Spiritual Wanderlust

You might describe Nick Mayhew Smith’s spirituality first and foremost as immersive.Driven by a desire to touch, see, and experience, Nick has travelled the length and breadth of the UK, seeking out Britain’s holiest places. In each place, he did as the monks and hermits did – whether that’s sleeping in a remote cave, feeding the animals, wading naked into an icy sea to pray, or rowing out to isolated islands.What is it about nature based practices that draws us? Why were they so central to the Celts?And why has mainstream Christianity conveniently forgotten about them today?Join us for a rich/fascinating conversation where you’ll discover: 🔹 The spiritual significance of skinny dipping 🔸 The Celtic ritual for putting right your relationship with creation 🔹 How the landscape influenced Celtic culture and practice 🔸 What drove the Celt Christians to embrace sacred trees instead of cut them down (like they did in continental Europe) 🔹 The saint who influenced (and instructed) early monks to pray in the nude–and why 🔸 How to recover a sense of the numinous in your own lifeNick Mayhew-Smith is a theologian and travel writer whose work is dedicated to recovering ancient Celtic wisdom. His books include The Naked Hermit, a book on Celtic spirituality, Landscape Liturgies, Britain’s Pilgrim Places (a walking pilgrimage guide published by the British Pilgrimage Trust), and Britain’s Holiest Places, which has been turned into a BBC series.He is an honorary research fellow at Roehampton University, where he works with the Susanna Wesley Foundation on a range of environment and theology projects, and lives in London with his wife Anna. _______________________✨ WELCOME TO SPIRITUAL WANDERLUST ✨Contemplation.Embodiment.Mysticism.Mischief.Join former nun and neuroscience aficionado Kelly Deutsch as she interviews contemplative teachers, embodiment experts, psychologists, and mystics about the untamed frontiers of interior life.Each episode is jam packed with life-changing stories, spiritual practices, and powerful insight to support your journey toward wholeness and divine intimacy.✨ For FREE resources for your own spiritual journey (like the Psycho-Spiritual Maturity Assessment!) - check out spiritualwanderlust.org.🌱 HAVE SPIRITUAL QUESTIONS? 🍃Leave us a voicemail at spiritualwanderlust.org/ask for the chance to have your spiritual question answered live!

It’s not a stretch to say Dave Denny is what Thomas Merton would have looked like today, had he lived.Both avid writers, teachers, interspiritual pioneers, activists, and hermits–they share a depth of wisdom that is borne of silence.Join Father Dave Denny and I to learn: 🔹 How living in the Middle East changed his life forever 🔸 What steaming hot tamales can teach us about the sacramentality of the world 🔹 What, in his 13 years of teaching mysticism, his students were most surprised by 🔸 What it might look like to be a contemplative activistDave Denny describes himself as “poet, priest, and desert rat.” Setting out to be a journalist, Dave’s life took a turn when he became a Carmelite monk at the Spiritual Life Institute for 30 years. Since then he has dedicated himself to writing, interspiritual dialogue, and teaching, while living the life of a hermit.Dave is the co-founder of the Desert Foundation, which invites people of all walks to explore the intimate depths of their own heart. Find out more about the Desert Foundation’s retreats and contemplative workshops at sandandsky.org.Recommended book:Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton_______________________✨ WELCOME TO SPIRITUAL WANDERLUST ✨Contemplation.Embodiment.Mysticism.Mischief.Join former nun and neuroscience aficionado Kelly Deutsch as she interviews contemplative teachers, embodiment experts, psychologists, and mystics about the untamed frontiers of interior life.Each episode is jam packed with life-changing stories, spiritual practices, and powerful insight to support your journey toward wholeness and divine intimacy.✨ For FREE resources for your own spiritual journey (like the Psycho-Spiritual Maturity Assessment!) - check out spiritualwanderlust.org.🌱 HAVE SPIRITUAL QUESTIONS? 🍃Leave us a voicemail at spiritualwanderlust.org/ask for the chance to have your spiritual question answered live!

