We are sadjoy to announce that this is the final episode of Bliss+Grit. Coincidentally it's publishing almost exactly at the 4-year mark of when we began. This has been such a fulfilling project for both of us. It's created huge shifts in our personal evolution and a chance for us to connect as friends who live long distance to one another. But most importantly it's meant so much to hear from all of you that it's also had a useful and beneficial impact on your lives. It's been so touching to receive so much feedback that this little podcast we started created so many shifts for all of you.

You can listen in to hear all the details of why we are moving on and where we are headed next, but a couple of easy links to find us are:

www.vanessascotto.com
www.brookethomas.me
www.liberatedbeing.community

On intagram:

@vanessascotto
@brookethomas108
@liberatedbeing

In our recent conversation with Matt Kahn we talked about his first golden rule: you've done nothing wrong. It's timely then that we both are up against some old internal narratives about things we have done "wrong" or that are "wrong" about ourselves. As always, we are examining these truisms from the inside out. In this episode we look at what hooks us into narratives about wrong-ness, and ways to work with that when it arises. How do we un-velcro ourselves from seeing ourselves as the thoughts or beliefs? How do we invite genuine tenderness in for the one who believes they are wrong? And if and when this pattern shifts- what are we when we're not wrong? What happens when we don't view our lives through the lens of "mistake".

Matt Kahn is a spiritual teacher and empathic healer who is the author of the bestselling books Whatever Arises, Love That, and Everything is Here to Help You. His newest book, The Universe Always Has a Plan: The 10 Golden Rules of Letting Go is what we gathered together to discuss today. Currently, we are all living through a global pandemic together. Instead of a typical "book interview" instead we discuss how the new spiritual paradigm is relevant to our current challenging times. As Matt says, we have all be invited into a collective, global dark night of the soul. So what does dark night ask us to shed? What does it offer us as we are transmuted by it? And how can we use our spiritual paths for our own and the collective's greater good instead of upholding old ideas that turns us against ourselves or creates a bypass. We discuss the role of nervous system regulation, surrender, the potency of stillness, and lots of spiritual myth-busting.

You can find more of Matt's work at www.mattkahn.org

Show notes live at www.blissandgrit.com. We also see clients privately, and you can find more information about our practices at the website as well.

Can we bio-hack ourselves into better states of mind and being with embodied “positive thinking?” Today we are discussing neuro-reprogramming methods and the effects they can have on your body and mind- including ways in which they can create harm. Last year we both engaged with a program called Dynamic Neural Retraining Systems (DNRS) and in some ways this conversation is an update on how that program helped us since so many of you ask. (We have experienced health shifts and reduced anxiety just to name a few.) From a larger perspective though, we are having a broader conversation on how we can all better approach our own thoughts and feelings to get true healing results. We discuss what worked best for us in terms of navigating our mental-emotional loops, as well neuroscience and practical tips for how you can become your own best ally and create transformation in your life.

Sign up for our newsletter at www.blissandgrit.com

We speak a lot about trauma and healing from trauma on the show, but we've never done an episode that truly asks the question, "What is trauma?". Drawing on inspiration like Dr. Edith Eva Eger and Peter Levine we look at if PTSD should drop the "D" for disorder, what it means that trauma is a charge, and if that's true, how do we "discharge" that charge? It's a very humanizing and hopeful take on trauma and we hope it's helpful to all of you.

Today we are discussing healing that is not a part of our individual histories, but instead is carried in us- in our very dna- from our ancestors. It might seem like a not-so-cheery New Year's Eve episode, but actually we find this point of view to be surprisingly relieving. It opens up so much space to meet our experience and tempers some of the more shame-oriented points of that personal healing can sometimes take on. We discuss what ancestral trauma feels like when it arises, and some of our own experiences as we discovered that the pain we were sitting with was truly not personal. As we see this, it can open up a whole world of tenderness for ourselves and all that we are doing to clear pain, as well as so much compassion for all of humanity and the wounds that we all sit with and bring up to the light to be transmuted.

