The Living Conversation

A podcast on philosophy
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The Living Conversation is a podcast on philosophy, clarity, and the art of living well. Hosted by Adam Dietz and Anthony Wright, it blends Eastern and Western wisdom, from Confucius and Socrates to the questions we face today. We explore how to live with sincerity, presence, and joy; not in theory, but in daily life. This show airs biweekly on KWMR, alternating with Dr. Wright’s program Attunement, and appears here in podcast form with added reflections and ways to stay connected. For those drawn to a more thoughtful way of living, we invite you to join the conversation. thewaybetween.substack.com ---

  1. Spiritual Acupuncture: Five Elements, Emotional Blockages & the Hara (Banya Lim)

    4 GG FA

    Spiritual Acupuncture: Five Elements, Emotional Blockages & the Hara (Banya Lim)

    In this episode of The Living Conversation, we continue our conversation with Banya Lim—a spiritual acupuncturist and energy coach—about how emotions become energetic blockages in the body, and how healing starts with awareness rather than self-judgment. Banya explains how repeated thoughts can “feed” sensations in the body past the famous 90-second window, why blockages aren’t enemies (they’re trying to help), and her four pitfalls that keep patterns stuck: identifying, judging, suppressing, and trying to get rid of the thought/emotion. We also explore a practical grounding technique for anxiety and public speaking: bring attention to the hara / dantian (chihai)—and even place a hand there, press, or tap to gather energy and settle the system. Finally, Banya connects the Five Elements to house directions and emotional clearing—like cleansing the east side for wood/liver/anger—as a simple way to “move energy” in daily life. Guest: Banya Lim (Spiritual Acupuncture + Energy Coaching) Website: banyalim.com Offer: Free clarity session for listeners (via her website) Chapters / timestamps00:00 Energy coaching + “no accidents” 01:05 Emotions → blockages → the body “speaks louder” 03:00 Awareness first, then build a new relationship with the blockage 05:25 The “four things” that keep thoughts stuck 06:10 The 90-second emotion principle (and why humans keep re-feeding it) 10:25 “Blockages have a zip code” in the body 12:20 Clearing space + beginning-of-year energy 14:20 Five Elements + directions in the home (east/wood/anger etc.) 16:40 Forgiveness + rephrasing the inner story 21:05 Public speaking anxiety: ground in the hara/dantian (chihai) 24:00 Final takeaway: body tells truth + body helps dreams Topics we coverEnergy coaching + acupuncture meridiansSomatic therapy + stored “energetic packages”Thought loops and emotional reinforcementForgiveness as an energetic practiceFive Elements + emotions + directions in the homeHara/dantian grounding for anxiety and performance spiritual acupuncture, energy coaching, traditional Chinese medicine, five elements, meridians, emotional blockages, somatic therapy, forgiveness practice, dantian, hara, chihai, grounding technique, anxiety relief, public speaking nerves Hashtags: #acupuncture #TCM #FiveElements #somatics #energyhealing #mindbody #qigong #meditation #healingjourney Note: This episode is for educational purposes and is not medical advice.

    25 min
  2. Spiritual Acupuncture, the 5 Elements, and Healing the Mind-Body-Soul (Banya Lim)

    4 FEB

    Spiritual Acupuncture, the 5 Elements, and Healing the Mind-Body-Soul (Banya Lim)

    In this episode of The Living Conversation, we’re joined by Banya Lim—a spiritual acupuncturist and energy coach based in Sedona—who bridges Traditional Chinese Medicine with a more holistic view of healing: body, mind, and soul. We explore why symptoms often return when the deeper pattern underneath them hasn’t changed, and how the Five Element theory maps emotions to organs (like fear and the kidneys, anger and the liver/gallbladder, sadness and the lungs). Banya shares how intuition can be felt in the body (not just thought in the head), how food/color/taste cravings can be energetic signals, and why “going within” matters when the outside world feels loud. We also talk about desire—not as something to crush, but something to understand—by tracing the feeling behind what we think we want, and learning how inner alignment becomes outer change. Guest: Banya Lim (Spiritual Acupuncture + Energy Coaching) Website: banyalim.com Free clarity session: available via her website Topics include: spiritual acupuncture, energy coaching, Traditional Chinese Medicine, yin-yang, five elements, meridians, emotions + organs, intuition vs desire, mindfulness without forcing meditation, inner peace.

