Coffee on the Patio: A Lesson in Presence

In this short, reflective episode, CJ shares a personal memory of traveling alone to Santa Fe during a stressful season of life and studying with his mentor, abstract painter Virginia Cobb. What remains most vivid is not a technique or critique, but a quiet moment on a patio — coffee in hand, mountains in the distance, and a teacher who asked for nothing but presence.Through this story, CJ explores how the practice of simply meeting each moment has gradually reshaped his life. He reflects on learning to recognize the body’s signals, releasing the pressure of constant achievement, and allowing thoughts about the past or future to soften. This episode is an invitation to slow down, listen inwardly, and discover how clarity can arise when we stop pushing and begin to be.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 fascinating conversation, CJ Miller speaks with psychotherapist and author Deborah Sandella, creator of Regenerating Images in Memory (RIM) and author of Goodbye, Hurt & Pain—a powerful approach that helps people access emotional healing through imagination, intuition, and body awareness.Dr. Deb explains why modern culture has become overly dependent on logic and problem-solving while neglecting the intuitive and emotional intelligence stored in the nervous system. Drawing on neuroscience research—including the work of trauma expert Bessel van der Kolk—she describes how deeply held experiences are often stored as images and sensations rather than words.Through RIM, participants close their eyes, turn inward, and allow spontaneous images to arise from the body’s emotional memory. These images act as translators, revealing insights that the thinking mind alone cannot access. In this episode, CJ even experiences a brief guided example during the conversation, uncovering a powerful image that speaks directly to the emotional weight many people carry in life.Dr. Deb shares why emotional healing is not about “solving” problems but about sensing, trusting the body’s wisdom, and allowing imagination to reveal the deeper truth of what we are experiencing. She also introduces her concept of the Emotional Operating System, reminding us that we are born with innate resources for resilience, curiosity, and healing.For artists, seekers, and anyone interested in the intersection of creativity, psychology, and spiritual growth, this episode explores how intuition, imagination, and body awareness can reconnect us with our inherent wholeness.Learn more about Dr. Deborah Sandella and the RIM method: Visit deborahsandella.com to explore her work, books, and training programs, including how to become a certified RIM facilitator.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.

What if excellence doesn’t come from pressure, but from presence?In this episode, CJ welcomes UK-based sculptor and former world champion archer Ian Edwards, a man who has lived at the highest levels of both elite sport and masterful craftsmanship. Ian has competed internationally for Great Britain and spent decades refining his artistic practice. And through both disciplines, he discovered a simple but transformative truth: performance rises naturally when the mind becomes quiet and the heart leads.Ian shares how intense competition didn’t create anxiety for him. It created presence. As pressure increased, his mind grew still. The quieter it became, the better he could shoot. He recognized this state from a lifetime of sculpting, that moment where there is no self, only you and the work. A state he calls Performance Through Presence.Together, CJ and Ian explore the unseen intelligence quietly guiding our lives, the deeper order revealed through synchronicity, and the frustration that arises when we chase outcomes instead of honoring what we love. Ian speaks openly about growing up severely dyslexic, not fitting into traditional education, and discovering that presence gave him access to his full potential. They discuss how the conceptual mind can rob us of our ability when it leads, and how true fulfillment arises only in the present moment.You are not separate from life unfolding. You are part of it. And when the mind serves the heart, something extraordinary becomes possible.To explore more of Ian’s sculpture and writing, visit his website and follow him on Instagram at instagram.com/ianedwardsstudios for a deeper look into his work and philosophy.Listen. Slow down. And return to presence.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.

Matthew West’s Imperfections reads like a lifetime inventory—the running list we keep of everything we wish we could fix, hide, or improve. The song names that familiar inner critic: the voice that keeps tally, weighs the good against the bad, and often decides we come up short.CJ also reflects on his own experience living with a non-essential tremor and vision changes following LASIK surgery—conditions that once felt like limitations, but ultimately shaped a distinctive visual language in his art. What first appeared as obstacles became collaborators, influencing mark, movement, and perception in ways he could never have planned. In that sense, the song becomes personal: a lived reminder that even what feels broken or unintended can become part of a singular creative voice.This reflection is a reminder that there is no piece of you that must be edited out before you are worthy, useful, or whole. Nothing is wasted. Nothing is excluded. Even what you once judged becomes material for growth, creativity, and grace.Listen in, and if the song resonates, be sure to check out Imperfections by Matthew West on Spotify.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 honor of National Caregivers Day on Friday the 20th, CJ welcomes author, speaker, and leadership consultant Glenna Hecht for a deeply human conversation about caregiving, presence, and active listening. After a distinguished career in Human Resources with organizations like Starbucks and Walt Disney World, Glenna faced a challenge she could not fix—her mother’s dementia. What began as frustration and attempts to control the uncontrollable became a profound shift: if she could not cure it, she could meet it with curiosity, compassion, and play.Out of that surrender came a simple but powerful question: “How old are you today?” That question opened doors to memory, imagination, and connection, ultimately becoming the heart of her memoir, How Old Are You Today? In this episode, Glenna shares why caregivers are everyday heroes, why they deserve more grace, and how listening—not correcting—can transform the relationship. If they believe it, don’t bust the myth. Be willing to enter their world.If you are navigating dementia or Alzheimer’s with someone you love, this conversation offers a way forward—not by resisting what is, but by going with it. You can learn how to play Glenna’s game and create more meaningful moments with your loved one by purchasing her book on Amazon or wherever books are sold.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 special REWIND episode, CJ revisits his conversation with poet J.K. Kennedy and reflects on the idea that we all carry a clumsy beauty within us if we are willing to listen, orient, and follow Spirit.CJ explores what it means to simply be with someone—whether they are creating, transitioning, or moving through a difficult season of life. Often, our greatest challenges carry unexpected gifts. When we stop pushing against what’s happening and instead ask, Why is this here? What can I learn from this? something begins to shift. The challenge may not disappear, but its gift starts to reveal itself.J.K. shares how her own struggles led her back to her core creative gifts, and how rough, unfinished moments—both in art and in life—often expose who we truly are. Clumsy, beautiful things emerge when we stop forcing outcomes and allow the process to unfold.CJ reads J.K.’s poem “Clumsy Beauty,” a reflection on becoming a conscious, mindful creator—learning to trust the process, tease out the wrinkles, and let Spirit speak through every experience.You’re never fully “there,” but you are always on your way. Listen. Observe. Discover. And allow your own clumsy beauty to bloom.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.

