Join us each week for conversations on how to live deep, meaningful lives in the midst of the whirlwind of everyday life.
Register for the "Everything is Waiting for You" retreat happening in Philly this Saturday, 4/7 at www.lifeinthewhirlwind.com/events
Like all things we do for a long enough time, I've sometimes found myself asking, "Do these episodes matter? Does anyone really care?" I don't say that with self-pity, but it does cross my mind. It's a human thing to ask this question... "Does what I do matter in the scheme of things?" This episodes spends a moment looking at this question. Come join the conversation.Don't forget to register for the Everything is Waiting for You Spring Retreat. Spots are filling up. Come say yes to participation and emerging with us! Much love to you all.
The body is telling a story. Are you listening?
For this episode my friend Caleb Cliff joins me to talk about 5 questions regarding how we might see life as practice, not mastery. In addition to some enjoyable conversation, make sure you hear our cool announcement at the end of the episode. Not to mention the global debut of one of Caleb's original songs, "Para" (written specifically for this episode, you all are the first to lay ears on it!). Come join this stimulating conversation as well as talk of future plans.We'd love to hear what YOU are hungry and thirsty for. What do you want to learn more about? What do you feel you've lost that you'd love to find again? What have you always wanted to know more of? What kinds of things rekindle your inner fire that could be shared in a co-learning community? Please share your heart's passions with us so we can consider this for our upcoming ventures that we'll be planning to bring to you all very soon. Leave a comment in this episode at www.lifeinthewhirlwind.com/podcast/episode59. It will help us so much, thank you!
View fullsize I'm back this week with a three-part reflection on obstacles. Come join the conversation!
Dr. King's message of interconnectedness and "zoomed-out-ness" has just as much relevance if not more so today than it ever has. We are faced with incredible threats of division and separation from our fellow human beings that are based on fear, prejudice, and inexcusable ignorance. Today, as we celebrate the life and passions of Dr. King, let's intentionally bring our awareness to his overview of humanity and how crucially interconnected we all actually are.
This episode (recorded in NYC in a blanket fort, by the way) comes to you right at the edge of a new year. Exploring reasons and motivations to set intentions for new years, please come join this conversation about laying groundwork for growth – instead of setting goals for the new year that will only make you feel empty and inadequate. You are loved and valuable in all your particularity, my friends.If you'd still like to register for the Winter of Listening Retreat on January 6, 2018 in the Northwest section of Philadelphia, check it out at http://www.lifeinthewhirlwind.com/events/winter-of-listening-retreat-2018.Much love and happy new year, friends.
Christmas can be hard. We often slip back into old relational patterns with family and old friends. We can forget who we truly are, who we've become as we've journeyed deeper into wholeness. This is not permanent, of course, but it can be discouraging. Today's episode (Happy Christmas!) is a meditation that will hopefully help you re-center, moving closer back to your True Self in the midst of this holiday season. You are loved, my friends.
If there's a "formula" to being open to transformation, it's seen in Mary – Jesus's mother. In this episode I share the simple but rich things I find in Mary's amazing heart, mind, body, and spirit. I think she's kind of amazing, you'll see. Come join the conversation!Thanks to Sleeping at Last, whose albums I have been playing on neverending repeat the last two weeks, for this beautiful song.
Well, we've come this far. Let's keep going! Today we celebrate 52 weeks together on this podcast. Come listen to some of the lessons I've learned (most of which I never could have expected) over the last year, and enjoy one of my all-time favorite songs in the world at the end. Much love, friends!Blessing: "Dare" by Jeff Foster
One last episode before we have our ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY! Today's invitation is to something longer and more lasting – to use this coming winter time to give birth to something amazing. Come join the conversation! This episode has real treats from the incredible David Whyte (excerpt from poem found at www.lifeinthewhirlwind.com/podcast/episode51) and the musical stylings of the one and only Yael Naïm... (lyrics at www.lifeinthewhirlwind.com/podcast/episode51).
View fullsize Sunrise at the cemetery. (c) Heather Drew
After seeing a live performance of My Fair Lady by the Quintessence Theatre Group in my neighborhood last week, I got to thinking about permission. Who do we give permission to and why? Why and when do we not give ourselves permission when perhaps we should? This episode (with a title inspired by Annie, a faithful listener) explore this and more. Come join the conversation!
