Podcast
Awakening With Grace — Creativity & Consciousness
Consciousness, Creation & Connection.
Awakening With Grace is a show about the spiritual dimensions of conscious creation, and what it means to bring your most meaningful work into the world.
Hosted by energy intuitive, acclaimed animal photographer, and author Grace Chon, this podcast explores the intersection of creativity, spirituality, intuition and the unseen.
Through solo episodes and conversations with teachers, healers, and creators, you'll discover that the awakened life is also the creative one.
Awaken and create.
Transmit through delight.
Leave life more fertile than you found it.
- Episodes
- 111
- Releases
- Weekly
- Typical length
- 40 min
- On air since
- 2018
- Latest episode
- 4 days ago
Episodes
111 episodes, newest first
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35 min
How My Psychic Abilities Developed
Show notes
You don't have to be born knowing you're psychic to develop your intuitive abilities. For some people, these abilities are apparent from childhood. For others, they emerge much later in life.
I didn't discover my psychic abilities until my late twenties. What began as an unexpected discovery through my work as an animal photographer opened the door to a world I never imagined I'd explore.
I'm sharing how my psychic abilities developed over the last 20 years and the experiences that shaped my journey. We'll also explore how you can begin recognizing your own intuitive abilities, understanding how you naturally receive information, and how you can begin developing and trusting your own intuition.
In this episode:
• How animal photography led me to discover animal communication
• The six clairs and how we receive intuitive information
• Why sensitivity and empathy are powerful foundations for psychic development
• Why following your curiosity and natural interests can open unexpected doors
• The relationship between being, doing, and developing your intuitive abilities
• The four directions of energetic connection and how to become more fully resourcedBooks Mentioned
• Animal communication books by Carol Gurney
Links and Resources:
• 🌿 How to Read Your Energy — Free guide to the four directions of energetic connection
• ☕ Join Coffee and the Cosmos (a free monthly gathering)
• 🪐 Follow me on Instagram for weekly spiritual and creative content
• 🌙 Book an Awakening With the Animals: Animal Soul Reading with Grace
• 🔮 Visit Awakening With Grace for more info
If this resonated with you, share it with someone on their own path, and don't forget to leave a review! They help more people find the show and awaken to who they really are.
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41 min
From Inner Conflict to Wholeness with Alina Nikishina
Show notes
We all have parts of ourselves that are scared, critical, stuck, or convinced we're not good enough. And sometimes, no amount of positive thinking or reframing makes them go away. In this episode, I sit down with transformational coach and licensed hypnotist Alina Nikishina to explore what happens when we stop trying to argue our way past these parts and start listening to them instead.
Alina practices Core Transformation, a form of subconscious parts work that explores the positive purpose behind our fears, inner blocks, and self-sabotage. By following these parts deeper, we can access profound states of presence, peace, love, wholeness, and oneness — experiences people can spend years cultivating through meditation or encounter through psychedelics and plant medicine. I also share my own experience with this work, including how one session helped dissolve a long-held fear of being visible and seen.
Our conversation expands from emotional healing and spiritual growth into a much bigger exploration of wholeness, intuition, nonduality, individuality, and what it means to live from a deeper understanding that we are all connected.
In this episode:
• Why trying to "logic" yourself out of difficult thoughts and feelings doesn't always work
• How even the scared or critical parts of ourselves can have a positive purpose
• How Core Transformation works with the subconscious
• Accessing profound states of being, peace, love, wholeness, and oneness
• The difference between bypassing a feeling and actually integrating it
• What Daoism and nonduality teach us about wholeness and acceptance
• Experiencing oneness while still honoring our individuality
• How personal transformation shapes the way we show up in our communities and the worldConnect with Alina
• Website: https://alinanikishina.com/
• Instagram: @heyalinan
• Beautiful World MeditationLinks & Resources
☕ Join Coffee and the Cosmos (a free monthly community)
🪐 Follow me on Instagram for weekly spiritual and creative content
🌙 Book an Awakening With the Animals: Animal Soul Reading with Grace
🔮 Visit Awakening With Grace for more info
If this resonated with you, share it with someone on their own path, and don't forget to leave a review! They help more people find the show and awaken to who they really are.
