wellness benefits of positive states should we focus on bringing our attention towards what uplifts us? This conversation feels especially timely to us as we enter the Holiday ...
Dec 12, 2017•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 61
We’re talking about the age old question, “Am I responsible for others?” It’s a trickier question than at first glance- it can be utilized and lived out in a myriad of ways: We can wear it as a weighty mantle where we are carrying others on our backs. We can take an “I know better than other’s and can control or fix or sort out things better than they can” and we can swing the pendulum to the opposite extreme and say that if everyone is living their life just as they should, if there are no erro...
Dec 05, 2017•54 min•Ep. 60
This week’s episode is about exploring the ways in which we can come to identify with ourselves as “someone with problems.” Acknowledging aspects of ourselves that are unhealed or messy can be painful, yet we can still have this funny way of seeing and representing ourselves as the broken one. In a recent retreat with teacher John Prendergast Brooke had a revelation that some of her patterning linked back to getting rewarded earlier in life when she wasn’t well. This understanding kicked off a b...
Nov 21, 2017•49 min•Ep. 59
We are all about the embodied spiritual path over here and we have endless respect and gratitude for these miraculous bodies that we get to live in. But can we over-identify with our bodies? What are the repercussions of that? It seems in spiritual worlds we swing the pendulum between ignoring the body completely to making it the total focus of attention. What do those extremes look like and what might a useful middle way be?
Nov 14, 2017•44 min•Ep. 58
In this episode we’re talking about what happens when you lose the sense that you “have it all together.” As humans we’re always trying to pin things down. We want to categorize, create step-by-step action plans, essentially identify and solidify life, including ourselves, in As we evolve on our own paths, we’re noticing that our ability to conceive of ourselves as people who have it all together is slipping through our fingers, and we’ve got a lot to say about why that’s challenging. In the pro...
Nov 07, 2017•52 min•Ep. 57
Today we are thrilled to be joined by teacher Jeannie Zandi. Jeannie is a spiritual teacher who experienced a years long profound dark night of the soul, and here is what she says in her own words about her teaching, “I will use anything I find at my fingertips or that upwells within me to teach and hold space for those who are hungry to turn themselves inside out and live their essence. I will take you to the edge of the abyss and lovingly hold you there. I will tenderly call your name, sing to...
Oct 31, 2017•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 56
Today we’re talking about what can be called the “unseen worlds.” The unseen worlds can include everything that is outside of our everyday, rational-mind consciousness. Think- intuition, energy, auras, chakras, guardian angels… and other aspects of formless support. In reality, we’re all connected to vast amounts of wisdom and resources, yet so often we’re not consciously aware of it. Our discussion this week moves through two levels of this exploration; first, how it’s possible for us to miss t...
Oct 24, 2017•48 min•Ep. 55
We all want more peacefulness but we can’t tranquilize ourselves into peacefulness. When we use our paths as an energetic lid on things we don’t want to face it’s not just a desire for peace- it is a fear mechanism. We talk about how the labor of facing the things that aren’t in alignment for us can indeed be painful, but as with any birth there is something else on the other side of all that labor. What if we said it is possible for all categories of your life to be in total fulfillment. Is tha...
Oct 17, 2017•52 min•Ep. 54
This week we’re talking about Awakening, or as Brooke lovingly refers to it, the A-word. A few episodes back we spoke on The Nervous System and Awakening. Afterwards we received several follow up questions such as What is awakening anyway? Should I be doing it? Am I missing out on something? Hence the playful episode title Awakening FOMO. Really though, in this episode we get into what our thoughts and personal experiences are on what awakening actually means, why we find it vulnerable to talk a...
Oct 03, 2017•52 min•Ep. 53
Today’s episode is a Dear Bliss and Grit- which means one of our lovely listeners wrote us in a question and we had a bunch to say about it! Thank you Jeannie for emailing this one over. Jeannie asks, "As I listened to you talk today, a question arose, which arose again when listening to Matt Kahn on your recommendation. Matt talks a lot about you be the one that you turn to. You tell yourself the things you’ve always needed to hear. I don’t mean to set up a polarization in the question itself, ...
