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Explore every episode of the podcast Deep Transformation

Dive into the complete episode list for Deep Transformation. Each episode is cataloged with detailed descriptions, making it easy to find and explore specific topics. Keep track of all episodes from your favorite podcast and never miss a moment of insightful content.

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TitlePub. DateDuration
The Wonderful Ideals But Flawed Applications of DEI: Intolerant Tolerance, Undiverse Diversity, Unliberal Liberalism, and More29 Aug 202400:55:28

Ep. 145 (Part 1 of 3) | Award-winning author, Zen priest and teacher, Kung Fu master, and professional advisor and trainer, Keith Martin-Smith, took a good look at the diversity, equity, and inclusion movement when he began to notice the damage it was causing people he knew under the guise of progress, or equity. Putting his keen mind to the task, Keith identified seven key areas where the DEI movement goes markedly astray from the values it aspires to. Coming from an integral understanding, Keith does more than simply point out where the movement has backfired. We learn that postmodern thinking is how we became aware of the “subtle soup of racism [and bias] in the cultural field itself”—beyond the concrete, obvious social injustices that activists fought in the 20th century. This more subtle field of bias is responsible for the inequalities we see in society today, which is what the DEI movement would like to tear down. But the ways in which DEI acts to make this happen, ironically, are characterized by exactly the things that DEI is against: intolerance, inequity, undiversity, tribalism, and anti-liberalism.

In his wise, articulate, and gracious way, Keith makes sense of why the diversity, equity, and inclusion movement has become a political flashpoint, raising the hackles of not only rightwing conservatives but also liberal progressives. Sympathetic to the values of DEI, Keith is all about helping to create a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive movement. When asked how the values of DEI could be fulfilled to make it the harmonious, effective, correcting movement it aspires to be, Keith responded, “with conversations like this, for one thing,” adding, “we need to realize that everyone has a portion of truth—we just need to connect everyone’s portion of truth with their heart.” Recorded June 6, 2024.

“Everybody cares…they just care about different things. Consensus and change come from being willing to listen to what people care about and finding space to honor that.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 1
  • Introducing award-winning author, professional advisor & trainer, martial arts master, Zen priest & teacher Keith Martin-Smith (01:12) 
  • How Keith came to articulate what has gone wrong with the diversity, equity & inclusion movement (01:49)
  • The divisiveness of DEI and the need to bring in an integral understanding (06:22)
  • The difference between concrete, overt injustices and systemic injustice (08:27)
  • The subtle soup of racism in the cultural field that we have become aware of in the postmodern period (11:19)
  • All the punches at DEI are being thrown from an early rational or prerational worldview (15:26)
  • What are the seven deadly sins of DEI? (18:15)
  • DEI’s simplistic view of privilege, considering race, sex & gender, but not class, education & family of origin (19:00)
  • What are healthy responses to having been given privilege (as opposed to shame and guilt)? (23:37)
  • DEI proponents lecturing us about privilege don’t talk about their own privilege (26:50)
  • The effect of neglecting class in DEI’s reductionist view of privilege (29:56)
  • The problematic (undiverse) way the DEI movement treats diversity (34:31)
  • Concrete racism versus subtle racism/microaggressions (37:49)
  • Because Asians are doing so well, they are excluded from the diversity discussion (39:56)
  • Intolerant tolerance and the why the 2017 women’s march movement fell apart (41:49)
  • Robin diAngelo, white fragility, systemic internalized racism (43:49)
  • Dismissing views you don’t agree with (46:57)
  • Holding privilege with humility and the importance of genuinely listening (49:05)
  • The purity test requiring people to toe the DEI party line (50:11)

Resources & References – Part 1

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

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Keith Martin-Smith is the award-winning author of five books, most recently When the Buddha Needs Therapy, about which Ken Wilber said, “This is a terrific book, fully embracing a truly Integral perspective and highly recommended.” He is also an ordained Zen priest, a Northern Kung Fu lineage holder and recognized sifu, and a professional advisor and trainer. More at KeithMartinSmith.com.

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Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Exploring the Depths of the Soul: Bridging Ancient Wisdom & Modern Psychology Using the Practice of Inquiry with A. H. Almaas (Part 2)22 Aug 202400:39:47

Ep. 144 (Part 2 of 2) | In the second A. H. Almaas Wisdom Series conversation, Hameed Ali describes how the practice of inquiry can aid us on our spiritual journey, illuminating our understanding of our personal experience and our soul. He uses the example of inquiring into a sense of worthlessness to illustrate what happens as we begin to investigate the terrain of our consciousness. There comes a point when the inquiry leads beyond where a psychologist would normally end—when it slips from psychological into spiritual inquiry. “If you stay with the wounding, something will emerge: a sense of inherent value. You recognize ‘I am presence’ and this presence has value—all the way to nondual presence and beyond.” 

In introducing us to the Diamond Approach’s inquiry technique, Hameed covers a rich array of topics: the dynamism of consciousness; the importance of scientific objectivity in our exploration of inner experience; modern psychology’s revelation of how our sense of self develops; the essential qualities of curiosity and love of truth; and how understanding the ways in which the past influences the present disentangles it. Hameed is a masterful teacher—with just a few words he can illuminate vast territories of spiritual landscape for the purpose of helping his students learn to live their lives from a deeper, liberated condition. Rather than aiming to transcend our experience, Hameed assures us there is a way through, an unraveling we can do, as we discover never-ending realizations about individual consciousness and the nature of reality. Recorded July 4, 2024.

“The soul is a living embodiment of the life force.” 

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 2
  • Basic trust: fundamentally we are an indestructible nature, but our basic trust can get whittled away (00:50)
  • Feeling the love inherent to reality (05:27)
  • Marrying ancient knowledge of the soul with advancements in modern psychology (06:09) 
  • Psychology provides us with answers about how our sense of self develops but not about what gets structured—the soul (09:35)
  • Individual consciousness is impressionable, otherwise learning would not be possible (12:31)
  • The self is nothing but the soul structured through the ego stages of development (14:28)
  • Psychodynamics and the self-liberating quality of the soul (15:29)
  • We need our sense of self in order to survive—and in order to become become illuminated, we need a body (17:21)
  • To stay with the ego self is arrested development, but we can develop further to become conscious of consciousness itself (19:53)
  • We can understand the terrain of experience rather than simply transcend it—we can go through it, unravel it, and open up different dimensions of reality as we go (21:40)
  • As we inquire we go deeper, bringing liberation into ordinary life (24:58)
  • The emphasis in the East is on liberation—the emphasis in the West is on how to fulfill life (26:06)
  • What many nondual teachings don’t understand is the individual soul (27:14)
  • The enlightenment drive: motivation beyond ego (30:38)
  • Beyond the enlightenment drive: pure being coming through individual consciousness (34:45)

Resources & References – Part 2

The A. H. Almaas Wisdom Series will generally follow the sequence of Hameed’s magnum opus, The Inner Journey Home* (which John describes as psychoactive and spiritually, psychologically, and intellectually transformative), so listeners may want to get a copy of this book, to study and follow along on this exhilarating path of awakening.

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

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A. Hameed Ali (A. H. Almaas) was born in Kuwait in 1944. At the age of eighteen, he moved to the U.S. to study at the University of California in Berkeley. Hameed was working on his Ph.D. in physics when he reached a turning point in his life and destiny that led him to inquire into the psychological and spiritual aspects of human nature rather than the physical nature of the universe. He left the academic world to pursue an in-depth journey of inner discovery, applying his scientific precision and discipline to personal, experiential research. This included study with different teachers in different modalities, extensive reading, and continuous study of his own consciousness in an effort to understand the essential nature of human experience and reality in general.

Hameed’s process of exploration led to the creation of the Ridhwan School and, with his colleague Karen Johnson, resulted in the founding and unfoldment of the Diamond Approach. He is the author of 20 books, including Nondual Love: Awakening to the Loving Nature of Reality, Love Unveiled: Discovering the Essence of the Awakened Heart, Keys to the Enneagram: How to Unlock the Highest Potential of Every Personality Type, The Unfolding Now: Realizing Your True Nature through the Practice of Presence, and more. 

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Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Democracy in Decline? Making Sense of the Supreme Court, the Trump Trials, and Threats to Public Morality20 Jun 202400:51:12

Ep. 135 (Part 1 of 2) | Criminal justice professor and constitutional law expert Mark Fischler does a brilliant job of deepening our understanding of the challenges facing our democracy, our legal system, and our public morality. How did the democratic process and the values it represents—equality and liberty for all—come to be teetering on the brink? Mark illuminates the fact that the Constitution is not a set-in-stone document, but eminently open to interpretation, and explains that its interpretation is a direct reflection of the worldviews of the Supreme Court justices. In fact, the whole process of democracy needs to be aligned with a certain level of development in order to deliver. Mark points out that democracy hasn’t served all of us, and urges us to explore who and in what ways it has failed, that we may work to correct its flaws and continue to uphold and expand the values foundational to democracy to include respecting and protecting the rights of all beings.

Mark contrasts the moral integrity of revered public figures such as Socrates and Dr. King, who honored the rule of law despite that it went against their own self interest, with the disregard for the law so prevalent among political figures today, and points out that democracy can be subverted not only by malicious intent, but also by misplaced idealism—when people feel that supporting a charismatic leader or ideology is more important than supporting the principles of democracy. With regard to the Trump trials, the question arises, is any human above the law? Mark also shares where he finds hope—in his own university students with their openness to a deeper ethical understanding and responsibility and willingness to undertake civic action. Mark urges all of us who care about democracy to become engaged now. His wise, integral, highly informed insights about the current state of the legal system and of democracy, here and around the world, are revelatory, alarming, and inspiring in turn. Recorded May 22, 2024.

“Democracy really only functions properly when there is a foundational rule of law.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 1
  • Introducing criminal justice professor and integral expert on constitutional law, Mark Fischler (01:32)
  • The hush money trial: you can’t disengage the politics (03:46)
  • Is any human being above the rule of law? (06:16)
  • It was ethical Republicans that got Nixon to resign; now a cult-like status exists in the party (07:36)
  • How people like Supreme Court Justice Alito’s wife and Justice Thomas’ wife have bought into the Stop the Steal idea, supporting the idea that the 2020 election was false (10:15)
  • Impeachment is the most direct form of accountability in the Supreme Court (12:50)
  • Understanding the nature of the current Supreme Court and how the Constitution gets interpreted according to the justices’ worldviews (14:12)
  • The Citizens United case where the Supreme Court ruled to give corporations the right to freedom of speech (17:31)
  • The current Supreme Court is hostile to the Union movement, to regulation around land use, to green, pluralistic values—it’s all about protecting individual rights (20:13)
  • The Constitution is not the solid document we might think, but is very open to interpretation (23:35)
  • The Federalist Society and the rise of originalism (24:35)
  • The beginning of culture wars in the Supreme Court and how Supreme Court nominee Robert Borg applied originalism to abortion (29:33)
  • Selective interpretation of the Constitution and originalist interpretations of the 2nd and 8th Amendments (33:58)
  • How should democracy be delivered? What we want to see reflected in our interpretation of the Constitution is an honoring of our interconnectivity with all sentient beings (38:19)
  • The Manhattan hush money case soon going to jury and why it turned into a felony case (40:55)
  • Does Trump’s motivation to run for president include attempting to pardon his own crimes? Can someone pardon themself? (46:13)

Resources & References

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

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Mark Fischler is a Professor of Criminal Justice and current program coordinator for the criminal justice and criminology programs at Plymouth State University. Prior to joining the Plymouth State faculty, he practiced law, representing poor criminal defendants for the New Hampshire Public Defender’s Office. Mark left the law after being guided by the Universe to focus on his Spiritual Awareness for almost two years. Upon his return, he was called to become a teacher and accepted a job at Plymouth State in 2003. 

Since then, Mark has worked extensively with alternative theoretical models in law, constitutional law, and higher education, and has published on integral applications to teaching, being a lawyer, and legal theory. In his time at the university, he’s been a chair, Dean, and Interim VP. His focus in the classroom is ethics and criminal procedure and constitutional law. He is well respected for a teaching philosophy that emphasizes recognizing the humanity and dignity of each student. Professor Fischler was awarded the outstanding teaching award at his university in 2014. He currently offers a weekly Spiritual Inquiry class for college students.

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Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Opening to Grace: Welcoming the Gifts of Inspiration & Transformation29 Sep 202200:55:55

Ep. 45 | Miranda Macpherson, spiritual teacher, author, and leader of the Living Grace Global Sangha, received a life changing transmission of divine grace while meditating in a cave in India in 2005. Subsequently, she developed the practice of Ego Relaxation to guide others in becoming receptive to subtle forms of grace that bring the clarity we need to live the most noble and healing of lives. In this conversation, Miranda discusses questions such as “What is the cause of our being and all being? How do we recognize that grace is already our primordial ground? What limits our capacity to be here, as we are, in this moment?” And she describes how using inquiry aids us in forming a relationship with grace.

Miranda is a spirited, nondual, unabashedly feminine teacher who dares to use the word God. Hers is an inspirational path and teaching leading to the development of profound trust. Miranda describes how her own total trust developed through periods of undoing, sorting out, a period of relinquishment, and finally allowing the dissembling of all that was familiar. Not leading with our intellect is what we need to learn. As Miranda says, “What the world needs is more graceful human beings.” Recorded at the Science and Nonduality Conference, October 2019, with Dr. Roger Walsh, John Dupuy, and Douglas Prater. 

“Be nothing, do nothing. Get nothing, become nothing. Seek for nothing. Relinquish nothing. Be as you are. Rest in God.”

Note: This podcast was recorded live and includes, at times, some extraneous noises in the background. Please excuse them -- we felt the conversation was very valuable and well worth sharing with our audience. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps
  • What is grace? The agency of our transformation (01:50)
  • The path of “gentle effort” vs ego effort (05:11)
  • Humbling our sense of being the “doer” and recognizing the cause of our being—and all being (06:05)
  • Using inquiry to form a relationship with grace: what is holding you now? (08:50)
  • The ground of being is more than emptiness; it’s full of life, nourishing and healing (10:42)
  • Recognizing the ground of grace is the beginning of ego relaxation (12:28)
  • Miranda’s ego relaxation teaching practices: holistic inquiry and meditation (13:06)
  • The value of human relationship for awakening (16:24)
  • Fear is a force we need to address if we want to deepen—both individual and cultural fear (17:55)
  • In the practice of ego relaxation, do nothing to fix or change yourself, but allow the mystical power of grace to do the transforming; all you need to do is stop concealing yourself (21:52)
  • Simply letting things be is effective because it brings to light that you are not the doer (24:32)
  • How to overcome the deeply ingrained message “life is not meant to be easy” (27:31)
  • Miranda’s transmission of ego relaxation in a cave in India and her following “period of undoing” (28:58)
  • Our egos are driven by an experience of lack—let’s relax into self-forgiveness and compassion (34:03)
  • What happened with Miranda when more ordinary awareness returned? (38:09)
  • The importance of including our animal humanity—the emotional, the frightened, the irrational and non-linear (42:55)
  • The integration stage and the call to service (44:59)
  • How does the practice of ego relaxation contribute to helping our civilization at this time of crisis? (47:19)
  • Becoming open to the most subtle forms of grace (49:15)

Resources & References

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

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Miranda Macpherson is known for her depth of presence and gift for guiding others into direct experience of the Sacred. She shares a holistic approach to spiritual surrender and non-dual realization based on the practice of Ego Relaxation, inspired by Sri Ramana Maharshi, A Course in Miracles, extensive study of the world’s wisdom traditions, and more recently the Diamond Approach. Miranda’s books include The Way of Grace: The Transforming Power of Ego Relaxation, Boundless Love, and Meditations on Boundless Love. She is also a kirtan musician with two mantra albums, Streams of Grace and The Heart of Being. 

Miranda brings three decades of teaching experience in what truly works to liberate unnecessary suffering and gain traction on the path of awakening. Founder of OneSpirit Interfaith Foundation in London, where she trained and ordained over 600 ministers and spiritual counselors, today Miranda leads the Living Grace Global Sangha and offers retreats internationally and online programs through the Shift Network.

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Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Nonduality and Beyond: The Exhilarating Adventure of Discovering the Nature of Reality & How Awakenings Can Unfold Endlessly with A. H. Almaas (Part 2)22 Sep 202200:43:31

Ep. 44 (Part 2 of 2) | A.H. Almaas (Hameed Ali), renowned author and co-creator of the Diamond Approach, a complete spiritual path that flows out of his direct personal experience and realization, informed by the great wisdom traditions and practices, describes here his own process of inquiry and some of what he has come to discover in his lifelong pursuit to understand the nature of reality and know the truth. 

Hameed tells us answers come in the form of experiences rather than words and that there is no end to what we can realize about our true nature and reality itself. He talks about experiencing the authentic presence of being; the dynamics of realization; the paradox of practice; the importance of curiosity; and the joy of discovery. What makes time possible and what makes timelessness possible? What happens when we die? Throughout the conversation, Hameed transmits a quiet exuberance, humor, profound wisdom, and deep peace. This is a remarkable, inspiring, sometimes astonishing dialogue that will illuminate and exhilarate your understanding of the nature of reality and our potential as human beings. Recorded August 10, 2022.

“Reality really has much more up its sleeve than any human being can imagine.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps - Part 2
  • On death: each of us has a particular consciousness that is undying; death is not the end, but how we live our life will influence how we die and afterwards (00:53)
  • Is an initial activation—a “close encounter of the third kind with true nature”—a requirement to enter the Ridhwan School? (07:49)
  • What is “runaway realization''? There’s no end to what you can realize about reality or yourself (09:18)
  • The importance of true curiosity (12:30)
  • The experience of pure, absolute time: what makes time possible and timelessness possible? An example of Hameed’s own inquiry process (13:29) 
  • Spiritual discourse and non-standard realization (15:57)
  • Becoming alive to the zen of ordinariness (20:02)
  • Hameed’s practice: continual inquiry and meditation (22:31)
  • Most of Hameed’s awakenings don’t happen in meditation (24:47)
  • The dynamic of realization: practice opens us to grace (25:56)
  • Opening to transmission (31:59)
  • A new kind of presence: non-standard presence is very important to opening to runaway realization (33:12)
  • In the depths of nondual realization something arises (36:51)

Resources & References - Part 2

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

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A. Hameed Ali (A. H. Almaas) was born in Kuwait in 1944. At the age of eighteen, he moved to the U.S. to study at the University of California in Berkeley. Hameed was working on his Ph.D. in physics when he reached a turning point in his life and destiny that led him to inquire into the psychological and spiritual aspects of human nature rather than the physical nature of the universe. 

He left the academic world to pursue an in-depth journey of inner discovery, applying his scientific precision and discipline to personal, experiential research. This included study with different teachers in different modalities, extensive reading, and continuous study of his own consciousness in an effort to understand the essential nature of human experience and reality in general. Hameed’s process of exploration led to the creation of the Ridhwan School and, with his colleague Karen Johnson, resulted in the founding and unfoldment of the Diamond Approach.

---

Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Nonduality and Beyond: The Exhilarating Adventure of Discovering the Nature of Reality & How Awakenings Can Unfold Endlessly with A. H. Almaas15 Sep 202200:42:03

Ep. 43 (Part 1 of 2) | A.H. Almaas (Hameed Ali), renowned author and co-creator of the Diamond Approach, a complete spiritual path that flows out of his direct personal experience and realization, informed by the great wisdom traditions and practices, describes here his own process of inquiry and some of what he has come to discover in his lifelong pursuit to understand the nature of reality and know the truth. 

Hameed tells us answers come in the form of experiences rather than words and that there is no end to what we can realize about our true nature and reality itself. He talks about experiencing the authentic presence of being; the dynamics of realization; the paradox of practice; the importance of curiosity; and the joy of discovery. What makes time possible and what makes timelessness possible? What happens when we die? Throughout the conversation, Hameed transmits a quiet exuberance, humor, profound wisdom, and deep peace. This is a remarkable, inspiring, sometimes astonishing dialogue that will illuminate and exhilarate your understanding of the nature of reality and our potential as human beings. Recorded August 10, 2022.