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34 min
It's Time to Stop Hiding
Show notes
We are living through the birth of a new consciousness. We're questioning old beliefs, becoming more aware of the systems shaping our world, and embracing ideas once considered fringe or taboo. And I've had a front row seat to this shift through my own spiritual journey over nearly two decades.
In this episode, I share how I went from being told by television producers in 2012 to hide my animal communication abilities to openly sharing my belief that my dog reincarnated with tens of thousands of people in 2026. The response was something I never would have expected, and it revealed just how dramatically our collective willingness to explore spirituality and the unexplained has changed.
I also discuss the Age of Aquarius, why the darkness we're witnessing in the world is actually a sign of expanding consciousness and greater awareness, and how we each have a role to play in creating a different future. By learning to love and trust ourselves, embracing what makes us different, and sharing our unique spiritual gifts and talents, we bring more light into a world that desperately needs it.
In this episode:
• How our willingness to openly discuss spirituality and consciousness has changed over the last two decades
• My journey from hiding my animal communication abilities to openly sharing my spiritual experiences
• The Age of Aquarius and the collective shift in consciousness
• Why greater awareness can bring previously hidden darkness into the light
• How self-love and self-trust help us feel safe enough to be fully ourselves
• Why embracing our unique gifts matters to our collective futureBooks Mentioned
• The Secret of Secrets by Dan Brown
Links and Resources:
• ☕ Join Coffee and the Cosmos (a free monthly gathering)
• 🪐 Follow me on Instagram for weekly spiritual and creative content
• 🌙 Book an Awakening With the Animals: Animal Soul Reading with Grace
• 🔮 Visit Awakening With Grace for more info
If this resonated with you, share it with someone on their own path, and don't forget to leave a review! They help more people find the show and awaken to who they really are.
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48 min
Expanding Your Reality: Creativity and the Unknown with Jorge Diaz
Show notes
A spiritual awakening doesn't just change what you believe. It changes how you move through the world.
Actor Jorge Diaz has spent more than two decades in Hollywood, building a career with more than 80 film and television credits, including The Rookie, For All Mankind, The Good Place, Jane the Virgin, and extensive voice work in animated series. But alongside his successful acting career, he's spent years exploring spirituality, consciousness, and the deeper questions of why we're here.
In this conversation, Jorge shares how his spiritual awakening transformed the way he approaches creativity, purpose, storytelling, and service. We explore where creative ideas come from, why love is the natural byproduct of a genuine spiritual path, how to develop discernment in today's spiritual landscape, and why expanding our understanding of reality can change the way we experience life itself.
By the end of the conversation, we even zoom out to one of the biggest questions of all: what if humanity isn't alone in the universe?
In this episode:
• The spiritual experiences that completely changed the way Jorge understood reality
• Where creative ideas come from, and why fear can block them from coming through us
• How creativity, intuition, and action work together to bring ideas into the world
• Consciousness, past lives, and the nature of reality
• Why love may be the clearest sign you're on the right spiritual path
• How to develop discernment and recognize authentic spiritual teachers
• Our thoughts on disclosure, extraterrestrial intelligence, and humanity's place in the cosmos✨Watch this episode on YouTube!✨
Connect with Jorge
• Instagram: @iamjorgediaz
Books Mentioned
📚 Signs by Laura Lynne Jackson
📚 The Mastery of Love by Don Miguel Ruiz
Links & Resources
☕ Join Coffee and the Cosmos (a free monthly gathering)
🪐 Follow me on Instagram for weekly spiritual and creative content
🌙 Book an Awakening With the Animals: Animal Soul Reading
🔮 Visit Awakening With Grace for more information
If this resonated with you, share it with someone on their own path, and don't forget to leave a review! They help more people find the show and awaken to who they really are.
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28 min
How to Let the Universe Express Itself Through You
Show notes
You are a unique expression of the universe, unlike anything that has ever existed before. So why is it so hard to just be yourself?
In this episode, I explore a much bigger way of thinking about creativity and what it takes to let that creative energy flow through you freely, without filtering, suppressing, or hiding parts of yourself. I share my own journey of learning to feel safe being seen, from sharing my deeply personal HEALER photo series to putting myself in front of the camera and talking openly about the things I once felt too afraid to share.