Growth always awaits us in life, no doubt. But there are certain times in which we are called to journeys full of trial and questions without answers. So what's happening during those journeys? And how can we stay the course if they're worthwhile? Come join this conversation.P.S. It's almost our 1 year anniversary! I love hearing what this podcast has meant to you (thanks to the many who have written already to tell me). Email me at lifeinthewhirlwind@gmail.com.
Don't we often forget to equate disunity and silencing of one another's stories? I've been thinking a lot lately (and teaching on) trauma, suffering, and telling our stories in truthful, helpful ways. This episode centers around how sharing our pain creates unity in the body of humans. Come join the conversation. Email me if you'd like at lifeinthewhirlwind@gmail.com or leave a comment below at www.lifeinthewhirlwind.com/podcast/episode47.
Part 5 of the Unity series, this time we begin talking about how all this talk about self–work and –awareness leads to something far greater... we begin to talk about unity–with–other. Come join the conversation! Email thoughts, comments, questions, suggestions, etc to lifeinthewhirlwind@gmail.com. And please visit our donation page at www.lifeinthewhirlwind.com/give and join this project with your generosity!
The 4th episode in the Unity series, we explore how the deeper self is like a flame that needs to be protected, as well as why and how we might do this protecting. Lyrics for the song at the end can be found by clicking here: www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/davidcrosby/bythelightofcommonday.html. (Can you tell I'm pretty proud of the high applicability of this week's song?) Come join the conversation! Here's where you can email me: lifeinthewhirlwind@gmail.com. And here's where you can give a donation to the podcast project if you're loving what you're hearing (or even if you don't!): www.lifeinthewhirlwind.com/give.
Part 3 of the Unity series is here! This episode looks at how the dynamic nature of the deeper self is an important factor of self-unity and unity with others. Come join this conversation (and see why I posted a picture of Mary Cassatt's painting Baby's First Caress...). Email anytime. Lifeinthewhirlwind@gmail.com or comment on this episode on the podcast website found at lifeinthewhirlwind.com/podcast.
Forgive me as I guilelessly steal from Walt Whitman's famous poem, "Song of Myself" for this episode title... (one of my favorites, by the way). I bring you the first episode in the "Unity" series. This one introduces the importance of unity with the Deeper Self, while growing in awareness with its partner, the Surface Self. Come join this conversation! Email me at lifeinthewhirlwind@gmail.com with comments or questions. I always love when you do!
This episode embarks us on a journey about Unity – within and between people – and its purpose and qualities.
How we typically define "the good life" often makes us miss what is actually good about life. We have the job, the car, the relationship, the dog, the house...whatever it is. But do we find connection and purpose in the ordinary beautiful pieces of life? Come join the conversation!
Ever go through something difficult and your first impulse was to "suck it up"? We all have had those moments. Come explore important questions about what happens when we "suck it up," and how when we think we're burying something, we're actually doing quite the opposite. Join the conversation! Comment at www.lifeinthewhirlwind.com/podcast/episode40 or email me at lifeinthewhirlwind@gmail.com.
In the West (especially America) we tend to follow the compulsion to appear as the "expert" or "capable one." What do we gain and what do we lose from taking this posture as often as we do? What is an alternative and what does it offer instead? Come join the conversation. Emails can be sent to lifeinthewhirlwind@gmail.com. (Yes, even you, Zac...) www.lifeinthewhirlwind.com/podcast/episode39.
Everyone, at some point in their lives, has said, "I just want to belong." But what we end up doing in attempts to belong often brings about the exact opposite experience, bringing shame and feelings of rejection. Brené Brown says that fitting in is the enemy of true belonging. In this episode we explore practices and questions that may lead to a greater sense of true belonging. Come join the conversation. Email, comment, ask! Lifeinthewhirlwind@gmail.com.
Have you ever stopped to consider what American culture considers "boring," "wasteful," and/or "inefficient"? (If you listen to this podcast, you probably have, yes.) In this episode we explore why and how these practices are powerfully important are, particularly in a world that calls them not worth our time and energy. Come join the conversation. Comment, email, ask questions, etc. Lifeinthewhirlwind@gmail.com or www.lifeinthewhirlwind.com/podcast/episode37.