Sep 26, 2017•50 min•Ep. 52
In this episode we’re chatting about the glorious nervous system. Recently we heard a spiritual teacher named Matt Kahn say that “the Ego is the imagination of an overactive nervous system.” As longtime mind-body practitioners we found this super interesting, especially because it coincided with our own exploration of the ways our limbic system was affecting our health. This got us thinking about the role the nervous system might play in our awakening to truth. We talk a lot about concepts like ...
Sep 19, 2017•53 min•Ep. 51
In today’s episode we're talking about what actually loving what arises looks like in practice. We’ve all heard the trite spiritual phrases like “meet whatever arises with acceptance” and “Love everything in your experience” “do not judge yourself or others” and trite as they are, and as frequently repeated as they are, genuinely landing in the deep granular practice that these phrases point to is, well, not the most straightforward thing in the world. Certainly it is super duper foreign to ever...
Sep 12, 2017•55 min•Ep. 50
In this episode we’re talking about the need to be liked. Over the years of self exploration it’s become clear how very much our own desires for approval can drive our choices and cloud out our clarity. Of course, it’s pretty human to want to be accepted by others, but what happens when you do it at you’re own expense? When the desire to be likable takes on a full fledge good girl/boy identity? Or when it keeps your past trauma re-circulating in a never ending loop of self-sacrifice or self-flag...
Sep 05, 2017•52 min•Ep. 49
The last couple of weeks we talked a lot about living from truth, and about how the body is the most useful way to navigate truth. We got into that in our conversation with Kiran Trace last week, and in our talk about what we were learning as we spent some time with Adyashanti. We, kind of, could talk about the body and about navigating what is true for you from the body, forever... so we had a lot more to say on that! What came up for us is the way we separate ourselves into “me” and “my body”-...
Aug 29, 2017•53 min•Ep. 48
In today’s episode we're talking about a recent weekend we spent together in Ithaca going to an event Adyashanti was having there. We do a general download on what it was like to be with him, but more specifically we point to his lens on what it means to trust your life- a truism that all of our teachers point us to. This is really the heart of this path. In so many ways you could say it IS the journey. Adyashanti also talked about how in many ways awakening is you becoming the most you. So on t...
Aug 15, 2017•56 min•Ep. 46
This week we’re talking about our life’s purpose. Recently Vanessa and I have been seeing this differently in our own lives- why do we frequently, in our culture anyway, chase our “purpose” as, some big identity-defining career goal? Part of why it’s been so interesting for us to untie this is that the whole concept of our lives and who we are get woven into the idea of purpose. There is this way that we can create small boxes for ourselves to live in vs letting things have their own lives. Ulti...
Aug 08, 2017•47 min•Ep. 45
This week is a Dear Bliss and Grit episode. We’re exploring the subtle edges of relationships as we answer a listeners question on love. The major theme of the conversation being- how do we cope in a relationship when our partners difficult circumstances prevent our needs from being met? Do we wait things out and hope for improvement? Or do we give up on a relationship even though we value the person in our lives? Anytime we get into the topic of relationship and love we have lots to say about a...
Aug 01, 2017•51 min•Ep. 44
In today’s episode we're talking about life as an empath. It sprung out of our last episode about energy- we realized how helpful understanding the energetic underpinnings of patterns has helped us to be in our lives as empaths. So if you are an empath- or a highly sensitive person, or a sensey as we like to say- you’ve probably gotten really good at some management techniques for how to not get overwhelmed by the world. Maybe you’ve even encountered a number of well-intentioned people who teach...
Jul 25, 2017•49 min
This week’s episode is all about energy. How can we experience energy within and around ourselves? Why is it important- or even interesting- to look at energy in relation to healing and wholeness? Could experiencing the subtle vibrational realms be the birthplace of our intuition? As Sensey people who’ve worked with energy throughout our careers and lives we’ve got a lot to say here about the vibrational reality of things.
Jul 04, 2017•51 min
Today’s episode is a little different! This episode is actually an interview with Judith Blackstone, the founder of The Realization Process- which Vanessa and I both became certified in this spring. I did this interview originally over on my other show, Liberated Body. If you haven’t discovered her work, allow me to introduce Judith to you. She is the creator of The Realization Process, which is an integrated approach to embodiment, psychological, relational, physical healing, and spiritual awak...
