Brilliance

Enjoy this mini and mighty episode!

Relationships are one of the most beautiful aspects of our lives. They give us love, joy, companionship, and help us grow into our best selves. But have you ever considered that relationships can also serve as sacred mirrors, awakening us to our true selves and helping us heal our patterns and conditioned behaviors? On this episode of Brilliance, we will be diving into this with guest Miguel Montoya, a musician, Sedona guide, and relationship catalyst.

In many ways, relationships are a reflection of ourselves. The people we attract into our lives often mirror the qualities we possess, both positive and negative. When we take the time to observe our relationships and the dynamics at play, we can gain valuable insights into our inner world and how we relate to others.

This process of awakening through relationships is not always easy. We may be faced with uncomfortable truths about ourselves or challenged to confront our deepest fears and insecurities. But it is through these challenges that we grow and evolve, shedding old patterns and becoming more aligned with our true selves.

As we awaken and heal, we ascend to a higher level of consciousness and begin to transition away from using pain and suffering as a motivator to grow. We no longer need to experience heartache or disappointment to learn the lessons we need to learn. Instead, we approach our relationships with a newfound sense of awareness and intentionality, seeking to cultivate deep connections based on mutual respect, trust, and authenticity.

Perhaps the most powerful gift we can bring to our relationships is our healed, authentic self. When we show up as our true selves, unencumbered by past traumas or limiting beliefs, we create a safe and nurturing space for our partners to do the same. We inspire them to be their best selves, and in turn, they inspire us.

So the next time you find yourself in a challenging relationship, remember that it may be serving as a sacred mirror, awakening you to deeper levels of self-awareness and helping you heal. Embrace the process of growth and evolution, and know that as you heal, your relationships will become more fulfilling and rewarding than ever before.

Have you ever felt like something was off with your body, but you couldn't quite put your finger on it? Maybe you've experienced low energy levels, chronic pain, or even anxiety, but you've been told that it's just a part of getting older or that you should just tough it out. Well, I'm here to tell you that you don't have to suffer in silence. There are practitioners out there, like Yumé Takeuchi, who are dedicated to empowering your well-being and helping you feel your best, who is our guest on this episode of Brilliance!

Yumé is an acupuncturist based in Portland, Oregon, who is passionate about preventative care. She believes that taking care of yourself before symptoms arise is the key to long-term health and happiness. And I couldn't agree more. It's like the old adage, "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." By taking small steps now to support your well-being, you can avoid larger health issues down the road.

But how do you choose the right practitioner to support your unique well-being needs? It can feel overwhelming to navigate the world of alternative medicine, but there are a few key things to keep in mind. First and foremost, look for someone who is knowledgeable, compassionate, and experienced. You want to work with someone who truly understands your needs and is dedicated to helping you feel your best.

It's also important to find someone who takes the time to listen to you and truly understand what you're struggling with. This may seem obvious, but unfortunately, not all practitioners prioritize communication and empathy. Yumé, on the other hand, is known for her ability to connect with her patients and make them feel seen and heard. She truly cares about their well-being and works to create personalized treatment plans that address their unique needs.

So, if you're looking to prioritize your well-being and take a proactive approach to your health, I encourage you to seek out practitioners like Yumé. Whether you're dealing with chronic pain, stress, or just want to feel more energized and confident, there are people out there who can help. Don't be afraid to ask for support and take the first step towards feeling your best. Your future self will thank you.

Yumé Takeuchi L.Ac.

In this bonus episode following along with "The Science, Spirituality, and Dharma of Flow," we get into how we dip into the currents of creative flow to retrieve insights and inspiration.

Flow is simply an optimal state of wellbeing — which means mind, body, heart, and spirit in harmony. Whatever disrupts inner harmony, equilibrium, and biological homeostasis causes resistance, stress, disease, and trauma when the causation is sustained past a personʼs nervous systemʼs capacity to tolerate. Flow truly means living with devoted dedication to the tender care of your mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical states of wellbeing. There is nothing else in the world, no hack, trick, or gimmick that will give it to you, you give it to yourself. Every moment of your life. And yes, flow gives way to more experiences of synchronicities, meaningful coincidences, which are indeed spontaneous manifestations.