    28 min
  3. Dean Graves on the Law of One: Free Will, Consciousness & Service to Others

    27 GEN

    Dean Graves on the Law of One: Free Will, Consciousness & Service to Others

    In this episode of The Living Conversation, we’re joined by Dean Graves, who shares a framework drawn from his ongoing contact with a non-incarnate teacher described as a social memory complex. We explore the Law of One (“all is one”), the idea that consciousness is “creativeness intoxicated with free will,” and how the spiritual path is a gradual sobering back into unity. We also move into practical terrain: emotional baggage as “unfinished lessons,” why meditation is the inversion of awareness, and how to take the meditative mind “back into the village” — real life, relationships, and responsibility. Guest: Dean Graves Website: deangraves.org (DeanGraves.org) In this conversationWhat a social memory complex is, and how “individuality” changes as consciousness evolvesThe Law of One and why “all of consciousness is conceptual” “Free will intoxication” (the whiskey metaphor) and the enlightenment path as sobering up A provocative take on emotion: one spectrum (like/dislike), applied thought-by-thought Awakening as turning awareness inward and seeing how the “false self” perpetuates unhappiness Service to others vs service to self as a critical evolutionary choice Why meditation works, why it’s hard, and how motivation shifts from “running from the stick” to “chasing the apple” Bringing practice back into the village: maintaining inner freedom while living ordinary life Closing takeaway: “Be the change you want to see in the world.” 00:00 Intro + Dean’s ongoing contact with his teacher 01:05 Social memory complex + archetypes / structure of the universe 05:20 “Intoxicated with free will” + Creator / subject-object framing 10:03 Emotional baggage + what “emotion” is 12:07 Awakening = inverting awareness inward 15:46 Service-to-others vs service-to-self (polarization) 20:46 Meditation + “bite of the apple” + healing 23:11 Bringing meditation “back into the village” 25:39 One thing to practice: Gandhi / be the change Law of One, social memory complex, free will, consciousness, meditation, mindfulness, awakening,...

    27 min
  4. America in Therapy: Grief, Rage & Staying Sane After Minneapolis (with Phyllis Levitt)

    16 GEN

    America in Therapy: Grief, Rage & Staying Sane After Minneapolis (with Phyllis Levitt)

    We recorded this rapid-response conversation on January 15, 2026, in the immediate aftermath of the police shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis and new threats to invoke the Insurrection Act. Psychotherapist and author Phyllis Levitt (America in Therapy: A New Approach to Hope and Healing for a Nation in Crisis) joins hosts Anthony Wright and Adam Dietz on The Living Conversation to ask a hard question: What if our political crisis is, at its core, a mental health crisis? Drawing on decades of work with trauma, family systems, and abuse dynamics, Phyllis maps what we’re seeing in the U.S. onto patterns we’d recognize instantly inside a violent household: power without accountability, normalized cruelty, and victims who are retraumatized just by witnessing events—even when they’re not the direct target. We talk about: How to answer a child who asks, “Where’s mommy?” after a politically charged killing Why Phyllis sees current U.S. politics not as “left vs right,” but as an escalating mental health emergency phyllisAudio transcriptThe psychology of aligning with the “bully on the playground” and how unhealed victims can become abusers Secondary trauma: why you don’t have to be directly attacked to be deeply affected by constant violence and threats Cult dynamics, double binds, and what it means to “deprogram” people without dehumanizing them Anger vs hatred: how to turn righteous anger into constructive action instead of burnout or vengeance The difference between belonging and safe belonging—and how wounded people can be pulled into movements that feed on fear and division Adam and Anthony bring in their background in Chinese philosophy and Confucian family ethics—including the image of “outlaws of the marsh” who withdraw when government becomes unsafe, and the I Ching’s reminder that history moves in cycles of rise and decay. They also connect Phyllis’s work with: Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., and the refusal to answer hatred with hatred The idea of seeing the “goblin” of projection instead of the human being in front of us—and what it takes to reverse that The claim that spirituality is the one thing that can’t be co-opted, and why tending your own inner life is a form of resistance Throughout, Phyllis returns to a simple, difficult standard: holding compassion and accountability together—recognizing the deep wounds behind abusive behavior and insisting on limits, consequences, and a collective commitment to healing. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, enraged, or just numb watching the news, this conversation is meant as a kind of group session: an attempt to name what’s happening, protect your sanity, and point toward ways of acting that don’t simply repeat the cycle.