“Reality really has much more up its sleeve than any human being can imagine.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps - Part 1
  • Roger introduces Hameed Ali (A. H. Almaas) and the Diamond Approach (01:09)
  • The practice of direct inquiry into the fundamental nature of reality: the answers come in experiences rather than words (05:10)
  • Trusting reality to take us to what is good for us; reality is self revealing (08:14)
  • The “paradox of practice”: recognizing our inherent helplessness and hopelessness (10:19) 
  • Hameed’s initial opening: recognizing the authentic presence of being (13:06)
  • Each awakening has a particular view: nonduality and beyond (15:09)
  • Holding on to a view becomes a delusion, regardless of the realization (18:51)
  • The “view of totality”: a metaperspective allowing for endless realizations and openings and appreciation of the boundless creativity of the universe (21:37)
  • Many teachings are working towards liberation and freedom from suffering, but Hameed “wanted to understand reality and to know the truth” (25:22)
  • Enlightenment itself evolves, it keeps moving (28:33)
  • The dichotomy between spiritual and material is a construct (35:10)
  • Discovery is part of life, part of realization (37:18)
  • The completion of realization is going out in the world, learning how to live it (39:04)

Resources & References - Part 1

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

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A. Hameed Ali (A. H. Almaas) was born in Kuwait in 1944. At the age of eighteen, he moved to the U.S. to study at the University of California in Berkeley. Hameed was working on his Ph.D. in physics when he reached a turning point in his life and destiny that led him to inquire into the psychological and spiritual aspects of human nature rather than the physical nature of the universe. 

He left the academic world to pursue an in-depth journey of inner discovery, applying his scientific precision and discipline to personal, experiential research. This included study with different teachers in different modalities, extensive reading, and continuous study of his own consciousness in an effort to understand the essential nature of human experience and reality in general. Hameed’s process of exploration led to the creation of the Ridhwan School and, with his colleague Karen Johnson, resulted in the founding and unfoldment of the Diamond Approach.

---

Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Vertical Development's Many Gifts: How Continuous Adult Development Becomes Possible, the Potentials It Unlocks & How Understanding It Makes New Sense of Our World and Our Selves with Beena Sharma (Part 3)08 Sep 202200:46:44

Ep. 43 (Part 3 of 3) | Beena Sharma, president of the Vertical Development Academy (VeDA), gives a beautifully cogent explanation of the 8-stage, full spectrum model of adult psychological development, Vertical Development, illuminating us not only to the characteristics of each stage of development, but the implications and ramifications of each stage, the process of human development as a whole, and how this model can help us face our current metacrisis. Beena describes how “each stage is a way of seeing the world and oneself, a constellation of our beliefs and assumptions,” and we discover that our development takes form in patterns of evolving worldviews, a progression of capacities with which we make sense of the world.

On an individual level, Beena asks, “Where is your foot nailed to the floor? Where are parts of you still ahead of you? How can this framework help you make a shift?” And collectively, “What does it mean for the human being to evolve? What makes us think humans at this time are at the end of the evolutionary ladder?” Vertical development focuses on the evolving ego, and interestingly, takes us to the stage where we realize the ego itself is only a construct—and beyond. As well as a brilliant unpacking of the vertical development model, this is a profound, warm-hearted conversation, about human evolution and possibility, the dance of the dual and the nondual, the infinitude of the psyche, and what it means to come home to oneself. Recorded July 13, 2022.

"Everything is a dance of the dual and the nondual."

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps - Part 3
  • Keeping the question in mind: “Is this framework getting in the way of me connecting with the person in front of me? (02:54)
  • What light does this model of adult development shed on religions and spiritual leaders? (04:33)
  • The core of Integral yoga—integrating the spiritual and the material (09:00)
  • Everything is a dance of the dual and the nondual; either/or thinking manifests all the way up (09:59)
  • What are Beena’s personal practices to stay sane in our confounding world today? (11:08)
  • Implications for our metacrisis: who are the players who have power? (14:50)
  • Solutions come from within small groups who can collaborate (17:17)
  • Paul Hawken, climate change, and the philosophy of regeneration (18:38)
  • What does it mean to be “life minded?” (19:49)
  • How the state of the world, the current metacrisis, is a direct reflection of our individual and collective consciousness (20:16)
  • Corporate investment in leadership is a $161 billion dollar annual industry; leadership design is key (23:48)
  • Central polarity in Beena’s life: Am I doing? Or am I being done? (31:16)
  • How can transformative practices be scaled? Cultivating people who are both wise and politically involved (32:34)
  • The deliberately developmental organization—and the deliberately developmental civilization (34:42)
  • How do we make developmental programs more effective? (35:30)
  • Harvesting technology for good: a design issue and an issue of expanding the designers’ abilities (36:46)
  • Encouraging people to grow; 50-70% of people are at the conventional stages (37:32)
  • Recognizing the war within (42:12)

Resources & References - Part 3
Vertical Development's Many Gifts: How Continuous Adult Development Becomes Possible, the Potentials It Unlocks & How Understanding It Makes New Sense of Our World and Our Selves with Beena Sharma (Part 2)01 Sep 202200:55:11

Ep. 41 (Part 2 of 3) | Beena Sharma, president of the Vertical Development Academy (VeDA), gives a beautifully cogent explanation of the 8-stage, full spectrum model of adult psychological development, Vertical Development, illuminating us not only to the characteristics of each stage of development, but the implications and ramifications of each stage, the process of human development as a whole, and how this model can help us face our current metacrisis. Beena describes how “each stage is a way of seeing the world and oneself, a constellation of our beliefs and assumptions,” and we discover that our development takes form in patterns of evolving worldviews, a progression of capacities with which we make sense of the world.

On an individual level, Beena asks, “Where is your foot nailed to the floor? Where are parts of you still ahead of you? How can this framework help you make a shift?” And collectively, “What does it mean for the human being to evolve? What makes us think humans at this time are at the end of the evolutionary ladder?” Vertical development focuses on the evolving ego, and interestingly, takes us to the stage where we realize the ego itself is only a construct—and beyond. As well as a brilliant unpacking of the vertical development model, this is a profound, warm-hearted conversation, about human evolution and possibility, the dance of the dual and the nondual, the infinitude of the psyche, and what it means to come home to oneself. Recorded July 13, 2022.

“The earlier the stage, the greater the gift; the later the stage, the greater the promise.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps - Part 2
  • In this framework, an arc represents the ego’s process of development, with the self-determining stage being the top of the arc (01:38)
  • Self-questioning stage: you realize you are not as independent as you thought—you are conditioned, shaped, and molded by your context (02:30)
  • Resolution of the problems in the previous stage come in the new stage (06:41)
  • The biggest shift is between the self-determining self and the self-authoring self—and Integral Theory’s mean green meme (07:14)
  • Self-actualizing stage, where you realize it’s both all relative and there are also some absolutes, and systems thinking comes online internally and externally (10:37)
  • Complexity thinking skills can be taught and learned (13:56)
  • Self-actualizing stage continued: looking for and integrating higher wisdom, for “and” as well as either/or thinking (18:45)
  • The shadow of the self-actualizing stage (22:11)
  • Construct-aware stage: seeing that all the ideas you have are only constructs, abstractions, there is no reality “out there;” the ego itself begins to see it’s only a construct (23:41)
  • This stage illuminates 3 things: existentialism, the wisdom traditions’ concept of emptiness and liberation, and the postmodern stage of deconstructionism (28:47)
  • The Hindu god Shiva, half masculine/half feminine, is personified yin/yang, where all opposites are integrated, the potential of our human form to be in harmony with both emptiness and form (37:33)
  • Transcendent or unitive stage: falling into no boundaries, falling into the now, recognizing we are all one (39:04)
  • This particular adult development framework bridges psychological development with spiritual development, where other frameworks do not (40:58)
  • This is a “full spectrum perspective” on human development and possibility, as Ken Wilber described (42:09)
  • Translation: how do we bring this framework into service? (44:20)
  • The psyche is infinite; the fundamental humility of unknowability (46:50)
  • Developmental movement within stages and across the arc—people are either entering, consolidating, or transitioning (48:54)
  • What does it mean to come home to oneself? (50:29)
  • How Byron Katie’s The Work helps us access the construct-aware stage (52:28)

Resources & References - Part 2

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

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Beena Sharma currently stewards Vertical Development Academy (VeDA) as its founding president, with a vision to enhance the practice of human development. Beena has a passion around helping individuals and organizations orient themselves to the path of the evolving human being across the various stages of maturity as revealed through empirical research and sound theory. She sees the progressive unfolding of maturity in adults as a process where the narrow, the limited, and the conflicting open to a more comprehensive, a more real, a more complete intuition and perspective—each stage of human maturity a temporary station of a more adequate understanding of the human condition.

Beena is a gifted master coach, consultant, teacher, and thought leader. She has been recognized nationally and internationally for her achievements in successfully conceptualizing, developing, and delivering systemic leadership development initiatives. Beena has led efforts as an executive and consultant for various agencies of the U.S. government and leading private-sector companies in healthcare and other industries in the U.S., U.K., Europe, Russia, Brazil, South Africa, and India. Beena is committed to designing and delivering exceptional learning experiences to build deep capability in individuals and organizations in service of creating a sustainable future for our civilization.

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Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Vertical Development's Many Gifts: How Continuous Adult Development Becomes Possible, the Potentials It Unlocks & How Understanding It Makes New Sense of Our World and Our Selves with Beena Sharma25 Aug 202200:57:52

Ep. 40 (Part 1 of 3) | Beena Sharma, president of the Vertical Development Academy (VeDA), gives a beautifully cogent explanation of the 8-stage, full spectrum model of adult psychological development, Vertical Development, illuminating us not only to the characteristics of each stage of development, but the implications and ramifications of each stage, the process of human development as a whole, and how this model can help us face our current metacrisis. Beena describes how “each stage is a way of seeing the world and oneself, a constellation of our beliefs and assumptions,” and we discover that our development takes form in patterns of evolving worldviews, a progression of capacities with which we make sense of the world.

On an individual level, Beena asks, “Where is your foot nailed to the floor? Where are parts of you still ahead of you? How can this framework help you make a shift?” And collectively, “What does it mean for the human being to evolve? What makes us think humans at this time are at the end of the evolutionary ladder?” Vertical development focuses on the evolving ego, and interestingly, takes us to the stage where we realize the ego itself is only a construct—and beyond. As well as a brilliant unpacking of the vertical development model, this is a profound, warm-hearted conversation, about human evolution and possibility, the dance of the dual and the nondual, the infinitude of the psyche, and what it means to come home to oneself. Recorded July 13, 2022.

“The earlier the stage, the greater the gift; the later the stage, the greater the promise.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps - Part 1
  • Introducing teacher and developmental coach Beena Sharma (01:45)
  • The most exciting discovery in psychology is that psychological development and maturity can continue far beyond our 20s, and beyond our conception of “normality” (02:51)
  • We are being evolved; we are transitional beings. Nature’s secret is the evolutionary process (05:15)
  • Exploring human development and the farther reaches of human possibilities: what does it mean for adults to mature? (06:52)
  • Jane Loevinger’s research showed patterns of evolving worldviews, a progression of capacities to make sense of the world, the trajectory revealed through the stories people tell (11:12)
  • Creating space for the process of development, i.e. not using words like higher and lower, saying instead earlier and later (15:26)
  • Maturity is coming to new understandings about what is real, giving up our assumptions, subject becomes object (18:58)
  • Stages of development is a psychoactive model: just understanding that further development is possible helps us grow into our potentials (21:00)
  • Using this framework in an ethical way: be careful not to use it in a reductionist way and label people as inferior; hold it lightly, the stages are idealizations (23:35)
  • What happens over the course of development? How do we get there? Vertical development is an outcome rather than a goal (27:29)
  • Self-centric stage: self-preservation and survival (29:32)
  • Group-centric: the “socialized” stage, where you want to fit in and belong (32:22)
  • Skill-centric stage: my identity is defined by what I do, not what I am (35:25)
  • The triumph of stepping into the next worldview, the next stage (35:55)
  • Loving people at whatever level they are at: “the earlier the stage, the greater the gift; the later the stage, the greater the promise.” (39:08)
  • Earlier stages are not negative, but they are more limited in capacity (40:45)
  • The crisis in parenting, in grandparenting, in ancestoring (44:29)
  • Self-determining stage: now I am an independent agent, the master of my destiny, capable of choice and a healing objectivity (46:15)
  • Preconventional, conventional, postconventional stages (52:04)
  • This developmental process is the ego’s process of evolution, the ego’s process of creating a more complex, nuanced map of how to make sense of the world (53:22)

Resources & References - Part 1

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

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Beena Sharma currently stewards Vertical Development Academy (VeDA) as its founding president, with a vision to enhance the practice of human development. Beena has a passion around helping individuals and organizations orient themselves to the path of the evolving human being across the various stages of maturity as revealed through empirical research and sound theory. She sees the progressive unfolding of maturity in adults as a process where the narrow, the limited, and the conflicting open to a more comprehensive, a more real, a more complete intuition and perspective—each stage of human maturity a temporary station of a more adequate understanding of the human condition.

Beena is a gifted master coach, consultant, teacher, and thought leader. She has been recognized nationally and internationally for her achievements in successfully conceptualizing, developing, and delivering systemic leadership development initiatives. Beena has led efforts as an executive and consultant for various agencies of the U.S. government and leading private-sector companies in healthcare and other industries in the U.S., U.K., Europe, Russia, Brazil, South Africa, and India. Beena is committed to designing and delivering exceptional learning experiences to build deep capability in individuals and organizations in service of creating a sustainable future for our civilization.

---

Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

The Remarkable Practice of Dream Yoga: How Lucid Dreaming Makes Sleep Endlessly Fascinating & Leads to Lucid Living (and Lucid Dying) with Andrew Holecek (Part 3)18 Aug 202200:46:13

Ep. 39 (Part 3 of 3) | Lucid dreaming expert, author, “curiouist,” and integralist Andrew Holecek explains how lucid dreaming opens the door to a greatly expanded understanding of our minds, our perception of reality, and human potential altogether. If we consciously explore our night lives practicing dream yoga, we can learn how to discard our habits, purify our karma, and discover beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are co-creators of our experience. What we do in dream yoga is not limited to nighttime action; it weaves back into our daytime lives, and ultimately our experience of dying.

Andrew describes how dreams are a powerful way to discover emptiness and openness, and fall into reality—like falling into love—our primordial contraction cast away. Besides being a life-changing discourse on the incredible potential of dream yoga, Andrew Holecek’s cheerful, well-informed, easy way of talking and teaching about lucid dreaming—relating it also to the wisdom traditions, our sense of identity, and human evolution—makes this a real pleasure to listen to. Recorded on April 13, 2022.

“Lucid dreaming is metacognitive dreaming: the next iteration of human evolution.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps - Part 3
  • How can one begin? First, realize the potentiality of lucid dreaming and become an oneironaut (01:40)
  • The importance of intentionality, and, installing pop-ups in your unconscious mind (04:19)
  • Meditation practice is a super technique to help attain lucidity at night (and in the daytime) (07:18)
  • How you can purify your karma and habits in your dreams (09:51)
  • Transforming the mother of all our habits: reification (12:40)
  • Purifying habits by night purifies habits by day (14:44)
  • His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s teaching on dream yoga (19:09)
  • Dream yoga is a powerful way to discover emptiness, emptiness = openness = love; meditation habituates us to openness, and when falling into reality, the primordial contraction is removed (22:00)
  • How the self sense comes undone when we fall asleep, a concordant experience with dying (26:11)
  • Andrew leads a short (game changing) dream yoga practice: 3-fold impurity—and, where is the dreamer? (29:55)

Resources & References - Part 3

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

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Andrew Holecek has completed the traditional three-year Buddhist meditation retreat and offers seminars internationally on lucid dreaming, the art of dying, and meditation. He is the author of many books, including The Lucid Dreaming Workbook, Preparing to Die,  Dream Yoga: Illuminating Your Life Through Lucid Dreaming and the Tibetan Yogas of Sleep; Dreams of Light: The Profound Daytime Practice of Lucid Dreaming, and The Power and the Pain: Transforming Spiritual Hardship into Joy. Dr. Holecek is a member of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the author of scientific papers on lucid dreaming. His work has appeared in Parabola, Lion’s Roar, Tricycle, Utne Reader, Buddhadharma Magazine, Light of Consciousness, and many other periodicals. He holds degrees in classical music, biology, and a doctorate in dental surgery. 

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Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

The Remarkable Practice of Dream Yoga: How Lucid Dreaming Makes Sleep Endlessly Fascinating & Leads to Lucid Living (and Lucid Dying) with Andrew Holecek (Part 2)11 Aug 202200:42:22

Ep. 38 (Part 2 of 3) | Lucid dreaming expert, author, “curiouist,” and integralist Andrew Holecek explains how lucid dreaming opens the door to a greatly expanded understanding of our minds, our perception of reality, and human potential altogether. If we consciously explore our night lives practicing dream yoga, we can learn how to discard our habits, purify our karma, and discover beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are co-creators of our experience. What we do in dream yoga is not limited to nighttime action; it weaves back into our daytime lives, and ultimately our experience of dying.

Andrew describes how dreams are a powerful way to discover emptiness and openness, and fall into reality—like falling into love—our primordial contraction cast away. Besides being a life-changing discourse on the incredible potential of dream yoga, Andrew Holecek’s cheerful, well-informed, easy way of talking and teaching about lucid dreaming—relating it also to the wisdom traditions, our sense of identity, and human evolution—makes this a real pleasure to listen to. Recorded on April 13, 2022.

“Lucid dreaming is metacognitive dreaming: the next iteration of human evolution.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps - Part 2
  • How can one begin? First, realize the potentiality of lucid dreaming and become an oneironaut (01:40)
  • The importance of intentionality, and, installing pop-ups in your unconscious mind (04:19)
  • Meditation practice is a super technique to help attain lucidity at night (and in the daytime) (07:18)
  • How you can purify your karma and habits in your dreams (09:51)
  • Transforming the mother of all our habits: reification (12:40)
  • Purifying habits by night purifies habits by day (14:44)
  • His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s teaching on dream yoga (19:09)
  • Dream yoga is a powerful way to discover emptiness, emptiness = openness = love; meditation habituates us to openness, and when falling into reality, the primordial contraction is removed (22:00)
  • How the self sense comes undone when we fall asleep, a concordant experience with dying (26:11)
  • Andrew leads a short (game changing) dream yoga practice: 3-fold impurity—and, where is the dreamer? (29:55)

Resources & References - Part 2

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

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Andrew Holecek has completed the traditional three-year Buddhist meditation retreat and offers seminars internationally on lucid dreaming, the art of dying, and meditation. He is the author of many books, including The Lucid Dreaming Workbook, Preparing to Die,  Dream Yoga: Illuminating Your Life Through Lucid Dreaming and the Tibetan Yogas of Sleep; Dreams of Light: The Profound Daytime Practice of Lucid Dreaming, and The Power and the Pain: Transforming Spiritual Hardship into Joy. Dr. Holecek is a member of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the author of scientific papers on lucid dreaming. His work has appeared in Parabola, Lion’s Roar, Tricycle, Utne Reader, Buddhadharma Magazine, Light of Consciousness, and many other periodicals. He holds degrees in classical music, biology, and a doctorate in dental surgery. 

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Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

The Remarkable Practice of Dream Yoga: How Lucid Dreaming Makes Sleep Endlessly Fascinating & Leads to Lucid Living (and Lucid Dying) with Andrew Holecek04 Aug 202200:45:47

Ep. 37 (Part 1 of 3) | Lucid dreaming expert, author, “curiouist,” and integralist Andrew Holecek explains how lucid dreaming opens the door to a greatly expanded understanding of our minds, our perception of reality, and human potential altogether. If we consciously explore our night lives practicing dream yoga, we can learn how to discard our habits, purify our karma, and discover beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are co-creators of our experience. What we do in dream yoga is not limited to nighttime action; it weaves back into our daytime lives, and ultimately our experience of dying.

Andrew describes how dreams are a powerful way to discover emptiness and openness, and fall into reality—like falling into love—our primordial contraction cast away. Besides being a life-changing discourse on the incredible potential of dream yoga, Andrew Holecek’s cheerful, well-informed, easy way of talking and teaching about lucid dreaming—relating it also to the wisdom traditions, our sense of identity, and human evolution—makes this a real pleasure to listen to. Recorded on April 13, 2022.