I can barely believe it, but I completely FORGOT to post my episode this week...until today. I apologize for the lateness. I'll try to make sure it doesn't happen again. To make up for my tardiness, I have an episode for you that is...well, a little different. You'll have to listen to find out what I mean. (smile) Hope you enjoy, my friends. xoxo
Last week, we talked about how love sees. Love itself and those who choose to love us see all the parts of us – those parts we find beautiful and those we find fearsome. This week join the conversation as it takes a shift toward the accountability of love, which is one quality that makes it quite unique. Particularly in light of the tragic demonstrations this weekend in Charlottesville, VA, it's time to talk about the accountability love invites. Excerpt from John Pavlovitz's blog entry from yesterday can be found here: Yes, This is Racism. Put some love out into the world, all. The world needs more light. xoxo
Love. It's a word and a concept that is overused, misunderstood, and thrown around. It is also something that is naturally part of daily life – sometimes hourly life – yet we don't always know what it means, what it is, or what it is capable of. In this episode, let's explore what Love does (hint: I gave you a sneak peak in the title...!) and how Love's way & how Love itself can transcend the ways in which we have cheapened and misused it. Want to email me? Go for it. Lifeinthewhirlwind@gmail.com - or comment on this episode at www.lifeinthewhirlwind.com/podcast/episode34.
This is third and (probably) final part of the "home" series. And that's all I'm going to say! (Hehe...) You don't want to miss the gorgeous, relaxing nature sounds in this episode, which was recorded on my camping trip in Vermont. Enjoy! Email thoughts and questions to lifeinthewhirlwind@gmail.com or leave a comment at lifeinthewhirlwind.com/podcast/episode33.
In last week's episode we talked about the concept of home. Home isn't where you go to get away from the storm; home is a place of safety right smack dab in the middle of the storm. So in this episode, we expand on this topic of home, discussing how we can practice living at home, even when it feels so far off. Come join the conversation. Email me at lifeinthewhirlwind@gmail.com or leave a comment on this episode at lifeinthewhirlwind.com/podcast/episode32.
What is home for you? What does it feel like? Is it a place? A mindset? An image? A far-off longing? In this episode, come join me as I discuss the universal feeling of longing for something called "home" and how we can be transformed by even the longing itself. Come join the conversation. Visit the website at www.lifeinthewhirlwind.com or email me at lifeinthewhirlwind@gmail.com. I love receiving your emails, so keep them coming!
View fullsize Is it "wrong" to let ourselves be affirmed and listen to the voices of those who love us to find peace? What is the balance between this and finding peace within ourselves without the help of others? It's not as cut-and-dried as we often say it is. This episode is a good follow up to last week's episode on combating shame narratives. Come join me on my vacation and let's have a conversation (with an abundance of metaphors), shall we?Thoughts? Questions? Itches? Email them to lifeinthewhirlwind@gmail.com.
"You really know how to suck a person dry." ... "What is wrong with you?" ... "You're not strong enough to handle this." ... "You're just too much." ... These kinds of shame narratives play in our heads all day long. Sometimes we are conscious of them, sometimes we aren't. But they're playing like music in a café – filling our internal lives with background noise. What if we acknowledged these narratives as real (but not true), in doing so moved toward them (!), and spoke truth to them so they could be transformed? My dear friend and colleague Phil Monroe joins me for this episode on shame narratives. Phil wrote a recent blog entry that got me thinking about shame narratives and how much air time they tend to get in our lives. Make sure you check out his blog at www.philipmonroe.com. Also in this episode, I mention a Brené Brown video I posted. Feel free to check it out here: Brené Brown on harm & healing in faith communities. Finally, if you didn't see it already, check out the blog post I wrote on Wednesday that goes along well with this topic: Live a Life Guided by Grace & Love? Huh?? Don't be shy...send me your thoughts, questions, ideas at lifeinthewhirlwind@gmail.com. I love hearing from you!