Jun 27, 2017•45 min
In today’s episode we're talking about the identity crisis that can arise as you heal and transform. Whether we’re talking about gaining more psychological health, or the big ole wake up call of the spiritual path, either way you are eventually going to shed some part of yourself that used to feel like you- both to yourself and to those around you- and then... what happens next?! Vanessa and I are talking about navigating the identity crises that are a natural part of any healing journey.
Jun 20, 2017•54 min
Today's episode is a "Dear Bliss+Grit" in which we’re responding a listeners question on Self-Compassion. Is there no place for self-discipline? For pushing yourself to do things that you know could be good for you even though you don’t want to? How can you differentiate between fear holding you back from taking an action vs a genuine yearning for another experience? We're chatting about how we can listen better to what’s the right medicine for ourselves at any given time, and exploring the subt...
Jun 13, 2017•54 min
In today’s episode we're talking about the importance of having “people” with you on the spiritual path. If you’re getting curious about- and no longer fully living by- the conditioning of your own life and your culture’s preferences it can be strange... and lonely sometimes. In Buddhism one of the key “jewels” of the path is called the sangha. For those of you who don’t skew Buddhist- it’s basically about having a community of people who can be with you on the path. People who are committed to ...
Jun 06, 2017•55 min
Today’s episode is all about Self-Compassion. We got a lot of responses after our Pain Bodies in Action episode and we thought it was time to speak about what to do as you’re noticing these old wounds- which includes a whopping dose of self-compassion. From breaking down the nuance of self-compassion to karmic patterning to discussing how to find safety in the body, we’re all up in the compassion conversation.
May 30, 2017•53 min
In today’s episode we're talking about a snippet of Eckhart Tolle’s book A New Earth that caught my eye. He says that if we approach everything in life with acceptance, enjoyment, or enthusiasm then we will- essentially- not be suffering and will be in the present moment. I usually hate things that feel like a blueprint to a happy life but, I gotta say, this one’s got some good bones! Vanessa and I dive into the nuance of what we think exploring this way of being means.
May 23, 2017•54 min
In this episode we’re talking about the experiences we’ve had on the embodied spiritual path- including touching into our own pain bodies. Actually we’re literally experiencing our pain bodies while recording making for an extra revelatory talk! We know you’ve heard us use the term before so in this episode we share some definitions of what a pain body actually is. And as usual many stories about what we’ve both been facing, and shedding in recent times. It’s personal, it’s philosophical and wel...
May 16, 2017•1 hr 1 min
In this episode we’re talking about what Vanessa playfully calls the “Bubble of Pain”- aka a circular pattern of self-referencing that leaves us feeling at the center of a painful reality. Many of us have felt how much it hurts to take things personally. Yet even after recognizing the cost, we still can find ourselves stuck, habitually believing that everything is about us- most commonly about how we’re not enough in some way. We’re sharing lots of personal experiences and ideas about how we get...
May 02, 2017•50 min
In today’s episode we're talking about holding space for not knowing. Why are we- culturally- people who think we need to know things? There is an underlying assumption that we can know definitive capital T truths- and we want bedrock answers. We want to avoid the feeling of groundlessness that comes with not definitively knowing things. The trouble with that is that we look outside of ourselves for prescriptions of how to live, and we create a society where the stronger your opinion the more ri...
Apr 18, 2017•50 min
In this episode we’re responding to a dear Bliss + Grit inquiry on one of our favorite topics- boundaries! How do you know what’s truly right for you? What happens when you say yes only to later feel tired and grumpy? Your ability to stay true to your inner yes and no is the most basic affirmation of your right to exist as you are, yet so many of us are challenged in this arena. With all our cultural conditioning around earning love and being of service you can imagine this conversation is full ...
Apr 11, 2017•46 min
We’ve had a good number of episodes lately that are about the more challenging emotions- things like grief and despair, or heartbreak. We’ve really dug into how to feel all the feels, especially those ones we like to avoid in our culture. A funny thing though, for all of our happiness chasing, we’re actually not exactly whizzes at pointing the compass towards ease or true pleasure. The same striving that keeps us chasing happiness keeps us from actually resting into the more delicious and deligh...
Apr 04, 2017•51 min