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For the month of April, Brilliance podcast and the Level Up Reads Book Club is focusing on Women's Economic Empowerment. We have an amazing lineup of women including a glassworker and small business owner, integrative acupuncturist, salon owner and her husband, and owners of a local Portland non-GMO Project verified specialty foods company. Together, we will be delving into women's entrepreneurship, integrative wealth and wellbeing, greenwashing and clean beauty, "stakeholder capitalism" and the B Corp movement, hair, and skincare products, and the power of "locavesting" to contribute to the culture we believe in. We will be reading Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Pullitzer prize winning journalists Sheryl WuDunn and Nicholas Kristof and The Soul of Money: Reclaiming the Wealth of Our Inner Resources by Lynne Twist. If you have read Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming by Paul Hawken, women's economic, educational, and family planning empowerment are #6, #7, and #62 in the top strategies for turning things around in terms of environmental global impact. This is a pretty darn big deal! Support this podcast:

If there is something deep down within you that wants to be expressed, and you have been compelled your entire life to bring it out from within you, then there is no way you can follow any other path. It's been coded into your being by Source. It's the Source code within you, the code of Life wanting to be expressed through you.

An Awakening happens when we become entranced by other endeavors in life that are really not our purpose. Our purpose is something we know deep down but often will not listen to because it doesn't make sense according to the ways of the world. Our five sensory capabilities that confirm the material world around us will tell us a different story than our intuition and instincts.

When we can no longer go down the wrong path and we hit detour after detour, dead end after dead end, and then the universe shakes us up, gives us a catastrophe to deal with, whether it be with our health, careers, finances, our relationships, whatever we have placed such great importance on that we forget ourselves, we are forced to remember ourselves again.

The pain of this can be tremendous. We can be indignant. There may be grieving for what we feel we have lost. But losing touch with ourselves is truly the most painful experience we could have. It is better to face this kind of Awakening than to stay asleep for longer.
The other day my mentor and I were talking about how people like us can't quit and won't quit because there is no other way. We are here to do this and nothing else. We are here to create our art, to give the world our message.

As a writer, Conscious Executive Officer, artist, producer, coach, and mentor, my job is to help you awaken to the truth of who you are and what you're capable of creating without needing pain as a motivator. What I do is gentle and effective. People can experience a breakthrough within a matter of minutes. Whether or not they would rather experience this than the pain of Awakening during the course of a year or more, is up to them.

When you live Awakened, what you create, think, feel, do, how you behave, radically shifts and becomes more authentically empowered as a result of you being truly in touch with your power.

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Welcome to Brilliance, a podcast dedicated to revealing the beauty and brilliance of humanity and the world, one story at a time. Today's episode, Co-creating as an Act of Love, Connection, and Communication with guest Devon Seegers, an artist, writer, musician, producer, creative coach, and conscious entrepreneur, is so special. I know, every episode is so special, magical, and dear to my heart. Devon Seegers is a rare artist who speaks and creates from the heart. Everything he does is so genuine. As a creative entrepreneur, Devon makes it look seamless to combine his drive and sensitivity in all that he does, but what looks effortless to the world is the result of countless steps taken to master and refine the process. I am grateful and honored to share this co-creative conversation with you all. Thank you for listening in today!

Devon has a remarkable gift for using perspective to shift, move, transform, and create possibilities in both his own life and the lives of others. Whether he's creating music or coaching others, he has a unique way of tapping into something greater than himself, something he has come to know of as the "Mystery," that moves him to channel his energy into his creative work and pursue mastery. In this conversation, you will find out more about how having music is as his chosen medium of creative expression has helped shape him into the person he is today.

Devon is a conduit, allowing the energy of his life and the love he has received from the people who are dear to him to flow through him and into the music he creates. Listening, attention, and response are acts of devotion. There's something truly magical about watching someone pour their heart and soul into their art, and Devon is no exception. He has a way of tapping into emotions and experiences that is truly magical, and his music has the power to move us in profound ways. I hope you take encouragement from this episode to explore what brings you joy, a sense of deeper connection, and allow you to express yourself creatively.

Devon's Links:

Welcome to Brilliance, a podcast dedicated to revealing the beauty and brilliance of humanity and the world, one story at a time. This is PART TWO of The Incredible Ripple Effects of Personal Transformation with transformational holistic life coach Stacey Steinmiller. In this episode we go over embracing the messy, the beautifully flawed, the coming apart. Why? What is the value in this? Stacey and I get into vulnerability with you in this conversation and share on integrating our shame, fear, and deepening self-connection so that we can claim our wholeness.