Those experiences taught me that knowing who you are is only part of the process. You also have to feel safe enough to actually express who you are. In this episode, I break down how we can move from knowing ourselves to actually living as ourselves, and what it takes to stop hiding and allow our authentic radiance to come through.
Because the more fully you allow yourself to be you, the more freely the universe can express itself through you.
In this episode:
• A way of understanding creativity as the universe expressing itself through you
• Why your tastes, interests, and what you're naturally drawn to aren't random
• Why being fully yourself can feel so vulnerable and unsafe
• How to move from knowing who you are to actually feeling safe enough to express it
• The relationship between action, self-trust, and creative freedomLinks & Resources
☕ Join Coffee and the Cosmos (a free monthly gathering)
🪐 Follow me on Instagram for weekly spiritual and creative content
🌙 Book an Awakening With the Animals: Animal Soul Reading with Grace
🔮 Visit Awakening With Grace for more info
If this resonated with you, share it with someone on their own path, and don't forget to leave a review! They help more people find the show and awaken to who they really are.
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58 min
Think Like an Artist, Create Like a Mathematician with Esther Loopstra and Allison Henrich
Show notes
We tend to think of logic and intuition as opposites. One belongs to the head, the other to the heart. Artist Esther Loopstra and mathematician Allison Henrich, Phd, explore the power of what happens when we bring the two together, especially when we're navigating change, creating something new, or stepping into a version of ourselves we can't fully see yet.
In their new book, Think Like an Artist, Create Like a Mathematician: Harness Logic and Intuition to Find Your Flow and Step Into Who You're Becoming, Esther and Allison explore how to move through change by bringing together logic and intuition, and why neither strategy alone will get you where you want to go. Drawing on personal stories, scientific research, and spiritual wisdom, they show us how to clarify where we want to go while staying open to what unfolds.
We also discuss the dance between trust and control, manifestation and co-creation, and how the initial spark of an idea can grow into something we're willing to devote ourselves to.
In this episode:
• Why creativity requires both logic and intuition
• The Space of Becoming and navigating the unknown
• Learning to listen to your intuition while still taking action
• The role of trust, manifestation, and co-creation
• The shift from play into discipline and devotion
• How our own growth and creative work contribute to something larger than ourselvesConnect with Esther and Allison
📖 Pre-order Think Like an Artist, Create Like a Mathematician
• Esther: Website | Art | @flowintoauthenticity
• Allison: Website | @logicmeetsintuition
Links & Resources
☕ Join Coffee and the Cosmos (a free monthly gathering)
🪐 Follow me on Instagram for weekly spiritual and creative content
🌙 Book an Awakening With the Animals: Animal Soul Reading with Grace
🔮 Visit Awakening With Grace for more info
If this resonated with you, share it with someone on their own path, and don't forget to leave a review! They help more people find the show and awaken to who they really are.
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26 min
The Great Rebalancing: The Old Ways Aren't Working Anymore
Show notes
The old ways aren't working anymore.
So many of us are finding that pushing harder, doing more, and trying to control the outcome no longer works the way it once did.
In this episode, I zoom out to look at the larger pattern behind how we're changing. From the Great Recession in 2008 and the rise of hustle culture to burnout, the 2020 pandemic, and our growing desire for more meaningful and sustainable ways of living, I explore what I believe is a massive rebalancing of masculine and feminine energy happening both individually and collectively.
We've become incredibly good at the Yang side of creation: taking action, setting goals, working hard, pushing forward, and trying to control the outcome. But many of us are now being asked to develop the other half: Yin creation - listening, trusting, surrendering, working with the natural rhythms of life, and allowing ourselves to be supported.
And when you've spent your entire life believing that action equals control, learning to loosen your grip can feel like one giant trust fall. If who you've been no longer quite fits, the ways you used to move through life aren't working, and you still can't fully see who you're becoming, you may be right in the middle of learning the other half of creation.
