Welcome to The Contemplative Life!

Season 1

Nov. 28, 2022

Ep 97 Do My Ancestors Matter

Send us a text On today’s podcast, we take some time to think about where we come from and why that might be something we’re interested in knowing more about. American culture has tended towards individualism in almost every aspect of life. But in fact, in how many ways do we embody those who have …
Nov. 21, 2022

Ep 96 “Being with”/ “Doing For”

Send us a text How do we relate to the Divine? It’s easy in our cultural context to interact in the world as a fixer, a doer, a mover and a shaker. We’ve all been trained to engage in these transactional ways. And yet, another way is possible, a way that values our belovedness and allows us to beco…
Nov. 14, 2022

Ep 95 Sound Healing

Send us a text Sound healing is the practice of using sound to improve your physical health as well as your emotional, mental, and spiritual wellbeing, and is accessible to people of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds. In this week’s podcast, guest speaker Jim Powell speaks to us about his many y…
Nov. 7, 2022

Ep 94 Growing our Awe-wareness

Send us a text When was the last time you saw something so beautiful and inspiring that it caused you to stop in order to really take it in? Maybe you heard a story about how someone else was doing something to make the world a better place, and it moved you to feelings of hope and excitement of yo…
Oct. 31, 2022

Ep 93 Measuring Spiritual Growth

Send us a text Measuring “spiritual growth” can be tricky. Many of us have been taught to explore metrics that are easily quantifiable, which makes sense. Numbers help us feel like we have a solid answer. They help us set goals. But as you can probably guess, on this week’s podcast, we’re taking ti…
Oct. 24, 2022

Ep 92 Inclusive Outdoor Spirituality

Send us a text Today we are joined by Amy Hoyte, founder of Beautifully Made Adventures who speaks to us about the power of nature to speak to us, inspire us, and teach us. Stress, anxiety and lists of shoulds are common in today’s world. But whether we’re sitting on a park bench or hiking a trail …
Oct. 17, 2022

Ep 91 Engaging Calm

Send us a text “Being calm” seems to be all the rage these days. But what we need at any given moment isn’t always the same. On this week’s podcast we share about how desperately each of us has needed this calm lately and the wide array of things we’ve been doing in order to get back to those place…
Oct. 10, 2022

Ep 90 Spirituality and Trauma

Send us a text Today we are joined by Claudia Greco who speaks to us about the intersection between spirituality and trauma. Oftentimes, it feels hard to be present to what goes on in the world. We struggle to know who to talk to about our experiences and feelings. But what we know is, with trauma,…
Oct. 3, 2022

Ep 89 Art, Creativity, and the Contemplative

Send us a text Art and creativity can be a useful way of opening our awareness. So many moments in our lives can leave us feeling disconnected and out of touch. Today we talk about how engaging our creative side can help us slow down and open to possibility. We name our own struggles with feeling v…
Sept. 26, 2022

Ep 88 Mental Health and Spiritual Journey

Send us a text Today we are joined by Sister Denise who speaks to us about her own spiritual journey, the struggles and the surprises. We hope that hearing her story will be a source of inspiration for others looking to connect with the Divine Spark within. We hope it will allow us to ask ourselves…
Sept. 19, 2022

Ep 87 Releasing Our Inner Critic

Send us a text We all have an inner critic - a voice that tells us we are “too this” or “not enough of that,” a voice that chides us for not doing things the “right way,” a voice that tells us in one way or another: You’re bad. Today we take some time to talk about developing our awareness so that …
Sept. 5, 2022

Ep 85 Compassion in Today’s World

Send us a text Today, Marv Baldwin joins us to talk about the experience of engaging the spiritual journey to discover the pull on our hearts towards love and compassion, the struggles we tend to encounter once we become aware of that internal desire, and what we can do to stay grounded and centere…
Aug. 22, 2022

Ep 83 The Art of Hospitality

Send us a text There’s something special about enjoying connection and abundance in the context of hospitality. Across time and culture, it would seem that each of us is hard-wired to give and receive from one another. And yet, for some, we may find we feel more comfortable in the giving role. Or w…
Aug. 15, 2022

Ep 82 The Importance of Play

Send us a text Many times, when we think of contemplative practices, what comes to mind is stillness and silence. But it turns out that there are so many ways to engage with the contemplative – art, movement, and even play! Both rest and play are important to our lives. And for each of us, there ar…
Aug. 8, 2022

Ep 81 Living into Uncertainty

Send us a text For many of us, being an adult can sometimes look like trying to have all the answers. We can easily feel foolish to have to say, “I don’t know.” But what if the thing that lies on the other side of “struggle and not knowing” is possibility? What if choosing to live with “the questio…
Aug. 1, 2022

Ep 80 The Practice of Transformation

Send us a text Transformation can happen in both big and small ways. It may come as we intentionally nourish our souls, or it may come quite by surprise. We may find ourselves feeling the sting of impatience or the burden of rigidity, both of which can feel unsettling to our souls. But the contempl…
July 25, 2022

Ep 79 Brain Chemicals + the Contemplative

Send us a text Today, we’re talking about the benefits of our contemplative practices as it relates to the brain. It turns out there are four main brain chemicals playing a role in how we experience happiness and wellness in our lives. But no two people are exactly alike. What helps one may not at …
July 18, 2022

Ep 78 Are Our Personalities Fixed

Send us a text Today we’re talking about the possibility for evolution in our personalities as we grow and mature. For many of us, we tend to notice personal internal variances. Maybe we behave one way at home, one way at work, and another way in social situations. Maybe spiritual practices that us…
July 11, 2022

Ep 77 Making Space for One Another in Our Ordinary Lives

Send us a text Today we talk about the spiritual practice of paying attention to the people around us, making space in our days for each other, and being willing to be interrupted. For some of us, this comes naturally while for others, we may need to schedule it in to our days. But the delight and …
July 4, 2022

Ep 76 Calming the Nervous System

Send us a text Today we’re talking about how contemplative practices can help us when our bodies and nervous systems are feeling unsettled due to stress or trauma. Many of us have heard about the body’s ability to access fight, flight, or freeze at the turn of a dime. When that happens, the thing t…
June 27, 2022

Ep 75 Grief

Send us a text Grief is a universal experience. And yet, how it manifests, what we need in that time, and how long it takes to work out our grief will vary from situation to situation and from person to person. We’ll also talk today about how residual grief can affect our present griefs. We’ll embr…
June 20, 2022

Ep 74 Summer Solstice

Send us a text The Summer Solstice is a time to relish the abundance of light, beauty, and life, soaking it all in with great joy. Today we talk about accepting the invitations that come at this time of year, to take a more leisurely pace, shift our schedules, and celebrate by paying attention to t…
June 13, 2022

Ep 73 Finding Our Outdoor Personality

Send us a text We often talk about nature as a pathway to the contemplative here on the podcast. But what if we don’t consider ourselves outdoorsy? As it turns out, how we engage the outdoors seems to involve both our personalities and the evolution of our personalities. Today we take some time to …
June 6, 2022

Ep 72 Aging and the Contemplative

Send us a text Many of us have hopes for what life will look like as we age. The question is: What will it take for us to live well, and even thrive, in our later years? It turns out that those who are in that stage of life often have helpful words of advice – lived experience that we can soak up a…