Leslieann Hobayan
Spiritual Grit
Welcome to Spiritual Grit, the podcast where we talk real-talk about spirituality through the lens of activism and social justice. What happens when activism and spiritual practices collide? What sparks of change call for the grit we need to create meaningful strides in social justice. I'm your host, Leslieann Hobayan, poet, priestess, activist, professor, hip hop dancer, and bad-ass mama. Join me as we dive in to learn more about our deepest selves so that we can be better ancestors to create a stellar world for our descendants. Grab your dancing shoes and let's get groovy with the grit!
Author
Leslieann Hobayan
Category
Podcast website
Latest episode
Jun 5, 2026
Where to listen?
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Episodes
Ep 217 - Grounding Ourselves During Activism 02.05.2024 19:19
I’m gonna let you know: this is a messy low-quality recording. So much is unfolding at once and in some cases, escalation is building quite rapidly that I didn’t have time to set up my usual mic – I just used some plug-in earbuds with a mic. This is an indication of how urgent and important it is for all of us to understand that “normal” no longer exists. That in order for us to integrate the shif...
Ep 216 - Caring for yourself as an activist 24.04.2024 26:57
To put it simply: there's a hell of a lot going on right now and activism is growing exponentially. There is an urgency in the air that cannot be ignored. And with that urgency, momentum swells and we activists tend to forget that it's necessary to fill our own cup. We MUST take time to nourish ourselves, to replenish our energy, to rest and restore. This is the long game. And we must reme...
Ep 215 - Expressing yourself opens a valve 17.04.2024 33:10
How many of us stuff down our feelings when it comes to sadness or grief? How many of us try to hide our tears or look away when we are not able to? Our society has taught us to repress the emotions that make people uncomfortable. It has taught us that we are wrong or weak when we experience things like rage or grief. What happens when there's a buildup of these emotional energies that stay tr...
Ep 214 - Working with shadows and eclipses 10.04.2024 31:41
In case y'all didn't know, eclipses are portals of transformation. Everything you hide in your shadows comes to the surface. So for those of you who watched the solar eclipse, how do you feel? In this week's episode, I'm posing some questions for deep inquiry. From looking at what stories we are addicted to about ourselves to examining the relationships of our lives, asking if they...
Ep 213 - Honesty Rooted in Love 03.04.2024 31:08
We're living in a time where our masks can no longer hold. Curtains are being pulled back. Veils are being torn down. There's no more hiding from yourself or from the truth of yourself. Everyone is showing themselves, whether they intended that or not. Pales-tine is helping us see that. So how do we deal with the loss and ensuing grief of the lives we used to know? The ones in which we had...
Ep 212 - Your life's purpose is not about you 27.03.2024 25:26
There's a lot of talk about one's purpose in life and often, in the West, it is individualistic: what will fulfill one's desires? How can one manifest the car/house/partner that they want? In this week's episode, I'm talking about what your purpose in life actually is and how you can get closer to figuring it out. Also, if your life's purpose isn't about you, then what...
Ep 211 - When two diasporic women have a conversation... with Sofia Ali-Khan 20.03.2024 1:01:17
In this week's episode, I'm in conversation with Sophia Ali Khan, activist, public interest lawyer, and Canadian-based author of *A Good Country: My Life in Twelve Town and the Devastating Battle for a White America*. We talked about a wide range of things, playing with the intersection of activism and spiritualit: from the current genocide (do we take the first flight out to Rafah?) to re...
Ep 210 - Best of Spiritual Grit - 4 Stages to Strengthen Resilience and to Speak your Truth 13.03.2024 27:42
In this week's episode, I'm talking about how important it is to have nervous system resilience when speaking your truth. It's okay if your voice shakes. What's key is being able to bounce back after feeling so vulnerable. Listen in to learn the four stages to help strengthen resilience so that you can speak your truth. =============== Today’s poems/ Books / Oracle / Tarot Cards m...
Ep 209 - Duality and Non-duality in Activism 06.03.2024 33:11
Uh, say what? What the heck is duality and non-duality? It’s a spiritual philosophy and teaching, one of which I’m still trying to unpack (and will likely be doing for the rest of my life!). But I wanted to pose this question of duality vs non-duality in activism: how do we understand these concepts and how do we apply them to real world situations like gen0-side? Is it useful to do so? Or is it a...
Ep 208 - “Both/And”: You Can Be An Activist in Your Everyday Life 28.02.2024 38:06
Many of us compartmentalize our lives, putting things in boxes as if our lives are a bunch of multicolored beads that need to be separated and sorted.. Parenting goes in one box. Job goes in another box. Writer work in yet another. Activist work in another. This isn’t how we’re supposed to live. WIth the continuing gen0-side, compartmentalizing is a survival tactic. “If I can just focus on my job,...
Ep 206 - External activist work = internal spiritual healing work 14.02.2024 24:17
We've been living in divisive times for a while now. But now it's all coming to a head. How do we balance our activist work with our inner spiritual work? We've gotten to a point where they are no longer separate. They are inextricable. One feeds and nourishes the other. And vice versa. In order for us to be effective in our activist work, we need to be right within ourselves. We need...
Ep 205 - Holding the Vision and Birthing a New Earth 07.02.2024 31:51
When it feels like the world is on fire and structures are crumbling down (which is, like, all the time!), we must find it within ourselves to keep going. We must dig down to find the resolve within us to keep working towards our vision, whether that is your own personal dreams or a vision for a better world, full of peace and justice. In this episode, I talk about how we can view challenges as in...