In this episode:
• Why I see 2008 and 2020 as two different turns of the same spiral
• How hustle culture became an answer to uncertainty
• Why humanity is moving through a larger evolution and expansion of consciousness
• The mass rebalancing of divine masculine and divine feminine energy happening right now
• How becoming more balanced and integrated individually can change what we create collectively
• Why the old ways crumbling is part of humanity moving into its next level of beingLinks & Resources:
🎙️ The Invisible Part of Creation
🎙️ When You Don't Know What's Next
☕ Join Coffee and the Cosmos (a free monthly gathering)
🪐 Follow me on Instagram for weekly spiritual and creative content
🌙 Book an Awakening With the Animals: Animal Soul Reading with Grace
🔮 Visit Awakening With Grace for more info
If this resonated with you, share it with someone on their own path, and don't forget to leave a review! They help more people find the show and awaken to who they really are.
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51 min
Your Past Lives Are Still Talking to You with Avani Patel
Show notes
The patterns shaping your life began long before this lifetime.
Raised in a household where reincarnation and karma weren't beliefs but simply the fabric of the soul's journey, intuitive regression hypnotherapist and spiritual mentor Avani Patel has spent years helping people uncover the deeper origins of the patterns shaping their relationships, careers, and lives. Through her work, she guides people back to the experiences their soul still carries, and the lessons they came here to heal.
In this conversation, we explore hypnosis, past life regression, reincarnation, karma, the witch wound, soul contracts, what happens between lifetimes, and spirit guides. Whether you're brand new to these ideas or have been exploring them for years, this episode offers a fascinating perspective on why your past lives may still be shaping the life you're living today.
And if this conversation sparked your curiosity and you'd like to explore this work more deeply, Avani has created a free resource called the Soul Avatar Guide. It helps you identify the past life imprint that's most influencing your life today and offers a starting point for understanding the lessons your soul may be working through.
In this episode, we discuss:
• What hypnosis really is, and the biggest misconceptions about it
• How past life regression can reveal the roots of recurring patterns
• The witch wound and fear of being seen
• Reincarnation, karma, and the soul's journey
• Whether we choose our families and major life experiences before we're born
• What happens between lifetimes
• Spirit guides and how to begin building a relationship with them
Connect with Avani
• Website: Eternal Alchemists
• Instagram: Eternal Alchemists
• Tiktok: Eternal Alchemists
Links & Resources
📚 Journey of Souls by Michael Newton
📚 Many Lives, Many Masters by Brian Weiss
☕ Join Coffee and the Cosmos (a free monthly gathering)
🪐 Follow me on Instagram for weekly spiritual and creative content
🌙 Book an Awakening With the Animals: Animal Soul Reading with Grace
🔮 Visit Awakening With Grace for more info
If this resonated with you, share it with someone on their own path, and leave a review to help others find the show.
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40 min
The Invisible Part of Creation
Show notes
How do you create something when you don't know what you're creating yet?
For most of my life, I've known how to create when I have a clear goal in sight. But over the last few years, I've been learning a different way of creating, one that is more receptive, intuitive, responsive, and rooted in trust. I call this yin creation.
In this episode, I explore the mechanics of this invisible part of creation: how our consciousness and energetic state participate in what eventually takes physical form, why there can be a lag between energy and what we see reflected in our 3D reality, and what may actually be happening during those quiet periods when it looks like nothing is happening (when everything is happening!)
I share how I've watched this process unfold in my own life over the last six months, how seemingly unrelated opportunities became data points in a much larger pattern, and what I'm learning about becoming perceptive enough to recognize what is trying to emerge.
Links and Resources:
• ☕ Join Coffee and the Cosmos (a free monthly gathering)
• 🪐 Follow me on Instagram for weekly spiritual and creative content
• 🌙 Book an Awakening With the Animals: Animal Soul Reading with Grace
• 🔮 Visit Awakening With Grace for more info
If this resonated with you, share it with someone on their own path, and leave a review to help others find the show.
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1 hr 16 min
Manifesting Your Creativity Through the Akashic Records with Helen Vonderheide
Show notes
What are the Akashic Records and how can you use them as a tool to reconnect to who you are and manifest your unique creative expression?
This week on Awakening with Grace, I'm talking to my teacher Helen Vonderheide, Elite Certified Akashic Records Teacher and Practitioner. Helen gave me my Beginning Practitioner Certification, and I'm thrilled she's here to teach us all about what the Akashic Records are, and how we can use them to illuminate our path, manifest our creative greatness, and receive the outcomes we desire.
