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A life can look perfect on paper and still feel hollow in your chest. My guest Shün tells the story of hitting every goal early, standing on the “top of the mountain,” and realizing he didn’t know who he was or what actually made him happy. When COVID stripped away the image, the parties, and the external validation, it forced a ruthless reset and gave him a single north star: absolute surrender to truth.

We talk about what it really means to let everything burn, including the identities, possessions, attachments, and relationships that once defined you. Shün shares the intensity of ego dissolution, the terror of having no ground to stand on, and why he chose three years of solitude in a mountain cabin as a period of renunciation and spiritual practice. From there, we explore meditation, the devotional path of bhakti yoga, and how his relationship with God became experiential rather than theoretical, with Eastern teachings and Shiva becoming an important part of his spiritual path.

But this conversation isn’t only about letting go. It’s also about what happens when you come back.

Shün shares how self-acceptance and self-love became the foundation that allowed him to open more fully to other people, to God, and ultimately to life itself. We talk about the difference between having profound spiritual experiences and actually embodying what you’ve learned while living in the world. For Shün, that meant eventually leaving his solitude and landing in the middle of Harlem, where New York City became a new kind of spiritual practice: enjoying beauty, pleasure, creativity, pizza, people, and all the wildness of being human without making any of it responsible for his happiness.

And perhaps that’s where the art of letting go ultimately brings us: not away from life, but more deeply into it.

We close with joy, play, creativity, and dance. After years of finding transcendence through stillness, Shün now finds that same presence through movement and Five Rhythms, where meditation and dance become two different doorways into the same experience of being completely here.

In this episode, we explore surrender, ego dissolution, solitude, self-love, devotion, spiritual awakening, embodiment, creativity, conscious dance, and what it means to loosen our grip on who we thought we were so that something more authentic can emerge.

Subscribe for more, share this with a friend who’s standing at the edge of a big change, and leave a review so more listeners can find The Ode to Joy Podcast.

RESOURCES:

Follow Shün on Instagram: @slayer.shun

Explore Five Rhythms conscious dance: 5Rhythms

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Recording from Kauai during a hurricane watch set the tone for a conversation that keeps coming back to one truth: we’re never fully in control, and that can be a relief. I’m joined by my longtime friend Jai Chambers, an intuitive healer and musician who created The Undoing, a practice that weaves kundalini activation, sound, and deep mind-body awareness to help people regulate their nervous systems and release what they’ve been gripping for years. We start with the big question: what are we actually undoing when we say we want to heal, grow, or transform?

From there, we go straight into the messy, honest center of motherhood. Both of us are pregnant with baby girls, and we talk about identity shifts, grief in the first trimester, and the uncomfortable reality that your capacity changes before your life does. We name the constant stream of unsolicited advice, the boundary work of protecting your peace, and the pressure to keep producing and performing even while you’re literally creating life.

We also get real about body image, disordered eating history, and the way “snapback culture” trains women to treat pregnancy and postpartum like a competition. We talk about trusting the body’s wisdom, choosing the slow path, and letting go of the fantasy that you can “get back” to who you were. And we don’t skip the hard social pieces either: friendships falling away, the loneliness that can hit even in a partnership, and why postpartum support needs to look like food, presence, and specific help, not vague offers or another onesie.

If you’re navigating pregnancy, postpartum, healing, or any season of big change, come listen for language, tools, and permission to surrender without giving up. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs it, and leave a review so more people can find these conversations.

RESOURCES

Jai Chambers | The Undoing

Jai Chambers is an intuitive healer, musician, and facilitator of transformational experiences. She is the creator of The Undoing, a body of work weaving Kundalini energy, sound, movement, and the mind-body connection to create spaces for surrender, nervous system regulation, emotional release, and reconnection with the authentic self.

Jai offers 1:1 sessions and group experiences, both virtually and in person, including opportunities to experience The Undoing on Kauaʻi.

Website: https://jaichambers.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/j_.eye._/

The Undoing

Throughout our conversation, Jai shares how The Undoing grew out of her own realization that so much of her life, and even her spiritual practice, had been centered around doing: achieving, striving, transforming, and trying to become something.

The Undoing invites the opposite: surrender.

Through Kundalini energy, sound, movement, and embodied practice, Jai creates a space to release stored energy, feel what wants to be felt, and loosen our grip on the identities, patterns, and conditioning we carry.

Learn more + explore Jai’s offerings:
https://jaichambers.com

Listen Next: My First Conversation with Jai

Jai and I first sat down together on The Ode to Joy Podcast a few years ago. If this conversation leaves you wanting more Jai, you can go back and listen to our original episode together.

