Tyler has been a fan of David for a long time, and even has one of David's prints hanging in his office. David Hayward (the Naked Pastor) is a pastor turned artist painting, drawing, and thinking about what it takes to be free to be you. He has been creating art and working towards freedom with this community for over 10 years now.

Subscribe to Tyler's Substack: www.tylerhill.net/monday

Instagram: @thuhTyler

Website: www.tylerhill.net

Matthew Distefano came to this conversation through the Quoir Publishing family, with a bag of Star Wars tattoos and a mind that has spent years pressing through the hard questions that a lot of people are afraid to ask out loud. We talked about what happens when the theology you inherited stops adding up, and what it looks like to push all the way through cynicism and anger into something that actually feels like life.

Matthew grew up with hell, the rapture, and a God who didn't quite make sense to a kid watching his dad be a deadbeat. Those early questions never went away. They just got more developed. Eventually, through philosophers like Renee Girard and theologians like Richard Rohr, he found a language for what he had always sensed: that we create God in our image, and then imitate that image back into the world. When he stopped doing that, the whole universe opened up. Star Wars stopped needing to be a Christian allegory. Hiking stopped feeling like it was happening under the shadow of eternal consequences. Curiosity became the engine instead of fear.

We spent a good part of this conversation on something I find myself circling with people all the time: the difference between deconstruction as a destination and deconstruction as a season you move through. It is easy to trade fear for anger and think you have arrived somewhere. Matthew has not done that. He farms, he parents a teenage daughter deep in the Star Wars lore, he co-owns a publishing house, and he holds his spirituality loosely, like something simmering on the back burner rather than something to perform. That is a rare thing. This was a good conversation.

Subscribe to Tyler's Substack: tylerhill.net/monday

Instagram: @thuhTYLER

Website: tylerhill.net

Sam Jolman has been on Tyler's list for a long time. They share a city, a community of helpers, and a lot of the same clients who have quietly made their way to both of them. Tyler first heard Sam's name at one of the lowest points of his life, at the top of a therapist referral list he never got to use. What a gift, he said, that it worked out the way it did. Because now they get to be friends.

This conversation went a lot of places. They talked about what it means to be a person on a journey in an age when there are a thousand podcasts and reels telling you how to fix yourself faster. Sam has been doing this work for twenty years and his word for it is slow. Healing is slow work. The cold plunge feels good in the moment but it is the long relationship with the cold that actually changes you. That distinction matters, and it showed up everywhere in this conversation, in how we hold shame, in how we talk about masculinity, in how we approach the things we are most afraid to look at in ourselves.

Sam's book, The Sex Talk You Never Got, is about recovering the lover in every man. Not the mechanical version of sexuality that most people were handed, but the version that is about desire, wonder, passion, and the heart's deep need to be wanted. It is a brave and honest book from a brave and honest man. And this was, without question, one of the most alive conversations Tyler has had on this podcast. Sam has a move in his therapy office where he throws two fists in the air to celebrate his clients. By the end of this one, it felt mutual.

Subscribe to Tyler's Substack: tylerhill.net/monday Instagram: @thuhTYLER Website: tylerhill.net

WILD HEART MEDITATION CENTER

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📬 Join the Journey — Subscribe to My Substack
Every week I send reflections, practices, and blessings to help you return to your true self and live from your belovedness.
→ SUBSCRIBE HERE

🌐 Explore More Resources
Retreats, online courses, and free tools for embodied transformation and spiritual connection.
→ Visit my website: www.tylerhill.net

💬 Let's Connect on Instagram
For daily encouragement and behind-the-scenes of my life and work:
→ @thuhTyler

🎙️ About This Podcast
This space is for mystics, seekers, and those waking up to a deeper way of being. Here, we talk about belovedness, healing, spiritual formation, and the sacredness of ordinary life. Whether you're deconstructing, rebuilding, or simply longing for something more whole—you’re welcome here.

Thanks for listening—and remember:
You are not too much.
You are not too late.
You are deeply, deeply loved.

Jaxon Phoenix joins me from Maryland, buried under snow, and we get into something I think about a lot: the difference between deconstruction as an identity and deconstruction as a season you move through and out of. Jaxon grew up in a Black Christian household, an AME Zion church back home, then leaned into the smoke machines and rock bands of evangelical church later on. He loved the music, the community, the belonging. He also learned early not to ask questions. So he didn't, until college, when he started reading the text for himself instead of just complying with what he'd been handed.