Helen also gives an Akashic Record reading for all of us, so stay tuned until the end to hear the beautiful message she shares. If you want to learn all about the Akashic Records, keep an open heart and mind as you listen because this episode was made especially for you!
Connect with Helen Vonderheide:
• Website: https://www.helenvonderheide.com/
• Instagram: @helenvonderheide
Links and Resources:
• ☕ Join Coffee and the Cosmos (a free monthly gathering)
• Follow me on Instagram for weekly spiritual and creative content
• Book an Awakening With the Animals: Animal Soul Reading with Grace
• Visit Awakening With Grace for more info
If this resonated with you, please share it with someone on their own path, and leave a review to help others find the show.
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49 min
Korean Shamanism and Everyday Magic with Mudang Mi
Show notes
Some spiritual callings arrive quietly. Mudang Mi's arrived through a dream, when a group of her ancestors walked into her home carrying a bundle of ceremonial tools and refused to let her say no.
Mudang Mi is a Korean shaman-priest in the indigenous Korean spiritual tradition known as Mugyo, a tradition I knew almost nothing about before this rich conversation.
We talk about ancestors, nature spirits, house deities, spiritual protection, the representation of mudangs in modern culture, and what it actually looks like to be in relationship with the spiritual world in everyday life. Mi explains why you might not want to whistle or clip your nails at night, what happens when a mudang channels a deity during ceremony, and why she believes sensitivity can change what we're able to perceive.
She also shares what she calls the "Way of Mu," simple ways of bringing spiritual practice and a sense of magic into everyday life. This conversation is such a fascinating glimpse into a spiritual tradition that flies largely under the radar outside of Korea, and offers a beautiful perspective on our relationship with the unseen world around us.
In this episode:
• What Mugyo is and what it means to be a mudang
• Neurodivergence, sensitivity, and spiritual perception
• The role of ancestors and deified ancestors in Mugyo
• House deities, nature spirits, and living in relationship with the spiritual world
• The "Way of Mu" and bringing spiritual practice into everyday life
• Intuition and developing our own spiritual abilities
• Why so many people may be spiritually seeking right nowConnect with Mudang Mi:
• Website: Firelight Lotus
• Instagram: @themudangmi
• TikTok: @themudangmi
• YouTube: @themudangmi
Links and Resources:
• ☕ Join Coffee and the Cosmos (our free monthly gathering)
• Follow me on Instagram for weekly spiritual and creative content
• Book an Awakening With the Animals: Animal Soul Reading with Grace
• Visit Awakening With Grace for more info
If this resonated with you, please share it with someone on their own path, and leave a review to help others find the show.
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34 min
When You Don't Know What's Next
Show notes
What do you do when you feel called to something new, but you have no idea what it is?
For three years, I wandered in a desert of confusion, asking the Universe over and over, "What am I meant to do? Just tell me what to do, and I'll do it."
It was a lonely, frustrating season, full of uncertainty, with no clear map forward. If you've ever found yourself in that same place of not knowing, this episode is for you.
I explore yin creation vs. yang creation, what it means to explore without needing to know the destination, and the surprising realization at the heart of it all: sometimes the answer isn't waiting for you to find it. It's waiting for you to choose.
In this episode, we discuss:
• Why wandering isn't wasted time
• How to navigate the space between chapters
• Why trying things—even the "wrong" things—is part of the path
• The difference between yin creation and yang creation
• Creating without a blueprint
• Following the next breadcrumb before you can see the whole pathConnect with Grace:
• ☕ Join Coffee and the Cosmos (a free monthly gathering)
• Follow me on Instagram for weekly spiritual and creative content
• Book an Awakening With the Animals: Animal Soul Reading
• Visit Awakening With Grace for more info
If this resonated with you, please share it with someone on their own path, and leave a review to help others find the show.
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1 hr 2 min
Looks Weird, Feels Good: Trusting Your Evolution with Aimée Hoover
Show notes
Sometimes the biggest transformation isn't finding a new path, but realizing you've become a different person than the one who started walking it.
After more than 25 years as a professional wildlife painter, Aimée Hoover finds herself questioning old identities, learning to trust her intuition in deeper ways, and navigating the beautiful uncertainty that comes with becoming someone new. Together, we explore what happens when healing changes not only who you are, but what you're called to create.