What if relief doesn’t come from fixing your thoughts, but from moving your body and putting words on the page? In this episode of The Spiritual Artist Podcast, CJ Miller sits down with poet Jodie Kennedy, an observer, mumbler, overthinker, and accidental creative writer from Elkhorn, Wisconsin. Jodie is the author of Clumsy Beauty, a debut poetry collection rooted in anxiety, attention, and the quiet work of noticing what it feels like to be alive.Jodie shares how writing poetry helps her listen to herself again when anxiety pulls her into mental loops. For her, writing is not about performance or polish. It is a way of coming back into alignment, hearing her own voice, and seeing herself with fresh eyes. Alongside writing, she turns to simple physical tasks like scooping chicken poop, washing dishes, brushing her teeth, or working in the barn. Not intense focus. Not productivity. Just mindful movement.CJ reflects on how the body itself can become a source of healing, especially when paired with creative expression. Writing poetry and engaging in gentle physical labor both bring attention out of the head and back into the present moment. Together, they explore how many of us drift away from ourselves as we grow older, turning outward to fit into the world, and how art can become a way home.CJ reads from Jodie’s work, including a passage that wrestles with the fear of an unintended existence and the longing to live passionately. Jodie also shares how life disruptions, toxic work, illness in her family, and walking with someone through the dying process pushed her to write daily on Instagram, what she calls “mental illness in small squares.”This conversation explores why good art doesn’t sort life into good or bad, why presence matters more than answers, and why Jodie believes we are living in a time that calls for what she names exquisite love.Her book is available on Amazon and wherever books are sold. Visit her at www.jkkennedywrites.comSometimes the way out of anxiety is not thinking harder. It is writing honestly. And doing the next small, ordinary thing with care.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.

REWIND: After a conversation with Rabbi Rami Shapiro, CJ reflects on why spiritual independence matters—especially for those burned by religion. Drawing from the Gospel of Thomas, mystic traditions, and insights echoed by Eckhart Tolle, CJ explores the difference between belief and realization, form and essence, doing and being. When presence becomes primary and effort softens, coherence emerges—and the Field of Creative Intelligence reveals itself.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 wide-ranging and deeply human conversation, CJ sits down with Rabbi Rami Shapiro—award-winning author of more than three dozen books, longtime contributor to Spirituality & Health Magazine, and co-founder of the One River and One Foot Judaism Foundations.Together, they explore what it truly means to live as a spiritually independent person—not as an idea or belief system, but as a way of being in the world.Rabbi Rami speaks candidly about 12-Step spirituality, surrender, and the illusion of control, offering a liberating reframe: we don’t surrender to a greater power—we awaken to the fact that we are already part of it. From there, the conversation moves into the nature of the observer, the “Greater I,” and what happens when identity loosens and language begins to fall away.Drawing from Zen, Judaism, mysticism, and lived experience, Rabbi Rami shares insights on active stillness, mantra practice (including Ein od milvado—“there is nothing else besides this”), and why struggling to feel connected only reinforces the false belief that we are separate.CJ and Rabbi Rami also explore creativity as a spiritual practice—whether standing in front of an easel, writing without preconception, or drawing an Enso in a single embodied moment. Writing, art, and speech become portals for presence rather than acts of effort or control.The conversation touches on necessary versus unnecessary suffering, the breakdown of ego through language, the role of laughter as spiritual liberation, and why mystics—ancient and contemporary—continue to point us beyond the madness of dogma and division.This episode is an invitation to remember who you are. To re-member yourself back into the whole. And to live joyfully and ethically without needing certainty to hold it all together.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 Rewind episode, CJ reflects on what stayed with him after his recent conversation with intuitive artist Cameron Cohen. While re-listening to the interview, he shares a new morning ritual of doodling and how it deepened his understanding of body-led intuition.CJ explores key lessons from Cameron’s approach to energetic sensitivity and her ability to feel and register emotional information through the body. The episode weaves into CJ’s evolving somatic framework, asking simple but powerful questions: Where do you feel emotion in your body? What happens when you let it move instead of trying to fix it?Together, they point to practical grounding techniques—directing attention, engaging texture, gentle movement, and honoring sensitivity as a strength. This Rewind is an invitation to let the body lead, quiet the monkey mind, and rediscover intuition through presence, motion, and awareness.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.