Pay Attention

Holly McNeill
  • 5.0 (4)
  • SELF-IMPROVEMENT
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

Pay Attention is a podcast dedicated to a journey from the chaos of the mind to the clarity of the open heart. As a seasoned architect turned teacher and spiritual guide, Holly McNeill spent two decades while working full time and as a single mom exploring neuroscience, psychology, Buddhism, and spirituality all to uncover the transformative power of the present moment. Here you'll find practical tips and insights on how the mind works, why you get stuck, how to break free, how to create space for real change, and what lies beyond the chaos. All here to help you build a life of clarity, peace, and purpose.

  1. S2:E9 Gateway to the Inner Self: What Lucid Dreams Reveal About Consciousness

    3D AGO

    S2:E9 Gateway to the Inner Self: What Lucid Dreams Reveal About Consciousness

    What happens when awareness awakens inside a dream? In this episode of Pay Attention, Holly McNeill continues her exploration of consciousness — not just in the waking world, but in the landscapes we enter each night. She sits down with Robert Waggoner, one of the world's most respected lucid dreaming educators and former president of the International Association for the Study of Dreams, to explore what lucid dreams reveal about the deeper architecture of the mind. Lucid dreaming is more than flying or controlling dream scenes. It is the moment we recognize, within the dream itself, that we are aware. And from that awareness, something extraordinary happens: belief shapes experience instantly. Together, Holly and Robert explore: What lucid dreaming truly is — and why it has been scientifically validated How belief and expectation shape both dream reality and waking life The role of attention and emotional stability in sustaining lucidity The mysterious "inner awareness" that can respond from beyond the thinking mind How lucid dreaming can support healing, insight, and creative expansion What it means to practice "lucid living" beyond the dream state If much of what we call identity operates below conscious awareness, the dream state may offer a rare and direct encounter with the forces shaping our lives. As Holly often reminds her listeners: when we understand how the mind works, we begin to see where we have agency. Tonight, as you drift to sleep, you might ask yourself — what would happen if you knew you were dreaming?

    43 min
  2. S2:E8 Dear Universe: The Story We Inherit — and the One We Choose

    MAR 3

    S2:E8 Dear Universe: The Story We Inherit — and the One We Choose

    Following last week's open and expansive conversation, this episode turns gently toward something powerful: choice. Holly sits down with psychotherapist and poet Robby Cale for a reflective conversation that begins with his spoken-word piece, "Dear Universe," and unfolds into an exploration of the stories we inherit — from our upbringing, our environment, and the identities handed to us before we ever knew we had a say. Together, they explore perception and perspective, inherited belief systems, nervous system awareness, and the quiet but profound shift from living on autopilot to living with intention. Because while we may not choose the story we're given, we always have agency in how we continue it. The episode closes with a live poetic reflection — a reminder that becoming the light is always an option.

    36 min
  3. S2:E7 When The Soul Speaks, Listen: Proof You're Not Crazy with Cheyenne Moore & Ann Arnd-Caddigan

    FEB 24

    S2:E7 When The Soul Speaks, Listen: Proof You're Not Crazy with Cheyenne Moore & Ann Arnd-Caddigan

    Is it a mental health crisis, or is it a spiritual awakening? In this live episode of the Pay Attention Podcast, host Holly McNeill is joined by guest host Cheyenne Moore and Dr. Margaret Arnd-Caddigan to explore the intersection of spiritual awakening and mental health. We tackle the terrifying question many ask during a Kundalini awakening or deep spiritual journey: "Am I going crazy?" Cheyenne shares her first-hand account of a Kundalini energy unraveling, heart expansion, and the terrifying beauty of surrender. Dr. Margaret brings decades of psychology experience to explain how mystical experiences differ from psychosis and offers clinical discernment. Together, they examine where spiritual awakening and mental health intersect and how to navigate it wisely. If you have ever felt your world crack open and questioned your sanity, this conversation offers steady ground. You are not broken. You may be expanding. In this video, we discuss signs of spiritual awakening, the difference between mental health struggles and spiritual emergence, and how to find grounding when the soul speaks. #spiritualawakening #kundalini #mentalhealth #psychology #payattentionpodcast #healingjourney #consciousness