In this conversation, we talk about trusting yourself when your inner knowing asks you to change, why healing often changes what we're willing to tolerate, and how personal growth naturally reshapes our creativity, our work, and our relationships. We also explore living with uncertainty, learning to stop overriding yourself, and why sometimes the path that feels most aligned is the one that looks the strangest from the outside.
Whether you're an artist or navigating a season of change, this conversation is an invitation to trust your evolution.
In this episode:
• Learning to trust your intuition, even when it looks strange from the outside
• Why healing changes what we're willing to tolerate
• The identity shifts that often accompany personal growth
• How our work naturally evolves as we do
• Exploring therapeutic psilocybin as a tool for healing, self-discovery, and facing fear
• Practical ways to begin building trust in your intuitionConnect with Aimée Hoover
• Website: Aimée Hoover
• Instagram: @aimeehooverartist
• Substack: Aimée Rolin Hoover Substack
Links and Resources
• ☕ Join Coffee and the Cosmos (a free monthly gathering)
• Follow me on Instagram for weekly spiritual and creative content
• Book an Awakening With the Animals: Animal Soul Reading with Grace
• Visit Awakening With Grace for more info
If this resonated with you, please share it with someone on their own path, and leave a review to help others find the show.
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27 min
You're Not Doing This Alone
Show notes
Modern life has left so many of us feeling disconnected—from ourselves, from one another, from nature, and from something greater than ourselves. We spend so much of our lives focused on what we can see that we forget some of the most important relationships exist beyond our physical perception.
Throughout my decades-long journey as an artist and creative, one relationship has quietly shaped everything: my relationship with the Universe. It's influenced how I navigate uncertainty, how I make decisions, how I recognize guidance, and how I continue moving forward even when the path feels lonely.
In this episode, I'm sharing a framework I call The Four Connections—a way of understanding the relationships that I believe are at the heart of the human experience. I'm exploring our relationship with the Universe, why I believe it's every bit as real as our relationships with other people, and how cultivating it has transformed the way I've navigated my career and personal life.
Whether you call this benevolent life force God, Source, Spirit, the Divine, or simply the Universe, my hope is that this episode reminds you that you are far more connected, supported, and guided than you may realize.
In this episode, we explore:
• The Four Connections and the framework that's shaped my spiritual journey
• Why I believe the human experience is fundamentally about relationship
• Why our relationship with the Universe is just as real as our relationships with other people
• Intuition, signs, synchronicities, and learning to trust
• Simple ways to begin cultivating your own relationship with the universeLinks and Resources:
• ☕ Join Coffee and the Cosmos (a free monthly gathering)
• Follow me on Instagram for weekly spiritual and creative content
• Book an Awakening With the Animals: Animal Soul Reading with Grace
• Visit Awakening With Grace for more info
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55 min
When Your Darkest Season Becomes an Awakening with Sierra Enticknap
Show notes
Sometimes the biggest changes in our lives don't begin with certainty - they begin with a quiet whisper.
In this conversation, I'm joined by sound facilitator, breathwork coach, and cacao ceremony guide Sierra Enticknap to explore what it really looks like to reconnect with yourself. Sierra shares how postpartum anxiety, OCD, and her own healing journey unexpectedly led her from a successful corporate career into work that feels deeply aligned with who she truly is.
Together, we explore the difference between anxious thoughts and intuitive knowing, why surrender can feel so difficult (especially for perfectionists), what "one step at a time" actually looks like in practice, and how sound, breath, and ritual can help regulate the nervous system and create space to hear yourself more clearly. We also demystify sound baths, explaining both the science behind them and why they can be such a powerful entry point for reconnecting with yourself.
In this episode:
• 5:17 — Why leaving a successful career can feel so terrifying
• 15:19 — Postpartum anxiety, OCD, and the awakening that changed everything
• 21:20 — Fear, perfectionism, and learning to trust one step at a time
• 31:21 — The difference between intuition and anxious thinking
• 35:37 — What a sound bath actually is and the science behind how it works
• 43:36 — Why healing in community is so powerful
• 50:40 — How to begin reconnecting with yourself and learning to trust the whisper
Connect with Sierra:
• Website: Sound With Sierra
• Instagram: @soundwithsierra
Links and Resources:
• ☕ Join Coffee and the Cosmos (a free monthly gathering)
• Follow me on Instagram for weekly spiritual and creative content
• Book an Awakening With the Animals: Animal Soul Reading with Grace
• Visit Awakening With Grace for more info
If this resonated with you, share it with someone on their own path, and leave a review to help others find the show.
