From the Grave Podcast

Scott Russell
  • 4.8 (78)
  • Self-Improvement
  • Updated Biweekly

FTG is about spiritual grit for rebuilding your life. Through raw conversations, practical wisdom, hard-earned lessons, and a little inappropriate humor, Scott speaks honestly about breaking destructive patterns, taking responsibility for your life, and finding meaning in the experiences that nearly broke you. This isn’t polished self-help or empty motivation. It’s real talk for people navigating recovery, major life changes, spiritual awakening, anxiety, shame, failure, and the uncomfortable process of starting again. Your past may explain you, but it does not get to define what happens next.

  1. 2d ago

    154 Pain Is a Signal | Rob Banghart

    Rob Banghart survived addiction, incarceration, homelessness, and an attack that nearly killed him in the tunnels beneath Las Vegas. But this conversation goes way beyond the survival story. Rob and I talk about what recovery becomes after the chaos is over—when the work shifts from simply staying sober to actually learning how to live. We get into God, surrender, childhood trauma, the 12 Steps, learning to sit with discomfort, and why recovery can become another prison if we grip it too tightly. Rob also shares the work he does today with Shine A Light, returning to the same streets he once lived on and helping people move from crisis toward long-term stability. One of the biggest themes from this episode: What if fear and pain aren’t punishment? What if they’re signals? We talk about learning to stop running from discomfort, trusting the mystery, saying “okay” when life calls you forward, and allowing your recovery to become freedom instead of another identity you have to protect. Topics include: addiction, homelessness, trauma, recovery, spirituality, God, 12-Step recovery, surrender, service, mental health, childhood trauma, purpose, and personal transformation. Guest: Rob Banghart Episode: 154 Podcast: From the Grave Podcast https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC93nT0ACHVfQGW5-BaLNZMQ https://www.instagram.com/fromthegravepodcast/ https://fromthegraveco.com

    154 Pain Is a Signal | Rob Banghart

  2. Sep 8

    153 Put the Stones Down

    There’s a lot of judgment flying around right now. Everybody dissecting everybody. Celebrities, addiction, politics, religion, sexuality, recovery, whatever gives people something to point at. But how much of that judgment is actually helping anybody? This episode started as a rant about AI slop and scripted content and somehow turned into a full rip on judgment, shame, Christianity, recovery, authenticity, and what it actually means to live from love. I talk about why I think so many of us are walking around with a pocket full of stones, why shame makes recovery damn near impossible, why our judgment of other people usually says more about us than it does them, and why real faith should make us more loving — not more dangerous to each other.  Also: LSU, full-time FTG, nicotine withdrawals at Tiger Stadium, eating like a 14-year-old at a concession stand, upcoming guests, and whatever else fell out of my head. Put the stones down. Love people. Be real. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC93nT0ACHVfQGW5-BaLNZMQ https://www.instagram.com/fromthegravepodcast/ https://fromthegraveco.com

  3. Aug 31

    152 How to Actually Transform Your Life | Light Watkins

    Light Watkins joins me for a conversation about what transformation actually looks like when you stop trying to force it. We talk about the “tortoise approach” to changing your life, transformation without self-rejection, cultivating presence, finding purpose through curiosity, addiction and dependency, intentionally choosing difficult things, learning to hear your intuition, and trusting the next step before you know where the path is going. Light also shares the story of needing $14,000 to follow his calling to India, doing 100 burpees every day for a year, and why finding your purpose doesn't necessarily make life easier — sometimes it asks even more of you. And this one got personal for me. I'm preparing to leave the security of the workforce and go all in on podcasting, speaking and coaching. No guaranteed paycheck. No perfectly mapped-out plan. Just a growing sense that there's no longer another direction to go. Maybe that's transformation. Not having the whole path. Just finally being willing to take the next step. Light Watkins is a five-time bestselling author, speaker, meditation teacher, and host of The Light Watkins Show. For more than two decades, Light has been exploring what it actually means to live from the inside out — teaching meditation, mindfulness, presence, purpose, and a different approach to personal transformation. His work has taken him around the world, from studying and training in India to speaking for Fortune 500 companies and teaching thousands of people how to develop a more practical relationship with meditation and inner work. His TEDx talk challenging common misconceptions about mindfulness has reached roughly a million people. Light is the author of five books, including Bliss More, Travel Light, and The Year You Transform. In 2018, he gave up his home and most of his possessions and spent the next five years traveling the world with everything he owned in a single backpack — an experiment in minimalism, trust, presence, and following what he calls your unique path. At the center of Light’s work is a pretty simple idea: transformation doesn’t always come from forcing ourselves to become somebody new. Sometimes it comes from getting quiet enough to hear where life is already trying to take us. Light's New Book: The Year You Transform: The Quickest Path to Changing Your Life for the Better https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC93nT0ACHVfQGW5-BaLNZMQ https://www.instagram.com/fromthegravepodcast/ https://fromthegraveco.com