Co-dependency has been such a big pattern for both of us that we’re back again deepening our conversation on the differences between co-dependency and interdependency. Meaning, what would an end to co-dependence look like in relationships? The pictures we can receive about what it means to heal co-dependency can be someone who does not empathize and is not moved into service by the suffering of others. This couldn't be farther from the reality of empathic souls. Of course we care when people suffer, and of course we want to help- often it’s genuinely loving to offer our support. All of this is to say that there is no formulaic answer, it’s more about bringing awareness, attunement and discernment to our relationships. However, we do have some tips to offer based on our experience that can help you gain insight into when you’re interdependent vs codependent. Join us as we explore our own shifts away from co-dependent patterns and all that can arise as we open our hearts in relationship to others.

For more information on Bliss + Grit, or on the hosts Brooke Thomas and Vanessa Scotto, please go to www.blissandgrit.com, where you can also subscribe to our weekly newsletter.

Join us on instagram at @blissandgritpodcast

Today we are speaking with our special guest John Prendergast. This is our second time speaking with him to our great delight. John beautifully integrates the awakening path with psychotherapy. He is a licensed Therapist,and a former adjunct professor of psychology at CIIS. He is also the author of two books, today we are talking with him about his most recent book. The Deep Heart. We talk all about what he means by this phrase “the deep heart” and what can happen when we are able to land there and experience it. We get into themes around developmental trauma, how we meet the existential emotions like loneliness and grief, and important themes around how we are able to experience safety as we open. You can find more of John's work at listeningfromsilence.com

*This episode contains upcoming changes to the format of Bliss + Grit. Please tune in to stay up to date.

It’s different to change to get out of pain then it is to change out of an intuition or a new vision. In this weeks episode we’re exploring meeting change and transformation, and most specifically, what happens when something you love changes; when rather than moving away from something painful, you’re getting the internal signal to change something you love or have valued in the past. This conversation is arising out of a recent process of change we are having with Bliss + Grit, but holds so much relevance to the conversation of transformation at large since one of the primary fears that can arise in an unfolding process is the fear of losing something or someone we value. Together we explore the new change that has presented itself for Bliss+Grit, how we navigated that, how we’ve met other changes in our lives like divorce, and how we can hold ourselves as we go through the process of transformation.

For more information on Bliss + Grit, or on hosts Brooke Thomas and Vanessa Scotto, please go to www.blissandgrit.com where you can find episode resources, information about coaching sessions and subscribe to our weekly newsletter.

Today we are talking about how ingrained the impulse can be to always automatically look at “What is it about me? What am I doing wrong? What do I need to heal? What’s wrong with me that I am... being judgy, feeling angry, feeling overwhelmed and exhausted?” Are these feelings a signal that there is yet more material we need to heal so that we can always be “better” at tolerating things? Or are there perhaps things that we are accurately perceiving are out of alignment for us, or are taxing or overburdening us?

In this episode we talk about:

- How we can begin to notice if we are always scanning ourselves internally with the intent of figuring out “What’s wrong with me?”
- How we can then learn to turn our attention to our outer world and see honestly what we the things are that are just genuinely not a good fit for us.
- What conflict avoidance has to do with the pattern of always making it about how we need to heal ourselves.
- How we may be imagining that our path will lead us to being the kind of people who become reaction and/or preference-free.
- Both the genius and the pitfalls of being adaptable.

We have talked about spiritual teacher misconduct before from the point of view of what to be wary of and how to choose an integrity teacher(s). In today's episode, as more allegations come forward about yet more spiritual teachers, we're talking about it from the point of view of how ideas about what awakening is can get things into troublesome territory.

In this episode we discuss:

- What awakening is not
- How people use the word "awakening" in many different ways- sometimes to discuss enlightenment, sometimes to discuss realizations about the nature of reality, and sometimes just to discuss the awareness that they are on a spiritual path.
- That spiritual awakening, or enlightenment, and psychological maturity do not go hand in hand. Each is its own process and "waking up" does not create automatic psychological health.
- The troubles that putting other people on a pedestal can create
- The tremendous importance of maturing into a heart-based way of living

This week we are answering a patron’s question about something that is up for them in their life. It contains a lot of nuance about how to be with other people’s emotions without feeling overwhelmed, as well as how to receive kindness and love without feeling overwhelmed by that either. The shortened version of the question is: “When I do let myself feel my emotions deeply I frequently get super overwhelmed and times that I am center of attention or receiving heartfelt love and support are still very uncomfortable for me in groups.  Why is it so difficult to feel deep emotion in myself and from others still?”