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12 min
Spirituality Is Not Self-Improvement
Show notes
What if spirituality isn't another self-improvement project?
We live in a culture that tells us there's always something to fix, optimize, or improve about ourselves. But what if spirituality isn't about becoming a better version of yourself? What if it's about remembering who you've always been?
In this episode, I explore why spirituality and self-improvement are not the same thing, how hustle culture has quietly shaped modern spiritual practice, and why my own journey has felt less like optimizing myself and more like remembering and reconnecting to my original nature.
In this episode:
• 0:37 — Why self-improvement and spirituality are not the same project
• 2:14 — Why spirituality feels expansive while optimization can feel constrictive
• 5:44 — How hustle culture has shaped modern spiritual practice
• 6:47 — The questions self-improvement asks versus the questions spirituality asks
• 7:49 — Remembering, reconnecting, and returning to your original self
• 10:33 — Why you don't need to fix yourself to begin your spiritual journey
Links and Resources:
• ☕ Join Coffee and the Cosmos (a free monthly gathering)
• Follow me on Instagram for weekly spiritual and creative content
• Book an Awakening With the Animals: Animal Soul Reading with Grace
• Visit Awakening With Grace for more info
If this resonated with you, share it with someone on their own path, and leave a review to help others find the show.
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57 min
Returning to Your Original Magic with Sylvia Wes
Show notes
There comes a point on the spiritual path when hiding parts of yourself becomes more painful than the fear of letting people see who you really are.
For Sylvia Wes, that meant bringing together two worlds she'd kept separate for years: a successful career as a science-based dog trainer and a lifelong spiritual practice of witchcraft centered on intuition, ritual, and magic.
In this conversation, Sylvia shares the journey that led her to found Sisters of Alchemy and what it was like to step out of the "broom closet" and into a more authentic life. We explore intuition, ritual, energetic cleansing, grief, creativity, animals, and why reconnecting with your spiritual practice isn't about becoming someone new, but about remembering who you've been all along.
Whether you're curious about ritual and magic, or simply learning to trust yourself more deeply, this episode is an invitation to reconnect with your intuition, create meaningful rituals, and return to your own original magic.
In this episode:
• 1:33 — Blending science and spirituality through dog training
• 9:57 — Childhood intuition and remembering your original magic
• 13:45 — Trusting your intuition through life's biggest transitions
• 27:52 — Why Sylvia embraces the word witch and the meaning of alchemy
• 33:51 — The courage to stop hiding who you are
• 41:55 — Ritual, energetic cleansing, and creating intentional space
• 54:58 — Why every human being has access to intuition and magic
Connect with Sylvia Wes:
• Website: https://www.sistersofalchemy.com
• Instagram: @sisters.of.alchemy
Links and Resources:
• ☕ Join Coffee and the Cosmos (a free monthly gathering)
• Follow me on Instagram for weekly spiritual and creative content
• Visit Awakening With Grace for more info
If this resonated with you, share it with someone on their own path, and leave a review to help others find the show.
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24 min
Are You Seeing Yourself Clearly?
Show notes
What if the way you see yourself isn't actually the truth?
So much of how we see ourselves is shaped by our conditioning, our achievements, our fears, and the stories we've carried for years. But spiritual awakening isn't about becoming someone new. It's about expanding your awareness and learning to see yourself from a higher perspective.
In this episode, we explore what awakening really means, why I believe we're here to integrate our human and spiritual selves, and how to see yourself more accurately by looking through the lens of higher consciousness. By the end of the episode, you'll have three simple practices to help you experience yourself the way your higher self and even your pet already sees you.