What follows is a conversation about writing your way into your own faith rather than out of it. Jaxon talks about the guides who met him along the way, Rob Bell, Richard Rohr, the Bible Project, Alan Watts, and how none of them told him what to think so much as gave him permission to keep asking. We land for a while on the prodigal son, and the brother nobody wants to admit they are. We talk about what it looks like to talk to God like He's standing right next to you instead of on some far off line.

We also talk about his debut book, Only Us. Jaxon is a poet, content creator, and handpan musician, and this book is the start of an ongoing conversation he's having about faith, freedom, and inner healing. It's not a manifesto. It's a mirror. Written with real vulnerability, it uses allegory and personal reflection to help readers see past the literal and feel what's underneath it, without demanding anyone land on the same answers he has. If you've ever felt out of place in the tradition you grew up in but still hungry for something true, this one's for you.

Jaxon's becoming a father this spring, and you can hear it moving through him already, this sense that the more honest he gets, the more creative he becomes. We close on courage, the kind it takes to send a DM to a stranger because you have a hunch you might vibe, and what happens when you stop waiting for validation and just put the work out into the world.

Follow Jaxon
Instagram: @jaxonphoenix88
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@jaxonclips26
Podcast: Safe Space
Get his book “Only Us” HERE

Subscribe to Tyler's Substack: tylerhill.net/monday
Instagram: @thuhTYLER
Website: tylerhill.net

CHELSEA'S WEBSITE | PREORDER FAITHFULLY DISSIDENT DAUGHTERS

=====
📬 Join the Journey — Subscribe to My Substack
Every week I send reflections, practices, and blessings to help you return to your true self and live from your belovedness.
→ Subscribe Here

🌐 Explore More Resources
Retreats, online courses, and free tools for embodied transformation and spiritual connection.
→ Visit my website: www.tylerhill.net

💬 Let's Connect on Instagram
For daily encouragement and behind-the-scenes of my life and work:
→ @thuhTYLER

🎙️ About This Podcast
This space is for mystics, seekers, and those waking up to a deeper way of being. Here, we talk about belovedness, healing, spiritual formation, and the sacredness of ordinary life. Whether you're deconstructing, rebuilding, or simply longing for something more whole—you’re welcome here.

Thanks for listening—and remember:
You are not too much.
You are not too late.
You are deeply, deeply loved.

KEITH'S WEBSITE | ZAC'S WEBSITE | THEIR NEW BOOK

=====
📬 Join the Journey — Subscribe to My Substack
Every week I send reflections, practices, and blessings to help you return to your true self and live from your belovedness.
→

🌐 Explore More Resources
Retreats, online courses, and free tools for embodied transformation and spiritual connection.
→ Visit my website: www.tylerhill.net

💬 Let's Connect on Instagram
For daily encouragement and behind-the-scenes of my life and work:
→ @thuhtyler

🎙️ About This Podcast
This space is for mystics, seekers, and those waking up to a deeper way of being. Here, we talk about belovedness, healing, spiritual formation, and the sacredness of ordinary life. Whether you're deconstructing, rebuilding, or simply longing for something more whole—you’re welcome here.

Thanks for listening—and remember:
You are not too much.
You are not too late.
You are deeply, deeply loved.

KATE'S WEBSITE | THE REMEMEBERED TABLE

=====
📬 Join the Journey — Subscribe to My Substack
Every week I send reflections, practices, and blessings to help you return to your true self and live from your belovedness.
→

🌐 Explore More Resources
Retreats, online courses, and free tools for embodied transformation and spiritual connection.
→ Visit my website: www.tylerhill.net

💬 Let's Connect on Instagram
For daily encouragement and behind-the-scenes of my life and work:
→ @thuhTYLER

🎙️ About This Podcast
This space is for mystics, seekers, and those waking up to a deeper way of being. Here, we talk about belovedness, healing, spiritual formation, and the sacredness of ordinary life. Whether you're deconstructing, rebuilding, or simply longing for something more whole—you’re welcome here.

Thanks for listening—and remember:
You are not too much.
You are not too late.
You are deeply, deeply loved.