These and others are socioculturally loaded emotional concepts that we are helping to destigmatize so that they can be better understood with loving compassion. From this place of compassionate awareness, self-loving boundaries naturally arise. What may seem paradoxical or counterintuitive is that, as we integrate more of all of the different experiences we have, whether we deem them as good or bad to have, we expand our positive affect, our ability to receive more and more positive experiences.

This is the energy of abundance. It creates an expansive energy field that is attractive to more good to be drawn to us. As we embrace all of the aspects of ourselves that we may feel compelled to reject or abandon, we expand our window of tolerance, become more in tune with our intuition, gain greater clarity, and step into our power more. The ripple effects reach farther than we can know, into our relationships, our finances, our work in the world, and beyond.

Stacey Steinmiller's Links

Let's dive into the power of embracing our messy, flawed selves and how it can lead to a life of abundance and joy with our Brilliance guest for this episode, Stacey Steinmiller.

We live in a world that values perfection and shuns imperfection. From the airbrushed images in magazines to the curated highlight reels on social media, we're constantly bombarded with messages that tell us we need to be flawless to be worthy of love and success.

But the truth is, there's a beauty in our imperfections. Our messiness and flaws are what make us unique and human. They're the things that make us relatable and empathetic to others. And when we embrace them, we open ourselves up to a whole new world of possibilities.

This is where Stacey Steinmiller's message of compassionate awareness comes in. As a transformational holistic life coach, she helps people understand that it's okay to feel shame, fear, and vulnerability. In fact, it's essential to our growth and well-being.

When we try to suppress or hide our negative emotions, we end up cutting ourselves off from the full spectrum of human experience. We limit ourselves to a narrow range of emotions and miss out on the richness of life. But when we allow ourselves to feel, to be messy and imperfect, we create an expansive energy field that draws more positivity and abundance into our lives.

It's a paradoxical concept, but the more we accept and integrate our negative emotions, the more positive emotions we can experience. By expanding our window of tolerance, we become more in tune with our intuition and gain greater clarity. We become more self-aware and can make better choices for ourselves.

The ripple effects of this kind of self-acceptance go beyond our personal lives. When we show up in the world as our authentic selves, we inspire others to do the same. We create a ripple effect of positive change that can extend to our relationships, our work, and our communities.

So if you're feeling stuck or overwhelmed by the pressure to be perfect, know that there's another way. Embrace your messy, beautifully flawed self and watch as the abundance and joy in your life expand. It won't always be easy, but with compassionate awareness and self-loving boundaries, you can claim your wholeness and step into your power.

Stacey Steinmiller's Links

Welcome to Brilliance, a podcast dedicated to revealing the beauty and brilliance of humanity and the world, one story at a time. In this episode, we're diving deep into adrenal fatigue and stress, and the world of nidra yoga and the incredible benefits it can bring to your rest and reset routine.

We'll explore the art of intentional rest and the incredible power it has to boost your energy, productivity, and creativity. Whether you're a busy professional, stressed-out in the midst of a transitional phase, or just someone who needs a little more relaxation in their life, you won't want to miss the insights and tips we're sharing today.

We'll also delve into the importance of cultivating patience, which will help you to achieve your goals, reduce stress, and find more peace in your daily life. You'll gain new perspectives and strategies for integrating rest and patience into your daily routine.

So, if you're ready to power up your life with the transformative power of rest and reset, tune in to this episode of Brilliance and join us on this exciting journey towards a happier, healthier, and more fulfilled you.

In this episode, we have a guest! Justin Allen and I talk about accessing the hidden potential of our brains. Justin shares his insights on various topics, including phantom pain, cognitive subroutines, overcoming fear-motivated reactivity, and the importance of giving our brains regular rest. The conversation then turns to fear-motivated reactivity, which is the tendency to react quickly and instinctively to perceived threats. We get into how this can lead to negative outcomes and explore ways to overcome this reactive response, including practicing mindfulness and being intentional with our actions.

This is suuuuuch a great episode! Let's get into it!

In this special episode with Emma Bennett and guest Angela Wetzel, a wonderful trauma informed relationships coach and mentor, we dive into the foray of human emotions, triggers, dysregulation, and how we can come through the other side with renewed hope, strength, and a positive outlook that comes naturally from an empowered sense of self.

Scaling the moonshot is accomplishing something big through a series of concentrated efforts. This was applicable for me and my brain injury rehabilitation. This is applicable to all areas of personal and professional life. Scaling a moonshot does not necessarily require some form of massive effort on your part, only commitments to the process and consistency and showing up for each step to take to reach every next level.