How to overcome creative blocks: Experienced journalist Linda can't finish her own book proposal (ft. Melanie Bates)

How to overcome creative blocks: Experienced journalist Linda can't finish her own book proposal (ft. Melanie Bates)

We tell ourselves so many stories about why we can't finish the thing we most want to create. We call it procrastination, we call it perfectionism, we call it simply not having enough hours in the day, and sometimes we call it brain fog, as if our own mind had quietly turned against us for no reason at all. But creative blocks are rarely about the craft itself, especially when the person stuck is someone who has done this work for decades without trouble. More often there is something unconscious sitting between us and the page, an old voice or an old role we absorbed long before we ever sat down to write, and it only reveals itself when we stop trying to push past it and instead turn to look at it directly. In this episode, we watch that process unfold in real time with 'Linda', a professional writer of nearly thirty years who finds herself unable to finish the one book that is actually hers. Shagun is joined by her former coach Melanie Bates, known for years in the publishing world as the book shaman, to unpack everything from Jung's idea of the autonomous complex to the martyr and rebel archetypes hiding underneath a stalled book proposal. * 00:00 Introduction * 01:49 Melanie's journey to becoming the 'book shaman' * 09:57 Coaching session with Linda: Writer's block, brain fog, and fear of being canceled * 35:18 Coaching session breakdown: Debunking standard writing advice and embracing the autonomous nature of creativity ABOUT THE HOST: Shagun Chopra is an individuation coach, speaker, and educator. Her unique approach combines Jungian depth psychology with ancient Vedic wisdom to create the ultimate personal transformation. She supports professionals, entrepreneurs, and creatives in bringing their wildest dreams to life and leapfrogging their career, business, and relationships. To learn more, visit shagunchopra.com [http://shagunchopra.com] ABOUT THE GUEST: As the 'Book Shaman', Melanie Bates helped authors write their books, build their businesses, and land on the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists. What she eventually understood was that the book was never the point. The writer always was, and what the writer needed wasn't craft. It was excavation. Today she works as a Master-Certified Jungian Depth Coach, Certified Equus Coach, and Certified Spiritual Teacher. She guides women in the second half of life who are done making the trade the culture offers and are ready to welcome home their heretics—those exiled, disavowed, and still-wild bits within—so they can finally create: the writing, the business, the life. She can be found at https://melaniebates.com/ [https://melaniebates.com/] and her writings at https://melaniembates.substack.com/ [https://melaniembates.substack.com/] JOIN THE SHOW: To ask a question or get coached on the show, visit shagunchopra.com/ask - all coaching clients are assigned a pseudonym and given the option to not share their video DISCLAIMER:  Conversations on Partners in Sublime are for educational purposes only, and do not constitute medical or psychological advice or treatment. Please consult a licensed professional for any mental health concerns.

When words fail you: Known for her eloquence, Remedy goes silent with those closest to her (ft. Maria Bluff)

We spend years learning how to express ourselves, and then find, sometimes to our own horror, that all of that facility with language completely deserts us in conversations that matter most. Most of us never look closely enough at the unconscious forces underneath to understand why. This episode centers on a coaching session with Remedy who is sought out for her eloquence in her public life but goes quiet with the people closest to her in her personal life. Shagun is joined by fellow coach Maria Bluff, who shares her own story of cultural displacement, shedding a high-achieving persona, and finding her way to a life that actually fits. Together, they reflect on Remedy's curious juxtaposition, its many layers, and what the path forward might look like. 00:00 Introduction 01:48 Maria's individuation journey: lawyer persona, need for control, outgrowing discipleship and more 21:45 Coaching session with Remedy: Choking up in close relationships 37:09 Coaching session breakdown: Avoidance, fear of intimacy, balancing the thinking function ABOUT THE HOST: Shagun Chopra is an individuation coach, speaker, and educator. Her unique approach combines Jungian depth psychology with ancient Vedic wisdom to create the ultimate personal transformation. She supports professionals, entrepreneurs, and creatives in bringing their wildest dreams to life and leapfrogging their career, business, and relationships. To learn more, visit shagunchopra.com [http://shagunchopra.com] ABOUT THE GUEST: Maria Bluff is a Jungian purpose embodiment coach guiding heart-centered high performers to success through the embodiment of their mission. She can be found at https://www.instagram.com/maria_m_bluff [https://www.instagram.com/maria_m_bluff] JOIN THE SHOW: To ask a question or get coached on the show, visit shagunchopra.com/ask - all coaching clients are assigned a pseudonym and given the option to not share their video DISCLAIMER:   Conversations on Partners in Sublime are for educational purposes only, and do not constitute medical or psychological advice or treatment. Please consult a licensed professional for any mental health concerns.