Have you ever been struck by someone’s depth of presence? Like when you meet a wise, holy person. The depth of their presence overwhelms us, floods our body with their peace.Have you ever wondered what's going on on a biological level when this happens?Or, wondered why it's so much easier to feel grounded when we meditate with others vs. on our own?Or maybe been curious about how life's traumas impact the contemplative life?Get ready, everyone - this is one of my FAVORITE intersections. 🤩🤩Neuroscience and the contemplative life.Embodiment and spirituality. The mystical and the muscles, minerals, and membranes.In today’s episode I speak with Dr. Bonnie Badenoch, who specializes in precisely this intersection. Bonnie is an interpersonal neurobiologist *and* a contemplative!She has spent decades researching how that connection, and most importantly, presence, impacts our bodies.You might think of her as the Brene Brown of presence-- combining lots of heart with accessible research.Tune in to learn:🔹 What happens in your body when you’re deeply present🔸 How trauma impacts contemplative life🔹 What neurobiology tells us is the one key to healing trauma🔸 The myth of self regulation 🔹 The hidden cause of our over-rationalization (why we always seem to be head-dominant instead of heart or gut - and how to change that!)🔸 What happens in our brains during ego death🔹 How polyvagal theory revolutionizes our understanding of the nervous systemBonnie Badenoch, PhD, LMFT is a therapist, mentor, and author who delights in integrating the discoveries of relational neuroscience into the art of therapy. For 28 years, her work has focused on supporting trauma survivors and those with significant attachment wounds reshape their neural landscape to support a life of meaning, resilience, and warm relationships. She is the co-founder of Center for Brain-Wise Living, a nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering awareness of the brain, mind, and relationships in the service of creating a more awake and compassionate world.At this stage of life, Bonnie enjoys mentoring those in the helping professions through offering longer-term immersion trainings in the embodiment of interpersonal neurobiology principles. Her books include Being a Brain-Wise Therapist, The Brain-Savvy Therapist’s Workbook, and The Heart of Trauma. People are saying that these books fill the gap between science and practice with clarity, compassion, and heart._______________________✨ WELCOME TO SPIRITUAL WANDERLUST ✨Contemplation.Embodiment.Mysticism.Mischief.Join former nun and neuroscience aficionado Kelly Deutsch as she interviews contemplative teachers, embodiment experts, psychologists, and mystics about the untamed frontiers of interior life.Each episode is jam packed with life-changing stories, spiritual practices, and powerful insight to support your journey toward wholeness and divine intimacy.✨ For FREE resources for your own spiritual journey (like the Psycho-Spiritual Maturity Assessment!) - check out spiritualwanderlust.org.🌱 HAVE SPIRITUAL QUESTIONS? 🍃Leave us a voicemail at spiritualwanderlust.org/ask for the chance to have your spiritual question answered live!

Hey spiritual adventurers! We want to hear your questions. We’re about to start the 4th season of the SW podcast, and want to know:What are your longings? Your conundrums? Curiosities? What do you want to hear us talk about?Go to spiritualwanderlust.org/ask to leave us a voicemail for the chance to have your question answered LIVE by myself and a guest spiritual director.Each month, we’ll have one episode dedicated to this new series, Ask a Spiritual Director a Question.And if you don’t know what spiritual direction is? That’s okay - you can ask about that too!By doing so, you’ll be helping us create episodes that are tailor-made, hand-in-glove, fit to the shape of your longings.What are you wondering about?Grief? Spiritual bypassing? Boundaries? How to respond to a persnickety friend in the most spiritual way possible?Let us know at spiritualwanderlust.org/ask.We look forward to hearing your questions!_______________________✨ WELCOME TO SPIRITUAL WANDERLUST ✨Contemplation.Embodiment.Mysticism.Mischief.Join former nun and neuroscience aficionado Kelly Deutsch as she interviews contemplative teachers, embodiment experts, psychologists, and mystics about the untamed frontiers of interior life.Each episode is jam packed with life-changing stories, spiritual practices, and powerful insight to support your journey toward wholeness and divine intimacy.✨ For FREE resources for your own spiritual journey (like the Psycho-Spiritual Maturity Assessment!) - check out spiritualwanderlust.org.🌱 HAVE SPIRITUAL QUESTIONS? 🍃Leave us a voicemail at spiritualwanderlust.org/ask for the chance to have your spiritual question answered live!