“Lucidity is a code word for awareness.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps - Part 1
  • Introducing Andrew Holecek, master of Dream Yoga (01:44)
  • Andrew’s profound experience with lucid dreaming as a young man, with dreamtime becoming more real and daytime experience less real (04:08)
  • Retrofitting his understanding over time to make sense of his experience landed Andrew in Buddhism (06:25)
  • Buddha is literally the Awakened One in Sanskrit—awakened in relationship to what? (08:23)
  • Nocturnal practices became a real practice, a unique form of night school and a pedagogy of the future (09:24)
  • Overview of the 5 nocturnal meditations (10:55)
  • Liminal dreaming: getting into the witnessing perspective and watching how the mind goes offline, the ego structure comes undone (11:25)
  • Lucid dreaming: awakening to the fact that you are dreaming—used largely for self-fulfillment (12:44)
  • Dream yoga is where it transitions to self-transcendence (13:42)
  • Sleep yoga, or luminosity yoga, a primary practice of the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism (14:30)
  • Bardo yoga, the “dream at the end of time,” working with the mind to prepare for death (16:03)
  • Where do you go when you die? You transition from one dream to the next: lucid dreaming leads to lucid living and lucid dying (17:52)
  • If you don’t wake up and take control of your dream and finally your mind, your unconscious, your habits, will control your mind (19:17)
  • Awake-centricity: in the West our understanding of mind and reality is derived solely from our experience in the waking state, versus the East’s more integral understanding derived from all 3 states, waking, dreaming, deep sleep (22:30)
  • The “awakened mind” is a mind that is lucid under all conditions (26:25)
  • The West has a single stage worldview—but multi stage cultures have a vastly larger understanding of ourselves and our reality; 90% of the world’s cultures are polyphasic (28:06)
  • Mullah Nasruddin, the Sufi story of the lost key (30:12)
  • Ignoring our circadian rhythms, we miss the opportunity the night offers to further our brain’s evolution (31:14)
  • Dreams manifest along a spectrum, from meaningless neurological noise to ones that shed light on our lives, transcending our sense of self (34:09)
  • Dream incubation practices: supplicating for guidance, for help (38:14)

Resources & References - Part 1

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

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Andrew Holecek has completed the traditional three-year Buddhist meditation retreat and offers seminars internationally on lucid dreaming, the art of dying, and meditation. He is the author of many books, including The Lucid Dreaming Workbook, Preparing to Die,  Dream Yoga: Illuminating Your Life Through Lucid Dreaming and the Tibetan Yogas of Sleep; Dreams of Light: The Profound Daytime Practice of Lucid Dreaming, and The Power and the Pain: Transforming Spiritual Hardship into Joy. Dr. Holecek is a member of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the author of scientific papers on lucid dreaming. His work has appeared in Parabola, Lion’s Roar, Tricycle, Utne Reader, Buddhadharma Magazine, Light of Consciousness, and many other periodicals. He holds degrees in classical music, biology, and a doctorate in dental surgery. 

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Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Cultivating Psychological Maturity in Both Individuals & Societies: The Race Between Maturity and Catastrophe28 Jul 202201:07:14

Ep. 36 | Philosopher, author, and social entrepreneur Tomas Björkman’s claims are convincing: our culture needs to go through a new developmental paradigm shift. Either it will grow more complex—or crumble, as empires have crumbled in the past. The collective worldview needs to change, and to that end Tomas’ focus is on the relationship between growing our personal psychological maturity and societal change, a relationship Nordic countries recognized to their great advantage towards the end of the nineteenth century.

Extrapolating from his vast experience with business leadership, where inner psychological maturity turns out to be a foremost aspect of success, Tomas extends this knowledge, applying it to all of society, and emphasizes the importance of supporting a lifelong inner process of development for every individual. The only hope for our shared future seems to lie in wiser decision making by individuals who have expanded both mind and heart to encompass the greater complexities of our time. Recorded on December 2019, with Dr. Roger Walsh, John Dupuy, and Douglas Prater.

“Conscious effort on large-scale consciousness development actually worked.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Note: This podcast was recorded live and includes, at times, some extraneous noises in the background. Please excuse them -- we felt the conversation was very valuable and well worth sharing with our audience. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

Topics & Time Stamps
  • Introducing Tomas Björkman: philosopher, author, entrepreneur (02:28)
  • Tomas’ unique contribution: cultivating psychological maturity individually and collectively, in order to co-create a new culture and survive as a species (03:39)
  • Inner psychological maturation is one of the most important aspects of a good businessman, a good leader; this knowledge needs to be applied to all of us and society as a whole (05:12)
  • The importance of getting the corporate culture right, societal culture right, and support inner psychological development (06:37)
  • Our worldview in the West hasn’t changed since the Enlightenment, the Age of Reason: it’s time for another deep shift to encompass greater complexity (09:49)
  • Looking at culture (and consciousness) as a complex, self-organizing, evolving system: we have reached the bifurcation point (14:47)
  • The Nordic secret: Scandinavian countries realized the connection between the maturity of our inner world and our society at the end of the 1800s, becoming the happiest, richest, most stable countries in the world (24:24)
  • The establishment of retreat centers for young people to find their inner compass and creating a critical mass of self-authoring people (28:20)
  • Maturing from the socialized mind to the self-authoring mind, from conventional to postconventional (30:15)
  • Consciously navigating psychological transformation and the self-transforming mind (34:24)
  • The corporate realization that to succeed in business, you need your employees to mature to the level of self-authoring mind: Deliberately Developmental Organizations (37:54)
  • The German idealistic philosophers’ reaction against Enlightenment philosophy and the evolution of mind and heart: Bildung (39:30)
  • What constitutes depth of relationship? Inner development, deepening of relationship, and a multicultural society created by conscious effort (48:24)
  • Growing together: how to hold and scaffold the building of a multicultural society (54:34)
  • Changing our collective worldview will have to be a collective movement (59:01)
  • The effects of the popularization of contemplative practice on the development of psychological maturity (01:04:31)

Resources & References
The Emerging Stage of Metamodernism: Moving Towards Hope, Values & Aspirational Idealism13 Jun 202400:46:27

Ep. 134 (Part 2 of 2) | Author, podcaster, farmer, and poet, Brendan Graham Dempsey, brings passion, dedication, clarity, and outstanding scholarship to the fascinating and enormously important study of cultural evolution, which operates on both a personal level and a collective one. He illuminates how, when, and why we shift from one cultural worldview to the next, using his own life’s journey through the cultural stages as a map and paints colorful portraits of the outstanding characteristics of each stage: traditional/premodern, modern, postmodern, and metamodern. Brendan enlightens us as to the tumultuous and often lonely and despairing time that occurs when our prior stage has been deconstructed and we find ourselves between worldviews in a liminal space where sensemaking fails. As he puts it, we live in certain worlds to help us navigate reality. But then things change, and we bump up against the limits of things. Now the time has come to update our sense of the world; we are invited to expand and grow.

We come to understand why it is necessary for cultures to evolve—to accommodate ever increasing complexity—and why culture wars and confusion result from misunderstanding a worldview that infiltrates your psyche before it’s ready. Brendan explains why postmodernism does not serve us now, introducing and inviting us to the new, emerging worldview of metamodernism, where there is hope in positivity, affirmation, and aspirational idealism. Hope, and the promise of coming together in a new understanding among peoples, a prerequisite for dealing with the challenges of the global crises that affect us all. Brendan brings a big heart, keen mind, and a lot of verve to these complex subjects, which come alive under his brilliant tutelage. As he points out, deconstructing the psyche can help save the world, adding, this is a lot of what the metamodern community is trying to get the word out about. Recorded May 1, 2024.

Metamodernism is a worldview of worldviews, a cultural logic of cultural logics, trying to expand beyond the frame we have been working in…to a framework where we can relate to each other in deeper ways, and find deeper modes of understanding, compassion, and empathy with one another.

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 2
  • How do the Civil Rights movement and other awareness expanding movements fit into cultural evolution? (00:57)
  • Postmodernism in academia (06:21)
  • Postmodern art, films, punk, grunge—a response to how superficial the suburban world has become (07:30)
  • To move out of the cynical and skeptical, your critique can’t be all cynical too—you’ve got to start affirming things (08:22)
  • Thus metamodernism: a turn to sincerity, earnestness, moving through irony (10:54)
  • How metamodernism shows up in the arts—like with many worldviews, the artist often shows up as forerunner of the shift in stages (14:28)
  • Metamodernism is a move towards hope, values, aspirational idealism—from negativity to positivity (16:23)
  • Postmodern academia profoundly needs a paradigm shift because all categories of knowledge have been deconstructed (19:52)
  • Culture wars and the confusion that results from misunderstanding a worldview that infiltrates your psyche before it’s ready to assimilate it (23:32)
  • Metamodernism offers tools to help bring clarity to the above (26:20)
  • Postmodernism as an intellectual toolkit is now being deployed by the political right, whereas it started in the leftist intelligentsia (27:14)
  • Truth matters, grand narratives can bring us together, and power can work for the good (29:06) 
  • Complexity and finding an island of coherence in time of chaos (32:51)
  • John on using a metamodern approach to look at science: “This meta stuff really works!” (35:38)
  • The “meta move”: asking what it is we need to take into account that we are not taking into account; applying the logic of systems (37:51)
  • Metamodernism is a worldview of worldviews, trying to expand beyond its frame and discover ways in which we can relate to each other with greater understanding, compassion, and empathy (41:05) 

Resources & References – Part 2

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

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Brendan Graham Dempsey is a writer, poet, farmer, and the director of Sky Meadow Institute, an organization dedicated to promoting systems-based thinking about the things that matter most. He holds a BA in religious studies from the University of Vermont and a master’s in religion and art from Yale University. He is the author of the 7-volume Metamodern Spirituality Series and, most recently, Metamodernism: Or, The Cultural Logic of Cultural Logics. His primary interests include theorizing developments in culture after postmodernism, productively bridging the divide between science and spirituality, and developing sustainable systems for life to flourish. All of these lead through the paradigms of emergence and complexity, which inform all of his work.

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Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

EU Diplomat Shares His Personal Thoughts About Russia & Ukraine: Holding Multiple Perspectives for a Sustainable Peace in the Face of War, Reactivity & Rage (Part 2)21 Jul 202200:40:07

Ep. 35 (Part 2 of 2) | Frederik Coene, a European Union diplomat stationed in Kyiv and world authority on Russia and Eastern Europe, describes the current situation in Ukraine—"a cocktail of emotions"—and outlines what it would take for us to find a true solution to the conflict and create sustainable peace. Frederik brings the multiple perspectives of Integral theory to bear: he discusses how developmental stages play into the ways Russians and Ukrainians are thinking, acting, and reacting, and emphasizes the need to get beyond black and white thinking, foster compassion, and take responsibility for our thoughts and our actions. How do we cultivate the willingness to understand each other, to have a dialogue? Because as Frederik says, “the war may be fought on the battlefield, but peace is only going to come through dialogue.”

The fruits of Frederik’s own personal transformative practice and understanding of the Enneagram and Spiral Dynamics flow into his work as a diplomat/bureaucrat, pointing the way towards change. Besides effectively deepening our understanding of what’s going on in Ukraine and Russia now, this talk is a real inspiration for those interested in weaving together personal growth, professional responsibility, and dedication to service. A humble, open, and wise transmission. Recorded on June 29, 2022.

“If we want to find a true solution, sustainable and lasting peace…we can no longer be guided by our heads alone. We have to include the heart.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps - Part 2
  • How the Enneagram fosters self-transformation, awareness of your own reactivity, and gets you out of black and white thinking (01:02)
  • If we are skilled at taking multiple perspectives into account, how do we narrow it down and make a good judgment? (05:50)
  • Practical wisdom: how do we skillfully and benevolently respond in the world? (07:14)
  • And how this works in Ukraine now; when to take responsibility for actions and break the rules (09:01)
  • Bureaucracy and its purpose; and the purpose of the Enneagram (12:28)
  • Back to the situation in Ukraine now: a cocktail of emotions (16:20)
  • Frederik’s personal self-transformation in the last 7 years with Ukraine as a catalyst (24:51)
  • We need to merge head and heart if we want to find a sustainable peace (27:16)
  • How do we cultivate the willingness to understand each other, to have a dialogue? (29:47) 
  • Roger reads aloud excerpts from Frederik’s Facebook postings addressed to Russians and to Ukrainians (32:59)
  • The deep wisdom questions: what am I called to do? How can I make myself a more effective instrument of service? (36:10)

Resources & References - Part 2

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

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Dr. Frederik Coene is an EU diplomat based in Ukraine and heads the team in charge of all EU-funded development programmes in the country. His previous assignments were in Tajikistan, Georgia, and Belarus, and prior to that he worked for humanitarian NGOs in Chechnya and Abkhazia. He holds an MA in economics, an MA in Caucasian and Central Asian Studies, and a PhD in Political Science. In his free time, he works on integrating stages of development with the Enneagram and Spiral Dynamics into a single framework using ancient Vedic wisdom on transpersonal development. He also conducts research and lectures on the topic of human sexuality and the Enneagram/Spiral Dynamics.

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Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

EU Diplomat Shares His Personal Thoughts About Russia & Ukraine: Holding Multiple Perspectives for a Sustainable Peace in the Face of War, Reactivity & Rage14 Jul 202200:46:24

Ep. 34 (Part 1 of 2) | Frederik Coene, a European Union diplomat stationed in Kyiv and world authority on Russia and Eastern Europe, describes the current situation in Ukraine—"a cocktail of emotions"—and outlines what it would take for us to find a true solution to the conflict and create sustainable peace. Frederik brings the multiple perspectives of Integral theory to bear: he discusses how developmental stages play into the ways Russians and Ukrainians are thinking, acting, and reacting, and emphasizes the need to get beyond black and white thinking, foster compassion, and take responsibility for our thoughts and our actions. How do we cultivate the willingness to understand each other, to have a dialogue? Because as Frederik says, “the war may be fought on the battlefield, but peace is only going to come through dialogue.”

The fruits of Frederik’s own personal transformative practice and understanding of the Enneagram and Spiral Dynamics flow into his work as a diplomat/bureaucrat, pointing the way towards change. Besides effectively deepening our understanding of what’s going on in Ukraine and Russia now, this talk is a real inspiration for those interested in weaving together personal growth, professional responsibility, and dedication to service. A humble, open, and wise transmission. Recorded on June 29, 2022.

“If we want to find a true solution, sustainable and lasting peace…we can no longer be guided by our heads alone. We have to include the heart.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps - Part 1
  • Introducing Dr. Frederik Coene, world authority with multiple perspectives on Russia and Eastern Europe (01:52)
  • Life in Ukraine right now: no safe place, where violence might occur is completely unpredictable (04:20)
  • How the Russians use fear to control people (07:34)
  • Living in survival mode we fall into black and white thinking and how that affects our decision making (08:28)
  • What makes the war in Ukraine distinctive is that it affects people around the globe: inflation, food scarcity, resources (12:19)
  • What is not being seen? Both the complexity of the Ukrainian side and the complexity of the Russian side (14:16)
  • Looking at the Russian perspective with a degree of empathy is necessary for a lasting, sustainable solution (16:47)
  • What are they thinking in Russia? (20:00)
  • The spiritual perspective: everyone has a soul, even Putin. Can we hold compassion for everyone (even Putin)? (26:53)
  • Gaining inner strength from a daily gratitude practice; no matter how horrible the war and how great the suffering (33:19)
  • Bureaucracy and Spiral Dynamics’ levels of development (37:45)
  • Raising consciousness in the blue bureaucracy and the experience of teaching the Enneagram to bureaucrat colleagues (39:36)

Resources & References - Part 1

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

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Dr. Frederik Coene is an EU diplomat based in Ukraine and heads the team in charge of all EU-funded development programmes in the country. His previous assignments were in Tajikistan, Georgia, and Belarus, and prior to that he worked for humanitarian NGOs in Chechnya and Abkhazia. He holds an MA in economics, an MA in Caucasian and Central Asian Studies, and a PhD in Political Science. In his free time, he works on integrating stages of development with the Enneagram and Spiral Dynamics into a single framework using ancient Vedic wisdom on transpersonal development. He also conducts research and lectures on the topic of human sexuality and the Enneagram/Spiral Dynamics.

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Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Mystical Experience, Primordial Wisdom: The Source & Heart of Judaism & the Great Religions with Zvi Ish-Shalom07 Jul 202201:07:21

Ep. 33 | Zvi Ish-Shalom is a professor of Jewish mysticism, an author, an ordained rabbi, and the guiding light of Kedumah, a teaching out of time and space, whose primary calling is to translate wisdom from the primordial ground of being into a discernible wisdom stream. In this remarkable conversation, Zvi describes how he found ways to map and interpret his own profound mystical experiences, how the teachings arise from the ground of being, about how they might become accessible to us all, regardless of religion or spiritual tradition, and how they are especially relevant for young people today, seeking to find a structure for their spiritual journey. His familiarity with the realm of mystical experience is extremely engaging—he tells of discovering the vow taken by our soul before we were born and dropping the barriers between us and God, surrendering to the divine. Roger Walsh found Zvi’s book The Kedumah Experience “the most profound spiritual text he’s ever read in the Jewish tradition,” and listeners will almost certainly be excited to read Zvi’s latest book, published since the recording of this podcast, The Path of Primordial Light: Ancient Wisdom for the Here and Now.  Recorded at the Science & Nonduality Conference, October 2019, with Dr. Roger Walsh, John Dupuy, and Douglas Prater.

“Being willing to lose everything for truth...when we orient that way, the most profound revelations and depths occur.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Note: This podcast was recorded live and includes, at times, some extraneous noises in the background. Please excuse them -- we felt the conversation was very valuable and well worth sharing with our audience. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

Topics & Time Stamps
  • Roger’s discovery of Zvi Ish-Shalom’s book while touring Israel: the most profound spiritual text he’d ever read in the Jewish tradition (02:00)
  • The gnostic intermediary: how Zvi revives the culture, infusing a fresh understanding of the Jewish mystical tradition (04:43)
  • Zvi’s personal story, starting with deep states of connection praying in the synagogue in Brooklyn (07:40)
  • How Zvi found ways to map and interpret his profound mystical experiences, establishing cause and effect (13:45)
  • Remembering one’s life purpose, the vow taken by your soul before embodiment (17:47)
  • Zvi’s Kedumah experience: the concept of primordial Torah, or the ground of our being, and how the teaching arises (19:57)
  • How to transmit the Kedumah teachings to the secular world? (22:32)
  • The radical experiential perspective in which the Kedumah is rooted is what makes it so timely for us today (28:17)
  • Revivifying the Jewish lineage wisdom stream through the lens of Kedumah: bringing in living expressions of the mystery (31:26)
  • The way in which a profound analytical study of the texts creates an opening and becomes a process of illumination, deepening, and distilling truth in an ever more discriminating way (37:35) 
  • What the new Kedumah paradigm offers young people who are searching for structure for their spiritual journey  (43:27)
  • The practice of dialectical inquiry (havruta) to discover the truth of reality embedded inside the texts and how to reveal it (48:20)
  • Comparing the Torah scroll to the human being: working to unpack the truth of the human experience (51:06)
  • Greek philosophy was used as a practice to investigate human life, metaphysics, and open to the transcendent as well (53:15)
  • Socrates and the fundamental wisdom of seeking truth for its own sake (56:37)
  • How does Zvi teach contemplative prayer and meditation? Building the embodied capacity for integration and allowing ourselves to surrender to the divine (59:07)
  • Zvi’s “journey of silence” (01:03:03)

Resources & References

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

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Zvi Ish-Shalom, Ph.D., is core faculty at Naropa University, and is the guiding teacher of Kedumah, the Primordial Transmissions, and the Soulship. Zvi is the author of The Kedumah Experience: The Primordial Torah; Sleep, Death, and Rebirth: Mystical Practices of Lurianic Kabbalah; and most recently The Path of Primordial Light: Ancient Wisdom for the Here and Now.

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Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Reimagining Power, Politics, & Possibilities: An Alternative Vision (Part 2)30 Jun 202200:40:06

Ep. 32 (Part 2 of 2) | Socio-psychotherapist and political consultant Indra Adnan brings forth a compelling, fresh, and powerfully practical alternative vision for our politics and our world, based on bringing people and communities together in relationship to effect real planetary transformation. Indra states that the solutions to our problems exist; we just need to be able to access them, and it is at the cosmo-local community agency networks (CANs) level that we can develop responses to current crises like climate and social justice most effectively. Indra discusses how the internet has dissolved the line between the private and the public space, especially for women and the underprivileged, and asks us to imagine what the public space would look like if all our voices were heard. Rather than focusing on our disconnectedness, Indra suggests we focus on the miracle of our connectedness in this moment and drop the dividing lines that keep us stuck in disadvantageous, unempowered lives. In this conversation, the possibilities of putting Indra’s alternative vision into effect are palpable—this is a remarkable reimagining of how things could be where political agency works from the bottom up to effect systemic transformation for the benefit of all. Recorded May 18, 2022.