In answering the question we talk about:

• The vulnerability of intimacy and connection
• Somatic approaches to receptivity and feeling safe in our bodies
• The energetic charge of trauma and how it makes a soma feel “too full” to be able to take in anything new
• How that charge can “off-gas” or burn off like clouds as we heal
• Conditioning around needing to be non-reactive and how to inquire about that
• Ability to receive joy and goodness and blocks to that
• How to shortcut shame at not being “farther along” in our healing process

For more information on Bliss + Grit, or to get information about one-on-one coaching with Brooke Thomas or Vanessa Scotto, please go to www.blissandgrit.com.

To become a supporting member and join our forum please go to www.patreon.com/blissandgrit

• Hiding and the fawn trauma response
• How the limbic brain can interpret the threat of being unliked as seriously as the threat of physical harm or even annihilation
• How we can quickly and unconsciously interpret others as enemies when we are caught up in making sure we are liked and/or seen as “the good one”
• The importance of both tenderness and anti-fragile approaches to loosen the hold these ego strategies have on us

Today we are discussing what we could call living from truth. I had an experience not long back where a mentor of mine was asking me to say exactly what I wanted, and I noticed a freeze response. This opened up for me a new depth of experience around what it really can feel like to live from truth, as opposed to following the momentum of past conditioning and habits. Many of us say we want to be authentic or know our true nature, or the truth of reality, but what does that really mean? We’re kicking it off by getting into some teachings from Adyashanti, and of course diving into our own experiences and challenges in stepping into greater alignment with our inner truth. 

In this episode we talk about: 

• Adyashanti’s teachings on truth and agency 
• Matt Kahn’s book, Everything is Here to Help You 
• What it means to follow a living path and meet life as an invitation
• How thinking incrementally and focusing on becoming “more aligned” can be helpful 
• The embodied experience of choosing truth 

For more information on Bliss + Grit, or one-on-one coaching with Brooke Thomas or Vanessa Scotto, please visit www.blissandgrit.com.

To become a supporting member and join our forum please visit www.patreon.com/blissandgrit

Today we are talking with Dr. Gail Brenner, a clinical psychologist whose practice and teachings are unique because of her non-dual perspective grounded in deep and practical truths about peace and happiness. She is the author of two books, The End of Self-Help, and Suffering is Optional. We are primarily discussing her most recent book, Suffering is Optional. You can find more on Gail’s work at www.gailbrenner.com.

In this episode we talk about: 

• What Gail means by “optional suffering” since we know we experience suffering in our lives. 
• What conditioning is and how it affects our lives. 
• What thoughts have to do with suffering. 
• The limiting identity of unworthiness and how it plays out in life. 
• How life without thinking is not, "lying on a couch like a blob". 
• The value and power of curiosity. 

For more information on Bliss + Grit, or one-on-one coaching with Brooke Thomas or Vanessa Scotto, please visit www.blissandgrit.com.

To become a supporting member and join our forum please visit www.patreon.com/blissandgrit

[Flashback Tuesday]

In the second episode Vanessa interviews Brooke so that listeners can get to know her a bit and hear the shape her path has taken and is taking thus far.

For more information on Bliss + Grit, or to get information about one-on-one coaching with Brooke Thomas or Vanessa Scotto, please visit www.blissandgrit.com.

To become a supporting member and join our forum please visit www.patreon.com/blissandgrit

[Throwback Tuesday]

In the first episode Brooke Thomas is interviewing Vanessa Scotto about the shape her path has taken and is taking thus far.

For more information on Bliss + Grit, or to get information about one-on-one coaching with Brooke Thomas or Vanessa Scotto, please visit www.blissandgrit.com.

To become a supporting member and join our forum please visit www.patreon.com/blissandgrit

[Flashback Tuesday]

In this episode we are speaking with our very special guest and friend Jeannie Zandi. Jeannie has been on our show before and today is offering some profound, must-hear insight on yin and yang that we are so excited to share with you. 

