Spiritual Grit

In this episode, I talk with Cheryl McLeod, practicing yogini and Black owner of Honor Yoga Warren in Warren, NJ. She shares her story of how she came to yoga, how her practice and her connection to prayer and meditation has been her guide through many transitions, shifts, and challenges that she’s faced. She addresses how she came to make her public statement as a Black business owner on the Black Lives Movement. She also talks about how focusing on who is hurting right now doesn’t mean it diminishes the need of anyone else. Her closing message for our listeners: do what you need to do to find joy. // poems: Hafiz’s “I Want Both of Us”, Rumi’s “All Rivers At Once” // Find Honor Yoga Warren here: https://www.honoryoga.com/warren/ // Free sacred healing circle for people of color this Sunday, June 14 @ 7pm ET. Register at suryagian.com/free-sacred-healing-circle to get access.

In this episode, I speak with writer, spiritualist, activist, and professor, Daisy Hernandez, about how the we work we do within ourselves affects our actions on the outside, especially in the wake of growing protests sweeping our nation that call for justice in the murder of George Floyd and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. Our spiritual identities don’t have to be separate from activism. Neither do our writing or our cultural identities as women of color have to be separate. They all can actually be one and the same. If action is enacted from a place of love, from a groundedness in ourselves, then perhaps that action can help change the world. At one point, we discuss perception and perspective. If our perceptions create the narratives of what’s happening around us, how can we be more intentional about how we see things, especially in mainstream media? What aren’t we seeing? And can we bring those things to light? It is also important to understand that sometimes BEing is more important than doing. Who are you BEing? How are you BEing? “As women of color, the fact that we exist is already a political act.” Take a listen to this rich conversation that I hope brings you encouragement! // Hafiz’s “Now Is The Time” and Minal Hajratwala’s Facebook post that begins “I love the young women walking out calmly…” // Find Daisy here: daisyhernandez.com // Her new book, In Search of the Kissing Bug, is coming out from Tin House Press next Summer 2021! YAY! Keep a look out for it! An excerpt was published in National Geographic (the link is on her website). “The World Is Here In My Spine” https://tricycle.org/trikedaily/focusing-on-posture/?fbclid=IwAR2JwZZ9oZ9fnV6VImSGX31rTegci6Nem15hyCyK91Ybyf2qbYVEcIOJqSk // Daisy’s story On Being: https://onbeing.org/blog/daisy-hernandez-what-i-learned-about-the-heart-from-a-man-who-lost-his/ // Gina Sharpe, co-founder of New York Insight Meditation Center ginasharpe.org // Suggested action to show support for the Black Lives Matter movement and for justice for George Floyd and all those folks who have died at the hands of white oppressors: Donate to bail funds to get protesters out of jail: https://bailfunds.github.io // Free sacred healing circle for people of color this Sunday, June 7 @ 7pm ET. Register at suryagian.com/free-sacred-healing-circle to get access.

In this episode, I talk with Allegra West, transformational coach in Human Design and modern neuroscience, about our perceptions of reality, different planes of existence, and realms we don’t see. What IS reality? Can we choose to create realities that serve our highest good? We get in deep with some spiritual topic, including a discussion of fear and worry and how those influence our realities, but can we remember that we have the power to decide what we read, what we listen to, what media we consume? As within, so without. Which is to say that the state of our inner world is reflected in the external world around us. Allegra also touches on Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet, citing the idea that “work is love made visible” and how we can flip our perception of work. // Hafiz’s “The Bag Lady”, Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet, Nayyirah Waheed’s “Swim”, and Allegra West’s “The Bluebird of Happiness” // Find Allegra at www.celestialreckonings.com and on IG: @allegra.west // Flow, Flow Baby! A 4-week vinyasa yoga series starting THIS SUNDAY May 31st @ 8am ET! Register here: https://suryagian.com/flow-flow-baby //

