In this special podcast episode, CJ turns on the record button during one of his real counseling sessions with breathwork and Somatic Experiencing specialist Jonathan Schechter, offering listeners an intimate look into embodied healing in real time. Together, they explore how we’re often taught to view life—and healing—through a strictly material lens, while our medical system is far less equipped to address emotional states, stress, and the nervous system. Jonathan encourages listeners to become their own practitioners by cultivating curiosity and awareness, likening it to discovering new colors beyond a limited palette—and even noticing the space between the colors, where real power lives.

CJ shares a simple but revealing moment from daily life: while folding laundry, he noticed he wasn’t breathing, unconsciously waiting until the task was finished to take a breath. Inspired by Jack Kornfield’s After the Ecstasy, the Laundry, the conversation turns toward bringing meditative awareness into ordinary chores—and celebrating the awareness itself. As Jonathan reminds us, without awareness there can be no change.

The discussion deepens as CJ talks openly about chronic pain, rushing habits, and resisting sadness following the loss of a close friend and mentor. Jonathan explains how the nervous system adapts to its environment and why somatic healing takes time. He guides CJ through a gentle practice of finding areas of ease in the body, then slowly returning to the emotional “epicenter” without becoming flooded—a process known as pendulation, developed by Peter Levine, founder of Somatic Experiencing. Like building strength at the gym, healing happens gradually, by moving between discomfort and safety.

Jonathan also introduces Levine’s SIBAM model, which breaks experience into five layers—Sensation, Image, Behavior, Affect, and Meaning—allowing overwhelming experiences like pain to be gently separated and processed in manageable pieces. They recommend Levine’s book In an Unspoken Voice as a key resource and discuss how pendulation and SIBAM can become practical tools during pain or flare-ups.

Later in the episode, CJ shares a new healing power statement—“I open my fist to healing; my body and mind harmonize”—and reflects on releasing old coping strategies that once served him but are no longer needed. Jonathan reframes this not as failure, but as safety: now the body is safe enough to heal. CJ even shares a creative way to reinforce intention by turning power statements into daily-use passwords.

The episode closes with Jonathan recommending meditation teacher and author Shinzen Young, whose work focuses on working skillfully with physical pain and discomfort—offering listeners yet another doorway into mindful, embodied healing.

For more information on Jonathan Schecter visit: https://bluemagicalchemy.com/

Want to learn more about CJ Miller? Check out his Spiritual Artist Retreats, 1:1 Personal Coaching, and Speaking Engagements at www.spiritualartisttoday.com. His retreats are designed to help you reconnect with your Creative Intelligence and express your true artistic voice. You can also find his upcoming schedule there, and his book, The Spiritual Artist, is available on Amazon.

In this end-of-year episode, CJ reflects on the highlights and growth points that shaped his 2025. He speaks openly about “hitting the wall” when chronic pain entered his life, and how choosing to share his struggle created unexpected openings. By practicing presence instead of isolation, CJ found himself in deeper relationship with others.

He describes trying countless approaches to find relief—medications, exercise, physical therapy, breathwork and more. While nothing offered a quick fix, the experience “cracked him wide open,” and deepened his empathy. And it reminded him that living in a physical body brings challenges that aren’t always the result of our thoughts, despite what some New Thought teachings suggest.

Some seasons of life require patience and a long, committed effort. They invite us to stay present, even when the journey feels uncertain.

CJ recommends his interview with Jonathan Schechter on breathwork along with two books that supported him this year: Mark Nepo’s The Book of Awakening and Amoda Maa’s Embodied Enlightenment. Both writers speak beautifully about meeting life as it is and discovering presence even in discomfort.

Sharing this journey with his students has been one of the most meaningful parts of his year. As CJ says, we are here to walk each other home. Not to fix one another, but to witness each other with tenderness. To show up with presence. To remind each other that we don’t have to navigate the hard moments alone.

As we move into the holiday season, CJ invites you to practice presence with the people in your life. Hold a sense of love in your heart. Allow yourself to slow down, listen, and walk beside those you care about. We are Spirit expressed in physical form, and our presence is often the greatest gift we can offer.

He closes with an exciting announcement: beginning January 4, he will launch an online Daily Doodle Contest. Each day he will read a parable from his new book Spiritual Parable as a Daily Practice. Listeners are invited to submit drawings inspired by each story, and selected pieces will be included in a published coloring book next year.

Want to learn more about CJ Miller? Check out his Spiritual Artist Retreats, 1:1 Personal Coaching, and Speaking Engagements at www.spiritualartisttoday.com. His retreats are designed to help you reconnect with your Creative Intelligence and express your true artistic voice. You can also find his upcoming schedule there, and his book, The Spiritual Artist, is available on Amazon.

Dallas-based painter Matt Kaplinsky captures the spirit of place through a warm, folksy impressionism that blends nature, memory, and imagination. A self-taught artist inspired by Matisse, Van Gogh, and Bonnard, Matt paints with curiosity and flow—allowing each brushstroke to reveal where Creative Intelligence wants to go next.

In this conversation, Matt and CJ explore how the path of least resistance guides both art and life. Matt shares how his work continually “veers off,” and instead of fighting it, he listens to the subtle energies leading him downstream. From vivid cowboy scenes to delicate garden still lifes, each painting becomes a dialogue between effort and surrender.

Together, they discuss how art acts as a lens—not transparent like glasses, but a spiritual way of seeing. Through that lens, we glimpse a shared universe, where making and viewing art allows us to perceive more than the surface of things.

Matt reminds us: the best paintings happen when we stop forcing the outcome and simply flow with what is.

“If you’re alive and you can take in art, for a moment your brain is looking through the lens of the artist and glancing into a different sense of our shared reality.”

Learn more about Matt at www.mattkaplinsky.com and find him on Instagram @mattkaplinsky.

Want to learn more about CJ Miller? Check out his Spiritual Artist Retreats, 1:1 Personal Coaching, and Speaking Engagements at www.spiritualartisttoday.com. His retreats are designed to help you reconnect with your Creative Intelligence and express your true artistic voice. You can also find his upcoming schedule there, and his book, The Spiritual Artist, is available on Amazon.