    54 min
  5. Awakening, Incarnation & Free Will | Dean Graves on the Evolution of Consciousness

    12 GEN

    Awakening, Incarnation & Free Will | Dean Graves on the Evolution of Consciousness

    In this episode of The Living Conversation, hosts Anthony Wright and Adam Dietz sit down with Dean Graves—author, podcaster, keynote speaker, mental health counselor, and meditation/mindfulness guide—to explore his map of awakening and the evolution of consciousness. Dean begins with what he calls an awakening experience: that moment when we realize that conventional success isn’t making us happier. From there he unfolds a cosmology in which our enduring self is a metaphysical consciousness pattern that lives through thousands of incarnations, evolving across different “densities” of consciousness. According to Dean, humans currently inhabit third density, learning responsibility and awareness in a particularly intense range of consciousness. He describes how chakras function as “assessment points of consciousness” at both the metaphysical and incarnate levels, and why stages like the terrible twos and the turmoil of adolescence are so chaotic: new levels of awareness open before we have the information or maturity to meet them. Dean also reframes free will as the perception of separation—the originating “distortion” that allows creation to unfold and beings to experience themselves as autonomous. Over many lives, he says, the evolutionary path is a gradual surrender of that separation into a sense of unity, ultimately moving toward what he calls a “social memory complex,” where many once-separate beings share one consciousness. Along the way, Adam connects these ideas with Confucianism and modern science—heaven, star-stuff, and our destiny to bring harmony into our particular web of relationships. They compare Dean’s view of incarnation to John Lennon’s “instant karma” and the hero’s journey, and Anthony draws out implications for trauma, illness, and the way the mind shapes the body. Dean also touches on: The idea that our metaphysical self has already lived thousands of incarnations with specific learning purposesFirst and second “densities” as the consciousness of inorganic matter, fire, plants, and animals, laying the foundation for human experienceThe archetypical mind as a blueprint of how we process thought and build a sense of selfWhy different children in the same family can be so radically different, based on their metaphysical developmentThe feeling that humanity is in “Groundhog Day” and his claim that this is actually our fourth planetary cycle Throughout, Dean returns to awakening not as a one-off mystical event, but as taking responsibility for our own evolution—stepping out of automatic repetition and actively participating in the path of awareness, love, wisdom, unity, and stillness. Connect with Dean Graves: Website: ddeangraves.org — books, podcast, and contact info

    26 min
  6. Enneagram, Chakras & Grounding | Don’t Apologize for Where You Are (with Fran Bailey)

    2 GEN

    Enneagram, Chakras & Grounding | Don’t Apologize for Where You Are (with Fran Bailey)

    Dancer-turned-healer Fran Bailey joins hosts Anthony Wright and Adam Dietz to explore how the Enneagram, the chakra system, and energetic grounding can help us stop apologizing for where we are in life and come back into our bodies. She talks about working with head, heart, and body types, guiding clients to ground their energy, and why “encouragement without apology” is at the core of real healing. In this follow-up conversation, Fran Bailey joins Anthony Wright and Adam Dietz on The Living Conversation to go deeper into her energetic work with individuals and groups. Drawing on the Enneagram, the chakra system, and her own intuitive seeing, Fran shares how she helps people move out of self-judgment and back into grounded presence. We start with the Enneagram’s roots in Gurdjieff’s movement work and the idea of head, heart, and body types arranged in a circle. Fran explains how she uses this map in her healing practice—especially with “head types” whose energy and attention can get stuck in the sixth chakra, looping through anxiety and overthinking. From there, she describes guiding people to move energy beyond the edge of the aura, then down through the chakra system to the first chakra to ground into the earth and come back into their bodies. In groups, she’ll invite everyone to “watch the energy” around one person so they can begin to see and feel for themselves, dissolving some of the “woo-woo factor” and recognizing that working with energy is another way of working with the emotional and mental patterns we all live inside. A big theme of this segment is permission and non-judgment. Fran talks about telling clients, “Don’t apologize for where you are. I’m not judging you.” That simple stance creates a breath of space where people can begin to imagine actually loving themselves, instead of clinging to external expectations of who they “should” be. In this episode, we explore: Gurdjieff’s movement work and the Enneagram as head/heart/body typesHow Fran uses the Enneagram and chakras together in her energy healingGuiding “head types” out of mental loops and back into embodied groundingGroup work, collective energy, and teaching people to see and feel energy for themselvesThe importance of “encouragement without apology” and why self-judgment is a root of disconnectionGrounding as a living relationship with a changing Earth, and Fran’s evolving sense of Mother Gaia’s energyFlow states, forgetting ourselves, and being at one with something larger than the isolated egoHow Fran measures healing: clients becoming more upright, unapologetic, and simply okay with themselves Along the way, Adam connects Fran’s work with Daoist emptying of the mind and the idea that forgetting ourselves allows a clearer, higher view of our own thoughts and energies, while Anthony reflects on validation, holding space, and inviting students and clients into their own highest vitality. Connect with Fran Bailey: span...