Ep 204 - Let Love Lead Your Voice 31.01.2024 25:21
Speaking your truth can be daunting, especially during these times of intense division. How can you practice using your voice so that you can express your truth with more confidence? How can you soften those blocks that prevent you from using your voice? In this week's episode, I talk about how love is the key to leading the way to truth and invite you to explore the possibilities of your voic...
Ep 203 - Calling in your community 24.01.2024 33:03
Community is so important for us. Human beings. And if the last few years has taught us anything, isolation really sucks. In this week's episode, I invite you to be open to creating communities that you need. Rather than waiting for someone to call you in, why not reach out to others? Tune in to find out how. =============== Today’s poems/ Books mentioned: Oracle card: Page of swords Poem: “F...
Ep 202 - The Great Shedding: A Consequence of Standing In Your Truth 17.01.2024 32:26
As I continue to speak my truth and advocate for a free Pal3st!ne, more and more folks are telling on themselves, showing who they really are. And the shedding of various levels of relationships –from acquaintances to friends to community members– continues. In this week’s episode, I address the fears that come with this shedding and what to do about it. How do we keep going? Do we even keep going...
Ep 201 - Rest and Reset: Letting Go of Limiting Beliefs 10.01.2024 33:22
This year is about spiritual and material abundance! But if you’ve got limiting beliefs that keep you small, it’s kinda hard to receive that abundance. In this week’s episode, I talk about how the subconscious can hold us back and how you can shift those beliefs. Relatedly, this year is also about rest, about creating more space for dreaming and intuitive guidance. Tune in to find out how rest can...
Ep 200 - The Vibe of 2023 and The Flavor of 2024: Our 200th Episode! 28.12.2023 47:08
Can you believe it? It’s our 200th episode! What an amazing feat! One that I did not anticipate for sure! To celebrate, I pulled two tarot cards for us: one as a reflection of the 2023 vibe and one for the flavor of what 2024 will be like. I think you’ll LOVE what came forward. I know I did! Listen in as I go IN-DEPTH about how we can learn from the fire that was 2023 and take it as fuel to keep g...
Ep 199 - When Your Truth Hurts Others 21.12.2023 32:22
The other day, a woman in an FB group accused me of ant!-s3m!tism because I had used the word “g3n0cide”. She was clearly speaking from a deeply wounded place, from generational trauma as a Jewish woman. And while I have compassion for her woundedness, I was not going to stop speaking the truth of what is happening in P@l-es-t!ne. But this raises the question that a lot of folks are asking: what d...
Ep 198 - Speaking Your Truth Can Be Scary 13.12.2023 40:21
In this episode, I pull back the curtain on what it's like to speak your truth. It may look easy, like no big deal. But it's not. Especially when there is a lot on the line. On the outside, folks might look like they have it together. But on the inside, it might be a different story. Tune in to find out what it's like to speak your truth (while I also drop a few big truth b*mb$) and qu...
Ep 197 - 4 Stages to Strengthen Resilience and to Speak your Truth 06.12.2023 27:42
In this week's episode, I'm talking about how important it is to have nervous system resilience when speaking your truth. It's okay if your voice shakes. What's key is being able to bounce back after feeling so vulnerable. Listen in to learn the four stages to help strengthen resilience so that you can speak your truth. =============== Today’s poems/ Books / Oracle / Tarot Cards m...
Ep 196 - Speak Your Truth Even If Your Voice Shakes 29.11.2023 28:07
Why is it important to speak your truth? Does it really matter? The short answer: absolutely! What can you do to assure your body that it's safe to speak the truth? How can you support your nervous system? Listen in to find out! =============== Today’s poems/ Books / Oracle / Tarot Cards mentioned: Tarot Card: King of Swords Poem: “A Cushion For Your Head” by Hafiz =============== Courses / E...
Ep 195 - Best of Spiritual Grit - Set your boundaries, bbs! 22.11.2023 41:53
Here's a "Best of" episode! A lot of people talk about boundaries and having the need to set them. But what does that actually mean? And what are boundaries anyway? What do they look like and why does it feel so hard to set them and hold them? In this episode, I get into the details of the different kinds of boundaries we can set in our lives, the reasons why some boundaries are mor...
Ep 194 - Keep Going 15.11.2023 32:40
This episode's oracle card is The Great Severing. Feels forboding. How do we stay open to love when we are wounded? In a time when things start to feel hopeless or pointless, it's even more important to keep going. But how? How do we stay the course? What does self-worth have to do with it? How can ritual help us? Tune in to find out! =============== Today’s poems/ Books / Oracle / Tarot...
Ep 193 - On Being Human During Times of Collective Grief with JS Park 08.11.2023 55:47
In this episode, I'm in conversation with JS Park, a Korean American hospital chaplain based in Florida whose compassion has made an incredible impression on so many people, including myself. J.S. Park is a hospital chaplain, former atheist/agnostic, sixth degree black belt, suicide survivor, Korean-American, and follows Christ. He. is author of The Voices We Carry: Finding Your One True Voic...
Ep 192 - The Power of Poetry During Times of Crisis with Diamond Forde 01.11.2023 47:16
In this week's episode, I am speaking with poet, extraordinaire, Diamond Forde. Our conversation centers around how poetry saves us. And that is not hyperbole. How poetry brings us back to our humanness. We also talk about this now moment as we bear witness to the atrocities against P@lestin!ans. How we are being pulled to publicly grieve, something that is unfamiliar to us. How do we remember...
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