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