Open Heart with Lu Leslan

Demons in Ourselves

EPISODE 1 — DEMONS IN OURSELVES SHOW NOTES We all carry something dark. Something inherited. Something we didn't choose. This episode asks the hardest questions: * Where do our demons come from — our genes or our experience? * Why do our closest relationships bring out our sharpest edges? * Is there honor when survival is at stake? * What does a collective demon look like across 8 billion humans? * Can we kill the demon — or do we need it to survive? THE EPISODE IN ONE LINE: The demon isn't our enemy. It is the part of us that hasn't been listened to yet. IN THIS EPISODE: * The inheritance of darkness — genes, memory, and the faces we carry * Relationships as mirrors — uncomfortable to be comfortable * There is no honor in hunger * 120 million displaced people — the collective demon of humanity * Emptiness, suffering, impermanence — seeds for future episodes NEXT EPISODE: State of Mind — Transient yet powerful. No clues for where it is heading or where it will land. SHARE YOUR STORY: lu@leslancreativestudio.com [lu@leslancreativestudio.com] CONNECT WITH OPEN HEART PODCAST: * 🌐 Website: leslancreativestudio.com * 🎧 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/open-heart-with-lu-leslan/id1861169448 [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/open-heart-with-lu-leslan/id1861169448] * 🎵 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2duSwoSJVHFG8wn7SsC1F9 [https://open.spotify.com/show/2duSwoSJVHFG8wn7SsC1F9] * ▶️ YouTube: https://youtu.be/C47yEyI19CM [https://youtu.be/C47yEyI19CM] Open Heart with Lu Leslan is for anyone who aspires to understand themselves and the world more deeply. Through honest personal stories, philosophical insights, and practical wisdom, each episode invites you to live with more clarity, courage, and compassion. Subscribe and share with someone ready to open their heart. RESOURCES MENTIONED: Lu's first documentary: Take a Bow: The Ingrid Clarfield Story (2011)

Season 3 Trailer

Season 3 of Open Heart arrives June 11th. Hosted by pianist and philosopher Lu Leslan, this season moves inward — through demons, borders, forgiveness, paradox, and the words we repeat without ever questioning them. Not a self-help guide. Not a lecture. A journey through the hardest questions of being human — with company. SHOW NOTES Drifting shadow ghost Laying head on my pillow Humming lullaby SEASON 3 — WHAT TO EXPECT: * A ten-episode hero's journey — moving inward through three acts and a finale * Honest questions about who we are, how we became this way, and what we do next * The demons we inherited — from bloodlines, cultures, languages, and histories * The words handed to us before we were old enough to refuse them * The borders we draw — geographic, linguistic, emotional * A philosophy for living. Not borrowed. Not inherited. Earned. THE QUESTION RUNNING THROUGH IT ALL: What does it mean to be a better human? SEASON 3 PREMIERE: Open Heart Season 3 begins June 11, 2026. Episode 1 — Demons in Ourselves. Please join me. I'm Lu Leslan. SHARE YOUR STORY: lu@leslancreativestudio.com [lu@leslancreativestudio.com] CONNECT WITH OPEN HEART PODCAST: * 🌐 Website: leslancreativestudio.com * 🎧 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/open-heart-with-lu-leslan/id1861169448 [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/open-heart-with-lu-leslan/id1861169448] * 🎵 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2duSwoSJVHFG8wn7SsC1F9 [https://open.spotify.com/show/2duSwoSJVHFG8wn7SsC1F9] * ▶️ YouTube: https://youtu.be/C47yEyI19CM [https://youtu.be/C47yEyI19CM] Open Heart with Lu Leslan is for anyone who aspires to understand themselves and the world more deeply. Through honest personal stories, philosophical insights, and practical wisdom, each episode invites you to live with more clarity, courage, and compassion. Subscribe and share with someone ready to open their heart. RESOURCES MENTIONED: Lu's first documentary: Take a Bow: The Ingrid Clarfield Story (2011)