    38 min
  4. S2 E6 How Lucid Dreaming Heals Trauma & Anxiety with Clare Johnson

    FEB 18

    S2 E6 How Lucid Dreaming Heals Trauma & Anxiety with Clare Johnson

    In this episode of Pay Attention, Holly sits down with Clare Johnson, PhD, one of the world's leading voices in lucid dreaming, for a deep conversation about the dream world. Discover how conscious dreaming can be a powerful gateway to healing, insight, and awareness. Key Topics Discussed in This Video: Healing Through Dreams: How the dream world serves as a powerful space for emotional healing and self-discovery.  Overcoming Trauma: Dr. Clare shares how lucid dreaming helps resolve nightmares, grief, anxiety, and long-held emotional patterns. Conscious Engagement: Learning to work with the subconscious mind rather than trying to control it forcefully. The Science of Sleep: A deep dive into REM sleep, hypnagogic states, and why awareness persists even in deep rest. Fear & Intention: Understanding how dreams respond to our fears and how to set positive intentions. Personal Journey: Holly reflects on her own experiences with altered states of awareness and their role in personal growth. Bridge to Awareness: Viewing sleep not as an unconscious void, but as a bridge between science and lived experience. This conversation invites you to see your sleep as a living, intelligent landscape that guides you toward a deeper understanding of yourself.

    39 min
  5. S2:E5 The Invisible Made Visible - Awareness Felt Through Energy & Art

    FEB 10

    S2:E5 The Invisible Made Visible - Awareness Felt Through Energy & Art

    Last week, we explored what research is revealing about the mind–body connection—and how science is beginning to build a bridge toward contemplative practice and lived experience. This week, we step into the experience itself. In this episode, Holly is joined by Marc Noël, a Belgium-based artist, therapist, and creator of Quantum Paintings, whose work sits at the intersection of energy, consciousness, and art. Marc's paintings may be analyzed or interpreted—but ultimately, they are meant to be felt. Created through intentional presence and infused with chi, his work invites a direct, embodied experience of awareness that many describe as grounding, calming, and deeply familiar. Working intuitively with energy and intention, Marc draws from an early understanding of presence and awareness that has been familiar to him since childhood. Also returning to the conversation is Ann Van de Winckel, PhD, founder and Director of the Brain–Body–Mind Lab at the University of Minnesota. If you listened to last week's episode, you know that Ann is conducting research in NeuroArts and body awareness that draws directly from Marc Noël's quantum paintings—helping bridge lived experience with emerging scientific inquiry. Together, they explore how art can act as a doorway into felt experience—supporting regulation, restoring connection to the body, and offering access to states of clarity that are often difficult to reach through cognition alone. Through Marc's creative work and Ann's research, embodied experience and scientific inquiry meet, inviting the analytical mind to soften as awareness is seen, felt, and experienced directly. This conversation moves beyond explanation and into experience. It invites listeners to consider how awareness can be felt, how healing can emerge through presence, and how art may help make the invisible visible—within the body, the mind, and the human experience itself. Learn more about Marc at his websites: WEBSITES  https://mapeinturequantique-fushigina.com https://fushiginachoowa-marcnoel.com https://myquantumpaintings-marcnoel.com   Reach him at his email:   EMAIL mapeinturequantique.fushigina@gmail.com   Subscribe to his Youtube channel:   YOUTUBE  https://www.youtube.com/@mapeinturequantique.fushigina

    51 min
  6. S2:E4 The Mind-Body Connection | What Research Is Revealing with Dr. Ann Van De Winckel

    FEB 4

    S2:E4 The Mind-Body Connection | What Research Is Revealing with Dr. Ann Van De Winckel