“Let’s drop the boundaries that we have created for ourselves! Let’s drop the things that divide us from others.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps - Part 2
  • Women going into politics have been obliged to be better men than men (01:15)
  • Indra most inspired by social workers’ (mostly women) intuitive understanding of people’s real needs and how they unreservedly give themselves to the task of problem solving (02:35)
  • The Big Society (community focused) program in British politics (04:10)
  • What is soft power? The power of narrative or storytelling to generate attraction and therefore relationship, as in the power of the American dream to attract relationship from all over the world (05:58)
  • What is the story we’re telling about our reality? (10:60)
  • The ladder nature of Integral stages of development may be trapping us in old language about what development looks like (11:40)
  • When the women in the London Integral circle walked away, and the need to apply the Integral model rather than simply study it and talk about it (12:12)
  • The radical equality of everyone and formative agency: different agencies need to be held in a fluid state rather than in ladder format (16:57)
  • Does Integral need to evolve to serve a wider landscape? (19:47)
  • What is the design of the public space that could honor the full human being, where all the different voices would be heard? (24:22)
  • The axis of a new politics: back to the I, the we, the world; at the heart of the vision is a new way of looking at who we are (26:34)
  • The internet, the fractal emergence of a new vision holding our creative potential and political agency, and  the soft power of how we tell the story (29:52)
  • What gives Indra hope? The miracle of connectedness in this moment (32:37)
  • The power of paying attention to the interaction in this particular moment: that is the life changing, world changing energy that we are looking for and that we need (36:15)

Resources & References - Part 2

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

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Indra Adnan is founder and co-initiator of The Alternative Global, a socio-political platform serving systemic transformation. AltGlobal publishes a Daily Alternative news blog, develops cosmo-local agency networks (CANs) and connects planetary regeneration projects. Indra is concurrently a socio-psychotherapist, writer, and consultant on soft power. Clients have included the Danish and Brazilian governments, World Economic Forum, and NATO. Her book The Politics of Waking Up: Power and Possibility in the Fractal Age was a Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year in 2021.

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Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Reimagining Power, Politics & Possibilities: An Alternative Vision23 Jun 202200:41:10

Ep. 31 (Part 1 of 2) | Socio-psychotherapist and political consultant Indra Adnan brings forth a compelling, fresh, and powerfully practical alternative vision for our politics and our world, based on bringing people and communities together in relationship to effect real planetary transformation. Indra states that the solutions to our problems exist; we just need to be able to access them, and it is at the cosmo-local community agency networks (CANs) level that we can develop responses to current crises like climate and social justice most effectively. Indra discusses how the internet has dissolved the line between the private and the public space, especially for women and the underprivileged, and asks us to imagine what the public space would look like if all our voices were heard. Rather than focusing on our disconnectedness, Indra suggests we focus on the miracle of our connectedness in this moment and drop the dividing lines that keep us stuck in disadvantageous, unempowered lives. In this conversation, the possibilities of putting Indra’s alternative vision into effect are palpable—this is a remarkable reimagining of how things could be where political agency works from the bottom up to effect systemic transformation for the benefit of all. Recorded May 18, 2022.

“Let’s drop the boundaries that we have created for ourselves! Let’s drop the things that divide us from others.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps - Part 1
  • Introducing Indra Adnan: political innovator, socio-psychotherapist, writer, and consultant on “soft power” to clients such as NATO, the World Economic Forum, and the Brazilian and Danish governments, initiator of an alternative vision for creating systemic transformation (01:16)
  • How Indra’s contemplative practice began, creating her own spiritual beliefs, and asking, Where is my power? What control do I have over my life? (4:11)
  • Meeting Nichiren Buddhism in Indonesia (06:49)
  • The phenomenon of empowerment in action: Look again. Re-imagine. Something else is possible. (07:57)
  • What is it we are settling for now? Crises on every side and dependency on politicians in a two-party, competitive system, where the two parties are invested in each other’s failure (11:45)
  • The solutions to our problems are already available (so why do we not have access to them?), and how community agency networks (CANs) are taking shape as responses to climate and social justice crises (13:38)
  • Cosmo-local CANs can be the new system, providing a new way for the people’s voice to hear itself and be heard (15:20)
  • Concept of the 3 realms: the I, the We, and the World—we can all be all 3 of these things, which is essential to understanding how we can have political agency by taking down the barriers between these 3 ways of being (16:13)
  • The politics of waking up: there is waking up to the oneness, to engi, but in her book, Indra is talking about a different waking up: waking up to our capacity for connecting, for mobilizing, #softpower (18:33)
  • The new space created by the internet and modern technology has created a radical shift of agency, the woke phenomenon (21:42)
  • The way women see the possibilities and the future is becoming more and more distinct, i.e. the relational way of being women have always depended on is finding its way into the public space, into community, into politics (23:34)
  • How Roger sees the possibilities of this age: a collaborative birthing that will turn out as a function of how we approach it (31:56)
  • What can men do? Men have to make space for women to show up. This can mean giving up their place, their seat, their moment in the spotlight (34:06)
  • It may be time for men to step into the yin and look at themselves and their relations (37:18)

Resources & References - Part 1

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

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Indra Adnan is founder and co-initiator of The Alternative Global, a socio-political platform serving systemic transformation. AltGlobal publishes a Daily Alternative news blog, develops cosmo-local agency networks (CANs) and connects planetary regeneration projects. Indra is concurrently a socio-psychotherapist, writer, and consultant on soft power. Clients have included the Danish and Brazilian governments, World Economic Forum, and NATO. Her book The Politics of Waking Up: Power and Possibility in the Fractal Age was a Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year in 2021.

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Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Truthfinding, Sensemaking, the Psychedelic Renaissance & How to Heal a Culture That Has Lost Its Soul (Part 2)16 Jun 202200:37:10

Ep. 30 (Part 2 of 2) | Rebel Wisdom co-founder Alexander Beiner has his finger on the cultural pulse of our times. Here he explores key challenges we face as a global community: sensemaking and truth finding in a culture that has lost its coherence as well as its sense of the divine, and what role psychedelics might play both therapeutically and spiritually in healing our culture. He discusses the need to go beyond the intellectual to find clarity and coherence, using embodied practices like meditation and inquiry, and explains how modalities such as these are an essential container for therapeutic psychedelic experiences. What if deep, spiritual, psychotherapeutic group processes were to inform political decision making? Are commodification and economics going to subvert the benefits of the psychedelic renaissance? Let’s start asking, what do we want these substances to bring to the culture, and who has the authority to decide what psychedelics are used for? Ali brings keen insight and the wisdom of a dedicated contemplative to asking the important questions and offering up some answers as well. Recorded September 27, 2021.

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps - Part 2
  • The developmental process involved with engaging with the contemplative world (01:30)
  • The psychedelic renaissance and learning how best to use psychedelic substances as part of our spiritual practices (02:24)
  • Legalizing MDMA (03:46)
  • Bringing psychedelics into mainstream culture: the biomedical route (04:23) 
  • The need to consciously build a psychedelic metaculture and Ali’s Psychedelic Value Survey (05:52)
  • Are economics going to subvert the benefits of the psychedelic reemergence? (07:59) 
  • We need to start asking, what do we want these substances to bring to the culture and who has the authority to decide what psychedelics are for? (10:59) 
  • Are churches embracing the use of psychedelics? (13:15)
  • Religious, spiritual, and therapeutic uses (14:50) 
  • Karma yoga: the interface between the contemplative and the cultural, the spiritual and the political (16:25)
  • The current meaning crisis, the lack of cultural coherence, and the need to commit to something higher (19:12)
  • What’s missing culturally right now is a sense of divinity and the ability to surrender (20:34)
  • The global coordination issue (24:14)
  • The crucial motive of self-transcendence (Abraham Maslow), meta motives and meta pathologies (25:02)
  • The crisis of sense making and understanding that making sense doesn’t happen only through thought, it’s an embodied process (29:09)
  • Fostering complexity tolerance and resilience in not knowing (32:02)
  • What gives Alexander hope? The idea that humanity is at its best under pressure (34:11)

Resources & References - Part 2

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

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Alexander Beiner is a writer, facilitator, cultural commentator, and co-founder of the popular podcast and retreats organization Rebel Wisdom. Alexander regularly discusses psychedelics and interviews key figures in the psychedelic community on Rebel Wisdom, and is currently exploring the role psychedelics can play in an increasingly polarized culture. His articles appear frequently in Medium.com (and now Substack). He is one of the directors of Breaking Convention, Europe’s largest conference on psychedelic science and culture, and his work on psychedelic culture has been published in the 2016 book Neurotransmissions, as well as in The Guardian. In 2012, he co-founded a meditation school, Open Meditation. Alexander also writes fiction and plays...

Truthfinding, Sensemaking, the Psychedelic Renaissance & How to Heal a Culture That Has Lost Its Soul09 Jun 202200:36:01

Ep. 29 (Part 1 of 2) | Rebel Wisdom co-founder Alexander Beiner has his finger on the cultural pulse of our times. Here he explores key challenges we face as a global community: sensemaking and truth finding in a culture that has lost its coherence as well as its sense of the divine, and what role psychedelics might play both therapeutically and spiritually in healing our culture. He discusses the need to go beyond the intellectual to find clarity and coherence, using embodied practices like meditation and inquiry, and explains how modalities such as these are an essential container for therapeutic psychedelic experiences. What if deep, spiritual, psychotherapeutic group processes were to inform political decision making? Are commodification and economics going to subvert the benefits of the psychedelic renaissance? Let’s start asking, what do we want these substances to bring to the culture, and who has the authority to decide what psychedelics are used for? Ali brings keen insight and the wisdom of a dedicated contemplative to asking the important questions and offering up some answers as well. Recorded September 27, 2021.

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps - Part 1
  • The evolution of the internet—from optimistic to dark and addictive—and its effect on culture (03:50)
  • The crisis of trust in institutions creates a Wild West of narratives: Where do we get truth from? (07:03)
  • Rebel Wisdom asks, how can we use the attitudes of the personal growth world and ancient wisdom to help us get into a new dialogue with each other? (08:50)
  • The necessity to go beyond the intellectual to find clarity and certainty: that’s where practices come in (like meditation and inquiry) (13:35)
  • Rebel Wisdom’s online course Sensemaking 101 moves from the inside out, creating a state of presence before tackling making sense of the news (15:55)
  • The value of contemplative practices: they help you zoom out to a metaperspective and cultivate perspectival fluidity (17:07)
  • The importance of bringing the spiritual worlds and political worlds together (people in the spiritual worlds are reluctant to go too far into the political and vice versa) (20:02)
  • Danger of using meta as a “bypass”: focusing on how to make a better world rather than focusing on the realities of what is happening right now (20:57)
  • The cycle of withdrawal and return: going within to come back to the world with more wisdom to give and going without to connect more deeply with ourselves (22:20)
  • On allowing deep, spiritual, psychotherapeutic group processes to inform political decision making (23:52)
  • What would an effective meta practice for people entail at this point? An ecology of practices (27:26)
  • The therapeutic potential of the psychedelic experience combined with different modalities, i.e. inquiry + psychedelic experience (30:58)

Resources & References - Part 1

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

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Alexander Beiner is a writer, facilitator, cultural commentator, and co-founder of the popular podcast and retreats organization Rebel Wisdom. Alexander regularly discusses psychedelics and interviews key figures in the psychedelic community on Rebel Wisdom, and is currently exploring the role psychedelics can play in an increasingly polarized culture. His articles appear frequently in Medium.com (and now Substack). He is one of the directors of Breaking Convention, Europe’s largest conference on psychedelic science...

From Bodhisattva to Ecosattva: Integrating Personal Practice & Global Activism with David Loy (Part 2)02 Jun 202200:38:20

Ep. 28 (Part 2 of 2) | David Loy, Zen teacher, scholar, and prolific author, reveals his acute understanding of the crises we face today, the psychology at the root of the problems, and how we can make our way forward in this in-depth discussion. He has adopted the term ecodharma to focus attention on the challenge Buddhism faces now: integrating personal transformation with global activism and social transformation. As David points out, the focus needs to be on this world, with transcendence being a metaphorical understanding but not an excuse to abandon the problems we and our planet face today. 

Besides gaining great depth of knowledge from being a scholar and student of koans, David’s insights come from a plethora of nondual experiences, which led David on a path of eco-action. Ecodharma asks: How does Buddhism need to change? How much is dwelling in emptiness becoming problematical in these challenging times? What’s best for the Earth? Everyone says practice, practice, practice…when is the performance? Is evolutionary pressure going to create a new way of living sustainably? Recorded February 22, 2020. 

“When your sense of separation dissipates, it becomes not what’s in it for me, but what can I do to help make this a better world for everybody?”

Note: Regrettably 4 minutes of the recording were irretrievably lost at minute 21:26, but thankfully, the recording resumes just as Roger succinctly sums up the previous minutes of conversation. Also, this podcast was recorded live and includes, at times, some extraneous noises in the background. Please excuse them -- we felt the conversation was very valuable and well worth sharing with our audience. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps - Part 2
  • The role of technology, moving into an age of virtual reality, and the creation of supernormal stimuli (01:41)
  • Ecodharma: addressing the need for a new understanding of practice and walking the bodhisattva/ecosattva path (04:37) 
  • Keeping “don’t know” mind in the face of the eco-crisis (09:57)
  • How can Buddhism contribute to facing the critical issues of our time? (10:54)
  • The Extinction Rebellion, a grassroots direct action movement (11:49)
  • The election of Trump has highlighted our problems in making them worse (15:16)
  • The problem of complacency (17:24)
  • What signifies that one has started to walk the bodhisattva path? (19:42)
  • Desire versus craving (21:26)
  • Karma yoga and not being attached to the outcome (22:14)
  • The cycle of withdrawal and return common to those people who have contributed the most to humankind (23:45)
  • The deepest challenge of our practice is integrating the knowledge that everything is perfect, but also knowing action is needed to improve things (26:36)
  • Evolutionary psychology, the evolution of religion, and what we need to do today (28:18)
  • What socially engaged Buddhism has to contribute (34:02)
  • The challenge of the gnostic intermediary to transmit a wisdom tradition across cultures and across time (34:59)

Resources & References - Part 2

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

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Early on, David Loy studied koans under Yamada Kōun Roshi while teaching Eastern and Western philosophy in Japan. He began to have direct experiences of nonduality, and the recognition of unity, or connection with others, led to his activism in the spheres of social justice and the eco-crisis. A scholar, professor, and Zen teacher in the Sanbo Zen tradition, David brings a Buddhist perspective to the ecological crisis we face today. He points out there is an important parallel between what Buddhism says about our personal predicament and about our collective predicament in relation to the rest of the biosphere. David is also a prolific author; his latest book is Ecodharma: Buddhist Teachings for the Ecological Crisis; and he is co-editor of A Buddhist Response to the Climate Emergency.

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Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

From Bodhisattva to Ecosattva: Integrating Personal Practice & Global Activism with David Loy26 May 202200:45:35

Ep. 27 (Part 1 of 2) | David Loy, Zen teacher, scholar, and prolific author, reveals his acute understanding of the crises we face today, the psychology at the root of the problems, and how we can make our way forward in this in-depth discussion. He has adopted the term ecodharma to focus attention on the challenge Buddhism faces now: integrating personal transformation with global activism and social transformation. As David points out, the focus needs to be on this world, with transcendence being a metaphorical understanding but not an excuse to abandon the problems we and our planet face today.

Besides gaining great depth of knowledge from being a scholar and student of koans, David’s insights come from a plethora of nondual experiences, which led David on a path of eco-action. Ecodharma asks: How does Buddhism need to change? How much is dwelling in emptiness becoming problematical in these challenging times? What’s best for the Earth? Everyone says practice, practice, practice…when is the performance? Is evolutionary pressure going to create a new way of living sustainably? Recorded February 22, 2020.

“When your sense of separation dissipates, it becomes not what’s in it for me, but what can I do to help make this a better world for everybody?”

Note: This podcast was recorded live and includes, at times, some extraneous noises in the background. Please excuse them -- we felt the conversation was very valuable and well worth sharing with our audience. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps - Part 1
  • Social activism, Zen practice, philosophy, koan study: how it all started (03:52)
  • How does David’s Zen practice inform his activism? It was the experiences of nondual reality (05:48)
  • The emergence of compassion: when your sense of separation dissipates, it becomes not what’s in it for me, but what can I do to help make this a better world for everybody (09:14)
  • The cold civil war in the U.S. and the need to find a way to talk with each other and understand conflicting points of view (12:03)
  • Our fundamental problem is that we don’t feel real, because the separate self is a construct, inherently insecure, inherently uncomfortable, and we experience this as a sense of fundamental lack (14:03)
  • The psychological and sociological implications of this sense of lack and how society is constructed to take advantage of it: the contemporary world religion is consumerism (17:31)
  • The positive and negative sides of individualism (22:23)
  • The heart of the bodhisattva path: personal transformation and social transformation (24:57)
  • The challenge of integrating nondual experiences (27:31)
  • 3 elements of the Pali Canon’s Motivation for Awakening (28:31)
  • Dukkha (suffering) is structural not just individual (30:09)
  • Awakenings: transcendent, imminent, and the decline of Axial religions that devalue this world (36:26) 
  • The problem with mindfulness and the 3 poisons: greed, ill will, delusion (40:51)

Resources & References - Part 1

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

---

Early on, David Loy studied koans under Yamada Kōun Roshi while teaching Eastern and Western philosophy in Japan. He began to have direct experiences of nonduality, and the recognition of unity, or connection with others, led to his activism in the spheres of social justice and the eco-crisis. A scholar, professor, and Zen teacher in the Sanbo Zen tradition, David brings a Buddhist perspective to the ecological crisis we face today. He points out there is an important parallel between what Buddhism says about our personal predicament and about our collective predicament in relation to the rest of the biosphere. David is also a prolific author; his latest book is Ecodharma: Buddhist Teachings for the Ecological Crisis; and he is co-editor of A Buddhist Response to the Climate Emergency.

---

Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Samaneri Jayasara - Creating Priceless Gifts of Wisdom: Making the World's Great Spiritual Texts Freely Available for All to Listen to19 May 202201:17:32

Ep. 26 | Samaneri Jayasara, a Theravādin renunciate in the Thai Forest tradition, became inspired to record readings of profound wisdom texts written by the great spiritual masters of all time and traditions, put them to music (in most cases), and post them on YouTube. Intending simply to share the gift of wisdom, Jayasara didn’t expect much in the way of listeners, maybe 100 or so. But with her sublime understanding and exquisite voice, accompanied by beautiful music tailored to the individual texts, Jayasara has turned mere readings into transmissions of wisdom and healing that are helping and inspiring people around the globe, and she now has upward of 70,000 followers. In this conversation, Jayasara talks about the power of the spoken word to bypass intellectual filters and enter straight into your heart, how listening can result in unexpected awakenings, how contemplating death can shift our illusions and wake us up, and the story of how she came to be a contemplative. In this episode, she also treats listeners to two lovely samples of her readings, from St. John of the Cross and Chuang Tzu. Recorded October 14, 2021.

“Silence is God’s first language.” – St. John of the Cross

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps
  • The inspiration behind reading wisdom texts on YouTube: the advantage of absorbing dharma wisdom through listening (03:11)
  • The power of the spoken word to go straight to the heart (06:12)
  • Samaneri Jayasara, a rare Theravadin to have studied such a broad variety of religious traditions (13:38)
  • Theravada: The Teaching of the Elders based on the Pali Sutras (15:37)
  • The Thai Forest tradition focuses on practice (16:44)
  • St. John of the Cross reading (17:49)
  • The intention: a heartfelt sharing of the dharma; as the Buddha said, “The greatest gift you can give is the gift of the dharma.” (22:34)
  • How Jayasara came to be a contemplative: suffering, dissatisfaction, and the teachings of Buddha and Krishnamurti (24:44)
  • How one can support Jayasara’s practice and the Viveka Hermitage (33:15)
  • Hearing teachings expressed in different ways, different conceptualizations with different traditions, can enliven your practice, make the wisdom go deeper, and help you not get stuck (33:48)
  • The “flow and rhythm” of the spiritual life and the poetry of Ram Dass (35:28)
  • How does Jayasara choose which text to read? (37:58) 
  • On the transmission of wisdom (40:44)
  • Chuang Tzu reading (46:24)
  • When striving in our practice turns to opening to what is latent within us (51:35)
  • Sudden awakening versus gradual awakening (54:44)
  • How death contemplations can shift the illusion and wake us up (56:46)
  • The story of Ramana: pure awareness and the deathless realm (01:02:26)
  • The tendency to pick up a new identity after an ego death (01:04:24)
  • What’s next? Mother Mountain Gulaga retreat (01:07:16)
  • Choosing the music that goes with the readings (01:11:23)

Resources & References

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

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Samaneri Jayasara is a Buddhist nun in the Theravadin Forest tradition. She has studied and practiced Buddhism and meditation in various capacities for over 35 years. Jayasara has a Ph.D. and Master's Degree in education, focusing on comparative spiritual traditions, Buddhism, and psychotherapy. She has taught at secondary, undergraduate, and postgraduate levels in psychology and counseling; and also worked as a trainer in mental health and crisis intervention in the welfare sector. 

Jayasara initially ordained as an Anagarika in 2003 living at both Dhammasara nun’s monastery, Western Australia, and Amaravati, UK. She re-entered the robes as a Samaneri in 2018 at Santi Forest Monastery where she lived and practiced for four years.  Jayasara now resides in a quiet hermitage (Viveka Hermitage) with another Dhamma sister in rural New South Wales.