A big part of practicing non-attachment is being careful to not decide how things are going to go (in any direction). Often our negative anticipations become self-fulfilling prophecies. Come join this conversation on how to balance anticipation with openness. Keep the emails coming! lifeinthewhirlwind@gmail.com
On the front page of my website I have a line that says "Don't merely survive...FLOURISH." I started this entire project as a result of observing how often we survive, and how rarely we actually flourish as we were created to. While the survival part of our brains is a virtuous gift when a bear is chasing us, there is something so much more expansive and generative that is always available to us. In this 6 month anniversary episode (!!!!) I have a tender, loving invitation for you, my dear friends. Come check it out. Much love and happy anniversary! Email me! What has this 6 months meant to you, personally? What do you want more of? What visiting voice are you dying to hear (or hear again)? Send your emails to lifeinthewhirlwind@gmail.com.
This past week I spent time with a group of uniquely vulnerable, dear humans who dared greatly to share themselves with one another and me. In the wake of this experience, I have some insights to share about divided self versus congruent self – the benefits and struggles of being the same on the outside as we are on the inside. Email your challenges, thoughts, and questions to lifeinthewhirlwind@gmail.com.
About 10 years ago I read an article on quantum entanglement. You don't have to know anything about science to find this concept amazing on a very practical level. In the way two particles live in a relational holism no matter what distance apart they are (and we're talking light years), so we humans have these things about us that are the same. The closer we move to the "center" of the human experience, the more unified we realize we actually are. On the other hand, the closer we move to "center," the riskier it becomes to be exposed with another. As I respond to a listener's questions about some previous episodes, buckle up for this ride where we explore the beauty of unified diversity and the experiences we all share yet shy away from...well, sharing. Come join the conversation! Keep the emails coming, people. lifeinthewhirlwind@gmail.com
Life is a balance between learning and unlearning. Learning is our foundation, made up of pre-conventional and conventional wisdom and knowledge that we need to establish important routines and realities. Then our latter state is this mobius loop of fluid learning and unlearning, of post-conventional wisdom and knowledge, full of creativity, challenge, and alternate ways of being. This creates within us (then usually around us) a perpetual state of flow. Come join the conversation for an unprecedented number of metaphors relating back to this concept that we experience regularly, but don't always talk about. Happy flowing. xoxo Email (lifeinthewhirlwind@gmail.com) or leave a comment below this episode at www.lifeinthewhirlwind.com/podcast/episode23.
We often think that the under-tapped unconscious holds the secrets to our transformation. I wonder if, in fact, what we call transformation – or even what we call "real life" – is most truly the here-and-now. If this is true, the thing that brings us into life as we know it is going to be, well...coming to our senses. Come join us for this conversation on the different options we have to living life – invisible and visible. Email your thoughts, questions, ideas, musings to lifeinthewhirlwind@gmail.com. Hearing from you is pure delight! P.S. Happy Mothers' Day to all you who are moms! xoxo
Too often we think our gifts and unique qualities are not "enough" simply because those with whom we share community do not also possess those qualities and gifts. We don't blend. We stick out like a sore thumb, perhaps. Yet variety and diversity is exactly what we all need. Come join this conversation, examining and challenging the ways in which you might judge certain gifts and qualities as less-than when perhaps "different" is what we were created to be. Email anytime! lifeinthewhirlwind@gmail.com.
View fullsize When you ring a bell (or a singing bowl, which I use to help me in this episode) you hear the strike of the bell for only an instant; it is the resonance, the ripple of the strike that you hear for a good long while. So it is in our lives. There are four parts to everything, but we rarely give attention and honor to the fourth part of everything, which is the ripple effect.Come check join this conversation about truth and enchantment in plain sight, and I can almost guarantee how you view just about everything that happens in your life will change!Email your thoughts, comments, joys, disagreements, etc to me at lifeinthewhirlwind@gmail.com or leave a comment below this post on the podcast website at lifeinthewhirlwind.com/podcast/episode20.
Has anyone ever said to you, "You are good" ? Did you quickly deny it (either internally or externally)? Did you ponder it? Did you believe the person? Unfortunately we are much quicker to believe that we are inherently bad, yet that's very contrary to the story the Divine Maker has given us. This episode just skims the surface of the conversation of Original Goodness and True Self, which will surely continue on this podcast. We were made in and from Love, and yet we are told so differently by experiences and people in our lives. I invite you to enter into this episode receptive to your innate very-goodness, and receive and ponder these truths this week. And remember: you are very, very good. Email me! lifeinthewhirlwind@gmail.com or write a comment below this episode.