Listen on Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/1gL0F2ukF5CSaiQzC9xnWg?si=afc41239adbb4bb8

Sister MorningStar

During the episode, I share a teaching that stayed with me from Sister MorningStar, an elder midwife and teacher I had the opportunity to study with before giving birth.

Her work explores instinctual birth, feminine wisdom, motherhood, and traditional birth knowledge. One of the teachings I carried into my own birth was the understanding that we may reach an edge where we believe we cannot continue, and yet there is something on the other side of that threshold.

Learn more about Sister MorningStar:
https://www.sistermorningstar.com

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Buy your copy of Elena's book "Grieve Outside the Box"
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A powerful retreat can crack you open, but what happens when you go back to laundry, traffic, deadlines, and people who do not speak the language of your experience? I sit down with Chaya Hannah Cohen, a shamanic breathwork, bodywork, and sound healing guide and death doula, to get honest about the part of transformation nobody posts about: integration.

We talk about what it means to let go after the breakthrough and why “more ceremony” is not the same as growth. Chaya shares a core principle that has guided her work with thousands of people through ceremony and somatic practice: we can only move at the speed of safety. We unpack common post retreat mistakes, how to ground big visions without taking them too literally, and why the ultimate ceremony is often the most ordinary moment, where you practice patience, boundaries, and kindness in real relationships.

From there, we drop into the body. We explore why you cannot think your way into healing, how breathwork and sound can support nervous system regulation, and why being witnessed in community helps trauma, grief, and joy move without overwhelming you. Chaya also reflects on her Peru dieta, sacred reciprocity, and how plant medicine integration can invite deeper humility and discipline, not just peak experiences.

We close with death awareness and lineage healing, including the conversations we hope you have with parents and grandparents while you still can, from care wishes to music, rituals, and the kind of environment that feels most nourishing. If you want practical integration tools grounded in breath, community, and embodied wisdom, this one is for you. Subscribe, share with a friend who is in a big transition, and leave a review so more people can find this support.

Resources:

Chaya Hannah | Feelings Felt
Shamanic healing · Breathwork · Bodywork · Sound healing · Psychedelic integration · Coaching

Chaya Hannah works at the intersection of somatic healing, shamanic practice, and Jewish mysticism, offering trauma-informed support for those navigating the tender terrain after deep ceremonial or psychedelic experience. Her 1:1 sessions weave breathwork, intuitive bodywork, craniosacral therapy, and sound healing into a personalized container for nervous system regulation, emotional processing, and integration. She also offers group ceremonies, workshops, and retreats — including immersive gatherings in NYC and the Sacred Valley of Peru.

If you're feeling activated, tender, or simply needing to be held as your experience continues to unfold, her work is a gentle and grounding place to land.

✦ www.feelingsfelt.com · @feelings__felt

Possibility Portal: Women’s Retreat in Peru
Join Chaya Hannah and Sunshine for an intimate seven-day women’s retreat in Pisac and Peru’s Sacred Valley, November 16–23, 2026. The experience includes yoga and intuitive movement, shamanic and holotropic breathwork, sound healing, integration circles, nervous system regulation, ritual and ceremony, sacred-site visits, elder wisdom, and plenty of space for rest and integration.
https://www.feelingsfelt.com/peru-women-s-retreat

International End of Life Doula Association (INELDA)
Chaya trained with INELDA in end-of-life doula care. INELDA offers education and training for people interested in supporting individuals and families through dying, death, and end-of-life care.
https://inelda.org/

Death Café
Chaya mentions Death Cafés as a way to gather in community and have open, honest conversations about death and mortality. Find a Death Café near you or learn how to host one.
https://deathcafe.com/

Reforesters Laboratory
A community space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn where Chaya offers gatherings including her Possibility Portal work, bringing together practices such as meditation, music, plant wisdom, art, and community.
https://reforesters.io/

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Buy your copy of Elena's book "Grieve Outside the Box"
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AI can produce words in seconds. But what happens to our voices, attention, and creative courage when we hand over the messy, human process of making something true?

In this episode of The Ode to Joy Podcast, Elena Box sits down with longtime friend, creative mentor, non-AI conversion copywriter, book muse, and screenwriter Elyssa Jakim for a conversation about artistry, surrender, motherhood, grief, and creating in the age of “robot writing.”

Elyssa shares why convenience is not the same as creativity, what it has been like to navigate a “void” season in her business, and how hyperachievement can become a survival response. She also reflects on birth trauma, financial insecurity, receiving support, and the death of her father, renowned translator Boris Jakim, whose devotion to language and literature shaped her own creative path.