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Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by

How and Why Cultures Evolve: Breaking Through to a New Way of Seeing06 Jun 202400:47:15

Ep. 133 (Part 1 of 2) | Author, podcaster, farmer, and poet, Brendan Graham Dempsey, brings passion, dedication, clarity, and outstanding scholarship to the fascinating and enormously important study of cultural evolution, which operates on both a personal level and a collective one. He illuminates how, when, and why we shift from one cultural worldview to the next, using his own life’s journey through the cultural stages as a map and paints colorful portraits of the outstanding characteristics of each stage: traditional/premodern, modern, postmodern, and metamodern. Brendan enlightens us as to the tumultuous and often lonely and despairing time that occurs when our prior stage has been deconstructed and we find ourselves between worldviews in a liminal space where sensemaking fails. As he puts it, we live in certain worlds to help us navigate reality. But then things change, and we bump up against the limits of things. Now the time has come to update our sense of the world; we are invited to expand and grow.

We come to understand why it is necessary for cultures to evolve—to accommodate ever increasing complexity—and why culture wars and confusion result from misunderstanding a worldview that infiltrates your psyche before it’s ready. Brendan explains why postmodernism does not serve us now, introducing and inviting us to the new, emerging worldview of metamodernism, where there is hope in positivity, affirmation, and aspirational idealism. Hope, and the promise of coming together in a new understanding among peoples, a prerequisite for dealing with the challenges of the global crises that affect us all. Brendan brings a big heart, keen mind, and a lot of verve to these complex subjects, which come alive under his brilliant tutelage. As he points out, deconstructing the psyche can help save the world, adding, this is a lot of what the metamodern community is trying to get the word out about. Recorded May 1, 2024.

“It’s absolutely essential that some folks, anyway, try to break through to this other way of seeing that can get us beyond the limits of our worldviews at the moment…in a way that allows us to keep moving forward rather than back.

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 1
  • Introducing cultural evolution pioneer, author, poet, farmer, and spiritual podcaster, Brendan Graham Dempsey (01:35)
  • What are the stages our culture has been through? (03:13)
  • Premodern is the traditional stage, linked to the great Axial Age religions that started up around 500 BC (04:56)
  • Modernity was initiated with the move out of the Middle Ages into the Renaissance; postmodernity flowered in the mid 20th century; metamodernity dawned around 2000 (06:14)
  • What are the more subtle differences that constitute these shifts between cultures or worldviews? (07:19)
  • Language is the medium that shapes us individually and shapes how culture plays out: using a psychological lens to look at the complexification process of modes of thought (08:59)
  • The relation between metamodern and integral thought and the new emerging stage of consciousness (12:10)
  • Cultural evolution plays out at the individual level too (16:37)
  • Brendan’s characterization of cultural stages based on his own life’s development, beginning with his youth in a traditional household, where faith relates to day-to-day living and miracles happen (17:58)
  • Brendan’s shift from traditional to modern happened with research and biblical scholarship, exploring faith and religion with an apologetics approach (19:44)
  • What the deconstruction phase looks like on a personal level: moving into the liminal space that exists between worldviews (21:32)
  • The radical relativity of all the different perspectives (27:38)
  • The sense of turmoil and groundlessness when shifting worldviews is often interpreted as something being “wrong;” it takes a tolerance of ambiguity to get through the shift (28:36)
  • Looking at this process through the lens of learning theory gives sense to the moments of senselessness (30:43)
  • A supportive community is a big help during deconstruction (33:19)
  • The hero’s journey element of the process: deconstructing the psyche can help save the world (35:09)
  • Brendan’s initiation into postmodernism: Nietzsche, the meaning crisis, and the failures of modernism (37:04)
  • Postmodernism asks, if we don’t have an absolute answer, what do we have? And throws the notion of progress out the window (40:47)

Resources & References – Part 1

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

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Brendan Graham Dempsey is a writer, poet, farmer, and the director of Sky Meadow Institute, an organization dedicated to promoting systems-based thinking about the things that matter most. He holds a BA in religious studies from the University of Vermont and a master’s in religion and art from Yale University. He is the author of the 7-volume Metamodern Spirituality Series and, most recently, Metamodernism: Or, The Cultural Logic of Cultural Logics. His primary interests include theorizing developments in culture after postmodernism, productively bridging the divide between science and spirituality, and developing sustainable systems for life to flourish. All of these lead through the paradigms of emergence and complexity, which inform...

Healing Collective Trauma: We Are All Shareholders in a Traumatized World with Thomas Hübl (Part 2)12 May 202200:43:37

Ep. 25 (Part 2 of 2) | Thomas Hübl, renowned spiritual teacher, author, expert on collective trauma, and creator and facilitator of The Collective Trauma Integration Process, shares fascinating, life changing information about the dynamics of collective trauma—how it is embodied and perpetuated in the language we use, and how we are bound together in a sort of “mutual collusion” that predisposes us to repeat our past, and to repeat over and over the things we would much rather leave behind. With remarkable insight and wisdom garnered from years of study, exploration, and effectively working with large groups to integrate collective shadow, Thomas also explains how we can create space for a new future by metabolizing the suffering held in both our personal and collective unconscious and making awakening and spiritual clarity the indubitable priority of our lives. Recorded at the Science and Nonduality Conference, October 2019, with Dr. Roger Walsh, John Dupuy, and Douglas Prater.

“Healing the broken glass of reality.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps - Part 2
  • The work of purification is more than only shadow work (00:48)
  • Shadow, encoded trauma, and the “it-ification” of processes: how language embodies and perpetuates shadow (02:40)
  • We are in mutual collusion in perpetuating shadow in this collectively traumatized world (06:22)
  • Language keeps the past in place and the destiny of humanity fixated (08:50)
  • Our relational network is an extension of our immune system (10:43)
  • The word is creation and the art of truth telling is a practice (11:10)
  • Climate change is an externalization of the pollution in our interiors (15:44)
  • The need for us (and our leaders) to say I’m sorry to each other publicly (16:52)
  • Letting go of the need for comfort (20:01)
  • We are all writing or composing our experience moment by moment (22:07)
  • We find God in the deepest expression of our own purpose (23:42)
  • Our energy needs to be consciously integrated to clear a space for a new future (27:37)
  • It is essential to adjust our practice over time (31:11)
  • Spiritual clarity = knowing what we see and also what we don’t see is God’s will (35:05)
  • Opening to the bottomless mystery (37:45)
  • Walking the path of karma yoga (39:36)

Resources & References - Part 2

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

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Thomas Hübl is a renowned teacher, author, and international facilitator whose lifelong work integrates the core insights of the great wisdom traditions and mysticism with the discoveries of science. Over the last two decades, Hübl has taught and facilitated programs with more than 100,000 people worldwide. His events have focused on processing the collective trauma of racism, oppression, colonialism, genocides, and the complexities of those regions and groups which experience multiple historic and current challenges. He is the author of the book Healing Collective Trauma: A Process for Integrating Our Intergenerational and Cultural Wounds, which outlines his methodology called the “Collective Trauma Integration Process” as a safe framework for guiding groups through collective trauma. His non-profit organization, the Pocket Project, works to support the healing of collective trauma throughout the world. Hübl’s educational organization, the Academy of Inner Science, offers a master’s and doctoral studies program in cooperation with universities in Europe and the US. In 2020, Hübl received an honorary doctorate from Ubiquity University in California for “his pioneering work in the field of trauma.” He has been teaching workshops and presenting trainings for Harvard Medical School since 2019.

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Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Healing Collective Trauma: We Are All Shareholders in a Traumatized World with Thomas Hübl05 May 202200:42:46

Ep. 24 (Part 1 of 2) | Thomas Hübl, renowned spiritual teacher, author, expert on collective trauma, and creator and facilitator of The Collective Trauma Integration Process, shares fascinating, life changing information about the dynamics of collective trauma—how it is embodied and perpetuated in the language we use, and how we are bound together in a sort of “mutual collusion” that predisposes us to repeat our past, and to repeat over and over the things we would much rather leave behind. With remarkable insight and wisdom garnered from years of study, exploration, and effectively working with large groups to integrate collective shadow, Thomas also explains how we can create space for a new future by metabolizing the suffering held in both our personal and collective unconscious and making awakening and spiritual clarity the indubitable priority of our lives. Recorded at the Science and Nonduality Conference, October 2019, with Dr. Roger Walsh, John Dupuy, and Douglas Prater.

“Healing the broken glass of reality.”

Note: This podcast was recorded live and includes, at times, some extraneous noises in the background. Please excuse them -- we felt the conversation was very valuable and well worth sharing with our audience. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps - Part 1
  • Introducing Thomas Hübl (01:03)
  • By definition, awakenings are not nondual if people haven’t dealt with their shadow: nondual needs to be the talk and the walk (3:03)
  • The body is a sophisticated energy pipe system; mystics are like plumbers or electricians who free up the pipes (05:50)
  • On stabilizing, generalizing, integrating insights: state practices versus process awareness (07:10)
  • Tibetan Buddhism’s three developmental maps: 1) turning towards contemplative practice, 2) the stabilization of realized states, 3) ongoing purification (08:56) 
  • We need to commit to a spiritual path, to cleaning up, and make space to clear things or the same difficulties will repeat again and again (10:12)
  • Trauma is the collapse of time/space (11:46)
  • Making divine awakening your highest priority is what constitutes a serious practitioner (14:06) 
  • All serious shadow and trauma work is relational (15:24) 
  • How can we stay committed to the path? Community, an externalization of our intention (18:22)
  • Two challenges: We are tempted to abandon our practice both when it gets very dark—and when life gets very good (20:35) 
  • Consciousness is catching: the way to develop desired qualities is to hang out with people who embody the qualities we want (22:14)
  • Our cultural relationship to hierarchy: we’ve thrown it out, but there are hierarchies of development, maturity, wisdom, insight, and compassion that should be honored
  • What are the most valuable ways to engage with what is inside us and integrate what we discover? (25:18) 
  • Paying attention to congruence and coherence in our mental, physical, and emotional expression (28:21)
  • Collective trauma: all of us have been born into a traumatized world (29:10) 
  • Healing the broken reality: every trauma healing needs to result in an ethical upgrade; we have to become better people (31:54) 
  • Thomas’ collective trauma group work where the field in the room is able to mirror the unseen dimension stored in the cultural unconscious  (32:31)
  • We are all sculptures in a transpersonal nervous system, called to metabolize the suffering held in both our personal and collective unconscious (38:14)

Resources & References - Part 1

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

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Thomas Hübl is a renowned teacher, author, and international facilitator whose lifelong work integrates the core insights of the great wisdom traditions and mysticism with the discoveries of science. Over the last two decades, Hübl has taught and facilitated programs with more than 100,000 people worldwide. His events have focused on processing the collective trauma of racism, oppression, colonialism, genocides, and the complexities of those regions and groups which experience multiple historic and current challenges. He is the author of the book Healing Collective Trauma: A Process for Integrating Our Intergenerational and Cultural Wounds, which outlines his methodology called the “Collective Trauma Integration Process” as a safe framework for guiding groups through collective trauma. His non-profit organization, the Pocket Project, works to support the healing of collective trauma throughout the world. Hübl’s educational organization, the Academy of Inner Science, offers a master’s and doctoral studies program in cooperation with universities in Europe and the US. In 2020, Hübl received an honorary doctorate from Ubiquity University in California for “his pioneering work in the field of trauma.” He has been teaching workshops and presenting trainings for Harvard Medical School since 2019.

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Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

The Moral Imperative to Help Ukraine: Integral Perspectives on the War, Its Global Implications & the Role of Warrior Consciousness (Part 2)28 Apr 202200:41:06

Ep. 23 (Part 2 of 2) | Integral leaders Kateryna Yasko, Vytautas Bučiūnas, and Bence Gánti illuminate many of the most poignant and pressing questions of our time, brought to the fore by the ongoing war in Ukraine: Can postmodern people embrace a warrior consciousness when necessary? Are Russians, brainwashed by propaganda, who explicitly support the war worthy of compassion? Can people remain sane and humane while at the same time taking up arms? How can we handle the effects of the psychological trauma that will cascade over generations? And how do we prevent the mass delusion and psychosis that is so easily propagated via modern media technology?

What are the global consequences of the Russian war on Ukraine? The trillions of dollars now being diverted to defense and military weaponry in the West are trillions of dollars that will not be spent on social programs, global health, education, climate change, and food—many people in Africa will starve as a result of this war on the breadbasket, wheat-producing Ukraine. What is wrong with democracy if its leaders can’t step up to the plate, be authentic, strong, and stand up for what is right, while autocrats do whatever they please? A powerful, heart wrenching conversation asking the right questions, pointing towards the answers. Recorded April 15, 2022.

For more wrestling with the questions, and to share wisdom, ideas, support, and inspiration, there is IEC 2022 (Integral European Conference) this May online and in Budapest. And to donate directly to help the Ukrainian people via Kateryna and Vytautas using iAwake's Funnel to Help, Heal, and Support the Ukrainian People, see below.

The reality is: “If Russia stops fighting, there will be no war. If Ukraine stops fighting, there will be no Ukraine.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 2
  • The difference between Ukrainians and Russians is Ukrainians long to be and remain human and humane; but Russians have been through a long dehumanization process (01:00)
  • How can we stick to the Geneva Conventions and not become what we’re fighting against? (01:59)
  • Around 60% of Russians on the street honestly believe they are liberating Ukraine (04:59) 
  • The power of today’s information and communication technology, coupled with our awful vulnerability to delusional thinking, is a recipe for inducing culture-wide psychosis (07:05)
  • The analogy with Nazi Germany and Putin’s Russia is right on (10:30)
  • Are Russians who are brainwashed and explicitly supporting warfare worthy of our compassion? (11:30)
  • What are the global ramifications, the psychological and cultural implications, of this great tragedy that will affect global health, social welfare, even the survival of the human species? (16:20) 
  • The systems we have been trusting to maintain global order were not good enough to save us from this challenge (20:34)
  • How to come up with more Integral, inclusive solutions and systems of sensemaking? (21:22)
  • The leadership factor in the West over the last 20+ years has been reactive, compliant, generally avoiding facing reality – until Zelensky (Vytautas’ keynote at IEC will be about this) (21:52)
  • Working on solutions at the Integral European Conference (IEC) May 2022 online and in Budapest (25:05)
  • How this invasion has opened hearts, created an explosion of trust, people are really “showing up” (Kateryna’s keynote at IEC will be about this) (26:57)
  • Showing up – what will you do when it’s time to act? There is a way to contribute for everyone (28:09)
  • iAwake’s Funnel to Help, Heal, and Support the Ukrainian People (30:15)
  • IEC will be an opportunity to involve people from Latin America in the fight for democracy and freedom in Ukraine, and hear about their ongoing wars as well (32:35) 
  • IEC will sponsor a global discussion on war and peace everywhere; there are more than 100 wars going on at any given time on the planet (35:06)
  • Are only autocratic leaders allowed to be bold, decisive, real, and authentic? (37:31)
  • Zelensky is the role model for other democratic leaders (38:50)

Resources & References – Part 2

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

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How can I help? iAwake's Funnel to Help, Heal, and Support the Ukrainian People

Deep Transformation sponsor, iAwake Technologies, sends all funds raised on behalf of the Ukrainian people directly to Kateryna Yasko and Vytautas Bučiūnas, who are giving on-the-ground support to Ukrainian refugees in the bordering countries, and sending life-saving medicines and emergency first aid kits into Ukraine via trusted drivers. Sending money directly to the people who are doing the work is much more effective at this stage than sending money to an established NGO or other aid organization, as there is a lot of paperwork and bureaucratic red tape that greatly delays the money from reaching the people who need it the most.

→ Donate here

Please know that 100% of your donation (after PayPal fees) will go directly to Kateryna and Vytautas to be used at their discretion to address the greatest needs as this terrible situation unfolds hour to hour, day to day. This couple has our absolute trust and confidence that they will use the funds we send them in the best and most compassionate and effective way possible.

#StandWithUkraine

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Kateryna Yasko (Ukraine) is an organizational psychologist, a trainer for the development of emotional intelligence, trust, cooperation, effective communication, and peaceful conflict resolution, and co-founder of the consulting company U-Integral. Her academic background is in the area of international relations and law (MSc), business (MBA), and psychology (MSc). She bases her programs on the principles of Ken Wilber’s Integral approach and Marshall Rosenberg's Nonviolent Communication, and is certified in Spiral Dynamics Integral and in Susanne Cook-Greuter’s Maturity Assessment Profile. Kateryna is also head of the public association "International Institute for Integral Development" and a founder of the educational initiative EMPATIA.PRO, specializing in bringing  holistic approaches into educational leadership and learning cultures.

Vytautas Bučiūnas (Lithuania–Ukraine) is a co-founder and managing partner of U-Integral, an integral leadership development company. Vytautas also has vast experience as a top manager in the banking sector including working as the Head of Resident Office, Senior Banker, Associate Director at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (Russia, Ukraine). Vytautas' professional profile includes building organizational units from scratch, carrying out large-scale transformations, and managing crises. Vytautas is a certified Integral Master Coach™ (Integral Coaching Canada), an ICF Professional Certified Coach (PCC)™, and the only business consultant in Ukraine certified in Leadership Maturity Framework – Maturity Assessment for Professionals (LMF-MAP) and Global Leadership Profile (GLP). Vytautas explores the development of human consciousness and complex social systemsfrom a holistic perspective. He considers the growth of a critical mass of mature leaders with systemic thinking and transformational capabilities to be the key to society's healthy development.

Bence Ganti, MA, is the main organizer, co-founder, and director of the Integral European Conferences (since 2014) and the co-founder of Integral Europe team (since 2012). He also created the Integral Academy in Budapest, a 3-year adult education program on integral psychology in 2006. Bence is an integrally oriented clinical psychologist, vipassana meditator, and international...

The Moral Imperative to Help Ukraine: Integral Perspectives on the War, Its Global Implications & the Role of Warrior Consciousness21 Apr 202200:45:41

Ep. 22 (Part 1 of 2) | Integral leaders Kateryna Yasko, Vytautas Bučiūnas, and Bence Ganti illuminate many of the most poignant and pressing questions of our time, brought to the fore by the ongoing war in Ukraine: Can postmodern people embrace a warrior consciousness when necessary? Are Russians, brainwashed by propaganda, who explicitly support the war worthy of compassion? Can people remain sane and humane while at the same time taking up arms? How can we handle the effects of the psychological trauma that will cascade over generations? And how do we prevent the mass delusion and psychosis that is so easily propagated via modern media technology?

What are the global consequences of the Russian war on Ukraine? The trillions of dollars now being diverted to defense and military weaponry in the West are trillions of dollars that will not be spent on social programs, global health, education, climate change, and food—many people in Africa will starve as a result of this war on the breadbasket, wheat-producing Ukraine. What is wrong with democracy if its leaders can’t step up to the plate, be authentic, strong, and stand up for what is right, while autocrats do whatever they please? A powerful, heart wrenching conversation asking the right questions, pointing towards the answers. Recorded April 15, 2022. 

For more wrestling with the questions, and to share wisdom, ideas, support, and inspiration, there is IEC 2022 (Integral European Conference) this May online and in Budapest. And to donate directly to help the Ukrainian people via Kateryna and Vytautas using iAwake's Funnel to Help, Heal, and Support the Ukrainian People, see below.