Get ready for a real deep dive, ya’ll. From his childhood in oppressed Poland, to being an undocumented immigrant in the US, meeting Christ in India, and founding a new monastic community, Father Adam Bucko’s story has given him a razor-sharp vision into the meaning of life.Join us to learn:🔸 What gives Adam hope in the midst of so much suffering and pain🔹 What it means to travel into our despair–and how that can provide us a “container in which grace can descend”🔸 The role of the Black Madonna in Eastern Europe🔹 How meeting a homeless child in India changed his entire life path🔸 His top 6 favorite Eastern European saints–and why we need Saint Faustina more than everJoin us as we navigate some of life’s most tender paths.Father Adam Bucko is a spiritual director, activist, and Episcopal priest (with dreads!). After growing up in Eastern Europe, Adam went on to spend many years working with homeless youth in New York, through his award winning organization, the Reciprocity Foundation.He has long been dedicated to a life of engaged contemplation, and is remembered for being a founding father of the New Monastic movement.He currently serves as a director of The Center for Spiritual Imagination, and is a member of The Community of the Incarnation, a ‘new monastic’ community dedicated to democratizing the gifts of monastic spirituality. He is the author of several books, including his latest, Let Your Heartbreak be Your Guide: Lessons in Engaged Contemplation.To learn more about Father Adam, visit FatherAdamBucko.com, or check out his Center’s webpage, spiritualimagination.org._______________________WELCOME TO SPIRITUAL WANDERLUST.Contemplation. Embodiment. Mysticism. Mischief. Join former nun and neuroscience aficionado Kelly Deutsch as she interviews contemplative teachers, embodiment experts, psychologists, and mystics about the untamed frontiers of interior life. Each episode is jam packed with life-changing stories, spiritual practices, and powerful insight to support your journey toward wholeness and divine intimacy.For FREE resources for your own spiritual journey (like the Psycho-Spritual Maturity Assessment!) - check out www.spiritualwanderlust.org.Leave us a voicemail at https://www.spiritualwanderlust.org/ask for the chance to have your spiritual question answered live!

Poetry and the Contemplative life share a lot in common. Both require an attentiveness to life, a depth of presence, a sort of immersion in reality.Kathy Henderson Staudt is a poet, spiritual director, teacher, and retreat leader who specializes in this overlap.In today’s episode, we’ll talk about:🔸 How to see the world like a poet (and contemplative!)🔹 What single experience taught this academic how to live in her body🔸 The female version of Richard Rohr that lived 100 years ago🔹 And immerse yourself in some sensual, embodied poetry!Learn more about Kathy, her books, and her retreats at www.kathleenstaudtpoet.com._______WELCOME TO SPIRITUAL WANDERLUST.Contemplation. Embodiment. Mysticism. Mischief. Join former nun and neuroscience aficionado Kelly Deutsch as she interviews contemplative teachers, embodiment experts, psychologists, and mystics about the untamed frontiers of interior life. Each episode is jam packed with life-changing stories, spiritual practices, and powerful insight to support your journey toward wholeness and divine intimacy.For FREE resources for your own spiritual journey (like the Psycho-Spritual Maturity Assessment!) - check out www.spiritualwanderlust.org.Leave us a voicemail at https://www.spiritualwanderlust.org/ask for the chance to have your spiritual question answered live!

I’m excited to introduce to you a little-known poet, whose work deserves wide attention. (I’ve been sharing her writing with all of my friends!) She reminds me of a modern day Rumi or Hafiz. –And if you haven’t read Rumi or Hafiz, start there, and then pick up the work of our guest, Chelan Harkin!In her writing and in her life, Chelan has two goals: to bring acceptance, belonging, and worth to all of those uncomfortable emotions we’ve been taught to hate; and to make room for our hearts in a heady world, and allowing our heartful wisdom, truth and inspiration to flow.She has a pretty wild publishing story, filled with what she calls “prayer experiments gone right.” Her first two books are called Susceptible to Light and Let Us Dance! The Stumble and Whirl with The Beloved. Her third book, Wild Grace, is on the way. Today we’re going to discuss her poetry (and let her read some–it’s wild magic!!), how to accept our occasional asshole-ness, what it was like growing up Baha’i in a small town, and what all of that has to do with mysticism.Learn more about Chelan at www.chelanharkin.com._______________________WELCOME TO SPIRITUAL WANDERLUST.Contemplation. Embodiment. Mysticism. Mischief. Join former nun and neuroscience aficionado Kelly Deutsch as she interviews contemplative teachers, embodiment experts, psychologists, and mystics about the untamed frontiers of interior life. Each episode is jam packed with life-changing stories, spiritual practices, and powerful insight to support your journey toward wholeness and divine intimacy.For FREE resources for your own spiritual journey (like the Psycho-Spritual Maturity Assessment!) - check out www.spiritualwanderlust.org.Leave us a voicemail at https://www.spiritualwanderlust.org/ask for the chance to have your spiritual question answered live!

