The Delicate Business of Being Human

Episode 19 Spiritual Intolerance and The Escape Hatch of Death. This week we are joined by meditation and mental health coach Joseph Braccio to speak about coaching, stillness, and the trap of valuing the vertical over the horizontal. Are spiritual practices that place transcendence over what is here and now taking us away from actual presence? Joseph and I speak about the real possibility that th...

Episode 18; Dissecting Our Defenses; Envy, Gateway to Our Hidden Potential. In the fourth installment of our study, Paramita Oliveira and I continue on a micro-but-mighty odyssey. The terrain is tracing the ego’s development as a series of solutions and defense mechanisms. We’ll examine the structure of the personality, which was built around a being in development who didn’t have the protection o...

In this bonus episode, Laura Carrotti offers a simple orienting meditation to support

Episode 17 The Anatomy of Transformation; How We Change and Why We Don’t. This episode is a replay of a live community class offered by Laura Carrotti. One of the most compelling things about the human being is its capacity to shapeshift, evolve, and transform. Most of us dream of shifting a pattern or overcoming a limitation. Our imagination is constantly fed by the promise of healing and optimiz...

In Episode 16 we are joined by Gurumaa Dipti Rajkumar Baswar of the Shivoham Lineage. In “The Esoteric Essence of Ganesh; The Lord of Muladhara Chakra”, Gurumaa shares the coded creation myth of the beloved elephant-headed god. We explore his role as the embodiment of auspiciousness, and as Shakti’s gatekeeper. Gurumaa will make connections between Ganesh and the purification of the guna-s, Kundal...

In Episode 15 we are joined by craniosacral therapist, self-proclaimed anatomy nerd, and occupational therapist, Sara Steden. After decades in the medical field, Sara learned that there is tremendous power in understanding one’s own anatomy through direct experience. She teaches folks to reconnect to the wisdom of their hands, and the tissues of their bodies. This week she’ll share about her explo...

Episode 14; Dissecting Our Defenses; Greed, and The Flow of Giving and Receiving. In the fourth installment of our study, Paramita Oliveira and I continue on a micro-but-mighty odyssey. The terrain is tracing the ego’s development as a series of solutions and defense mechanisms. We’ll examine the structure of the personality, which was built around a being in development who didn’t have the protec...

This bonus episode is a ten minute guided Yoga Nidra Meditation. In Episode 13; Yoga Nidra and the Path of Awareness we were joined by Yorgos Aryavrat, long time meditator and teacher in Satya Loka Yoga School Yorgos, to explore the link between Yoga Nidra and consciousness. In this ten minute When we imagine Yoga Nidra as just an effective relaxation technique, we miss its power as a tool for mov...

Episode 13; Yoga Nidra and the Path of Awareness with Yorgos Aryavrat. This week we are joined by long time meditator and teacher in Satya Loka Yoga School Yorgos, to explore the link between Yoga Nidra and consciousness. When we imagine Yoga Nidra as just an effective relaxation technique, we miss its power as a tool for moving awareness, and going beyond the rational mind. In this episode Yorgos...

We are joined by Gurumaa Dipti Rajkumar Baswar of Shivoham Tantra in episode 12 to speak about Gurupurnima, the auspicious July full moon when Hindus, Jains, and Buddhists alike celebrate the principle which awakens our inner knowing. We’ll speak about the role and responsibility of the teacher, and the part that the external Guru has in awakening the inner Guru. We’ll discuss the importance of gr...

There is a single arc present in the growth of our bodies, our psychological development, and our spiritual evolution. Can understanding the trajectory of undifferentiated, to individuated, and back home to the primordial soup help us to navigate with more grace? Each individual's path is both utterly unique, and necessarily pre-patterned; can recognizing the ubiquity help us to really rest in our...

Episode 10; Dissecting Our Defenses; Procrastination, Postponement and Laziness is live. In the third part of our study, Paramita Oliveira and I continue on a micro-but-mighty odyssey. The terrain is tracing the ego’s development as a series of solutions and defense mechanisms. We’ll examine the structure of the personality, which was built around a being in development who didn’t have the protect...

Episode 9 – Yoga, Trust, and Reverence. This week we travel to Rishikesh, India to speak with Surinder Singh, possibly the most beloved Yoga teacher in the Yoga Capital of the world. Surinder’s warmth, humility, and heart, coupled with his engineering precision in asana has kept Laura (and thousands of other students) deepening their practice for years. We speak about Yoga’s capacity to transform...

Francesca Mason Boring joins The Delicate Business of Being Human to share her depth of experience and unique vantage point on family and systemic constellations and the Indigenous Knowing Field. We explore constellation’s capacity to show us hidden dynamics, and to offer the belonging so necessary for those who have been excluded. What if rather than a healing modality the constellation itself we...

In Episode 7 Jennifer Muir joins us to speak about tending grief, navigating loss, and death as an agent of awakening. Jennifer shares about her work as a death doula and grief tender, and about the experience of the sudden death of her husband while their daughter was an infant. And how this passage both ungrounded her and deepened her experience of life. We’ll speak about approaching death as a...

Episode 6 Paramita Oliveira Dissecting Our Defenses; Gluttony, Compulsions and Addictions In episode two of our study, Paramita Oliveira and I continue on a micro-but-mighty odyssey. The terrain is tracing the ego’s development as a series of solutions and defense mechanisms. We’ll examine the structure of the personality, which was built around a being in development who didn’t have the protectio...

In this episode we travel to Andhra Pradesh, India, to visit a very special temple: Devipuram. We are joined by Rama Kandarpa who tells us the story of her father Guruji Amritananda Nath’s incredible life and mission. We learn of the rational nuclear scientist’s visions of the Goddess, and his wild mission to build Her a home.

In episode four we are joined by Taganyahu Swaby acupuncturist, practitioner of Eastern Medicine and the Internal Martial Arts, and founder of Yaad Wellness. Taganyahu speaks about community and the impulse behind opening his center. We speak about the difference between Qi, Shen and Jing, and the importance of feeling and of respecting the cycles of nature.

Gurumaa Dipti Rajkumar Baswar, lineage holder and teacher of Shivoham Tantra, joins us to speak about mantra, sadhana, the inner Guru, and kundalini shakti. In this episode we’ll hear the traditional perspective of the movement of the soul from multiplicity to oneness as mapped by Adi Shakti. Gurumaa will share perspectives on what Tantra is, and how attitudes of receptivity, listening, and going...

In this episode, Paramita Oliveira and I start on a micro-but-mighty odyssey. The terrain is tracing the ego’s development as a series of solutions and defense mechanisms. We’ll examine the structure of the personality, which was built around a being in development who didn’t have the protection or cognitive capacity to navigate life’s difficulties. In this episode we start to recognize these solu...

What are the stories that we are telling ourselves about what it is to be a person? Host Laura Carrotti speaks on the need for context and coherence in our lives. She offers her working definition of spirituality and considers why the road to transformation requires us changing the story and practicing something different.

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