The reality is: “If Russia stops fighting, there will be no war. If Ukraine stops fighting, there will be no more Ukraine.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps - Part 1
  • Ukraine update: the level of trauma has grown very high in the last month, both inside and outside Ukraine, with the discoveries in Bucha and elsewhere (03:18)
  • Everyone feels guilty: the people who have fled, the people in the cities, the people in territorial defense: everyone feels a strong need to contribute more (05:03)
  • The West is consolidating; there’s less naivete about Russia (07:45)
  • People around the world can and need to contribute (09:34)
  • True heroism is coming to the fore; this could be a wake up call for a lot of us (11:35)
  • Bence Ganti, Integral leader and director of the Integral European Conference, talks about the situation in Hungary and the coming IEC in May 2022 (12:32)
  • Kateryna’s perspective on recent weeks: facing an overwhelming, multi-fronted battle on all levels, it’s impossible to give yourself space to take care of yourself (15:40) 
  • In Russia, children in school are taught only propaganda; refugee children are traumatized and don’t speak the language of their host countries (18:28)
  • Disappointment and frustration with opinion leaders, prominent intellectuals in the West, writing articles totally disconnected from the realities of the Ukrainian situation (19:55)
  • Ukraine is slowing gaining agency on several fronts (21:35)
  • This is a meta historic conflict; the West saying this conflict is their fault or the US’ fault is going too far; Russia has been threatening Ukraine since before the US existed (24:40)
  • Otto Scharmer’s article about collaborative diplomacy is not good enough; it’s abstract and divorced from the physical realities of the situation (27:52)
  • The reality is: “If Russia stops fighting, there will be no war. If Ukraine stops fighting, there will be no more Ukraine.” (30:38)
  • What is the most strategic response we can make in this situation to directly address this tragedy and its needs? (32:38)
  • Children in primary school are very tuned in to the collective: smart teachers are using military analogies when teaching (35:12)
  • We have to integrate the “red” stage of development in the educational system…we have to let boys play with guns and speak about it (37:40)
  • We need an Integral stage to understand when to act with which stages (38:57) 
  • Green = a postmodern stage where we strive for harmony, unity, authenticity, connectedness and believe only with love we will solve all conflicts; red = the warrior stage; Integral = a yogi with a rifle (40:35) 
  • Ukrainians fighting from a place of love, somehow they are integrated (43:17)

Resources & References - Part 1

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

---

How can I help? iAwake's Funnel to Help, Heal, and Support the Ukrainian People

Deep Transformation sponsor, iAwake Technologies, sends all funds raised on behalf of the Ukrainian people directly to Kateryna Yasko and Vytautas Bučiūnas, who are giving on-the-ground support to Ukrainian refugees in the bordering countries, and sending life-saving medicines and emergency first aid kits into Ukraine via trusted drivers. Sending money directly to the people who are doing the work is much more effective at this stage than sending money to an established NGO or other aid organization, as there is a lot of paperwork and bureaucratic red tape that greatly delays the money from reaching the people who need it the most.

→ Donate here

Please know that 100% of your donation (after PayPal fees) will go directly to Kateryna and Vytautas to be used at their discretion to address the greatest needs as this terrible situation unfolds hour to hour, day to day. This couple has our absolute trust and confidence that they will use the funds we send them in the best and most compassionate and effective way possible.

#StandWithUkraine

---

Kateryna Yasko (Ukraine) is an organizational psychologist, a trainer for the development of emotional intelligence, trust, cooperation, effective communication, and peaceful conflict...

Consciousness Evolves, Politics Can Too: Beyond the Culture War with Steve McIntosh (Part 2)14 Apr 202200:54:17

Ep. 21 (Part 2 of 2) | Steve McIntosh, philosopher, author of the groundbreaking book Developmental Politics, and co-founder of the Institute for Cultural Evolution, outlines an extraordinary framework to make sense of our political conflicts—extraordinary in that it points to ways through and out of our persistent polarity consciousness. Steve convincingly argues our opportunity is right now: to create a synthesis, a cooperative agreement space, that transcends and includes thesis and antithesis, left and right, individual and community. Steve’s is a passionate and prophetic voice; there is hope for politics. With vertical development we can recover a common sense of truth, a common sense of goodness—transcendent ideals could become social norms. Steve ends with an invitation to listeners to investigate this new concept of cultural intelligence and the implications of the new truth: consciousness and culture co-evolve. Recorded on September 8, 2021.

“An Invitation to Creating a World That Works for Everybody”

Topics & Time Stamps - Part 2
  • The practice of virtues: character development is an important psychological technology (01:34)
  • Deep happiness, Aristotle’s eudaimonia (05:07)
  • Reestablishing cultural agreements around transcendent character development: an “upward current of the good” (06:48)
  • How do you practice courage? (11:26)
  • The magnetism towards being better: towards the good, the true, the beautiful (12:12)
  • The evolutionary power of value polarities (13:05) 
  • Understanding the new inter-subjective We Space: a social medicine that can help heal the wounds of history (20:11)
  • How do we begin to walk this path of cultural emergence and post-progressivism as a practice? This new truth that consciousness and culture co-evolve? (21:43)
  • The need to build a political movement, break through into mainstream culture with the new truth of the vertical dimension of development (25:27)
  • Truth is one of the casualties of the current culture wars (28:25)
  • How does technology come into it? (35:05)
  • The Black Death plague and the impact of COVID-19 (38:14)
  • With post-progressivism, we’re trying to negate the negations of progressivism (40:18)
  • The role of contemplative practices and spiritual development in fostering psychological development and helping transcendent ideals become social norms (43:10)
  • An invitation to listeners to participate and investigate this new cultural intelligence (48:41)

Resources & References - Part 2

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

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Steve McIntosh, J.D. is author of Developmental Politics—How America Can Grow Into a Better Version of Itself (Paragon House 2020)and co-author of Conscious Leadership—Elevating Humanity Through Business (Penguin 2020), with John Mackey and Carter Phipps. McIntosh is president of the Institute for Cultural Evolution think tank, which focuses on the cultural roots of America’s political problems. His work has appeared in USA TodayReal Clear PoliticsThe Daily BeastThe HillAreo Magazine, and The Developmentalist. He has been interviewed on NPR, Oxford Review, Rebel Wisdom, and many other podcasts. His author website is: stevemcintosh.com.

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Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Consciousness Evolves, Politics Can Too: Beyond the Culture War with Steve McIntosh07 Apr 202200:51:32

Ep. 20 (Part 1 of 2) | Steve McIntosh, philosopher, author of the groundbreaking book Developmental Politics, and co-founder of the Institute for Cultural Evolution, outlines an extraordinary framework to make sense of our political conflicts—extraordinary in that it points to ways through and out of our persistent polarity consciousness. Steve convincingly argues our opportunity is right now: to create a synthesis, a cooperative agreement space, that transcends and includes thesis and antithesis, left and right, individual and community. Steve’s is a passionate and prophetic voice; there is hope for politics. With vertical development we can recover a common sense of truth, a common sense of goodness—transcendent ideals could become social norms. Steve ends with an invitation to listeners to investigate this new concept of cultural intelligence and the implications of the new truth: consciousness and culture co-evolve. Recorded on September 8, 2021.

“Almost every problem is a problem of consciousness.”

Topics & Time Stamps - Part 1
  • Introducing Steve McIntosh and Developmental Politics (02:08)
  • Normality is not the ceiling of development—more like a collective form of developmental arrest (04:04)
  • We can keep growing, not only personally but politically and culturally; right now we have the perfect conditions for the next phase to emerge: a cultural renaissance (06:22)
  • Progressive spirituality: the intersection of science and spirituality (08:08)
  • Spiral Dynamics, the Cultural Creatives, and Integral consciousness (10:51)
  • The emergence of the post-progressive worldview and the profound truth that consciousness evolves (13:02)
  • A calling to apply the new worldview to politics, climate change: founding the Institute of Cultural Evolution (15:17)
  • Making the ideas and political philosophy of developmental politics accessible to people, so people can recognize their worldview and the positive and negative of other worldviews too (20:23)
  • The structure of emergence in the noosphere: America’s trajectory in the world is not done yet—we can grow our way out of this and give birth to a new worldview (25:10)
  • Breaking out of modernity: progressive postmodernism breaks the spell of the old establishment (29:04)
  • Our bedrock values have energetic properties like magnets, attracting and repelling. How can we create new forms of agreement so we can all work together in a new type of culture? Cultural intelligence (32:19)
  • Recognizing how the hinges of history continue to animate our political climate and that the dialectical pattern of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis is in the structure of emergence itself (34:58)
  • Worldviews oscillate between focusing on the whole/community and focusing on the part/individual (36:33)
  • Tug of war between moral systems on either side of modernity with traditionalism pulling on one side and progressivism pulling from the other (37:49)
  • Our current opportunity is to create a synthesis, a new cultural agreement space, that includes traditionalism, modernity, and progressivism, characterized by interdependence (39:07)
  • How can we overcome hyperpolarization if people have their own facts? (42:49)
  • Transcendence is the key to reclaiming a sense of common good and restoring sufficient unity for a functioning democracy (44:37) 
  • Higher ground rather than common ground: a new political agreement space, where people can begin to appreciate that the existential polarity in politics is permanent and interdependent, where people can embody the left and the right in themselves, preserving what’s right and fixing what’s wrong (47:07)

Resources & References - Part 1

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

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Steve McIntosh, J.D. is author of Developmental Politics—How America Can Grow Into a Better Version of Itself (Paragon House 2020)and co-author of Conscious Leadership—Elevating Humanity Through Business (Penguin 2020), with John Mackey and Carter Phipps. McIntosh is president of the Institute for Cultural Evolution think tank, which focuses on the cultural roots of America’s political problems. His work has appeared in USA TodayReal Clear PoliticsThe Daily BeastThe Hill

The World Needs Elders: How Inner Work Transforms Aging into a Developmental Process, a Life Culmination, and a Gift31 Mar 202200:53:40

Ep. 19 | Connie Zweig, Ph.D., Elder, award-winning author, and Shadow expert, has provided us with a rare gift in her recent book, The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul. Upon discovering there was a surprising lack of any information, resources, or even language with which to contextualize the inner work of aging and the crucial rite of passage to elderhood, Connie has given us just that. In this conversation, we come face to face with our own inner ageist shadow character and we learn that if we do the inner work, we can make the all-important shift from doing to being, let go of our roles, begin to identify with our spiritual nature, and open the door of our awareness to further developmental stages. Rather than becoming seniors in decline, Connie illuminates who we can become as elders. “The world needs elders now: for their compassion, their gratitude, their generosity, their skills, their shadow awareness, and their spiritual development. The world is starved for this nourishment.” Recorded on October 6, 2021.

“There is a whisper, a restless longing, inside of people for something more.”

Topics & Time Stamps
  • The surprising lack of information, language, and context for inner soul work for those of us living beyond midlife (03:44)
  • Connie realizing her own “ageist” bias, and how ageism is internalized from our culture (08:08)
  • The first inner obstacle to overcome on our way to elderhood is the Inner Ageist shadow character (10:06) 
  • Internalized ageism affects our health, cognitive and physical, quality of life, and longevity and becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy (10:44)
  • Challenges that elders face specific to our time (12:15)
  • Aging from the inside out, from “role to soul,” doing contemplative practice and inner work, turning in, is available to all regardless of circumstance (15:32)
  • What practices and spiritual experiences have led Connie on the wisdom path? (19:49)
  • Connie’s primary practice now: gratitude (23:07)
  • What can we become, as elders? (24:39)
  • Aging is a crucial rite of passage; it becomes a developmental process if we’re open to doing the inner work (28:38)
  • A door opens for us to ask again, Who am I? Who am I now? (31:26)
  • From role to soul: what is the soul? And letting go of our roles (33:07)
  • Differences in the ways masculine and feminine types tend to struggle with letting go of roles (35:58)
  • Holy longing: the calling to be something more and the suffering that is caused when we don’t fulfill our higher needs (38:12)
  • Gerotranscendence: a spontaneous movement towards a transcendent perspective as people age (43:31)
  • The shadow defined and the shadow of spirituality (45:32)
  • How can we improve our capacity to work with the shadow? (49:14)
  • The world needs elders now (51:12)

Resources & References

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Connie Zweig, Ph.D., is a retired therapist, co-author of Meeting the Shadow and Romancing the Shadow, author of Meeting the Shadow of Spirituality and a novel, A Moth to the Flame: The Life of Sufi Poet Rumi. Her new book, The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul (Sept. 2021), extends shadow-work into late life and teaches aging as a spiritual practice. Connie has been doing contemplative practices for 50 years. She is a wife and grandmother and was initiated as an Elder by Sage-ing International in 2017. After investing in all these roles, she is practicing the shift from role to soul.

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Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Making Friends with Conflict, Metamodernity, Construct Awareness & Other Ways of Facing the Current Metacrisis (Part 2)24 Mar 202200:51:12

Ep. 18 (Part 2 of 2) | Jonathan Rowson, brilliant, driven, articulate, shines a bright light of understanding on the metacrisis we face today, what feeds it, and what could help us find our way through. What is metamodernity and what does it have to offer? Is the ecological crisis fundamentally an educational crisis? Can we grow into our problem rather than thinking of ourselves as “failing beings” as the climate collapses around us? From the metaperspective to the deeply personal, Rowson shares his wisdom, including life lessons he gleaned from being a chess Grandmaster, before becoming a philosopher, research fellow, nonprofit director, and author. Recorded on November 17, 2021.

“Let’s be careful what we’re talking about because we’re creating a world…”

Topics & Time Stamps - Part 2
  • What is metamodernity and what does it have to offer us? (01:04)
  • The “cultural between”: serious about the meaning of life (04:48)
  • The political “after”: an antidote to hyper modernity, returning to basic human sensibilities and a time-rich relationship with life (06:22)
  • The mystic beyond: a return to metaphysics (08:28)
  • What does “a time between worlds” mean? (09:32)
  • We’ve got to perceive the context clearly in order to orient ourselves: our interiors, our capacity for growth, bio precarity, technology innovation, and more (12:50)
  • On the nuances of confusion (14:27) 
  • Can we grow into our climate collapse problem rather than thinking of ourselves as “failing beings”? (17:07)
  • The importance of Bildung = transformative, civic, and aesthetic education (18:17)
  • Is the ecological crisis fundamentally an educational crisis? (20:18)
  • What chess taught Jonathan about life: jewels of wisdom from The Moves That Matter (23:42)
  • Concentration = freedom (25:31)
  • Making peace with our struggles: we’re always going to be a work in progress (30:38)
  • Successful underachievement and living with regret (35:42)
  • Living in an algorithm-driven culture (40:52)
  • Longing for a clearer sense of relationship with the divine, the cosmopoetics of life (43:59)
  • Our unbidden tears are the best of us (46:03)

Resources & References - Part 2

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

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Jonathan Rowson, Ph.D. is co-founder and director of Perspectiva, an organization committed to understanding the relationship between systems, souls, and society in theory and practice, with a view to help overcome collective immunity to transformation in a time between worlds. He is also an open society fellow and a research fellow at the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity at the University of Surrey. He  was previously Director of the Social Brain Centre at the RSA, where he authored a range of influential research reports on behaviour change, climate change, and spirituality, and curated and chaired a range of related events. By background, Jonathan is an applied philosopher with degrees from Oxford, Harvard, and Bristol Universities. In a former life he was a chess Grandmaster and British Champion and views the game as a continuing source of insight and inspiration. His book, The Moves that Matter: A Grandmaster on the Game of Life, was published in 2019.

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Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Making Friends with Conflict, Metamodernity, Construct Awareness & Other Ways of Facing the Current Metacrisis17 Mar 202200:52:16

Ep. 17 (Part 1 of 2) | Jonathan Rowson, brilliant, driven, articulate, shines a bright light of understanding on the metacrisis we face today, what feeds it, and what could help us find our way through. What is metamodernity and what does it have to offer? Is the ecological crisis fundamentally an educational crisis? Can we grow into our problem rather than thinking of ourselves as “failing beings” as the climate collapses around us? From the metaperspective to the deeply personal, Rowson shares his wisdom, including life lessons he gleaned from being a chess Grandmaster, before becoming a philosopher, research fellow, nonprofit director, and author. Recorded on November 17, 2021.

“Let’s be careful what we’re talking about because we’re creating a world…”

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 1
  • What are Jonathan’s daily practices (while also being very much “in the world” these days)? (05:37)
  • Being a cartological hedonist: intellectual mapmaking (10:27)
  • What does Christianity have to offer that we should be paying attention to? (11:58)
  • Becoming “construct aware” in the political spectrum and elsewhere: cultural progress depends on it (14:29)
  • The UK Brexit quagmire: what are we talking about when we say democracy? (18:32)
  • Why developmental psychology may not be the best lens to look at our culture and politics (20:15)
  • What is the most strategic contribution you can make? (29:45)
  • Progressive imperialism: assuming everyone is or could be on the same page—but conflict and opposition will always be a feature of the world (32:04)
  • Who is included in the word “we,” getting people to face up to the fallen nature of the world, and the Manichaean worldview (34:51)
  • The contemplative perspective and our fundamental state of delusion (36:30)
  • Underlying delusion in the progressive community that there is a fundamental “right” way or that we will come to a common agreement on issues like climate (38:28)
  • The imperative to mobilize to face the epistemic crisis as well as the environmental crisis (40:23)
  • How do we work together in a context where we may disagree and dislike each other: making friends with conflict (42:05)
  • The metacrisis, confusion, and the bottomless mystery: a time between worlds (45:08)
  • Carlos Castenada’s 4 traps for the person of knowledge: fear, power, clarity, old age (47:57)
  • Confusion is not necessarily a bad thing (48:35)

Resources & References – Part 1

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

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Jonathan Rowson, Ph.D. is co-founder and director of Perspectiva, an organization committed to understanding the relationship between systems, souls, and society in theory and practice, with a view to help overcome collective immunity to transformation in a time between worlds. He is also an open society fellow and a research fellow at the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity at the University of Surrey. He  was previously Director of the Social Brain Centre at the RSA, where he authored a range of influential research reports on behaviour change, climate change, and spirituality, and curated and chaired a range of related events. By background, Jonathan is an applied philosopher with degrees from Oxford, Harvard, and Bristol Universities. In a former life he was a chess Grandmaster and British Champion and views the game as a continuing source of insight and inspiration. His book, The Moves that Matter: A Grandmaster on the Game of Life, was published in 2019.

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Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Ukrainian Integral Perspectives on the Ongoing Invasion of Ukraine with Kateryna Yasko & Vytautas Bučiūnas10 Mar 202201:25:40

Ep. 16 | Kateryna Yasko and Vytautas Bučiūnas crossed the border into Lithuania three days before this conversation took place, after a five-day exodus from Kyiv, following the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. This conversation is a call for action and support of the incredibly brave Ukrainian people, and illuminates their willingness to fight to the death to throw out the invaders who are there to crush their freedom and make Ukraine a colony of Putin’s Russia. This is an informative, inspirational, and heartbreaking dialogue with two exceptionally insightful Integral leaders from the Ukraine—about propaganda and myth-making in our post-truth world, about integrating power, force, and love, about a new worldwide unity, and how the Integral perspective might pave the way towards world peace. Recorded March 5, 2022.

“One nation has opened the hearts of the whole world. What kind of conversations should we have now to foster this care and compassion, and move it in a constructive direction?”

Topics & Time Stamps
  • Witnessing the beginning of this phase of Putin’s aggression: the Revolution of Dignity and the Annexation of Crimea in 2013 and 2014 (04:29)
  • The Russian propaganda machine: painting Ukraine as a fascist country of Nazis (06:32)
  • Putin’s masterful creation of a myth in this post-truth world (10:05)
  • This is a fight for truth (17:40)
  • Is there anything good about Putin? (23:51)
  • Kateryna & Vytautas’ experience: the beginning of the invasion and the exodus to Lithuania (26:31)
  • Sirens and bomb shelters are becoming routine; fear has turned to anger (39:55)
  • Europe is united, NATO is united, Ukraine is united (42:15)
  • How this invasion has reinforced Second Tier consciousness in the West (44:49)
  • How long can Ukraine hold out? Are the sanctions enough? What about a Russian oil embargo? (46:58)
  • What can Western countries do, what are they not doing, and why sanctions are so useful (50:58)
  • Russian oligarchs and Putin in his bunker (54:50)
  • Do we need to allow Putin to save face or just fight to the bitter end? (58:21)
  • Denazification, demilitarization…dePutinification and other parallels (01:01:41)
  • Putin’s narrative and the Russian Orthodox Church (01:03:01)
  • Europa = Gayropa, Putin has assumed the role of protector of traditional values (1:06:18)
  • How can we use the Integral metaperspective to heal what’s happening? (1:10:43)
  • Why what Ukraine is doing is so inspiring: fighting out of love, not fear (01:12:05)
  • Ukraine and others’ “showing up” is very Second Tier (01:13:06)
  • One nation has opened the hearts of the whole world. How shall we integrate this and foster the care and compassion to steer it in a constructive direction? (01:14:18)
  • Integrating power and love: facing our need to engage power with force (01:15:30)
  • A new focus on World Peace from a Second Tier perspective (01:19:21)
  • Glory to Ukraine, glory to heroes (01:22:15)

Resources & References

How can I help? List of resources curated by RazomForUkraine.org

#StandWithUkraine

Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos

Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

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Kateryna Yasko (Ukraine) is an organizational psychologist, a trainer for the development of emotional intelligence, trust, cooperation, effective communication, and peaceful conflict resolution, and co-founder of the consulting company U-Integral. Her academic background is in the area of international relations and law (MSc), business (MBA), and psychology (MSc). She bases her programs on the principles of Ken Wilber’s Integral approach and Marshall Rosenberg's Nonviolent Communication, and is certified in Spiral Dynamics Integral and in Susanne Cook-Greuter’s Maturity Assessment Profile. Kateryna is also head of the public association "International Institute for Integral Development" and a founder of the educational initiative EMPATIA.PRO, specializing in bringing  holistic approaches into educational leadership and learning cultures. 

