Spiritual Grit

Healing is a journey. It doesn’t happen overnight -- it’s a continuous evolution. This is only a starting point // If we can build resilience around trauma in ways that help us stop being overwhelmed by past experiences, we can find joy in healing. // We need to recognize the patterns in our behaviors to create awareness and space, which will support our whole healing journey. // Be kind to yourse...

In this episode, we begin our second part of the three part series on finding joy in healing// Healing is NOT all about crying.// We are specific individuals who have specific and unique experiences and so trauma and healing is different for everybody.// One healing approach is to create awareness around patterns and behaviors that might trigger trauma.// With awareness, you can find the root of t...

This episode is the first of a 3-part series that explores finding joy in healing. // Healing is hard when you try to go it alone, when you don’t have support. // Most people think that healing is difficult because subconsciously, we feel comfortable with the pain and suffering of trauma. We tolerate it because it’s familiar. // It is important for us to approach ourselves with gentleness, kindnes...

Some folks might be new to the podcast, so I thought it'd be a good idea to go way back to the very first episode where I set my intention for this show. It's also an invitation for regular listeners to remember the power of meditation, poetry as we own our choices. And to keep this essential question at the forefront: Who are you BE-ing? // In this podcast, we combine the idea of flow, the curren...

Often our habits are so automatic, we become unconscious about them. Once you bring awareness and consciousness around a habit, you'll find your power or choose to continue it, or choose to change it.// Choosing is where the power lies - choose which habits or patterns you'd like to drop. // I invite you to examine your spiritual beliefs, practices and habits and wonder what might happen if you ch...

In this episode I talk about creating a healing blueprint. // Everyone is an individual - very specific, very different. In this idea of your own healing blueprint, you can design your healing path. // When it comes to healing trauma, everyone's experience of trauma is varied, thus, the healing approaches are going to be varied. // We might not want to heal because we are comfortable where we are....

People tend to come to poetry when they're at their lowest points, but it’s possible for poetry to become more than that. // Poetry is always a perfect place to notice the highs and lows more acutely rather than just moving through grief, loss, and deprivation unconsciously. // Art happens in our lives as a way of being in ourselves. Everyone's feeling that they're in darkness and struggling so th...

In this episode, I talk about why healing is so important, especially for women writers of color. // Change is inevitable. It is the only thing constant. We change even when we don't want to, even when we resist it, even when we think we're staying in place. // A few people may not know what their life purpose is that's why they take the part of discovering what their purpose is and what is not. /...

In this episode, I explore a few questions that come up for those of us on a healing jounery. Are we being our true selves or are we playing roles that people expect us to take on? Who are we? Who are we really? And who are we being? Why is it important to we heal our traumas? And how can we do this when talk therapy doesn’t quite complete the job? // Meditation isn’t always the answer. (gasp! Don...

In this episode, you’ll learn about: how trauma shows up for us in our bodies and in our daily lives / what the 4 F responses are / strengthen your nervous system, strengthen your whole being / healing is an individual journey (as we draw from different modalities in varying combinations) but can be walked in community with others / writing is healing / regular practices are not only healing but c...

This is not your ordinary podcast chat about spirituality, meditation practices, and self-awareness. This is a rowdy, fiery, real conversation (complete with some bleeped out expletives! Haha!) where Karen Kenney, a spiritual mentor, memoirist, and all around badass, and I dive into who we are as humans on this planet –both as individuals and as a collective. We talk about how we choose everything...

How we read things is informed by who we are being in that moment in time. / In this age of zoom interactions, don’t forget we have bodies! / The earth nourishes and supports us. / How do we respond to the external events of our lives. / How our internal state informs how we choose (consciously or subconsciously) to act externally. / Overwhelm is a choice (whut??) / Bonus! At the end, I give you a...

In this episode, I sit with down playwright, college professor, and spiritualist, Djola Branner, where we really dig into how meditation practice (and other practices, like writing) creates a solid foundation for us to navigate the unsteady ground of change. Hafiz’s poem “Dividing God” kicks off our conversation with the idea of courage. “It takes courage to be a black gay man.” And then we talk a...