    One clear goal of this podcast is to build the bridge between science, contemplative practice, and lived experience. We have real and significant pieces to take us from struggle to peace, and from chaos to clarity. We feel them in the body. We sense them in the mind. We practice them in daily life. And now, research is beginning to explain how and why they work. In this episode, Holly is joined by Ann Van de Winckel, PhD, Associate Professor in the Division of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Science at the University of Minnesota Medical School and Director of the Brain–Body–Mind Lab, whose work is supported by a fellowship from the Earl E. Bakken Center for Spirituality & Healing.   Ann's research explores how the brain and body communicate, how pain and stress can escalate when early signals are ignored, and how restoring awareness of the body can help reduce suffering—particularly for people living with chronic pain and neurological injury. Together, they explore how this research is being applied in real-world settings: from using mindful movement such as qigong to support regulation and sleep in hospital environments, to helping people with amputation reduce phantom limb pain by improving body awareness. They also discuss the emerging field of NeuroArts, including how Marc Noël's quantum paintings and immersive virtual experiences may support grounding, calm, and restored body awareness in students with anxiety and in people living with spinal cord injury. This conversation is about more than research alone. It's about connecting what we feel, what we practice, and what science is beginning to validate—so we can live with greater awareness, clarity, and agency. #PayAttention #MindBodyConnection #HealingAndScience #Awareness #IntegrativeHealth #ChronicPain #Qigong #Mindfulness #NeuroArts #LivedExperience #BakkenCenter

    42 min
  7. S2:E3 When The Mind Goes Quiet, The Body Remembers with Maira Holzmann

    JAN 26

    S2:E3 When The Mind Goes Quiet, The Body Remembers with Maira Holzmann

    In the last two episodes of Pay Attention, we explored why doing more isn't the answer—and why deeply ingrained habits can't be changed through intellectual insight or thinking alone. So what does create real change? In this episode, Holly McNeill is joined by somatic psychotherapist Maira Holzmann for a grounded conversation about what happens when awareness moves beyond thought and includes the body. Together, they explore how trauma lives in the nervous system, and how insight and clarity can be supported on the path to healing through body-based approaches. The conversation looks at how expanding awareness to include sensation, regulation, and the lived experience of the body—through practices such as somatic therapy and carefully supported psychedelic work—can help interrupt survival patterns and open the door to integration and change. Rather than positioning psychedelics as a solution, this episode places them in proper context: as one possible support for deepening awareness when used with intention, preparation, and integration. This episode is about remembering—not fixing. About embodiment, not effort. And about what becomes possible when awareness includes the whole system, not just the thinking mind.

    44 min
  8. S2:E2 You Can't Outthink Your Habitual Thoughts with Amy Kemp

    JAN 19

    S2:E2 You Can't Outthink Your Habitual Thoughts with Amy Kemp

    Coming out of last week's conversation with Dr. Patel on Less Is More and the power of doing less for our physical health, this episode of Pay Attention turns toward the mental and emotional habits that quietly shape our lives. Holly sits down with Amy Kemp, author of I See You, to explore why working harder eventually stops working—and how many of our most celebrated traits are actually survival mechanisms formed long before we were conscious of them. Together, they examine how thought habits are formed, why the brain resists change even when something no longer serves us, and how intuition gets buried under years of over-functioning and responsibility. This conversation bridges neuroscience, lived experience, and mindfulness to reveal how awareness—not effort—is what creates real agency. In this episode, you'll explore: Why you can't outwork your thought habits How survival patterns become damaging when we outgrow them The quiet loss (and recovery) of intuition Why high-achieving women often feel unseen despite outward success How paying attention creates the space for change If Less Is More invited you to reconsider your relationship with health, this episode invites you to look at what you may still be carrying—mentally, emotionally, and unconsciously—and how to begin letting go.

    34 min
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5
out of 5
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About

Pay Attention is a podcast dedicated to a journey from the chaos of the mind to the clarity of the open heart. As a seasoned architect turned teacher and spiritual guide, Holly McNeill spent two decades while working full time and as a single mom exploring neuroscience, psychology, Buddhism, and spirituality all to uncover the transformative power of the present moment. Here you'll find practical tips and insights on how the mind works, why you get stuck, how to break free, how to create space for real change, and what lies beyond the chaos. All here to help you build a life of clarity, peace, and purpose.

Information

  • Creator
    Holly McNeill
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    51
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2024
  • Show Website
    Pay Attention