Vytautas Bučiūnas (Lithuania–Ukraine) is a co-founder and managing partner of U-Integral, an integral leadership development company. Vytautas also has vast experience as a top manager in the banking sector including working as the Head of Resident Office, Senior Banker, Associate Director at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (Russia, Ukraine). Vytautas' professional profile includes building organizational units from scratch, carrying out large-scale transformations, and managing crises. Vytautas is a certified Integral Master Coach™ (Integral Coaching Canada), an ICF Professional Certified Coach (PCC)™, and the only business consultant in Ukraine certified in Leadership Maturity Framework – Maturity Assessment for Professionals (LMF-MAP) and Global Leadership Profile (GLP). Vytautas explores the development of human consciousness and complex social systemsfrom a holistic perspective. He considers the growth of a critical mass of mature leaders with systemic thinking and transformational capabilities to be the key to society's healthy development. 

The Transformative Power of EMDR Therapy: A Revolution in Trauma Treatment & Gateway to Transpersonal Openings (Part 3)30 May 202400:46:57

Ep. 132 (Part 3 of 3) | World renowned EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing) therapy pioneer and trainer Dr. Laurel Parnell has used EMDR therapy with clients for decades with truly remarkable success. Laurel relates how EMDR therapy dissolves blocks caused by trauma, freeing clients from negative constructs so they can develop their own felt sense of truth, and express from and know their own true nature. After EMDR, she says, “singers sing, writers write, dancers dance.” Not only are clients freed, but the endpoint of EMDR therapy quite often rests in a transpersonal space that is invariably characterized by an upwelling of self-love and compassion for others, an opening to mystery and boundless possibility. Interestingly, because of the resonant field between therapist and client (interpersonal neurobiology), the therapist experiences the transpersonal opening when it happens as well. More often than not, Laurel tells us, the way the session unfolds is a surprise to both client and therapist, with long forgotten little “t” traumas turning out to be responsible for the client’s blocks rather than the expected major life traumas.

Laurel makes it clear that the goal of EMDR is to empower the client; the therapist must allow the wisdom to reside in the client rather than in their own interpretation of what unfolds, and adhere strictly to a process of open inquiry. She describes how the therapist’s beliefs can limit the outcome and outlines the advantages of a therapist who has a spiritual practice and transpersonal awareness. Laurel’s leading edge at this point involves Multidimensional Integrative Healing, an evolution from her longtime experience with EMDR, where further dimensions of reality have so often emerged in her work, and her own spiritual journey. It is fascinating to hear her describe how we can not only install helpful inner resources for ourselves, but also counter intergenerational trauma by calling forward ancestral wisdom. A deeply intriguing, eye opening, and impactful conversation with a very wise, enthusiastic, far thinking trailblazer of a teacher. Recorded April 15, 2024.

The consciousness that illumines everything illumines everything on all dimensions.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 3
  • Normalizing living in the nondual space with Suzanne Segal (00:56)
  • Laurel’s son’s horrific death, the sense of feeling held, and working with a spirit worker afterwards (03:42)
  • Laurel’s further healing on her own with EMDR (08:51)
  • The onset of working with multiple dimensions of reality: working with energetic attachments, ancestral/intergenerational trauma, energetic sovereignty (09:53)
  • Not everything we experience is ours, and should not be integrated (11:20)
  • This way of working is all about empowering the individual, cultivating & developing the very powerful resource deities within us and in other dimensions (15:20)
  • Using Tibetan technology & developing skillful means (16:48)
  • Energetic sovereignty and working with energy bubbles: how to help others without merging with them (20:22)
  • Healing intergenerational trauma: resourcing positive, wholesome, healthy ancestry and bringing it forward (21:59)
  • The bridging technique: reprocessing past life trauma of the client or even of another energetic being (25:49)
  • Staying open to the multiplicity of possibilities of what could be going on (28:14)
  • What the original pioneering psychedelic therapists discovered about the psyche (29:13)
  • Laurel’s healing journey in the Amazon and recognizing that ancient ways of healing are still important (31:03)
  • Consciousness is so vast, everything is there—grief too (34:48)
  • Primordial purity: everything is an expression of consciousness; nothing needs to be condemned (35:19)
  • There is cross-generational transmission of limiting beliefs, traumas, etc., but also of virtues: bringing forward ancestral wisdom to heal current traumas (37:28)
  • The importance of service, setting good boundaries, and practicing good ethics on the part of the shaman or therapist (42:45)

Resources & References – Part 3

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

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Live Online Training at the Parnell Institute

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Laurel Parnell, Ph.D. is the Executive Director of the Parnell Institute and developer of Attachment-Focused EMDR and Multidimensional Integrative Healing. She is a clinical psychologist, author of several books, and leading expert on Eye-movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy. Since 1995 she has trained thousands of clinicians in EMDR both nationally and internationally. A meditation practitioner since 1973, she brings a transpersonal orientation to her teaching as well as to her clinical work.

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Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

The Essence of Zen: One Heart One Mind, Waking Up, Working Through Grief & What Women Want From Men with Diane Hamilton (Part 2)03 Mar 202200:45:01

Ep. 15 (Part 2 of 2) | Zen teacher Diane Musho Hamilton brings us home to the simple essence of Zen: to practice as one, without reference to past or future. This heartfelt conversation covers many topics: waking up to our true nature, grief and practices that help us work through it, the tension of “difference,” healing the rift between female and male, the role of ayahuasca and peyote, the ever more subtle process of purification, and a beautiful recitation of 14th century Sufi poet Hafiz’s poem, “I Have Learned So Much.” Allow yourself to be reminded how simple things can get if you let them and how, as Diane says, “We’re all just growing up together.” Recorded on September 13, 2021.

Diane Musho Hamilton is an award-winning professional mediator, author, and teacher of Zen meditation. She has been a practitioner of meditation for more than 30 years and is a lineage holder in the Soto Zen tradition. As the first Director of the Office of Alternative Dispute Resolution for the Utah Judiciary, Diane established mediation programs throughout the court system and won several prestigious awards for her work in this area. She is the Executive Director of Two Arrows Zen, a practice in Utah, and offers training programs oriented to personal development and advanced facilitator skills. Diane is the author of Everything Is Workable and The Zen of You and Me. Her latest book is Compassionate Conversations: How to Speak and Listen from the Heart, co-authored with Gabriel Wilson and Kimberly Loh.

“What does it mean to be human?”

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 2
  • Grief: being present with it and practicing with it (01:01)
  • How shamanic practice can let us see pure radiance in others (07:46)
  • The power of ritual in times of grief (08:48)
  • Grief and integral practice (12:20)
  • What is the role of a specifically female contemplative teacher? (19:03)
  • Confronting the feminine shadow (22:59)
  • The neverending, ever more subtle practice of purification (aka Ken Wilber’s “cleaning up”) (25:32)
  • What do women want from men? (30:11)
  • And what do men want from women? (34:40)
  • Peyote, forgiveness, and healing the rift (38:04)

Resources & References – Part 2

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos

Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

The Essence of Zen: One Heart One Mind, Waking Up, Working Through Grief & What Women Want From Men with Diane Hamilton24 Feb 202200:45:31

Ep. 14 (Part 1 of 2) | Zen teacher Diane Musho Hamilton brings us home to the simple essence of Zen: to practice as one, without reference to past or future. This heartfelt conversation covers many topics: waking up to our true nature, grief and practices that help us work through it, the tension of “difference,” healing the rift between female and male, the role of ayahuasca and peyote, the ever more subtle process of purification, and a beautiful recitation of 14th century Sufi poet Hafiz’s poem, “I Have Learned So Much.” Allow yourself to be reminded how simple things can get if you let them and how, as Diane says, “We’re all just growing up together.” Recorded on September 13, 2021.

Diane Musho Hamilton is an award-winning professional mediator, author, and teacher of Zen meditation. She has been a practitioner of meditation for more than 30 years and is a lineage holder in the Soto Zen tradition. As the first Director of the Office of Alternative Dispute Resolution for the Utah Judiciary, Diane established mediation programs throughout the court system and won several prestigious awards for her work in this area. She is the Executive Director of Two Arrows Zen, a practice in Utah, and offers training programs oriented to personal development and advanced facilitator skills. Diane is the author of Everything Is Workable and The Zen of You and Me. Her latest book is Compassionate Conversations: How to Speak and Listen from the Heart, co-authored with Gabriel Wilson and Kimberly Loh.

“What does it mean to be human?”

Topics & Time Stamps - Part 1
  • Diane’s opening at seventeen to “what does it mean to be human?” (02:43)
  • Buddhadharma, Integral, and Big Mind (05:10)
  • The urgent need for us to wake up to our fundamental unity (10:37)
  • How Ken Wilber’s developmental stages and states fit in (15:20)
  • The heart of Zen Buddhism: an utterly coherent reality, free of separation (19:37)
  • Differences between Diane’s teachings & practice and traditional Zen: creating space for ego development (20:51) 
  • Zen’s contribution to conflict resolution: radical first person, sitting together as one (24:11)
  • Looking at climate change in an Integral way, from 1st-person, 2nd-person, and 3rd-person perspectives (26:21)
  • Zen teaches peace is in the present without reference to past or future (29:33)
  • The difference between meditation and flow states, and manifesting from the place of Big Mind (33:57)

Resources & References - Part 1

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos

Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Dan Millman: Self-Mastery, Service & the Peaceful Warrior Spirit (Part 2)17 Feb 202200:47:59

Ep. 13 (Part 2 of 2) | Dan Millman has shown us how to live with both a peaceful heart and a warrior’s spirit for forty years. His new book Peaceful Heart, Warrior Spirit shares his reflections on the extraordinary experiences that shaped his evolution from youthful dreamer to spiritual teacher. Dan’s first book, Way of the Peaceful Warrior, was a bestseller and adapted into a feature film. Dan is a former world trampoline champion, Stanford University gymnastics coach, martial arts instructor, and Oberlin college professor. His 18 books are published in 29 languages. Dan has traveled widely, teaching in over thirty countries. To learn more about his books, events, online courses, and free life-purpose calculator, visit www.PeacefulWarrior.com.

Dan Millman, a man who has devoted his life to mastery—in sports and in the arena of life itself—and author of the book that opened doors for so many, Way of the Peaceful Warrior, published in the 80s, talks about inspiration, talent, discipline, mastery, ordinary life, and his own path, practices, teachers, and new book, Peaceful Heart, Warrior Spirit: The True Story of My Spiritual Quest. Humorous and humble, Dan embodies the peaceful warrior way, centering his life around service, sharing his wisdom, and living the question, “What needs doing right now?” Recorded on October 20, 2021.

“There are no ordinary moments.”

Topics & Time Stamps - Part 2
  • Dan’s teachers: the professor, the guru, and spiritual technology (01:37)
  • On cults (07:52)
  • The first 5 levels of consciousness: blind belief, conventional reality, St. Ego, the philosopher, disillusion (13:22)
  • Dan’s daily practices and the 4-minute meditation on the process of dying (22:46)
  • The fundamental foundation of the peaceful warrior’s way (25:17)
  • The Zen of ordinariness (27:07)
  • Dan’s teachers: the warrior-priest, David Reynolds (29:13)
  • On gratitude (33:41)
  • Approaching life as an experiment and action inquiry (39:04)
  • Carlos Castaneda’s four natural enemies of man: fear, clarity, power, and old age (41:02)
  • Dan’s guiding question (45:26)

Resources & References - Part 2

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos

Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Dan Millman: Self-Mastery, Service & the Peaceful Warrior Spirit10 Feb 202200:46:09

Ep. 12 (Part 1 of 2) | Dan Millman, a man who has devoted his life to mastery—in sports and in the arena of life itself—and author of the book that opened doors for so many, Way of the Peaceful Warrior, published in the 80s, talks about inspiration, talent, discipline, mastery, ordinary life, and his own path, practices, teachers, and new book, Peaceful Heart, Warrior Spirit: The True Story of My Spiritual Quest. Humorous and humble, Dan embodies the peaceful warrior way, centering his life around service, sharing his wisdom, and living the question, “What needs doing right now?” Recorded on October 20, 2021.

Dan Millman has shown us how to live with both a peaceful heart and a warrior’s spirit for forty years. His new book Peaceful Heart, Warrior Spirit shares his reflections on the extraordinary experiences that shaped his evolution from youthful dreamer to spiritual teacher. Dan’s first book, Way of the Peaceful Warrior, was a bestseller and adapted into a feature film. Dan is a former world trampoline champion, Stanford University gymnastics coach, martial arts instructor, and Oberlin college professor. His 18 books are published in 29 languages. Dan has traveled widely, teaching in over thirty countries. To learn more about his books, events, online courses, and free life-purpose calculator, visit www.PeacefulWarrior.com.

“There are no ordinary moments.

Topics & Time Stamps - Part 1
  • The deepest source of Dan’s inspiration (05:32) 
  • How do we develop talent? In sports—and in life (06:46)
  • The heart of Dan’s motivation: What’s the bigger picture? Asking “What do I do?” instead of “Who am I?” (11:25)
  • The importance of gaining self-knowledge (Know thyself): otherwise we make the right choice for the wrong person! (12:51)
  • On discipline, the Marshmallow Experiment, and using failure as a stepping stone (15:15) 
  • The learning curve of mastering...anything (18:18)
  • There are no ordinary moments: practice everything (24:21)
  • How self-mastery leads to a path of service (27:37) 
  • Practicing happiness (33:05)
  • Helping others, helping ourselves: connecting heaven and earth (36:08)

Resources & References - Part 1

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos

Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Chris Bache - The Evolution of Collective Consciousness, Purification & Ecstasy of Insight & the Profound Genius, Love & Purpose of the Universe (Part 3)03 Feb 202200:46:15

Ep. 11 (Part 3 of 3) | Cosmological explorer Chris Bache tells what he discovered on his extraordinary journey, doing 73 high-dose LSD sessions over a period of twenty years. Motivated by a passion to find out more about the universe, Chris became intimate with the ocean of suffering in our collective psyche, the death/rebirth cycle, the preciousness of individuality, integrating consciousness at very high levels of energy, and the future of humanity. Chris explains a universal intelligence met him every step of the way. A modern-day Odysseus, who has explored realms far beyond our normal perceptions of reality, Chris’ presence is profoundly compassionate, grounded in a uniquely deep trust in the love and intelligence of the universe. Recorded on October 25, 2021.

Chris Bache, Ph.D. is professor emeritus in the department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Youngstown State University where he taught for 33 years. He is also adjunct faculty at the California Institute of Integral Studies, Emeritus Fellow at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, and on the Advisory Board of Grof Legacy Training. Chris’ passion has been the study of the philosophical implications of non ordinary states of consciousness, especially psychedelic states. An award-winning teacher and international speaker, Chris has written four books: Lifecycles, a study of reincarnation in light of contemporary consciousness research; Dark Night, Early Dawn, a pioneering work in psychedelic philosophy and collective consciousness; The Living Classroom, an exploration of collective fields of consciousness in teaching; and LSD and the Mind of the Universe, the story of his 20-year journey with LSD.

Topics & Time Stamps - Part 3
  • Pitfalls on the path and how to keep grounded (01:22)
  • The sickness of silence: doing psychedelic research in a psychedelic-phobic society (07:09) 
  • Is there an end state? Every opening is a portal to another opening (09:00) 
  • Dissolving into pure luminosity, an endless progression (12:00)
  • “Diamond vision” outside of time/space and the Bardo reality: seeing through the eyes of the future human (14:20)
  • The diamond luminosity condition (18:07)
  • Words from the Great Mother (24:29)
  • The creative intelligence and the evolution of the collective psyche (27:31)
  • The profound genius, the depth of love, and the purposeful intent of the universe (29:40)
  • Discovering we can trust ourselves profoundly—our individual minds as well as the greater reality (37:26)
  • Letting go of the fear of death: death is the great liberation (43:23)

Resources & References - Part 3

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos

Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Chris Bache - The Evolution of Collective Consciousness, Purification & Ecstasy of Insight & the Profound Genius, Love & Purpose of the Universe (Part 2)27 Jan 202200:51:11

Ep. 10 (Part 2 of 3) | Cosmological explorer Chris Bache tells what he discovered on his extraordinary journey, doing 73 high-dose LSD sessions over a period of twenty years. Motivated by a passion to find out more about the universe, Chris became intimate with the ocean of suffering in our collective psyche, the death/rebirth cycle, the preciousness of individuality, integrating consciousness at very high levels of energy, and the future of humanity. Chris explains a universal intelligence met him every step of the way. A modern-day Odysseus, who has explored realms far beyond our normal perceptions of reality, Chris’ presence is profoundly compassionate, grounded in a uniquely deep trust in the love and intelligence of the universe. Recorded on October 25, 2021.

Chris Bache, Ph.D. is professor emeritus in the department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Youngstown State University where he taught for 33 years. He is also adjunct faculty at the California Institute of Integral Studies, Emeritus Fellow at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, and on the Advisory Board of Grof Legacy Training. Chris’ passion has been the study of the philosophical implications of non ordinary states of consciousness, especially psychedelic states. An award-winning teacher and international speaker, Chris has written four books: Lifecycles, a study of reincarnation in light of contemporary consciousness research; Dark Night, Early Dawn, a pioneering work in psychedelic philosophy and collective consciousness; The Living Classroom, an exploration of collective fields of consciousness in teaching; and LSD and the Mind of the Universe, the story of his 20-year journey with LSD.

Topics & Time Stamps - Part 2
  • Individuality is the great beauty. One of the great gifts of the universe. (01:11)
  • Awakening to your bond with the universe (06:53)
  • Using psychedelics for healing, spiritual awakening, cosmological exploration: You don’t need to shatter time to spiritually awaken (10:21)
  • Stabilizing states of consciousness and Chris’ practices today: meditation, the being of practice, grounding (13:51)
  • The shift taking place at the collective archetypal level (17:10)
  • The death and rebirth of humanity and the emergence of a changed humanity (17:57)
  • The global crisis is a crisis of consciousness: growing into our full soul being (19:15) 
  • The birth of the future human and the awakening of the soul (25:59)
  • Seeing the human transition to come from the place of Deep Time (31:50)
  • The sacred question: How can I serve other people and make this knowledge useful to other people? (33:17)
  • The transmission and healing that come from deep practice (36:54)
  • 7-week online course on Chris’ book: Exploring the Cosmic Mind Through Psychedelics (38:44)
  • What has been the reaction to Chris’ book? (39:43)
  • Psychedelic therapy (42:02)
  • The essential work of integration (43:24)

Resources & References - Part 2

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos

Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Chris Bache - The Evolution of Collective Consciousness, Purification & Ecstasy of Insight & the Profound Genius, Love & Purpose of the Universe20 Jan 202200:48:45

Ep. 9 (Part 1 of 3) | Cosmological explorer Chris Bache tells what he discovered on his extraordinary journey, doing 73 high-dose LSD sessions over a period of twenty years. Motivated by a passion to find out more about the universe, Chris became intimate with the ocean of suffering in our collective psyche, the death/rebirth cycle, the preciousness of individuality, integrating consciousness at very high levels of energy, and the future of humanity. Chris explains a universal intelligence met him every step of the way. A modern-day Odysseus, who has explored realms far beyond our normal perceptions of reality, Chris’ presence is profoundly compassionate, grounded in a uniquely deep trust in the love and intelligence of the universe. Recorded on October 25, 2021.

Chris Bache, Ph.D. is professor emeritus in the department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Youngstown State University where he taught for 33 years. He is also adjunct faculty at the California Institute of Integral Studies, Emeritus Fellow at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, and on the Advisory Board of Grof Legacy Training. Chris’ passion has been the study of the philosophical implications of non ordinary states of consciousness, especially psychedelic states. An award-winning teacher and international speaker, Chris has written four books: Lifecycles, a study of reincarnation in light of contemporary consciousness research; Dark Night, Early Dawn, a pioneering work in psychedelic philosophy and collective consciousness; The Living Classroom, an exploration of collective fields of consciousness in teaching; and LSD and the Mind of the Universe, the story of his 20-year journey with LSD.