In this episode, host Kelly Deutsch shares frankly about her difficulty accepting her chronic illness, while returning guest Karl Thienes shares his momentary identity crisis.Join us to explore questions like:🔸 What does an identity crisis have to do with detachment? 🔹 What does it mean to accept even the most difficult experiences - like accepting our own resentment?🔸 How do you slow down your reactions so you can tell what’s triggering you?🔹 How does your shadow reveal your addictions?🔸 Why we need to take care of our bodies like house plants🔹 What kinds of behavior should we never accept?And above all: Why does the divine show up in the least expected places?Quotes from Ruth Burrows, shared in this episode:“God is always working to bring us to an awareness and acceptance of our poverty, which is the essential condition of our being able to receive him.And the petty frustrations, the restrictions, humiliations, the occasions when we are made to feel poignantly and distressingly hedged around, not in control of the world, not even in control of that tiny corner of it we are supposed to call our own, are his chosen channel into the soul.”“It is born in on me more as the years go by, how profound is this theme of human helplessness and our loving acceptance of it. It is truly mystical.”_______________________WELCOME TO SPIRITUAL WANDERLUST.Contemplation. Embodiment. Mysticism. Mischief. Join former nun and neuroscience aficionado Kelly Deutsch as she interviews contemplative teachers, embodiment experts, psychologists, and mystics about the untamed frontiers of interior life. Each episode is jam packed with life-changing stories, spiritual practices, and powerful insight to support your journey toward wholeness and divine intimacy.For FREE resources for your own spiritual journey (like the Psycho-Spritual Maturity Assessment!) - check out www.spiritualwanderlust.org.Leave us a voicemail at https://www.spiritualwanderlust.org/ask for the chance to have your spiritual question answered live!

I bet you haven’t heard of Catherine de Hueck Doherty. But she was one of Thomas Merton’s mentors! She’s this Russian spitfire with a life that reads like a movie. Here are 4 reasons why you need to know Catherine! Want to learn more? Join us for a masterclass given by Catherine’s personal friend! Visit www.womenmystics.org to register. Some of her most popular books include: 📖 Poustinia: Encountering God in Silence, Solitude and Prayer , by Catherine Dohertyhttps://amzn.to/3ISJ4GK 📖 Catherine de Hueck Doherty: Essential Writings (Modern Spiritual Masters), edited by David Meconihttps://amzn.to/3ohyAHs 📖 Sobhornost: Eastern Unity of Mind and Heart for Western Man , by Catherine Dohertyhttps://amzn.to/3B6HMpB 📖 Compassionate Fire: The Letters of Thomas Merton & Catherine de Hueck Doherty, edited by Robert Wildhttps://amzn.to/3znRt1Z_______________________WELCOME TO SPIRITUAL WANDERLUST.Contemplation. Embodiment. Mysticism. Mischief. Join former nun and neuroscience aficionado Kelly Deutsch as she interviews contemplative teachers, embodiment experts, psychologists, and mystics about the untamed frontiers of interior life. Each episode is jam packed with life-changing stories, spiritual practices, and powerful insight to support your journey toward wholeness and divine intimacy.For FREE resources for your own spiritual journey (like the Psycho-Spritual Maturity Assessment!) - check out www.spiritualwanderlust.org.Leave us a voicemail at https://www.spiritualwanderlust.org/ask for the chance to have your spiritual question answered live!