In this episode, I talk with Ohio-based writer, poet, and editor (and fellow Filipina Catholic-daughter-of-immigrants mama) Lisa Factora-Borchers! Our conversation is rich with explorations about what it means to find ourselves unmasked and what to do with that discovery; how inextricably linked our spirits are with our bodies; and the varied ways in which we can work towards healing our conditioned (and often damaging) thinking, including language-less prayer and writing. She also talks a bit about how her spirituality feeds into how she invites her kids to be aware of the divine. // Today’s poems: Hafiz’s “The Warrior” and Joy Harjo’s “Eagle Poem” (found here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46545/eagle-poem) // Find Lisa here https://lisafactoraborchers.com // The quote about what her memoir is about can be found here: https://rewire.news/article/2020/05/05/5-reproductive-justice-advocates-to-know-this-asian-pacific-american-heritage-month/ // Fabulous Fire Fridays on IG! Follow me here: @suryagianyogi // More offerings: https://suryagian.com

Today’s conversation is with poet, yoga teacher, writing teacher, and –get this—founder and co-owner of the Pizza Loves Emily restaurant group, Emily Hyland! This one is soooo good! With the many hats she wears, Emily shares how her identity has evolved over time and how she has come to better understand who she is. We get to talking more about identity, especially during this time of dramatic shifts. Who are we without our jobs? Without the material things that we have come to use as markers of our identity? What does it mean to be radically authentic when the material world (specifically, social media) has wanted us to project a perfect picture? If anything, this pandemic has stripped away the materiality of our identities. What is left? We talk about how this moment can be an invitation to be radically authentic and how that example can change our worlds. // Today’s poems: Hafiz’s “Friends Do Things Like This” and Rumi’s “Gamble Everything For Love” // Find Emily’s restaurants: https://www.pizzalovesemily.com // Find Emily’s yoga classes: https://loveisjuniper.com and https://yogamayanewyork.com // Find Emily’s teacher, Mirabai Starr, here: https://www.mirabaistarr.com // Check out Fabulous Fire Fridays! on Instagram for insights on how to navigate as an empath: @suryagianyogi // https://suryagian.com

In this episode, I get to talk with one of my mentors who made a big impact on me and helped shape my spiritual journey: Mahan Rishi Singh Khalsa! He’s one of the first people to call me by my spiritual name, Surya Gian, which, when I hear it, makes me feel like my true essence, my Sat Nam. Here, he shares his wisdom and light on how to navigate the new world that is emerging from this pandemic. He invites us to let go of our attachments (to the past, to material things) and to call on our inner child to draw out wonder, imagination, and exploration so that we might create a new future. How do we do this? He offers the analogy of the butterfly, who previously was a master of walking as a caterpillar, and now must figure out how to be a master of flying, of air. Take a listen to savor the goodness he offers to help us birth a new vision for ourselves and our lives. And! He closes the episode with “Keeping Quiet”, a poem written one of my faaaavorite poets of all time, Pablo Neruda! You don’t want to miss this one! // Today’s poems: Hafiz’s “Turn Left a Thousand Feet From Here”, Pablo Neruda’s “Keeping Quiet” // Find Mahan Rishi here: Khalsa Healing Arts, Yardley, PA https://khalsahealing.com // Fabulous Fire Fridays! on Instagram: @suryagianyogi // Find me and some helpful resources to get grounded here: https://suryagian.com

The Birthday Episode! What does that mean? Only that I recorded this on my birthday. Haha! And that it’s all about me! Hah! I’m half-joking I share my story as an empath and the journey I have taken in the past year to step into my own power and life’s purpose. This journey has involved some deep work in revising the stories and beliefs about myself and about the reality around me that I carried. In sharing this, it’s my hope that, if some of these challenges resonate with you, you can find assurance that you’re not alone! And that it IS possible to overcome them and thrive as an empath. I also talk about how crucial Lola Pickett has been in this life transformation (her episode on this podcast is Ep #10: PLAY!! And the Unknown Future) and how that work has led to me create the Empowered Empaths community! Take a listen! // Hafiz’s “There Could Be Holy Fallout” and Ada Limon’s “Instructions On Not Giving Up” // Episode # 10 with special guest Lola Pickett! // My episode on Lola Pickett’s podcast, “Empath to Power” // EMPOWERED EMPATHS: suryagian.com/membership-registration // You can reach out to me at leslieann@suryagian.com Drop a note! I’d love to hear from you!