Topics & Time Stamps - Part 1
  • How WEIRD cultures looked at reality through a monophasic lens clear up till the 1960s—only taking waking reality seriously—whereas other cultures have a polyphasic perception that includes induced altered states, from dreams, meditation, plant medicine, etc. (01:39)
  • Psychedelics, a most potent way to induce altered states with profound spiritual applications, and introducing Chris Bache, cosmological explorer (04:42)
  • What motivated Chris to begin his quest? The passion to understand our universe and not only the personal unconscious but the collective unconscious (11:19)
  • 20-year journey following Stan Grof’s protocol, 73 high dose LSD sessions (13:21) 
  • The model of individual awakening and accelerating personal development led to a much broader, collective field of healing and transformation (14:16)
  • Intimate relationship with the divine said the book (LSD and the MInd of the Universe) needed to come forward now, even though it exposes so much (16:22)
  • The value Chris found in the experience of personal and collective suffering: a cycle of suffering, breakthrough, purification, and ecstasy of insight (17:09)
  • Consciousness was waiting every step of the way on this journey to bring ecstasy back into time/space consciousness (21:18)
  • The ocean of suffering in our collective psyche (23:53)
  • From transpersonal to being an instrument for the transformation of collective consciousness (28:37)
  • Using psilocybin would be wiser, gentler—less explosive, less shattering (32:42)
  • In Chris’ death/rebirth experiences: what actually dies? (34:36)
  • Each different substance has a different range in opening us up (37:39)
  • The shamanic persona (39:36)
  • Every step deeper into the universe is a step into a higher level of energy: stabilizing consciousness at extremely high levels of energy (41:39)
  • Death and rebirth is stage specific: at each gate there is a sacrifice asked (42:13)
  • The concept of death yields to the concept of purification (42:54)
  • What doesn’t die? (43:34)
  • The birth of the diamond soul (45:54)

Resources & References - Part 1

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos

Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Terry Patten - Facing Death: A Call to "Get Real," the Importance of Being Kind, and Waking Up to the Miracle of Existence (Terry's Message to Us 3 Weeks Before His Own Passing)20 Jan 202201:04:25

Ep. 8 | An extraordinary, heartfelt conversation with spiritual practitioner, teacher, activist, Integralist, and author Terry Patten, who was at the time facing his own mortality following a recent diagnosis of a rare and aggressive cancer. An inner radiance shines forth as Terry, with much graciousness and candor, discusses the call to “get real”—not only personally but also collectively; his deepened perception of the “amazing grace of existence;” the directionality that has guided much of his life; and action inquiry: working on becoming next-stage human beings by experimenting with being the best people we can be. A touching and transformative talk, Terry conveys the deepening understanding coming from living on the edge and transmits a “radical okayness” with everything. Recorded September 21, 2021.

Terry Patten was a philosopher-activist, author, teacher and coach, community organizer, consultant, and social entrepreneur. Most recently Terry published A New Republic of the Heart: An Ethos for Revolutionaries—a book summarizing his life’s work and offering an approach to facing the problems of our time. Over the last fifteen years, Terry devoted his efforts to the evolution of consciousness: facing, examining, and healing our global crisis through the marriage of spirit and activism. Terry co-wrote the book Integral Life Practice with Ken Wilber and a core team at the Integral Institute in 2008.

I want us to recognize our tremendously strong impulse to draw a conclusion, to think we know. But it’s in the NOT knowing—the inquiry, the curiosity, the humility, the beginner’s mind—that we create a real opening.”

Topics & Time Stamps
  • The call to “get real,” personally and collectively; waking up to the miracle of existence (04:17)
  • With the diagnosis, the burden fell away (21:44)
  • Mortality versus morbidity: many sufferings are worse than death (31:02)
  • The directionality that guided Terry’s life and wanting to be “good” (41:11)
  • Encountering his root guru, Adi Da (44:50)
  • The importance of being kind (46:54)
  • Let’s bend a knee to something greater than ourselves and LISTEN (53:43)
  • The radical okayness of it all (55:52)
  • Action inquiry and evolving into a new stage of human development (56:27)

Resources & References

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos

Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Colette Baron-Reid - What is Intuition? Curiosity is a Superpower, Our Evolutionary Gift is in the Shadow, Radical Acceptance, and Living in Partnership with the Universe20 Jan 202201:17:09

Ep. 7 | In this lively, eye-opening conversation, intuitive and oracle Colette Baron-Reid talks about how intuition is available to each one of us and how we can use it to navigate our lives, about why we need to practice radical acceptance now more than ever, about facing our shadow to find our biggest gifts and liberate our lives, about what it takes to cultivate hope and override fear, and about the transformative power of the Twelve Steps. Colette’s deep, practical, psychological wisdom comes like a transmission: “I am not a mistake. Nobody is broken. I trust in my partnership with the Universe. Who can I impact in a positive way?” Colette also tells stories from her past with verve and humor, and we discover how she came to be the wise and popular teacher, guide, and healer she is today. Recorded on November 22, 2021.

Colette Baron-Reid is an internationally acclaimed Oracle expert, thought leader, and speaker in the personal transformation space. With over 30 years of experience as an Oracle & intuition expert, Colette’s greatest joy is teaching people they can have a direct and personal dialogue with the Universe to help them create their best lives. Colette is a best-selling author of multiple life-changing books including The Map, published in 27 languages. Her popular meditation apps and Oracle Card decks are worldwide hits, and she was the star of the hit TV series, “Messages from Spirit” and highly popular Hay House call-in radio show, “Ask the Oracle.” Colette is also the founder and creator of Oracle School—where people learn to transform their lives using Oracle Cards as a guidance system.

“We are in co-creative relationship with a conscious Universe.”

Topics & Time Stamps
  • What is intuition? (07:42)
  • Colette’s early years: finding out she was Jewish, her psychic Scottish nanny, and all the confusing things that led to addiction (10:59)
  • Tasseomancy, Spirit and symbolism, ancient practices of divination, and how nature speaks to us (18:40)
  • An inherited sense of lack of safety and Colette’s book The Map (20:26)
  • The evolutionary gift is in the shadow (21:07)
  • Our invitation right now in these times of pandemic is to be present to all of it and not judge any of it: radical acceptance (23:24)
  • What do we do with our anger and how do we make it work for us? (28:28)
  • Filling our minds with what is important: who can I impact in a positive way? (30:29)
  • Compassion and kindness...micro steps are the way to change (31:50)
  • Make curiosity your superpower (34:43)
  • Hold life as an experiment: we’re not always going to get things right (35:12)
  • How we weaponize our emotions, project feelings, and create polarization (36:59)
  • Respons-a-bility plus trusting in our partnership with the Universe is where hope lies (39:54)
  • Colette’s spiritual awakening: I am not a mistake. Nobody is broken. And the fundamental flaw fallacy (41:12)
  • Being hopeful is harder than being fearful (47:31)
  • How Colette found her path as a healer: “it chose me” (49:54)
  • Following the crumbs is the evolution of Colette’s world (54:04)
  • The power of the Twelve Steps could change the world (56:46)
  • Today’s problems are yesterday’s solutions (1:00:40)
  • The need for nuance and innovation in our conversations (1:02:28)
  • Step 3 and Step 11: Surrendering to the will of the divine (1:05:15)
  • Service is enlightened self-interest (1:08:08)
  • Colette’s daily practices to help her stay in touch with Source (1:10:01)
  • The underestimated effects of practicing gratitude (1:12:03)
  • The Twelve Steps in a nutshell (1:13:03)

Resources & References

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos

Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Neurodharma: Cultivating Virtues in Times of Darkness with Rick Hanson20 Jan 202200:45:15

Ep. 6 (Part 2 of 2) | In this inspiring and empowering conversation, Rick Hanson spells out how we can use positive, self-directed neuroplasticity to hardwire our brains in order to become happier, cultivate virtues, deal with cravings, become deeply grounded, turn our desired states into stable traits, and more. Neurodharma is Rick’s conceptual creation: a marriage of neuroscience, psychology, and contemporary wisdom that offers individuals who are out to make a change for the better an impressive and effective brain hacking toolkit. Rick’s own gentle wisdom, compassion, clarity, kindness, and humor shine in this truly groundbreaking (for most of us) dialogue, making him a wonderful exemplar of the peaceful, loving, altruistic, and effective person practicing neurodharma can help us to become. Recorded September 20, 2021.

Rick Hanson, Ph.D., is an expert on positive neuroplasticity, a clinical psychologist, a New York Times best-selling author, and a Senior Fellow of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley. His books include Neurodharma, Resilient, Hardwiring Happiness, Buddha’s Brain, Just One Thing, and Mother Nurture, and have been published in 30 languages. He has lectured at NASA, Google, Oxford, and Harvard, and taught in meditation centers worldwide. Rick's work has been featured on the BBC, CBS, NPR, and other major media. He began meditating in 1974 and is the founder of the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom. Rick loves wilderness and taking a break from emails.

“We need to actively work with the mind to pull weeds and plant flowers.”

Topics & Timestamps - Part 2
  • 2 major obstructions to speeding our growth (01:04)
  • Gradual cultivation, sudden awakening, gradual cultivation (06:08)
  • Bodhidhamma: practice is like a wagon with 2 wheels (06:39)
  • What are the crucial qualities of heart and mind that are essential to cultivate? (10:32)
  • Who has lit the fire in Rick’s heart? (12:48)
  • Truly wise person: Peaceable, friendly, fearless (15:31)
  • The importance of trusting our own minds (19:09)
  • What are Rick’s daily practices? (22:26)
  • Paying attention to the subtleties of craving (23:55)
  • Focusing on a sustained felt sense of the ground of all; recognizing the extraordinary generosity of the arising moment (27:40)
  • How does Rick understand the act of transmission? 29:16
  • Reverse engineering desired qualities to yourself (31:39)
  • What are Rick’s priorities for the future? (35:21)
  • Self-directed neuroplasticity: 3 foundational practices (36:59)
  • Re-establishing the 3 enabling conditions of healthy human politics (38:09)
  • Playfulness, to include curiosity, makes us receptive to lasting change (41:08)

Resources & References - Part 2

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos

Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

The Transformative Power of EMDR Therapy: A Revolution in Trauma Treatment & Gateway to Transpersonal Openings (Part 2)23 May 202400:38:25

Ep. 131 (Part 2 of 3) | World renowned EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing) therapy pioneer and trainer Dr. Laurel Parnell has used EMDR therapy with clients for decades with truly remarkable success. Laurel relates how EMDR therapy dissolves blocks caused by trauma, freeing clients from negative constructs so they can develop their own felt sense of truth, and express from and know their own true nature. After EMDR, she says, “singers sing, writers write, dancers dance.” Not only are clients freed, but the endpoint of EMDR therapy quite often rests in a transpersonal space that is invariably characterized by an upwelling of self-love and compassion for others, an opening to mystery and boundless possibility. Interestingly, because of the resonant field between therapist and client (interpersonal neurobiology), the therapist experiences the transpersonal opening when it happens as well. More often than not, Laurel tells us, the way the session unfolds is a surprise to both client and therapist, with long forgotten little “t” traumas turning out to be responsible for the client’s blocks rather than the expected major life traumas. 

Laurel makes it clear that the goal of EMDR is to empower the client; the therapist must allow the wisdom to reside in the client rather than in their own interpretation of what unfolds, and adhere strictly to a process of open inquiry. She describes how the therapist’s beliefs can limit the outcome and outlines the advantages of a therapist who has a spiritual practice and transpersonal awareness. Laurel’s leading edge at this point involves Multidimensional Integrative Healing, an evolution from her longtime experience with EMDR, where further dimensions of reality have so often emerged in her work, and her own spiritual journey. It is fascinating to hear her describe how we can not only install helpful inner resources for ourselves, but also counter intergenerational trauma by calling forward ancestral wisdom. A deeply intriguing, eye opening, and impactful conversation with a very wise, enthusiastic, far thinking trailblazer of a teacher. Recorded April 15, 2024.

“EMDR clears what isn’t true.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 2
  • The amazing healing effects of after-death communications (00:55)
  • Allan Botkin’s research with veterans, inducing after-death communication to heal PTSD (06:26)
  • Roger’s experience of EMDR and how it healed his hypersensitivity (10:04)
  • The therapist experiences the same healing, clearing process as the client, also opening into a transpersonal space (14:12)
  • The importance of spiritual practice for the therapist: meditation, presence, watching thoughts, coming back to the moment, the ability to be curious, allowing things to unfold as they will (16:59)
  • Can we do this on our own? Resource installation or resource tapping (19:35)
  • Activating 4 strong foundational resources: peaceful place, nurturing figure, protective figure, and wise figure (21:09)
  • NeuroTek devices that Laurel and clients can use to aid the process of bilateral stimulation (25:10) 
  • Laurel’s spiritual path: from Tibetan Buddhism to Vipassana to nonduality (27:49)
  • What is important in life after the dissolution of all constructs? (35:47)

Resources & References – Part 2

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

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Live Online Training at the Parnell Institute 

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Laurel Parnell, Ph.D. is the Executive Director of the Parnell Institute and developer of Attachment-Focused EMDR and Multidimensional Integrative Healing. She is a clinical psychologist, author of several books, and leading expert on Eye-movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy. Since 1995 she has trained thousands of clinicians in EMDR both nationally and internationally. A meditation practitioner since 1973, she brings a transpersonal orientation to her teaching as well as to her clinical work.

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Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

Neurodharma: Using our Minds to Change our Brains with Rick Hanson20 Jan 202200:47:15

Ep. 5 (Part 1 of 2) | In this inspiring and empowering conversation, Rick Hanson spells out how we can use positive, self-directed neuroplasticity to hardwire our brains in order to become happier, cultivate virtues, deal with cravings, become deeply grounded, turn our desired states into stable traits, and more. Neurodharma is Rick’s conceptual creation: a marriage of neuroscience, psychology, and contemporary wisdom that offers individuals who are out to make a change for the better an impressive and effective brain hacking toolkit. Rick’s own gentle wisdom, compassion, clarity, kindness, and humor shine in this truly groundbreaking (for most of us) dialogue, making him a wonderful exemplar of the peaceful, loving, altruistic, and effective person practicing neurodharma can help us to become. Recorded September 20, 2021.

Rick Hanson, Ph.D., is an expert on positive neuroplasticity, a clinical psychologist, a New York Times best-selling author, and a Senior Fellow of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley. His books include Neurodharma, Resilient, Hardwiring Happiness, Buddha’s Brain, Just One Thing, and Mother Nurture, and have been published in 30 languages. He has lectured at NASA, Google, Oxford, and Harvard, and taught in meditation centers worldwide. Rick's work has been featured on the BBC, CBS, NPR, and other major media. He began meditating in 1974 and is the founder of the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom. Rick loves wilderness and taking a break from emails.

Topics & Timestamps - Part 1
  • Introducing Rick Hanson: kindness, books, philanthropy, forging the discipline of neurodharma (01:50)
  • What are Rick’s most important takeaways from his life’s work? (05:35)
  • Frictionless contentment: grounding unshakeable happiness in the body (05:52)
  • We have the power to use our mind (direct our mental activity) to sustain lasting changes in the brain and we cannot escape the responsibility for using (or not using) this (08:41)
  • Why do we need neuroscience when meditation does this anyway? (11:34)
  • 3 benefits of grounding our practice in neuroscience (13:08)
  • To provide sustained motivation (13:17)
  • Gives us a common framework of enquiry that helps us operationalize when we’re doing our practices (13:56)
  • Highlights the tools that correlate to each individual’s highest priority so they can zero in on what matters the most (15:05)
  • Our brain’s negativity bias (16:26)
  • How tuning into internal sensations helps steady our mind, stabilize attention, and pull us into the present (17:20)
  • Helps identify new methods like neurofeedback (21:10)
  • Knowing we are hard-wired to focus on negative experiences helps our own inner work, reducing guilt and extending our compassion (23:08)
  • The challenge of stabilizing altered states into enduring traits (24:54)
  • How to address craving: building the enduring trait of open-heartedness in the present using neuroplastic change (27:41)
  • How do we anchor this? Rick leads a micro samadhi concentration practice (34:32)
  • Deliberately resting in the felt sense of nothing wrong steepens your growth curve (41:31)
  • Many of the beneficial traits we want to grow in ourselves involve states that aren’t actually that enjoyable. (44:55)

Resources & References - Part 1

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos

Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

The Psychedelic Renaissance, Hedonic Engineering, Group Coherence, Soul Force & Radical Hope: Ramping Up Human Evolution in Time to Avert Disaster (Part 2)20 Jan 202200:50:19

Ep. 4 (Part 2 of 2) | In this riveting, mind opening (and bending) conversation, philosopher and peak performance expert Jamie Wheal takes our existential metacrisis head on, asking and often answering the biggest questions we, the human race, face today. “How do we do this human thing with our heads up and our hearts open and not get crushed by the tragedies and absurdities of it all?” “How can we tune into the wisdom, the transpersonal heights?” More than inspirational, this conversation is like an infusion of the energetic, coherent, transpersonal potential of human beings. Guaranteed, you won’t see things the same way after listening. Recorded on September 15, 2021.

Jamie Wheal is the author of Recapture the Rapture: Rethinking God, Sex and Death In a World That's Lost Its Mind and the global bestseller Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work. He’s also the founder of the Flow Genome Project, an international organization dedicated to the research and training of human performance. Jamie’s work and ideas have been covered in The New York Times, Financial Times, Wired, Entrepreneur, Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Inc., and TED. Jamie has spoken at Stanford University, MIT, the Harvard Club, Imperial College, Singularity University, the U.S. Naval War College and Special Operations Command, Sandhurst Royal Military Academy, the Bohemian Club, and the United Nations.

Topics & Timestamps - Part 2
  • Die before you die and come back open-hearted with a hell, yes! (03:52)
  • A plug for good, old-fashioned human love and rootsy wisdom (06:05)
  • How do we come together in “healthy” (ethical) cults/communitas? Collective coherence (08:02)
  • The Lucifer effect in “culty” cults and the golden shadow (17:12) 
  • Jerry Garcia channeling quicksilver starlight: what was that? (25:21) 
  • Peak experience technologies need to be scalable and open source (26:43)
  • The Quaker influence (27:47)
  • What is group coherence? Something happens when we sync humans together. (30:23)
  • What is the non-corporeal information and inspiration layer that people access in their breakthroughs and how do we get there? (31:25)
  • What’s next for humanity? A new operating level: a transrational space (33:00)
  • Letting the mystery stay the mystery and premature cognitive commitment (41:23)
  • Radical hope and the courage of mice (and men) (43:01)
  • The future of humanity: soul force or bust (45:01)

Resources & References - Part 2

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Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos

Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

The Psychedelic Renaissance, Hedonic Engineering, Group Coherence, Soul Force & Radical Hope: Ramping Up Human Evolution in Time to Avert Disaster20 Jan 202200:53:17

Ep. 3 (Part 1 of 2) | In this riveting, mind opening (and bending) conversation, philosopher and peak performance expert Jamie Wheal takes our existential metacrisis head on, asking and often answering the biggest questions we, the human race, face today. “How do we do this human thing with our heads up and our hearts open and not get crushed by the tragedies and absurdities of it all?” “How can we tune into the wisdom, the transpersonal heights?” More than inspirational, this conversation is like an infusion of the energetic, coherent, transpersonal potential of human beings. Guaranteed, you won’t see things the same way after listening. Recorded on September 15, 2021.

Jamie Wheal is the author of Recapture the Rapture: Rethinking God, Sex and Death In a World That's Lost Its Mind and the global bestseller Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work. He’s also the founder of the Flow Genome Project, an international organization dedicated to the research and training of human performance. Jamie’s work and ideas have been covered in The New York Times, Financial Times, Wired, Entrepreneur, Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Inc., and TED. Jamie has spoken at Stanford University, MIT, the Harvard Club, Imperial College, Singularity University, the U.S. Naval War College and Special Operations Command, Sandhurst Royal Military Academy, the Bohemian Club, and the United Nations.

Topics & Timestamps - Part 1
  • Getting off the grid not to survive but to thrive (01:52)
  • Facing the challenges of our time is a cycle: remaining open, learning to fall gracefully, maintaining center (03:25)
  • Jamie’s practices, the 4 M’s: Music, Mountains, Mushrooms, Marriage (09:02)
  • The beautiful American, antinomian, mystical tradition (10:32)
  • Who throughout history really got “into the pudding”? (13:55)
  • Jamie’s dark night of the soul (16:52) 
  • The psychedelic renaissance, reconciling repeat transformations, and the question “How much do we change, really?” (20:20)
  • Our mythic lives vs our biographic lives (22:24) 
  • The universal agenda and Chris Bache’s LSD and the Mind of the Universe (24:06)
  • The “information layer” that comes from Source; baffling precision along with evidence of the trickster (27:25) 
  • Wrestling with the existential situation using the mountaineer’s “risk triangle” (30:30) 
  • The only question we should be addressing: Can we get onto an S curve of a renewable, sustainable, and equitable economy? (32:05) 
  • How can we use peak experiences? How can we tune into our highest, best life? Hedonic engineering (36:48)
  • How to create a flywheel effect: practice daily, weekly, monthly, seasonally, annually (40:36) 
  • The Ten Suggestions (vs The Ten Commandments): An update (43:15)
  • The false certainty of the newly converted (46:46)
  • Recultivating the elements of mystery and the trickster of the divine (47:41)
  • The weak link: after opening consistently to mystical states...what do you do Monday morning? (Stabilization of states to traits) (48:19)

Resources & References - Part 1

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos

Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell

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