B-RAD with Brad Toews Brad Toews

My wife and I have been working with the dōTERRA essential oil company for the last seven years.

When first introduced to essential oils, it was another tool in our toolkit for a healthy, holistic lifestyle.

Essential oils changed our health, became our livelihood, and have become a means for us to positively affect the lives of other people. I am incredibly proud of the life-changing impact of dōTERRA, the quality of dōTERRA's products and their mission to source only the most pure, potent, and effective oils on earth.

It's a privilege to partner with them.

Working with dōTERRA has taught me that source matters.

My spiritual journey has taught me the same lesson.

When it comes to essential oils there is a cycle, a relational loop, in how we source the oils, in what those oils do for us, and how they affect our bodily well-being.

And when it comes to Spirit there is also cycle in how we respond to Spirit, and how Spirit influences our being in the world.

It is the dynamic interplay between spirit and matter that provides the flow of energy in my own life, and I believe, this is the spiritual movement of the whole universe.


Join me in this episode as I reflect on dōTERRA's mission to source pure, potent, and effective oils; and consider the Divine lessons we can learn from our very human practice of harvesting and using the earth's plants in sustaining and life-giving ways.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
dōTERRA's Source to You. Chocosoltraders
Related B-RAD podcast. I am Human

Music by Be Still the Earth.
More at Brad Toews.

I love language. I’m a reader, a writer, a person who loves ideas.
I recently watched Tolkien and loved this line from the movie.
Language isn’t just the naming of things, it’s the lifeblood of a culture, a people.
You can catch that clip for yourself here.
Language is definitely my own lifeblood. (That, and music.)
Language helps us explain the world. Know the world. Name the world. And we’re often trying to improve the language we use to describe the truth, to explain exactly what happened.
We want language to be specific, precise. Literal.
I’m grateful for this specificity of language. Our ability to name, sort, and label our experiences and interactions with the world.
Without this, our lives would be a soupy mess.
But literalism has limits where it bumps up against another tool of language, something even more powerful at explaining reality – metaphor.
Metaphor engages our imagination, it opens possibilities, it invokes play.
Carl Jung said,
The great joy of play is that for a time we are utterly spontaneous. In a state of pure being, no thought is unthinkable, no image is unimaginable. Every good idea and all creative works are the offspring of imagination. (emphasis mine)
Metaphor is the language of our imagination. And it speaks the truth in ways not possible with literal language.
Join me in this episode as we explore the limits of literalism, consider the power of imagination and metaphor, and play with these ideas in the context of the Christian tradition. More at Brad Toews.

Like many people who grew up in a religious context I was taught the purpose of our faith, the meaning of life in fact, was to know God.
Not only was this the goal but it was actually achievable by getting saved, reading the bible, having a personal relationship with Jesus, going to church, praying, participating in Christian community and basically following the path laid out by church traditions and authorities.
Pursuing this mission - to know God - would set you on the right path.
In the Christian classic "Knowing God", influential evangelical scholar and teacher, J. I. Packer, says it this way.
"Once you become aware that the main business that you are here for is to know God most of life's problems will fall into place of their own accord."
Wow. That's a confident claim overall, but maybe the most bold and perhaps presumptuous part of that idea is the assumption we can actually know God.
Can we know God? Really? Is that even possible?
I don't know.
But what I do know is that our claims to knowledge (how we know, what we know, the extent of what we know) changes over time. At least it does if we're growing and evolving.
What happens when what you experience doesn't fit into the box of what you know? Maybe it's an experience of God, or Ultimate Reality, or Love or some other deep truth.
What if that experience takes you outside of your current frame of knowing? What if life, usually great love or great suffering, rocks you to the core and what you thought you knew, about God, others, the world, or yourself, you no longer know.
What happens in the unknowing?
Join me in this episode as we talk about the well-trodden path of order, disorder and reorder (and its many synonyms), read the words of an old monk who calls us "to never stop loving no matter what comes your way", and challenge ourselves to experience God as The Great Mystery to endlessly know and un-know, discover and re-discover.
Shownotes at Brad Toews.

I recently had the opportunity to take a trip back to where I grew up in central Alberta.
My immediate family members no longer live there and so the last time I was back was thirteen years ago for my grandmother’s funeral.
Like most forty-somethings I’ve changed a lot since childhood. I’ve changed a lot in the last thirteen years.
Sometimes we look back on our past selves and our past lives with a certain arrogance. I can’t believe I used to be so immature! Or we look back with regret. I can’t believe I made that choice!
I’ve experienced my share of both but on this trip what I felt most of all was a deep sense of gratitude for the place and the people I’ve come from.
Grateful for my past lives.
People can hear the term “past lives” and infer all kinds of meanings, including reincarnation, something I’m open to but don’t have any personal experience of in my own life.
Regardless of what you think about reincarnation (in this episode I play with that word a little, exploring other possible meanings), we all have past lives, a collection of moments, strung together that make us who we are.
Join me for this episode where we deal with, accept, and include our past in our present; honour and acknowledge where we've come from; and bring all our past lives with us as we move forward in our becoming.
More at Brad Toews. 
 

There is a price to pay for speaking the truth. There is a bigger price to pay for living a lie. - Cornell West
Sometimes I'm not sure what I was thinking about when I started this podcast. Podcasts about hosted by talkers, right?
I'm a quiet, more reserved person by nature. I love to read and write, but generally speaking, I don't have a lot to say.
But I'm learning how to communicate better, both on this podcast and in my personal and professional life. I'm learning I have Something to Say, and how to say it.
Join me in this episode where I talk about a bodily experience in aligning my heart with my voice, and how we can lean into good music to find the courage to both speak our truth and know the truth of our identity.
Shownotes and good music videos at Brad Toews. 

As the father to three kids, September is marked with back-to-school energy.
Something about the shift in season, summer turning to fall and kids back in school, inspires an air of possibility for new habits and making change in your life.
In this back-to-school episode I’m diving into 3 metaphors that can help us approach and instigate changes in our lives.
1. Take it to the curb Maybe you don’t usually see your household waste as a metaphor for life changes. It could be a bit of a stretch but I think garbage, recycling, and compost can teach us something about how to deal with the mental clutter, unhealthy attitudes, unfinished projects, stagnating habits, and even broken dreams of our lives.
2. What are you bringing in the front door? In our homes there is an impact for every item that comes through the door, from furniture to dog food. It’s the same for our individual selves, both physically and spiritually. Nutrition, breathing, and rest; emotional and spiritual influences in our lives, all of it affects how we experience life.
Making changes in what we “bring into our lives” in these areas can help kickstart better habits and practices.
3. Pay full tuition Go all-in on your personal development. Don’t cheapen the process or results by looking for the discount.
I’m not necessarily talking about financial cost. I’m talking about your commitment to growth. Don’t look for shortcuts or cheap opportunities. To get full value, you have to pay full value.
Join me in this episode as we find our fall groove and get back-to-school in our personal growth and development. Related B-RAD Episode: Dying Before you Die
Full shownotes at Brad Toews.