Today, Hafiz’s poem opens my talk with Claire Boyles, Colorado-based fiction writer and Hallmark screenwriter, with the idea of care – caring for ourselves, each other, and our planet. And I’ll tell ya: it’s not all high vibes and butterflies. It’s a conversation that takes unexpected turns from taking an honest look at our relationship with the earth to looking at how art functions and reflects the current world we live in. What is the responsibility of art? What is our responsibility to ourselves, our families, our wider world? What does this pandemic mean for our lives, for our society? In the end, it’s a matter of understanding that we can hold both – grief AND hope. Dark AND light. // Hafiz’s poem “Who Will Feed My Cat?”, Wendell Berry’s poem “The Peace of Wild Things” // Resources to help: Feeding America: https://www.feedingahc.org/ and Red Cross Blood Donation: https://www.redcrossblood.org/ // Sign up for my free class that will create energy and resilience for your highly sensitive self! It’s happening this Satuday, April 25th @ 4pm! https://suryagian.com/strong-and-resilient-empaths // Want to send feedback? I’d love to hear from you! Email me: leslieann@suryagian.com

Are we fish riding camels, to only realize this now and notice how damn thirsty we are? Hafiz’s poem opens this episode and get us thinking about how this pandemic has stripped us of our distractions and is forcing us to take a real good look at who we are and who we are called to be. Today, I’m in conversation with one of my dear spiritual teachers, Shannon Elliott, owner and director of Onyx Yoga Studio in Warren, NJ. We talk about how this global crisis is bringing so many essential things into focus, like creating community, holding BOTH the dark and the light, and to saying YES when we are called to serve. We also discuss what it means to be in the present moment (like being “in the zone”!), how we all possess the power to choose the present moment, and why that’s important. Shannon also talks a little bit about the magic of breathwork and reminds us: “Yoga will always meet us where we are.” // Hafiz’s “Damn Thirsty”, Rumi’s fragment of poem: “"Very little grows on jagged rock. / Be ground. Be crumbled. / So wild flowers will come up/ Where you are./ You have been stony for too many years./ Try something different. Surrender." // FREE yoga & training class ““How to Create More Energy & Resilience for Empaths”. Register here: suryagian.com/strong-and-resilient-empaths // #meditation #ownyourpower #bepresent #createcommunity #community #beherenow #breath #breathwork

I go in deep conversation with poet-writer and activist, Suzanne Gardinier, about how this pandemic is shifting and shaping us and how we can ride the surf toward evolution. We talk about how regular practices –yoga, meditation, writing, long term projects—can help keep us grounded during a time of uncertainty, a time of unknowing, *especially* doing it first thing in the morning, which helps set the tone for the day. There’s also talk of surfing, human nature in times of crisis, knowing vs. not knowing, and the magic and challenge of being present in the NOW. We ask: how do we live together in ways that are sustainable and are in harmony with mother earth? // Hafiz’s poem “Elephant Wondering” and Nazim Hikmet’s “That’s How It Goes” // Find Suzanne Gardinier and “The Spookmalas” (along with her other work) here: fruitfulplace.com // New Sanctuary Coalition – organization in support of immigrants in NYC www.newsanctuarynyc.org // Movie “Doing Time, Doing Vipassana” // Free mini-class and training: Strong and Resilient Empaths https://www.suryagian.com/strong-and-resilient-empathsNote: This was recorded on Friday March 27, 2020. The COVID-19 statistics have spiked since then. As a reference point, since this recording, the death count in my town has risen from 2 cases to 6.