    152 How to Actually Transform Your Life | Light Watkins

  4. Aug 24

    151 AI Won’t Save You: The Problem With Using ChatGPT as Therapy

    People are increasingly turning to AI for therapy, mental health advice, and some of the most painful questions a human being can ask. And I get it. AI is available at 2AM. It’s patient. It doesn’t judge you. It can help you understand patterns, articulate what you’re feeling, and sometimes say the thing you’re too ashamed to tell another person. But understanding your pain is not the same thing as healing it. In this episode, I talk about where AI can genuinely help, where I think it becomes dangerous, and how something designed to make life easier can quietly become another way of avoiding the very friction that changes us. I share how I use AI myself, the moment a therapist completely dismantled the story I had built about who I was, why human intimacy matters, and why self-knowledge can only take us so far. I even bring ChatGPT into the episode to defend itself. AI isn’t the enemy. Avoidance is. Use the tool. Learn from it. Let it help you find the door. Then put the phone down and go live. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC93nT0ACHVfQGW5-BaLNZMQ https://www.instagram.com/fromthegravepodcast/ https://fromthegraveco.com

  5. Aug 17

    150 Let It Wreck you

    I just got back from speaking to the LSU football team—and this trip felt completely different. Usually, I walk into these rooms fired up, pacing, breathing fire and ready to deliver a message. This time, I felt empty. Insecure. Completely unprepared. An hour before the talk, breathwork brought me back to a moment from middle school that I had carried for decades without fully understanding. I thought I was going to LSU to speak to 300 men. God had me there to meet the scared kid inside myself. This episode is about the parts of us we spend our adult lives trying to outrun—and how we disguise that running as ambition, discipline, success or strength. It’s about dropping the spiritual performance, telling the truth about how hard it is to be human, and becoming radically loving toward the versions of ourselves we once decided were weak, broken or unacceptable. I also share one of the most powerful stories I’ve witnessed in nearly a decade working in treatment: a man who lost everything, surrendered in the middle of the ocean, and slowly rebuilt his life. Your trauma wasn’t your fault. But if you want the tape to stop playing, healing becomes your responsibility. Put your cards on the table. Let it hurt. Let it wreck you. Then let life show you what can be rebuilt. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC93nT0ACHVfQGW5-BaLNZMQ https://www.instagram.com/fromthegravepodcast/ https://fromthegraveco.com

  6. Jul 28

    149 Stop Trying to Heal | Svea

    What if healing isn’t about constantly trying to fix yourself? In this episode, I sit down with Svea—a somatic healing teacher living in Paraguay whose mission is to help humanity meet God again. We talk about trauma, shame, grief, nervous-system healing, Jesus, spiritual warfare, the intelligence of the body, and why we can’t think our way out of wounds that need to be felt. Svea shares how achieving conventional success left her depressed, anorexic, and disconnected from herself—and how heartbreak and grief dismantled her old identity and opened the door to God. We also get into why wounded people reject love, how “healing” can become another identity, the danger of quick fixes, and what it means to stop living helplessly and reclaim the power of choice. This conversation gets deep, strange, beautiful, and incredibly honest. Connect with Svea on Instagram: @svea_earthfreedom https://www.instagram.com/svea_earthfreedom/ Follow Scott Russell and From the Grave: Instagram: @scott_russell Website: https://www.ftgcoaching.com If this episode hits you, share it with someone who has spent long enough fighting themselves. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC93nT0ACHVfQGW5-BaLNZMQ https://www.instagram.com/fromthegravepodcast/ https://fromthegraveco.com

