Podcast Episodes

In this special bonus episode, Thomas leads us on a guided meditation to help ground us into our bodies and tune in with potentiality. He explores the mystical understanding of inspiration and how spiritual practice can help us to be more open and sense the potential of the future. This meditation is intended to help us integrate the learnings from the previous three episodes in our four-part series on Technology, Innovation, and Consciousness.

Thomas examines the relationship between technological innovation, creativity, and trauma healing. He explores how trauma hinders our ability to evolve, update, and grow, and how advances in technology have outpaced the ethical maturity of our collective consciousness.

He emphasizes the need for our societies to integrate collective and ancestral trauma so that we can stop repeating cycles of harm and learn to use our technology wisely.

Thomas stresses that this is possible and that creativity and art can help us to “speak the unspeakable” and harvest essential learning from the frozen wounds of the past.

This episode is part three of a four-part series on Technology, Innovation, and Consciousness.

Thomas is joined by contemplative social scientist, consultant, and educator in leadership, social justice, and mindfulness, Dr. Angel Acosta. They discuss the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology and its implications for our collective evolution as a species. In developing this technology, humans have unintentionally imbued it with our own biases and traumas. Thomas and Angel reflect on what’s needed for our individual and collective nervous systems to adapt to so much overwhelming information, and how we can incorporate wisdom from mystical and spiritual traditions to guide us through this new frontier.

Can we examine how AI is mirroring humanity in order to achieve new levels of spiritual, emotional, and psychosocial evolution? Can we learn to use these imperfect tools to propel us forward in our interconnected evolution instead of perpetuating separation and polarization?

This episode is part two of a four-part series on Technology, Innovation, and Consciousness.

Thomas is joined by Co-Founder of the Center for Humane Technology, Randima Fernando. They discuss how technology hijacks our dopamine response and reinforces trauma symptoms. Randima explains the downstream consequences of the “attention economy,” including social media’s addictiveness and its negative impacts on our psychology.

He and Thomas explore how better technology education, along with mindfulness practices, can offset these negative effects and help us bring our dopamine systems back into balance. Randima emphasizes how important it is, for both children and adults, to understand our own moral motivations so that we can become less susceptible to manipulation from technology and media.

Thomas is joined by the author of the New York Times bestseller, On Our Best Behavior, and the host of the podcast “Pulling the Thread”, Elise Loehnen. They discuss what she calls the ‘cultural shadow’ of women – the ideas and behaviors that women have been socialized and conditioned to reject – and how women can embrace their complicated totality instead of repressing their authentic selves.

Elise’s recent book examines women’s social conditioning through the lens of the “seven deadly sins”. She and Thomas explore the trap of “goodness” for women and how the standards imposed on them lead to harmful repression, inequality, and resentment. Elise stresses that people of all genders are harmed by unfair standards that are propagated through social power structures, and posits that we can free ourselves from these constricting gender roles by reframing our thinking and integrating our shadows instead of projecting them onto others.

Thomas is joined by internationally renowned researcher, educator, and author Dr. Joy DeGruy. They discuss how fear and ignorance impact our ability to recognize our fundamental oneness, and what’s needed for American society to come together to heal our collective wounds. Dr. DeGruy has spent a lengthy career in what she calls “heart work” – bringing people together to share their stories and generate a level of intimacy, empathy, and understanding that can only be gained through first-hand experience.

She and Thomas explore how trauma has been normalized for marginalized groups and the need for those with privilege to examine their biases, particularly anti-black racism, and use their power to advocate for what’s right. They discuss our collective tendency to try to avoid feelings and upsetting information, and how we must do the opposite and lean into these difficult learnings and conversations in order to stop repeating the harms that sow division.