In this episode:
• 0:34 — What "awakening" really means
• 2:32 — The purpose of life: integrating your human and spiritual selves
• 6:11 — The wake-up call that changed my relationship with myself
• 12:36 — The Empire State Building and learning to see from a higher vantage point
• 14:38 — Practice #1: Seeing yourself through the eyes of your higher self
• 16:25 — Practice #2: Seeing yourself through the eyes of your pet
• 18:36 — Practice #3: A simple energy healing meditation to reconnect with your higher self
Links and Resources:
• ☕ Join Coffee and the Cosmos (a free monthly gathering)
• Follow me on Instagram for weekly spiritual and creative content
• Visit Awakening With Grace for more info
If this resonated with you, share it with someone on their own path, and leave a review to help others find the show.
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58 min
How Face Reading Reveals Your Spirit with Dr. Jen Ng
Show notes
What if your face is a map of your energy?
In this episode, I'm joined by Dr. Jennifer Ng, a doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine, facial acupuncturist, herbalist, and Chinese face reader. Dr. Jen blends her background in aesthetics with the deeper principles of Chinese medicine, helping people understand the connection between health, energy, and the face. Through practices like facial acupuncture, face reading, and other traditional healing modalities, her work focuses on treating internal imbalances first and helping people become the most aligned and vibrant version of themselves.
Together, we explore the fascinating world of Chinese face reading, the Five Element system, and how our emotional patterns, life experiences, and level of alignment can become visible on the face over time.
We discuss what the face can reveal about personality, health, vitality, purpose, and spirit, as well as the deeper philosophy behind Chinese medicine and why treating the root cause matters more than treating the symptom. Along the way, we explore the relationship between joy, aging, energy, and what it means to become the most authentic version of yourself.
In this episode:
• 2:44 — What is TCM & the mind/body/spirit framework
• 8:13 — Five Element Theory (wood, fire, earth, metal, water)
• 11:02 — How face reading works & what your features reveal
• 22:12 — Element types and constitutions
• 40:23 — Chinese medicine vs. Western medicine: treating the root cause
• 49:55 — Yin/yang balance and what your face says about your purpose
* * * * * * *
The Five Elements at a Glance
Most people are a combination of elements, with one or two often appearing more prominently.
• Wood — Driven, ambitious, and action-oriented. Often associated with stronger brows, a wider jaw, and a sturdy constitution.
• Fire — Passionate, playful, and expressive. Often associated with pointed features, tips and corners, and bright eyes.
• Earth — Warm, nurturing, and community-oriented. Often associated with fuller lips, softer features, and a welcoming presence.
• Metal — Purposeful, discerning, and refinement-focused. Often associated with prominent cheekbones, a stronger nose bridge, and open space in the face.
• Water — Intuitive, creative, and wisdom-seeking. Often associated with a prominent forehead, deeper eyes, and stronger bone structure.
* * * * * * *
Connect with Dr. Jen:
• Website: https://www.acubyjen.com/
• Instagram: @acu.by.jen
• Podcast: TCM Talk Therapy
Links and Resources:
• ☕ Join Coffee and the Cosmos (a free monthly gathering)
• Follow me on Instagram for weekly spiritual and creative content
• Visit Awakening With Grace for more info
If this resonated with you, share it with someone on their own path, and leave a review to help others find the show.
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27 min
Karma, Dharma, and the Creative Channel
Show notes
What if karma isn't punishment?
What if it's a curriculum?
In this episode, we explore two spiritual concepts that often get flattened in modern culture: karma and dharma. We look at how the patterns we carry shape our lives, why the same lessons seem to repeat themselves, and what it means to move toward the fullest expression of who we are.
We also explore the relationship between healing karma and creation, and how every pattern we clear opens the channel for creativity, expression, and meaningful work.
Because karma and dharma aren't separate from creation. They are part of the path that allows us to become who we are and create what we're here to add to the world.
In this episode:
• 0:38 — The misunderstanding of karma
• 2:24 — Karma as the curriculum for growth
• 5:49 — Why patterns keep repeating
• 9:10 — Money beliefs, past lives, and subconscious programming
• 15:30 — What dharma really means
• 19:57 — Every pattern you clear opens the channel
• 24:24 — Why awakening and creation are the same path
• 25:05 — Healing through creating and creating through healingLinks and Resources:
• ☕ Join Coffee and the Cosmos (a free monthly gathering)
• Follow me on Instagram for weekly spiritual and creative content
• Visit Awakening With Grace for more info
If this resonated with you, share it with someone on their own path, and leave a review to help others find the show.
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