Our conversation touches upon so much including what true power looks like, the imbalances our culture has perpetuated, what healing would look like through the lens of yin and how we can move forward together in dismantling the conditioning that has led to so much pain. For anyone exploring healing on both a personal and collective level this episode is for you. She put words to a revolution we’re just now realizing we’ve already been a part of. 

Jeannie is truly such a force of love. She is the director of Living as Love, a nonprofit organization dedicated to seeding a culture of the Heart on the planet, inspiring, teaching and supporting people to live from their essence as Love.  A year before the birth of her daughter, Jeannie was plunged into a dark night of the soul that culminated in a radical shift of consciousness. She is known for her fearless clarity, tender mercy toward humanness, and a juicy, poetic and often humorous style that draws from Advaita Vedanta, Sufism, Christian mysticism and the ongoing revelation of fully engaged living.  Residing in Colorado, she travels widely in the US, bringing a down-to-earth embodied teaching of living as love. For more info on Jeannie and the upcoming course she speaks about in the episode please go to www.jeanniezandi.com 

For more information on Bliss + Grit, or to get information about one-on-one coaching with Brooke Thomas or Vanessa Scotto, please visit www.blissandgrit.com.

To become a supporting member and join our forum please visit www.patreon.com/blissandgrit

[Flashback Tuesday]

Our guest today, Neelam, is a direct disciple of Papaji, and she has been holding satsang internationally since 1996. She runs the non profit, Fire of Truth Satsanga. Neelam’s unequivocal commitment to truth helps students turn inward again and again to release underlying patterns of conditioning which block the recognition of their true nature as Presence.

The clarity and discriminating wisdom that are intrinsic to this awakened state are given freely by Neelam through Spiritual Inquiry, as she invites her students into the same recognition of truth that her teacher Papaji transmitted to her. In Our conversation with Neelam we talk about coming to know yourself as presence, what trust in your true nature means, and how the genuine experience of that trust can change our lives, what true freedom is, and how we can discern the difference between when past is arising, and playing out it’s habitual patterns and using it’s built up momentum, and when we are actually present.

We discuss in detail what Awakening and the capacity of the nervous system have to do with one another, what trauma actually is, and how to get out of the grooves and charges of the past so that we can truly be here and not in a remembered past or imagined future. We were also grateful that Neelam spoke so eloquently about tenderness and kindness as the true marker of if we are in the present, and how treating ourselves with tenderness can be the real alchemical agent.

For more information on Bliss + Grit, or to get information about one-on-one coaching with Brooke Thomas or Vanessa Scotto, please visit www.blissandgrit.com.

To become a supporting member and join our forum please visit www.patreon.com/blissandgrit

[Flashback Tuesday]

In this episode we’re excited to catch up with each other and integrate some of what we have experienced recently in the presence of so many amazing guest conversations, in particular our recent one with David Thomas. We’re exploring conditioning, again, but after being with David we’re posing the question to ourselves “what if it’s all conditioning?” What if, while we are in ego consciousness, all of our thoughts are simply products of our culture and lineage that become habitual? And if so, what would that mean about how we can shift out of our chronic patterns of suffering?

For more information on Bliss + Grit, or to get information about one-on-one coaching with Brooke Thomas or Vanessa Scotto, please visit www.blissandgrit.com.

To become a supporting member and join our forum please visit www.patreon.com/blissandgrit

[Flashback Tuesday]

Today we are talking with David Thomas. David is a self-realization teacher, speaker, and writer living in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Through the practice of Self-inquiry and meditation, he has acquired a deeper understanding of the inner self and true liberation. David now seeks to support individuals in their pursuit of self-realization through his writing and speaking. The insights he shares within his videos, quotes, and poems are created to help nurture the healing of individuals seeking release from their pain and suffering. All of his teachings come from his personal experience, so he gives an inside perspective from being lost in ignorance to finding the truth within.

We were both immediately struck by what a bright light David is. He has a very clear way of pointing out what conditioning actually is- how we are programmed and how we lose connection to life. His clarity on what the Being is- what direct experience is- versus our thoughts about ourselves can really rock your world in this talk if you sit with it. And his insights on the dark times we are living in as a result of how we have been forced to shut down our hearts is spot on. David points out That the heart always sees the truth, is always speaking the truth, but we are so cut off from it that we don’t feel it breaking and crying out. He also talks about the power of rock bottom. That when you are really broken, that that is when you are closest to God- and you can use that as a way immediately into God. Listening to David you can really feel what it means to be a Being who is living from the perspective of eternity- who is out of the way we think about time, and who understands the creator natures we all have at core. It was an absolute joy to talk with him. You can find more of his work via his YouTube channel, which is Enlightened Mindz.