Why we help beyond our means? Jan's resentment grows as she supports her sister through a divorce (ft. Amy Lukas)

Most of us have been there: you step in to help someone you love, and somewhere along the way the helping starts to feel less like a choice and more like something you simply cannot stop doing. There's a fine line between genuine care and the kind of compulsive caretaking that quietly drains you, and most of us have never really looked at what lives on the other side of that line. In this episode, Shagun sits with Jan, who finds herself in the thick of exactly this pattern, supporting a family member through a major life transition and noticing something uncomfortable beginning to surface in the process. What follows is a live coaching session that goes somewhere unexpected, and afterward, Shagun is joined by fellow Jungian-trained coach Amy Lukas to reflect on what the session reveals, including some territory that feels very close to home for both of them. * 00:00 Introduction * 01:27 How Amy's creative career ended in burnout and illness * 10:50 What Amy's inner work looks like now * 16:02 What is the Savior Complex * 18:41 Coaching Session with Jan: Savior Complex in Action * 38:26 Debriefing Jan's session and Shagun and Amy's personal savior stories About the host: Shagun Chopra is an individuation coach, speaker, and educator. Her unique approach combines Jungian depth psychology with ancient Vedic wisdom to create the ultimate personal transformation. She supports professionals, entrepreneurs, and creatives in bringing their wildest dreams to life and leapfrogging their career, business, and relationships. To learn more, visit shagunchopra.com [http://shagunchopra.com] About the guest: Amy Lukas is a Depth Coach, founder of Fallow Renewal, and former design entrepreneur. After a successful 30-year career in the creative industry, she now supports accomplished professionals, creative leaders, and entrepreneurs—many of them women in midlife—who appear successful on the outside yet feel called toward something deeper on the inside. Amy guides clients in reconnecting with authenticity, creativity, and purpose during seasons of transition. Her work explores the transformative power of self-awareness, intentional renewal, and what she calls “The Art of Becoming.” She can be found at www.fallowrenewal.com [http://www.fallowrenewal.com] Join the show: To ask a question or get coached on the show, visit shagunchopra.com/ask - all coaching clients are assigned a pseudonym and given the option to not share their video Disclaimer:  Conversations on Partners in Sublime are for educational purposes only, and do not constitute medical or psychological advice or treatment. Please consult a licensed professional for any mental health concerns.

Is spiritual bypass necessary? Ava is unexpectedly calm after a blindsiding breakup

We've all had that friend who just went through something devastating and seems almost too okay, or been that person ourselves, turning to faith or practice or the certainty that everything happens for a reason, and finding, at least for a while, that it actually works. In this episode, Shagun explores spiritual bypass, a term coined by transpersonal psychologist John Welwood for the tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep unresolved emotional pain, and makes the case that it may be less a failure of the spiritual path than a necessary resting point along it. To illustrate what spiritual bypass actually feels like from the inside, she shares a live coaching session with Ava, who arrives less than a week after a blindsiding breakup with parents involved and marriage on the horizon, and is, somehow, calm. The session raises a question that Shagun then takes on directly from her own experience: what is the difference between genuine peace and the kind of peace that comes from not yet having let yourself feel what's actually there, and what happens to everything we leave unfelt? * 00:00 Introduction * 01:52 What is Spiritual Bypass * 06:04 Why spiritual bypass isn't as bad as you think * 12:06 Navigating Emotions: The Impact of Breakups * 12:25 Coaching session with Ava: Navigating post-breakup grief * 29:09 Session debrief: Understanding Ava's grief journey and spiritual bypass potential About the host: Shagun Chopra is an individuation coach, speaker, and educator. Her unique approach combines Jungian depth psychology with ancient Vedic wisdom to create the ultimate personal transformation. She supports professionals, entrepreneurs, and creatives in bringing their wildest dreams to life and leapfrogging their career, business, and relationships. To learn more, visit shagunchopra.com [http://shagunchopra.com] Join the show: To ask a question or get coached on the show, visit shagunchopra.com/ask - all coaching clients are assigned a pseudonym and given the option to not share their video Disclaimer:  Conversations on Partners in Sublime are for educational purposes only, and do not constitute medical or psychological advice or treatment. Please consult a licensed professional for any mental health concerns.

When niceness becomes a trap: Selena's inability to say no almost ruins a long-awaited dream

We are all taught to be nice. Through years of conditioning, being praised for sharing, being corrected for asking for too much, being rewarded for going along, we learn that niceness is the price of belonging. But what happens when being nice means overriding your own body's signal? What happens when the most spiritually evolved-sounding justification is actually just your ego managing away something it finds threatening? In this episode, I coach 'Selena' through a situation that most of us would brush off as minor - answering a call she didn't want to answer - but underneath that small incident is something worth excavating: a shadow self who already knows exactly what to say and how to say it, and has simply been waiting to be trusted. We move through the Jungian concepts of persona and shadow, explore how rationalization and reaction formation keep us loyal to a pattern even when that pattern is working against us, and use active imagination to help Selena meet the version of herself she has been keeping out of sight. We also touch on the Vedantic concept of the kavach, sacred armor, and raise the fundamental question: if the soul is genuinely indestructible, what exactly are we protecting, and from what? * 00:00 Introduction * 02:54 How we get conditioned to be nice * 04:34 How the ego keeps us stuck in people pleasing mode * 06:06 How to stop being compulsively nice with shadow work * 07:29 Coaching session with Selena: Being nice and regretting it * 28:59 Session breakdown: New age spirituality, ego defenses, alter ego imagination About the host: Shagun Chopra is an individuation coach, speaker, and educator. Her unique approach combines Jungian depth psychology with ancient Vedic wisdom to create the ultimate personal transformation. She supports professionals, entrepreneurs, and creatives in bringing their wildest dreams to life and leapfrogging their career, business, and relationships. To learn more, visit shagunchopra.com [http://shagunchopra.com] Join the show: To ask a question or get coached on the show, visit shagunchopra.com/ask - all coaching clients are assigned a pseudonym and given the option to not share their video Disclaimer:  Conversations on Partners in Sublime are for educational purposes only, and do not constitute medical or psychological advice or treatment. Please consult a licensed professional for any mental health concerns.