    149 Stop Trying to Heal | Svea

  7. Jul 20

    148 Improv with God

    Life doesn’t hand you a script. It gives you a reality—and asks what you’re going to do with it. In Episode 148, Scott riffs on the surprising spiritual lessons he’s learning in improv class. The foundation of improv is simple: accept the reality you’ve been given, contribute to it, and keep the scene moving. Life works the same way. We can waste years resisting what happened, blaming our past, waiting for our parents to finally understand us, or criticizing ourselves into becoming someone different. But reality has already won. The only question left is: How are you going to participate in it? Scott breaks down the difference between victim consciousness and creator consciousness, how childhood wounds shape our inner narration, and why shame is not the fuel we think it is. The versions of yourself you hate, suppress, and hide are often wounded parts still trying to get your attention. Healing doesn’t happen by abandoning those parts. It happens when you finally turn toward them with curiosity, compassion, and truth. Life is one long improv scene with God. Accept what is. Bring what you have. And contribute something meaningful to the scene. In this episode: Why resisting reality creates unnecessary sufferingVictim consciousness versus creator consciousnessHow childhood criticism becomes your internal voiceWhy shame and self-hatred are stopping forces—not fuelThe importance of reparenting yourselfWhat your unwanted emotions are trying to communicateShadow work, suppressed pain, and the Pennywise metaphorCo-creating a meaningful life with GodIf you’re interested in working one-on-one with Scott, email: fromthegravepodcast@gmail.com Subscribe, share the episode, and leave a review if something in this conversation hit home. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC93nT0ACHVfQGW5-BaLNZMQ https://www.instagram.com/fromthegravepodcast/ https://fromthegraveco.com

  8. May 4

    Breathwork, Trauma Release & the Hero's Journey | Eric LaCour on Nervous System Healing, Addiction Recovery & Spiritual Growth

    What if the breath is the bridge between your conscious and unconscious mind — and you've been using it wrong your whole life? In this episode, I sit down with Eric LaCour, breathwork facilitator, yoga teacher, and founder of Preservation Yoga Studio in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Eric has built his entire teaching philosophy around two things: breath for the body, story for the mind. What comes out of this conversation is one of the most honest, grounded discussions about breathwork, somatic healing, nervous system regulation, and what real spiritual growth actually looks like day to day. We talk about how trauma gets stored in the body — often without us ever knowing it's there — and how conscious breathwork can begin to release it. Eric walks through the science, the lived experience, and the unglamorous daily discipline it takes to actually change from the inside out. This one is for anyone who's been avoiding the hard work. The answer isn't sexy. But it works. WHAT WE COVER: - How breathwork heals the nervous system and releases stored trauma - The body's memory: why generational trauma lives in us without our permission - Miyamoto Musashi's Two-Fold Way — the warrior who must have both a   peaceful art and a killing art - The Hero's Journey, Threshold Guardians, and why resistance means   you're on the right path - Eric's kratom addiction at 38 — how it nearly broke him and what got   him through - Why sober is the highest state of consciousness - Joseph Campbell, Steven Pressfield, and the call you can't refuse - How to use breath awareness to stay anchored in the present moment - The chakra system made simple — and how to use it in daily meditation - Why "do what you love and money will follow" might actually be   holding you back ABOUT ERIC LACOUR: Eric Lafleur is the founder of Preservation Yoga Studio in Baton Rouge, LA. His teacher training blends yoga, breathwork, somatic healing, Jiu Jitsu, and deep study of the human story. He brings a rare combination of grit, spiritual depth, and zero tolerance for the fluffy stuff. https://www.instagram.com/preservationyoga/ https://www.instagram.com/breath_is_the_way/ BOOKS MENTIONED: Breath by James Nestor | The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle | The War of Art  by Steven Pressfield | Karma by Sadhguru | The Book of Five Rings by  Miyamoto Musashi | Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda |  Becoming Supernatural by Dr. Joe Dispenza If this episode hit, share it with someone who needs to hear it. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC93nT0ACHVfQGW5-BaLNZMQ https://www.instagram.com/fromthegravepodcast/ https://fromthegraveco.com

    Breathwork, Trauma Release & the Hero's Journey | Eric LaCour on Nervous System Healing, Addiction Recovery & Spiritual Growth
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4.8
out of 5
78 Ratings

About

FTG is about spiritual grit for rebuilding your life. Through raw conversations, practical wisdom, hard-earned lessons, and a little inappropriate humor, Scott speaks honestly about breaking destructive patterns, taking responsibility for your life, and finding meaning in the experiences that nearly broke you. This isn’t polished self-help or empty motivation. It’s real talk for people navigating recovery, major life changes, spiritual awakening, anxiety, shame, failure, and the uncomfortable process of starting again. Your past may explain you, but it does not get to define what happens next.

Information

  • Creator
    Scott Russell
  • Years Active
    2019 - 2026
  • Episodes
    158
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 From the Grave Podcast
  • Show Website
    From the Grave Podcast

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