Did you love last week's episode? Here's the perfect follow up.
This week I've got a real treat for you...a visiting voice! An artful one, at that. But first, let me whet your whistle. So do you ever happen to notice that we go through our days having innumerable experiences just underneath the experiences that are obvious to the naked eye? We say things, but how often do we realize why we say them, or from what part of us they come? When we have an emotional response, we often act upon it in some way, but how often do we reflect on what that is rooted in? For this episode one of my dearest friends, Ryan Thomas Neace, joins me to talk about process. Process, as we talk about it in this episode, is the choice to experience, expand, and share our awareness of our life's subtext in order to nourish the space inside us and between us & those with whom we share life. Ryan and I both practice process in our own lives as a way to deepen a quintessential aspect of what it means to be truly human: to know and be known by one another. So I thought it would be fun to talk about in an episode! Come join the conversation as we look at the value, practicalities, barriers, purposes, etc of process as a life-giving practice. Production note: In my constant pursuit to practice authenticity in this podcast, this episode contains some "sound blemishes," including some crackling, some cell phone interference, and (best of all) a very human moment between us where Ryan thought his audio had stopped recording and we had a brief moment of fear. I chose to leave these in, hoping you'll enjoy our humanness as much as I did. Any questions or comments? Please email me at lifeinthewhirlwind@gmail.com. Feel free to copy Ryan in on any emails about this episode as well. His address is ryan@changeincorporated.org. And please read more of Ryan's deep and multitudinal wisdom at his website: ryanthomasneace.com
I don't know about you, but I think it's so nice to have vocabulary for what we experience in everyday human life. One of the things we experience is attachments to certain outcomes. But there is a lot of value (ancient value, I would daresay) in practicing choice and action while also practicing the release of outcomes. In this first episode of many (I hope) on non-attachment, we scratch the surface of non-attachment, its value to bring us into more whole versions of ourselves, and its ability to help us flourish. (That's a good idea, hmm?) Come join the conversation! Thanks for all your emails. Keep them coming. I'm treasuring each one and compiling them for a future episode I hope to do on listener emails! Email me at lifeinthewhirlwind.com.
What is automatic for us is often not the thing that best serves us –– would you agree? We spend so much of our lives in states of automatic thinking, feeling, acting and reacting. But what if, instead, we paused and did something very un-automatic instead? What would change? Come join the conversation on how this experiment can change a lot more than you might imagine. Please feel free to email me your findings from this experiment this week! In your email let me know if you'd like your findings to stay private / anonymous, or if you don't mind me sharing them in a future episode perhaps. Email me at lifeinthewhirlwind@gmail.com.
Henri Nouwen once wrote a letter to a friend in which he said, "In order to live a hospitable life––not just a hospitable year––you need a lot of time for yourself to read, to write, to study, to meditate, to pray, to just be alone. If you do not claim that for yourself, you are not hospitable enough because you do not create the quiet restful place where people can find healing." What a week it's been for me to do that! I am grateful to have had a trip to San Francisco where I did just this. On this trip, I checked two things off my bucket list––two things that cleared my head, gave me perspective, filled me with life and awe, and offered me a sweet and distinct sense renewal. In this episode we'll discuss what we call the beginner's mind, a way of approaching the world and life that is both rooted in the wisdom of the past while practicing an openness to learning. Come join the conversation!
We often treat intense emotions or experiences like intruders. While this may seem natural and normal (since everyone around us is often doing it), what if it's leading to unecessary suffering and holding us back from our best available life? As I like to say, vulnerability is hospitality of the self. Come join us for this episode as we discuss opening ourselves in different ways and how to attempt different kinds of approaches to experiences we have previously rejected. Come join the conversation!
What are the so-called "optimal conditions" we tend to wait for in life before we choose to open ourselves or dare greatly in life? Sadly we often wait too long, or we hide – never to dare at all. We let our natural fear of pain, judgment, criticism, exposure, etc keep us small. But what growth and expansion of True Self is missed when we shrink, hide, or stand still? Come join the conversation as we discuss vulnerability, openness, and how & why it may lead to expansive life that holds steady in the whirlwind.
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