    28 min
  7. From Dance to Energy Healing: The SHEVA Method with Fran Bailey

    17/12/2025

    From Dance to Energy Healing: The SHEVA Method with Fran Bailey

    In this episode of The Living Conversation, hosts Anthony Wright and Adam Dietz sit down with Fran Bailey, a lifelong dancer who became an energy healer, to explore how movement, intuition, and subtle awareness can become pathways to healing. Fran shares how dance was her first language: a way to “speak through the body” without words, growing up in a musical and metaphysical Christian Science home with ballet classes in the barn. From there, she trained in dance at Ohio University, then gradually realized she could sense and work with energy in others, a realization that eventually led her to study with healers like Rosalyn, John Friedlander, and Gloria Hemsher, and to twelve years at the Alliance Institute for Integrative Medicine. In this episode, we talk about: How dance and movement opened Fran’s awareness that “everything is energy”Working at the Alliance Institute as an energy healer alongside MDs and acupuncturistsSeeing and feeling energy in clients: cords, resistance, and patterns in the fieldUsing the Enneagram to understand “head types,” “body types,” and how people disconnect from their own felt senseHow stored memories and fear patterns show up not just in the mind, but in the energy field—and how to gently work with themThe importance of permission in healing, and why clients have to do their own inner work for changes to stickA striking story of a therapist with a herniated disc whose pain and diagnosis unexpectedly shifted after an energy sessionNavigating the “woo-woo factor” with physicians and psychologists, and staying humble about where people are on their journey Fran also introduces The SHEVA Method, developed after receiving the word “SHEVA” in meditation as an acronym for Seeking Harmony in Energy, Voice, and Action: and she shares how this method has continued to refine over years of teaching and client work. Connect with Fran Bailey: Website: franbaileyhealer.com (free meditations, her book, and more resources)

    28 min
  8. AI, Smartphones, and the Post-COVID Self: SSU Philosophy Club

    09/12/2025

    AI, Smartphones, and the Post-COVID Self: SSU Philosophy Club

    In this episode of The Living Conversation, hosts Anthony Wright and Adam Dietz sit down with Colette, Andrew, and Peter from the Sonoma State University Philosophy Club for a grounded, student-first conversation about the technologies shaping modern life. We start with Frederick Brown’s 1950s sci-fi micro-story “Answer” — where a galaxy-wide computer is asked, “Is there a God?” and replies, “Now there is.” From there, the conversation opens into real questions facing students today. We explore: AI as efficiency tool vs cultural forceThe ethics of AI in defense and autonomous weaponryStudent frustration with AI’s impact on writing and learningWhen professors encourage ChatGPT over human tutoringWhether AI mirrors human consciousness or represents a different kind of “mind”Smartphones, adolescence, and the problem of unprepared attentionHow COVID reshaped social habits and comfort with in-person lifeWhy small groups and real dialogue still matter for forming identity and community This is part of our ongoing collaboration with the SSU Philosophy Club, bringing lived philosophy into public conversation; not just theory, but the everyday reality of staying human in a high-tech age.

    28 min
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Descrizione

The Living Conversation is a podcast on philosophy, clarity, and the art of living well. Hosted by Adam Dietz and Anthony Wright, it blends Eastern and Western wisdom, from Confucius and Socrates to the questions we face today. We explore how to live with sincerity, presence, and joy; not in theory, but in daily life. This show airs biweekly on KWMR, alternating with Dr. Wright’s program Attunement, and appears here in podcast form with added reflections and ways to stay connected. For those drawn to a more thoughtful way of living, we invite you to join the conversation. thewaybetween.substack.com ---

Informazioni

  • Creatore
    A podcast on philosophy
  • Anni di attività
    2025 - 2026
  • Puntate
    34
  • Classificazione
    Contenuti adatti a tutti
  • Copyright
    © The Way Between
  • Sito web del podcast
    The Living Conversation
  • Fornitore