What Stands in the Way Is the Way

The Relational Home & Interdependent Belonging

This is the sixth and final episode of Season One of Coming to Our Senses. We talk about what it means to be in and belong in relationship and in community, not through erasing ourselves, but by attuning, resonating, and staying true. Relationship doesn’t ask us to clone each other. It asks us to listen, to notice, and to show up as ourselves in community, and for others to do the same. In this episode, I reflect on: Inner belonging as emotional and relational home The difference between resonance and sameness How consistency and presence build real connection Why embodied relationships are spacious enough for difference Reciprocity in relationship isn’t about erasure or servitude. It’s about resonance and reciprocity with kin flesh and non-flesh alike. If this season has resonated with you, I’d love to hear from you!  And feel free to share it with someone who might need it. I'm looking forward to offering you a season two soon, and until then please find me on Substack at comingtooursenses.substack.com, with written and audio posts and rituals, or on Instagram at @taunelyons. May you be safe, well, and flourishing in love & awe.

Episode 5: Courting the Closed Heart

I have this theory about therapy, that it's really just about becoming safe enough to feel everything that we've learned to cut ourselves off from feeling.  That so much of our life is experienced from a strangled, constricted place that we think it's "normal" to half-live until we get a full, deep exhale and can look at someone eye-to-eye who is (hopefully) just as present and open as we are in that moment, and in that one precious moment of clear seeing one another things adjust:  we recognize we no longer to need to conceal parts of ourselves. We become more willing to be unraveled in the process of life instead of needing to be put together.  That's what intimacy is about, to me. It's being willing to feel everything and be in the curiosness of oneself and the other.  Of course we also have to do taxes and drive our cars, also worthwhile endeavors, but those experiences of full-hearted emotionality are connection with the spirit world, me thinks. And that's why courting our exquisitely beautiful, broken hearts is so worth it to me: to meet the ultimate form of truth (love! god! the universe! the mystery) in ourselves and each other through those moment of divinely vulnerable meeting.

Episode 4: Where am I not free? A midweek mindful morsel (6 min)

So often our hypervigilant nervous systems scan and ask: Do I belong here? This midweek mindful morsel offers a reframe, where we ask inwardly: What have we not been in relationship with inside? What have we not been accepting that's getting louder? And how, with this shift in perception, we can offer ourselves as a place of belonging to others by being more in relationship to our whole, fallible selves. Isn't it a relief to be invited into imperfection of humanness? Here's an invitation to strip away the unreal to show what is real (a line taken from Jennifer Welwood's poem I read at the end.) In an example of me being imperfect as hell, I can notice listening now, some time after this was recorded, that my voice in this audio ritual began speedily and then slowed on down to a more calming, centered pace. I made a note for next season to meditate more before I record. Sure, yes, I want to do that. And then I remember when I recorded this, what was going on, and it makes sense. I thought about re-recording it, asking my good friend to edit it, but instead I'm leaving it as-is. If you listen to tone as intently as I do, you'll notice the different frequencies and pitch and how they smooth out at the end: and isn't that life? We connect to what's true in us, and we shift, collide, and co-create, managing one another's differences with as much grace as we can muster. So, striving aside for something more that what's honest: here we are. In it with you.

Episode 3: The Power of Heartbreak

Heartbreak is one of the most powerful initiations we go through as human beings. It strips us down, shatters our illusions, and demands that we feel, deeply and all the way, in a world that often teaches us to intellectualize and move on. In this episode, I explore heartbreak as a teacher: how it cracks us open, confronts us with our limits of intimacy, and reveals where we’ve hidden from ourselves and others. I share a personal story of grief and scent, reflect on the intimacy we long for and fear, and invite you into a guided self-connection practice to soften into your own heart. We’ll look at how heartbreak, whether loud and shattering or quiet and piercing, can return us to what is real. And we’ll end with a poem/blessing from John O’Donohue’s For a New Beginning. May our heartbreaks teach us not just what we’ve lost, but how to return to ourselves, to connection, and to life.

What Stands in the Way Is the Way

This week on Coming to Our Senses, we explore what happens when we stop telling ourselves what to do (or should-ing on ourselves, as it sometimes is called,) creating stories about our state, and start locating ourselves with curious presence to see what is most attuned to what is needed right now. Sometimes we're fast, and sometimes we're slow: navigating the ebb and flow brings freedom. Through personal stories, somatic reflections, and a landing in ritual, we explore: – Why resistance is a teacher – Dreamlife – Slowing down without shutting down; speeding up without longterm losing our connection to Self – The pain of shame and the wisdom beneath it when separated from shame-as-me – Sensitivity as a strength, not a flaw – How ritual (like daily writing or fire-building) brings us home to see what is real – A reading of Rumi’s The Guest House If you've been feeling overwhelmed or disconnected, this episode is a hand on your shoulder, a place to expand, and a reminder: You don't have to do it all at once. Just 1% more curiosity about what else is true.