Tessa Bielecki is a hermit with a crackling vitality. She prays the Jesus prayer while she’s swimming her daily laps and says that sometimes she talks too much (with a sparkle in her eye). She didn’t set out to be a hermit–but when she met the Carmelite William McNamara, she said she had never met anyone more ALIVE.Together they would begin several communities of hermits in the desert, mountains, and forest. Steeped in the contemplative tradition, they would blend together the spirituality of the Celtics, Carmelites, and Desert Mothers and Fathers.What does a hermit’s life look like? Why would they choose that lifestyle? And what might they teach the rest of us living in the world?Join us on the Spiritual Wanderlust podcast to find out!***Tessa Bielecki is the co-founder of the Desert Foundation (www.sandandsky.org). She calls Teresa of Avila her best friend, and has written several books on the mystic (including Teresa of Avila: Mystical Writings, Holy Daring, Ecstasy and Common Sense). They share much in common: they were both mother foundresses, they are both known for their earthy mysticism, and have a particular wild streak.A popular retreat leader, Tessa now lives as an urban hermit in Tuscon, Arizona._______________________WELCOME TO SPIRITUAL WANDERLUST.Contemplation. Embodiment. Mysticism. Mischief. Join former nun and neuroscience aficionado Kelly Deutsch as she interviews contemplative teachers, embodiment experts, psychologists, and mystics about the untamed frontiers of interior life. Each episode is jam packed with life-changing stories, spiritual practices, and powerful insight to support your journey toward wholeness and divine intimacy.For FREE resources for your own spiritual journey (like the Psycho-Spritual Maturity Assessment!) - check out www.spiritualwanderlust.org.Leave us a voicemail at https://www.spiritualwanderlust.org/ask for the chance to have your spiritual question answered live!

It is Victoria Loorz’s mission to help people not just care for the earth, but to fall in love with it.What would it look like to move beyond appreciating nature, even past protecting her, to loving her? And realizing, perhaps, that we are already a part of her?Join us on the Spiritual Wanderlust podcast to learn about:🔸The forgotten heritage of the Judeo-Christian world and its deep relationship with nature🔹How to re-wild your spirituality, wherever you are🔸3 things we need to Unlearn in order to reconnect with the land, other creatures, and ourselves🔹Victoria’s longstanding friendship with a deer named Mary🔸How our connection and conversation with nature (and each other) *is* Christ.Victoria Loorz is an "eco-spiritual director" and co-founder of the Wild Church Network. Her book, Church of the Wild: How Nature Invites Us into the Sacred is a deeply personal invitation for everyone to re-member themselves back into intimate, sacred relationship with the rest of the living world. From the book’s prologue:"This is a story about a land where the trees talk and the waters croon and the people fall in love with birds, who love them back. This is a story about an enchanted forest hiding in plain sight, invisible until, somehow, the veil drops—and what was unseen can suddenly be seen. You may catch a glimpse when you cross the threshold on the far edge of the abandoned field, or when, just for a blinking instant, you notice how the brambles of the blackberry bush connect you to everything..."Learn more about Victoria, the Wild Church movement, and her book at www.victorialoorz.com.Leave us a voicemail at https://www.spiritualwanderlust.org/ask for the chance to have your spiritual question answered live!

“You cannot believe yourself out of belonging here.”Tim Burnette founded a spiritual community that is hard to define. It’s not quite church - not everyone is Christian - but they do gather on Sunday mornings. They don’t even have a shared set of beliefs, only a shared set of values. Their goal is to be a contemplative community in action.But what does that look like, when everyone believes differently? When everyone is at different stages of spiritual growth? How do you make sure everyone belongs?Join us on the Spiritual Wanderlust podcast to explore what it might look like to have an expansive, inclusive community centered in the contemplative.Tim Burnette is a writer, philosopher, teacher, and founder of the Way Collective. He believes liberation is possible when we approach reality in a holistic, relational, embodied, contemplative way. He agrees with Vonnegut that: "You can see all kinds of things from the edge that you can’t see from the center."Learn more about what he’s up to at www.waycollective.org.Leave us a voicemail at https://www.spiritualwanderlust.org/ask for the chance to have your spiritual question answered live!

The 12 Steps have been called the greatest American contribution to spirituality today. Today we’re going to talk about how the 12 Steps can contribute to your spiritual growth, even if you would not consider yourself an addict.Karl Thienes is a published poet, 7 years sober, former blogger, father of 4, and amateur theologian. He is passionate about transformation, healing, and being a Christ follower. Today he will share a bit of his story of going from a drunk catechist in the Orthodox church (drinking vodka on his way to teach about asceticism!) to a man who can find joy in the day to day._______________________WELCOME TO SPIRITUAL WANDERLUST.Contemplation. Embodiment. Mysticism. Mischief. Join former nun and neuroscience aficionado Kelly Deutsch as she interviews contemplative teachers, embodiment experts, psychologists, and mystics about the untamed frontiers of interior life. Each episode is jam packed with life-changing stories, spiritual practices, and powerful insight to support your journey toward wholeness and divine intimacy.For FREE resources for your own spiritual journey (like the Psycho-Spritual Maturity Assessment!) - check out www.spiritualwanderlust.org.