In this profound conversation, Bruce Lyon explores why the collective crisis we’re living through may not be collapse—but initiation.

We talk about psychological death and rebirth, the cost of avoiding transformation, and why humanity may be facing a threshold it can no longer postpone.

This episode explores:

• Why crisis may be initiation knocking at the door
• The difference between trauma and true initiation
• Why comfort doesn’t mature us
• How avoidance of death shows up as mental health collapse, ecological breakdown, and loss of meaning
• Why money is not neutral—it carries relational energy
• The shift from survival-based living to love-based reciprocity
• Why your body is matter’s response to your soul—a gift, not an asset
• Sacred emotions like longing, rage, and grief as evolutionary forces
• The soul’s intelligence, love, and will—and what must surrender before purpose reveals itself

We also explore a radical idea: that matter is not dead substance, but living divinity—and that the way we relate to matter shapes our inner and outer worlds.

If you’ve felt that something in you—and in our collective—is being asked to die so something truer can be born, this conversation is for you.

About Bruce Lyon:

Bruce Lyon is an author, teacher, and poet. He is the founder of Highden Temple & Shamballa School and co-creator of ISTA. His work focuses on initiation—personal and planetary—as well as the reemergence of the modern mystery schools. Bruce has guided thousands through transformative processes that awaken the soul, body, and collective consciousness.

Connect with Bruce:

• Bruce Lyon's books and videos: www.brucelyon.com
• Highden Temple: www.highdentemple.org
• Bruce’s YouTube videos: www.youtube.com/@monadicmedia3733
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Content Note: This episode explores death, collective crisis, grief, rage, and the psychological process of ego dissolution. While deeply educational and transformative, some listeners may find these topics challenging. Please practice self-care as you listen.

Connect with the Garden of Becoming:

Instagram: @gardenofbecomingpodcast

Email: hello@gardenofbecoming.com

Review and Share: If this episode resonated with you, please leave a review to help others find this show, and share it with someone who needs to hear this message. Follow for new episodes weekly!

Chemistry gets you in. But it doesn't teach you how to stay.

Most people believe if they find the one, happily ever after is automatic. Then reality hits: you're repeating family patterns, don't know how to communicate when triggered, and feel too ashamed to ask for help.

Laurie Handlers, founder of the Extraordinary Lovers program, breaks down what actually makes love last—beyond the initial spark.

In this episode:

• The three challenges keeping couples stuck (naive expectations, zero skills, shame)
• How to stop outsourcing your pleasure and learn what you actually want
• Why your "picker" chooses familiar trauma instead of aligned values—and how to refine it
• Communication rituals for truth-telling and confrontation
• The gender dynamics no one talks about honestly (and the cosmic joke of biological differences)
• What it takes to keep relationships juicy for a lifetime

This is the relationship education you didn't get—covering self-love practices, love of partner, and partnership that manifests something beyond yourselves.

WANT TO TRY IT?

Start here:

1. Ask yourself: What do I want my partner to do for me that I'm unwilling to do for myself? (Witness you? Hear you? Celebrate you?) Now do that for yourself first.
2. Notice your automatic reactions this week. When you react strongly, pause and ask: "Am I responding to them, or to my mother/father/sibling?"
3. Ask the hard questions: What do I want in my life? What am I willing to do to have it? How honest am I willing to be?

ABOUT LAURIE HANDLERS:

Laurie Handlers is the author of the international bestseller Sex & Happiness: The Tantric Laws of Intimacy and creator of the Extraordinary Lovers Program. She has been teaching transformational workshops on sexuality, intimacy, and relationships since 1978, impacting tens of thousands of lives.

To Laurie, sexuality is the portal to healing and connects us to our creative life force. As a speaker and facilitator, she has taught on topics ranging from releasing past emotional trauma to Tantra (expansion through awareness). Together with her partner, she offers relationship coaching and workshops on how to be in extraordinary love.

Connect with Laurie:

Website: www.lauriehandlers.com

Instagram: @laurie.handlers

Connect with us:

• Instagram: @gardenofbecomingpodcast
• Email: hello@gardenofbecoming.com

Review and Share: If this episode resonated with you, please leave a review to help others find this show, and share it with a couple who needs to hear this or someone navigating relationship challenges.

New episodes drop weekly. Subscribe and follow for conversations that go beneath the surface.

In this nuanced and grounding conversation, Buddhist teacher and depth hypnosis practitioner Juliana Sloane explores why not every wound responds to stillness—and why not every wound needs more intensity. Some experiences require co-regulation, discernment, and tools that work beyond the conscious mind.

Juliana shares how depth hypnosis and shamanic journey work help people access inner guidance, repair attachment wounds, and bring protection and resources to moments in the past that didn’t have them. Together, we explore how to tell when meditation is supportive versus when it’s no longer enough, and how to recognize when catharsis is genuinely healing—or simply recreating overwhelm.

What You'll Learn:

When Stillness Isn't Enough:

• The signs that meditation alone won't heal what you're carrying
• Why relational wounds need co-regulation, not solo sitting
• How to recognize dysregulation vs. witnessing

Hypnosis vs. Meditation—What's the Difference:

• Why they feel identical but work differently (the field vs. the scalpel)
• Dispelling myths: therapeutic hypnosis isn't stage hypnosis
• The neuroplastic shifts that happen in lighter altered states

The Intensity Question:

• How to tell if catharsis is healing or recreating trauma patterns
• Why cultural intensity addiction keeps you stuck
• When gentle approaches work vs. when depth is needed

Working With Your Unconscious Mind:

• Decoding the symbolic language of trance (similar to dreams)
• Why guides and inner resources matter for attachment healing
• The color-shifting exercise for working with stuck emotions in real time

Plant Medicine & Grief Work:

• Preparation: building relationship with plant spirits through dialogue
• Integration tools: journaling, collage, movement, play
• How these modalities support death, loss, and existential crisis

About Juliana Sloane:

Juliana Sloane is a hypnotherapist, transformational coach, and Buddhist teacher whose work weaves together wisdom traditions and cutting-edge psychology. Trained in Depth Hypnosis, Applied Shamanic Counseling, Positive Psychology Coaching, and Coaching for the Unconscious Mind, she helps clients move beyond the limits of talk therapy into the deeper terrain of the unconscious mind.

A longtime Buddhist practitioner, she brings extensive silent retreat experience and training in Buddhist chaplaincy into her teaching and client work. She teaches meditation retreats and classes throughout the Southwest and works online with clients worldwide. Her writing on meditation, healing, and altered states has been featured in Tricycle Magazine and Spirituality & Health.

Juliana is known for creating spaces where clients can access an embodied sense of safety and wisdom as they shift long-held patterns with compassion and clarity. She has supported hundreds of people navigating spiritual emergence, trauma, anxiety, chronic illness, relationship challenges, and major life transitions. Based in Santa Fe, NM, she works with clients across the globe.

Connect with Juliana: www.julianasloane.com

Connect with the Garden of Becoming:

Instagram: @gardenofbecomingpodcast

Email: hello@gardenofbecoming.com

Review and Share: If this episode resonated with you, please leave a review to help others find this show, and share it with someone who needs to hear this message.

Follow for new episodes weekly!