In this episode, I speak with Marguerite Harrold, poet, spiritualist, and traveler extraordinaire, about her recent travels through ten countries, many of which are known for their spiritual teachings, and what it’s like to travel solo as a Black woman. We have such a rollicking good time talking about her experiences (there might have been a few cackles) –from discovering what Black privilege fee...

Hafiz calls us to fill the wells of our hearts. And so what do I do? I try to teach you all the things. Haha! I think my subconscious said: okay, let’s fill everyone’s different wells with spiritual teachings and awareness practices. Of course, please know that these are gems to be considered over a period of time. Here’s a quick run down: Representation matters. Intention matters. ~ The balance o...

Have you heard this one before? “This too shall pass.” It can be seen as a bypass for the challenges that we are experiencing right now in this PRESENT MOMENT. If I’m being real, there’s some crazy shiz going on out there! Some folks (not all) use this phrase as an opportunity to look away. How can we be fully present in the ever-shifting landscape of these wild times? Can we sit in the dark and j...

What if you viewed your mind like a teenage girl? All awkward and lanky, carrying this belief that she knows it all. Could you approach your mind with compassion? Dana “rhymes with banana” Evans is my guest for this episode and we really get animated (or at least I do!) during this conversation about calming the mind with compassion so that we can turn up the volume on our inner voice. Join me for...

In today's episode, I riff of Hafiz's poem "These Beautiful Love Games" and talk about the importance of play. How it can shape our experience of our lives. Many teachings tells us that suffering is a choice: you can choose to suffer or you can choose to learn. Play offers a way to grow that feels less painful. If we can rest and play like we did as kids, it can soften the discomfort of our learni...

Today’s guest is coming to you from Dubai! Neha Duseja is a yoga instructor, visual artist, and handstand/inversion/hand balance extraordinaire for whom yoga helped guide her out of one of the lowest points in her life when her "identity" was stripped away to nothing. She was faced with this difficult question: who are you without your roles? Our identities are often conflated with the roles we pl...

In this episode, I take you on the road with me —literally. I’ve been working at keeping things fun and this idea popped in my head: why not record while taking Bailey for a walk? And so I did! Hah! Today, I talk about manifestation —what it is, what it isn’t, and how we can approach it in ways that are intentional and intuitive. It’s not just thinking, “I want a million dollars” and then suddenly...

In this episode, I explore the understanding of self-love in contrast to the story of not-enoughness. Often, we tell ourselves stories about our worthiness, about what we deserve, what we are capable of, what is good enough. Often, those stories have us falling short. We forget that there is a mine full of holy rubies inside of us, waiting to be excavated. Today, I take the take the time to ask qu...

Lots of folks think yoga is all love and light. But that’s just a part of the picture. No one really wants to think about shadows or the messiness of evolution. In today’s episode, I look at some questions I’ve been turning over in my head since the protests demanding justice for George Floyd and an end to police brutality began. If we’re not the body or the mind, but spirit-souls, how do we recon...

In this episode, I talk with Cheryl McLeod, practicing yogini and Black owner of Honor Yoga Warren in Warren, NJ. She shares her story of how she came to yoga, how her practice and her connection to prayer and meditation has been her guide through many transitions, shifts, and challenges that she’s faced. She addresses how she came to make her public statement as a Black business owner on the Blac...

In this episode, I speak with writer, spiritualist, activist, and professor, Daisy Hernandez, about how the we work we do within ourselves affects our actions on the outside, especially in the wake of growing protests sweeping our nation that call for justice in the murder of George Floyd and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. Our spiritual identities don’t have to be separate from act...

In this episode, I talk with Allegra West, transformational coach in Human Design and modern neuroscience, about our perceptions of reality, different planes of existence, and realms we don’t see. What IS reality? Can we choose to create realities that serve our highest good? We get in deep with some spiritual topic, including a discussion of fear and worry and how those influence our realities, b...