Live and Dare Podcast: Meditation, Consciousness & Nonduality Wisdom Giovanni Dienstmann: Meditation Blogger, Consciousness Hacker, Spirituality Geek

In this podcast episode I have the pleasure to interview Roy Baumeister, PhD, one of the world’s most prolific and influential psychologists and author of the book "Willpower: Rediscovering The Greatest Human Strength", a New York Times bestseller.



Questions and topics covered:

- What is willpower?

- The relationship between willpower and self control

- How self control can predict success

- Why are we not paying more attention to willpower

- Is willpower a limited supply?

- Is willpower always necessary?

- Is there a correlation between self esteem and willpower?

- The influence of today's technology on willpower

- What is The Ego Depletion model

- The relationship between willpower and the body's glucose levels

- Can willpower be trained?

- Willpower and Decision Fatigue

- What's next on Roy's career

In this podcast episode I have the pleasure to interview Miten who, together with his partner Deva Premal, have greatly inspired me through their music, songs and mantras.



Topics Covered:

- His transformation from Andy Desmond (the rock musician) to Miten (the creator of spiritually-themed songs)

- What he learned from his master Osho, and his time in the ashram

- The need for being egoless when chanting mantras

- The meaning of holding silence at the end of the concerts (instead of clapping)

- The difference between singing mantras, chanting mantras and Kirtan

- How he comes up with the songs, and selects the mantras

- His meditation journey and current practice

- How his music retreats work

- What is next for him in life and music

- The importance of finding your mantra, and committing to the practice

In this episode I interview Dr. Rick Hanson, PhD and bestselling author of "Hardwiring Happiness" and "Buddhas Brain". We talk about how his own journey into meditation started, how to heal from trauma so we can show up in our relationships more authentically, the key elements to mindful relating, and the neuropsychological foundation for lasting love.

I’m interviewing a very special guest, an enlightened yogi called Shivarudra Balayogi (official site), henceforth referred to as Babaji. This is a podcast about the spiritual path of devotion and meditation, the traditional guru-disciple relationship, and the intense spiritual practice called Tapas, that culminates in complete and permanent Liberation.

In this episode we talk about pranayama, or yogic breathing. This is a huge topic, and we have barely scratched the surface here. This interview serves as an introduction.



I'm talking with Puneet Nanda (aka Gurunanda), who is an entrepreneur turned Yogi, and a proponent of Pranayama breathing techniques. GuruNanda was having a 16-hour workday life, filled with stress, which culminated into an emergency trip to the hospital with chest pains during what turned out to be a severe anxiety attack. This prompted him to rediscover the yoga he loved as a child growing up in India. He healed himself with Yoga and Ayurveda, sold his business, and is now committed to sharing with the world the power of breathing and meditation.

As brain sensing technologies advance, we will be able to have more and more insight on what is going on in our brain during meditation, and whether we are going in the right direction in our meditation.



In this episode I'm interviewing Ariel Garten. Ariel is a Psychotherapist, Neuroscientist, Entrepreneur, Public Speaker, and the CEO of Interaxon, the company behind Muse, which is a brain sensing headband that helps people meditate - a clinical grade EEG in your pocket.

We talk about:



- Ariel's personal journey into meditation;

- How Muse works, and what type of meditation is best suited for;

- How therapists and other health professionals are using Muse to help their clients/patients;

- Where brain technology is moving towards in the near future

- The challenges with brain modulation tech