Together, Elena and Elyssa explore what AI cannot replicate: lived experience, shared history, human witnessing, and the unexpected insight that can spark something entirely new.

Elyssa also shares what she is building now, including the Temple of Venus and her Own Your Artistry Salon for writers and soulful entrepreneurs ready to reclaim their voices and creative process.

This conversation is an invitation to stop outsourcing your expression and return to the beauty, difficulty, and aliveness of making something real.

As Elyssa says, “If we can’t be bad and get better, then we don’t get transcendent human creativity.”

There is nothing like the real thing.

Connect with Elyssa

Learn more about Elyssa’s work:
https://www.elyssajakim.com/

Explore the Own Your Artistry Salon:
https://www.elyssajakim.com/own-your-artistry-salon

Follow Elyssa on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/elyssajakim

Read The Dressing Room on Substack:
https://dressingroom.substack.com/

If this conversation resonates, subscribe to The Ode to Joy Podcast, leave a review, and share the episode with a friend who is tired of the AI haze and ready to return to their own creative process.

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Buy your copy of Elena's book "Grieve Outside the Box"
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Something wild happens when your life hits a season you can’t “power through.” I’m sharing a personal update I’ve been living inside of lately: pregnancy, the humbling first trimester, and what it forces me to release when my usual productivity stories stop working. If you’re a mom, a caregiver, a go-getter, or anyone moving through change, this is for the days when success looks like making it to bedtime and calling that sacred.

We talk about tiny rituals as spiritual practice and realistic self-care. Not the fantasy of two uninterrupted hours, but the two-minute practices that bring you home: lighting a candle, making tea, watering a plant, stepping outside barefoot, taking five deep belly breaths, or putting your legs up the wall. I share how these micro-rituals build steadiness, protect your peace, and help you reorient when your nervous system is loud and your mind is spinning.

Then we go deeper into community as medicine. I reflect on the kind of relationships that don’t just validate you, but actually help you remember who you are. That also means grieving false belonging, noticing where familiarity isn’t alignment, and trusting your nervous system before your thoughts catch up. We unpack expansion vs contraction, boundaries around gossip, and why nature is such a powerful teacher when you’re tempted to hurry.

If you’re craving depth and ceremony, I also share details on the Beyond the Veil retreat (July 25 to 26 at Woodmont Day Camp in upstate New York) and what we’re creating together with shamanic journeying, grief wisdom, and sacred space. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs it, and leave a review so more listeners can find the show.

Support the show

Buy your copy of Elena's book "Grieve Outside the Box"
Follow on IG @elenabox

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Death is the one certainty we all share, yet most of us are trained to avoid it until it forces a reckoning. We want a different relationship with mortality, one that doesn’t glamorize darkness but uses death awareness to sharpen what’s real, tender, and worth living for.

We’re joined by Korona, founder of Omnia Mirari and an end-of-life doula, to talk about “remembering home,” the fear beneath the fear, and why impermanence can feel so threatening in modern culture. We dig into what happens when a society removes death from everyday life, how fear makes us easier to control, and why reclaiming autonomy often starts with facing the unknown. Along the way, we connect death awareness to joy and embodiment, including the practice of staying aligned with love even when life gets messy.

We also preview Beyond the Veil (July 25 to 26 in New City, New York), an immersive gathering rooted in ritual, grief literacy, and spiritual inquiry. We explore why ceremony does what conversation can’t, how communal grieving creates real medicine, and what “dying awake” means through near-death experiences, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and the idea that we carry frequency, not possessions. Korona shares a simple 30-day journaling practice to track what feels expansive and contractive so you can live with more clarity right now.

If this resonates, subscribe, share this with a friend who avoids the hard topics, and leave a review so more people can find these conversations. What’s one belief about death you’re ready to question today?

Resources:

Beyond the Veil Immersion (July 25-26)

Follow Korona on IG: @omnia.mirari

1. The moment you stop running from death, it stops chasing you.
2. Find the teacher in the threshold.
3. What we carry beyond this life is our frequency.

For 30 days, reflect on these three prompts each day:

• What felt expansive today?
• What felt contractive today?
• What insight did I receive today?

At the end of the 30 days, review your entries and notice the patterns:
What raises your frequency? What lowers it? What makes you feel more alive, connected, open, and fully yourself?

Support the show

Buy your copy of Elena's book "Grieve Outside the Box"
Follow on IG @elenabox