For more information on Bliss + Grit, or to get information about one-on-one coaching with Brooke Thomas or Vanessa Scotto, please visit www.blissandgrit.com.

To become a supporting member and join our forum please visit www.patreon.com/blissandgrit

[Flashback Tuesday]

John J. Prendergast, PhD, is a psychotherapist, spiritual teacher, and founder and editor-in-chief of Undivided: The Online Journal of Nonduality and Psychology. John met his first teacher, Advaita master Jean Klein, in 1983 and began studying with one of our favorite teachers, Adyashanti, in 2001.

For 23 years John was also a professor of psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco where Vanessa Scotto went to grad school. He is the author of an amazing book called In Touch; How to Tune In to the Inner Guidance of Your Body and Trust Yourself.

We first came across John on the Buddha at the Gas Pump podcast where we were immediately drawn to his simple, yet profound, integration of Psychology and Spirituality. After Brooke Thomas sat with him on a weekend retreat a few months back we knew we needed to bring him on for a conversation we could share with all of you.

In this conversation we cover so many topics including how to trust yourself and tune into your intuition, how to access genuine safety, and why the Ego is doomed to fail. This conversation is a delight and a revelation that can affect you for years to come.

For more information on Bliss + Grit, or to get information about one-on-one coaching with Brooke Thomas or Vanessa Scotto, please visit www.blissandgrit.com.

To become a supporting member and join our forum please visit www.patreon.com/blissandgrit

[Flashback Tuesday]

Today we are having a conversation with Loch Kelly. Loch is the author of Shift into Freedom, and the creator of the recent audio course offering through Sounds True, Effortless Mindfulness Now.

He is a meditation teacher, psychotherapist, and founder of the non-profit, Open-Hearted Awareness Institute. Loch has collaborated with neuroscientists at Yale, UPenn and NYU. He has been teaching seminars, supervising clinicians and practicing awareness psychotherapy in New York for 30 years. It’s also worth mentioning that he teaches in our favorite lineage, the human being lineage! Which makes him a perfect teacher to have on Bliss+Grit.

We so admire how he talks about awakening as a normal developmental potential for all human beings, and how his approach is so practical and available. We talk about how the answer to any question related to relieving suffering is always the same: shift. We also discuss how to shift, and Loch offers several experiential practices throughout our conversation. So you don’t get to just hear about it, you can experience it for yourself.

For more on Loch Kelly, please visit: https://lochkelly.org.

For more information on Bliss + Grit, or to get information about one-on-one coaching with Brooke Thomas or Vanessa Scotto, please visit www.blissandgrit.com.

To become a supporting member and join our forum please visit www.patreon.com/blissandgrit

For this episode we zoomed out and explored: What is Bliss+Grit about exactly? More specifically, after nearly three years, 127 episodes and lots of personal healing, inquiry, and exposure to different teachers and practices: What is our working model of healing and transformation? How does conditioning store in us and how to we untangle that? And, importantly, if we aren’t our conditioning, what are we? It’s an ongoing lived inquiry more than a nailed down blueprint, and it’s more about building bridges between systems that are evocative of human potential rather than of picking a team and declaring it the winner. But here you go, at this juncture, this is where we’re at! 

In this episode we talk about: 

• How conditioning stores in the body, the mind, and our energetic patterns
• What do we consider optional suffering? 
• How do we de-condition ourselves? 
• What the nervous system has to do with it. 
• What are we when we aren’t our conditioning? 
• Our view of building bridges and connecting disciplines so that each of us can have our unique lived inquiry into our own lives, rather than a blueprint system. 

For more information on Bliss + Grit, or to get information about one-on-one coaching with Brooke Thomas or Vanessa Scotto, please go to www.blissandgrit.com.

To become a supporting member and join our forum please go to www.patreon.com/blissandgrit