Break Free

What truth remains when you dare to let go of everything that was never truly yours? In this Season 2 finale, Lu explores what it means to break free—not from life or people, but from the accumulated weight of traditions, rules, conventions, and noise inherited through the generations. She shares a deeply personal story about choosing solitude over convention, the Stoic wisdom of releasing what we cannot control, and a meditation on being the wave rather than riding it. This is Open Heart at its most honest—an invitation to ask what is truly yours and have the courage to live by that answer. SHOW NOTES: IN THIS EPISODE: * Breaking free from traditions, rules, conventions and noise inherited through generations * The burden of belonging and the echo chambers that define us * Personal story: choosing solitude as salvation * The Stoics on suffering and releasing what was never ours to hold * Navigating life's conditions by seeing the big picture * We are simply passengers sharing the same journey, sky, stars and breath * The wave passage: a meditation on peaceful surrender to life's natural cycle QUOTE: "Peace doesn't lie. And solitude—real, chosen solitude—is my salvation." SEASON 3 ANNOUNCEMENT: Open Heart Season 3 begins June 11, 2026. A brand new season exploring our world from a different perspective. Stay tuned. SHARE YOUR STORY: lu@leslancreativestudio.com [lu@leslancreativestudio.com] Connect with Open Heart Podcast: * Website: leslancreativestudio.com * Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/open-heart-with-lu-leslan/id1861169448 [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/open-heart-with-lu-leslan/id1861169448] * Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2duSwoSJVHFG8wn7SsC1F9 [https://open.spotify.com/show/2duSwoSJVHFG8wn7SsC1F9] * YouTube: https://youtu.be/C47yEyI19CM [https://youtu.be/C47yEyI19CM] Open Heart with Lu Leslan is for anyone who aspires to understand themselves and the world more deeply. Through honest personal stories, philosophical insights, and practical wisdom, each episode invites you to live with more clarity, courage, and compassion. Subscribe and share with someone ready to open their heart.  RESOURCES MENTIONED: Lu's first documentary: Take a Bow: The Ingrid Clarfield Story (2011)

Metamorphosis

What if transformation isn't something you choose? In this episode, Lu explores metamorphosis as a magical, unstoppable and risky process happening in all of us—visible and invisible, in darkness and in light. She shares the butterfly's secret (complete dissolution before emergence), a deeply personal story about bringing a premature infant into the world, and why our tears are the seeds of transformation. Three profound questions anchor the episode: Does anyone know another person completely? Does it matter what my children think of me as a human being? Can humans trust each other enough to make something greater than themselves? SHOW NOTES: IN THIS EPISODE: * Metamorphosis defined: meta meaning change, morphe meaning form * The butterfly's secret: complete dissolution before emergence * The real risk: a fetus and womb—neither knows what the other will become * Personal story: bringing a premature infant into the world * Tears as seeds of transformation—our yearning for more humanity * Three questions: knowing others, children's perceptions, collective trust * The transformation process needs no approval, no permission—only trust * The practice: noticing dissolution, sitting in not-knowing QUOTE: "The caterpillar doesn't cry. But we do." SHARE YOUR STORY: lu@leslancreativestudio.com [lu@leslancreativestudio.com] NEXT EPISODE: Break Free – The Season 2 finale. Connect with Open Heart Podcast: * Website: leslancreativestudio.com * Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/open-heart-with-lu-leslan/id1861169448 [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/open-heart-with-lu-leslan/id1861169448] * Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2duSwoSJVHFG8wn7SsC1F9 [https://open.spotify.com/show/2duSwoSJVHFG8wn7SsC1F9] * YouTube: https://youtu.be/C47yEyI19CM [https://youtu.be/C47yEyI19CM] Thank you for joining this journey of openness and self-discovery. If this episode resonated, please consider subscribing and sharing with someone who might also benefit from my personal stories and insights. RESOURCES MENTIONED: Lu's first documentary: Take a Bow: The Ingrid Clarfield Story (2011)

Intention

What if intention isn't about achieving—it's about being? In this episode, Lu explores the difference between intention and goals, intention and expectation, and how living with intention requires courage to let things fall apart. She shares personal examples from daily life—preparing a meal with what she already has, bowing after hot yoga in gratitude—to demonstrate how mindful frugality leads to gratitude, centeredness, and appreciation. This is about choosing direction, trusting the process, and savoring every experience as if it might be the last. SHOW NOTES: IN THIS EPISODE: * Intention vs. goal: compass not map * Intention vs. expectation: freedom vs. control * The courage to risk: being ready for things to fall apart * The meal: using what you have, savoring what's here * The frugal mind is a grateful mind, a centered mind, an appreciated mind * The hot yoga bow: gratitude for what the body allows * The practice: three morning questions (Who do I want to BE? What can I CONTRIBUTE? What will I LET GO?) QUOTE: "Intention makes the ordinary extraordinary." SHARE YOUR STORY: lu@leslancreativestudio.com [lu@leslancreativestudio.com] NEXT EPISODE: Metamorphosis – Complete structural transformation, not just change. Connect with Open Heart Podcast: * Website: leslancreativestudio.com * Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/open-heart-with-lu-leslan/id1861169448 [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/open-heart-with-lu-leslan/id1861169448] * Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2duSwoSJVHFG8wn7SsC1F9 [https://open.spotify.com/show/2duSwoSJVHFG8wn7SsC1F9] * YouTube: https://youtu.be/C47yEyI19CM [https://youtu.be/C47yEyI19CM] Thank you for joining this journey of openness and self-discovery. If this episode resonated, please consider subscribing and sharing with someone who might also benefit from my personal stories and insights. RESOURCES MENTIONED: Lu's first documentary: Take a Bow: The Ingrid Clarfield Story (2011)