Spiritual Grit

To help celebrate Filipino American History month, I've got special guest, author, Tamiko Nimura on the show! Yay! It's easy to forget that we are spirit souls having a human experience. We get wrapped up in what our eyes see and the crazy scrawl our minds make in our heads. In this week's episode, I want to shine a light on things we don't often see or pay attention to. Today I si...

During these times of intense conflict and suffering, what are you doing to release the pressure that is building within you? Our bodies know what is happening before our minds can even register it. Add in all the external messaging that tells us what we should do instead of inviting us to explore options that feel good for us-- and you've got a formula for creating even more pain and conflict...

It’s Filipino-American History month, y’all ! And I’ve got a treat for you! This week, I’m talking with Dr. Allan Punzalan Issac, professor of Asian-American Studies at Rutgers University, where we discuss all things Filipino. From trying to answer our life’s calling (despite the protestations of family… well, at least mine) to thinking about nuance in the conversation around the Broadway show “He...

As a daughter of immigrants, I am continually learning how to interact with my parents in ways that are healthy, which contributes to my inevitable evolution. A recent conversation with my mom raised this question for me: How can we care for ourselves while we continue to break the toxic patterns of generational trauma? What kinds of practices can we engage in so that we can heal and remain whole...

Control is an illusion. We only have control over how we take action, the decisions we make, and in how we respond to external circumstances. So what the heck are we supposed to do? Just sit back and watch the world unfold? Um, yeah. Pretty much. Here's the thing: our perception of the physical world is only a microscopic view of what's possible. How many times have things --like job oppor...

What if I told you your life's purpose doesn't have to be the "be all and end all" of your life? What if your life's purpose was as simple as being You? That making cupcakes because you felt like it was your purpose? That loving and caring for your dog was your purpose? Western culture has emphasized individuality and pushes us to pursue our life's purpose in the name of...

There are too many messages out there talking about quick fixes and shortcuts. Whether it's about raking in big bucks with creating online courses or healing deep trauma in one session, it's all a ruse! It's an illusion. What they don't tell you is what actually has happened behind the scenes and for how long. There's a saying: slow and steady wins the race. And that couldn&#39...

In a world that moves more quickly than we can perceive, it’s easy to lose connection with our intuition. There’s so much noise, so much that other people are telling you what to do, how to act, what to dream. In this episode, I talk about relationships and somatics. Somatic practices can help us become more in tune with our own bodies, which helps foster self-awareness and emotional intelligence....

Humans are a communal species. I have said this before, yes. In this episode, I first invite you to take some time to rest and restore, to create mini vacations for yourself in your daily life. But know that there is a difference between a restorative retreat and tipping over into isolation. Balance is key. I also talk about being intentional with whom we connect. Who drains us? Who nourishes us?...

Today's modern world has disconnected us from our relationship with the natural cycles and seasons of life and our relationship with the earth. We have forgotten our rites of passage and our rituals for change. As a result, we experience some life changes with unnecessary pain. As a midlife woman, I find that rituals help to ground and contextualize the inevitable changes that happen with grow...

You ever wonder how to choose which battles to fight and which wants to let be? When you're an activist, sometimes it's hard to choose. We want to fight them all! In this episode, I'm talking about using the body to help discern between what's worth our time investment and what isn't. How to reframe unwanted experiences into invitations rather than "why is this happening *...

Ep 180 - Best of Spiritual Grit Podcast - Set your boundaries, bbs! 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 wh...

It's Leo season! And so we've got the energy of confidence and fire to create the life we want to live. In this episode, I invite you to map out the vision for your life. Nobody asks us anymore where we see ourselves in three, five, and ten years. When you hit midlife, you still have 30 to 40 years of living to do. So tell me: What do you envision for the second half of your life? Where ar...

What are your gifts to the world? And where are you planting them? What do you find easy to do that others find difficult? How can people benefit from you sharing your gifts? And your gifts don't have to magnanimous things. It could be something as simple as "I give the best hugs". Do you know how important that is?? For my part, I am homing in on telling my stories as a daughter of...

🎙️ Prepare for an unforgettable auditory experience and full of learnings! 🎧 Join us in the latest episode of our podcast as I share about being your authentic self in a world full of fakes. Can you be your most authentic self? What does that even mean? Who is your authentic self? What does that look like? And how do you do it? These are some questions on exploring and this week's episode. In...

And this week's episode, I'm talking about the balance of give and take, of giving and receiving. I'm inviting folks to consider shifting away from the closed-off-ness of individualism ("I'm going to do my own thing and I don't care what anyone else does.") and stepping into collective care. How can we be mindful of how our actions affect others? How can we pay attent...

In today's episode, I'm talking about Trisha Hersey's Rest is Resistance and how important it is for us to rest, for us to resist the capitalist structures that tell us to Go! Go! Go! How can we remember that we are divinity itself? That what we "do" does not determine our worth? We are worthy simply because we BE. But it's not easy to step into this practice of resting a...

What lights you up?  In this episode, I talk about the word “creativity”, how it sometimes carries so much weight that people deny they are the least bit creative. What if we defined it? What if it wasn’t about painting a masterpiece? Or writing the great American novel (whatever the *heck* that is!)? What doors would open up for people? What magic might unfold? I believe that we can create whatev...

With the speed of life today, it is so easy for us to forget. To forget what we were doing in the middle of doing it. To forget why we do the things that we do. To forget that we have physical bodies because we are so immersed in what's happening on a screen. The biggest forgetting is that our bodies hold so much wisdom. Our bodies never lie to us. Our bodies guide us to what's right, to w...

What's getting in your way? What patterns or behaviors are keeping you stuck? Where is your focus? Is that focus preventing you from seeing beyond? Sometimes we look for things we want in the wrong places. Sometimes they're right in front of our faces. I've been talking about community and what it is (or can be) and how we can create & build one. So what is community really? And ho...

We live in a world that moves so fast that we miss a lot of things, including nuance. We are eager to do-do-do (I can't help but hear BlackPink here. Haha!) and achieve things and solve problems as quickly as possible. This is not sustainable. And while that might be an obvious statement, it needs to be said out loud. Everyone is exhausted and burnt out and overloaded. As a result, we might in...

In this episode, I'm exploring ways in which spiritual teachings and manifestation practices can intersect with activism. I'm interrogating spiritual teachings as delivered by white folks and how they leave out the part about having to exist in this three-dimensional world that includes systemic racism, an inextricable part of my own human existence. Folks of color can't just think pos...

Humans are a communal species. I have said this before, yes. In this episode, I first invite you to take some time to rest and restore, to create mini vacations for yourself in your daily life. But know that there is a difference between a restorative retreat and tipping over into isolation. Balance is key. I also talk about being intentional with whom we connect. Who drains us? Who nourishes us?...

It is crucial for women of color to share their stories, to let others know they are not alone in the experiences that challenge us. In this episode, I talk about how to create new ways of being, how to lean into self-trust as you step into the mystery of not knowing what’s ahead. Everything we know is being dismantled. The rules we used to go by no longer apply. It’s a whole new game that we’re l...

If the past few years have taught us anything, community matters. It matters a lot. During those times of lockdown, how many of us suffered through so much isolation? How many of us experienced relief when we were able to hug our people once again? Unfortunately, there have been some residual effects from living a life of precarity. Many of us have forgotten how to be in community, how to connect...