Crying in My Jacuzzi with Dana Balicki
by dana balicki
Join seasoned Transformational Coach & longtime activist, Dana Balicki, for a wildride into the jacuzzi-verse to explore the ebbs & flows of living an examined life. Each and every episode invites you to explore the strange magic of humaning together in these wild times.™ With 13 years of coaching expertise, Dana blends irreverent reverence, spiritual insight, decolonial teachings, collective movement-building, high-woo, personal narrative, and grounded growth-oriented practicality for deep, thought-provoking conversations. Sound editing and design by Rose Blakelock, theme song by Kat Otteson, artwork by Natalee Miller! Extra support by robot cohost Alex & robot producer (and part-time cohost) Janet.
Episodes
-
Postcolonial Jitters
What happens when you no longer want the dream you worked for (capitalism anyone, lol)? When the worked-so-hard-for-thing stops singing back? And can we make the trade for something riskier and more honest—prioritizing resonance over metrics and presence over pace? In this ep, we dare to embrace...
-
Gag Me with a Healthy NO: Empathy, Resonance, and Disgust with Neuroscience Educator Sarah Peyton
What if we’re all just empathy dehydrated (an over-culture design!)—and the rehydration begins in our nervous systems and our emotional bodies. In this episode, we travel through a wild field of brain 🧠 neurons 💥 to connect with author, neuroscience educator, and my teacher @sarahpeytonauthor…
more -
Overcoming Certainty & Embracing Conscious Confusion
What happens when we swap our desperate (conditioned) grasping for certainty for a curious(ly awkward) embrace of confusion? This episode invites you into a radical reframing of confusion—not as weakness or failure, but as an appropriate, even necessary response to our rapidly changing world....
-
Whatever Can Die is Beautiful: Transforming Our Fear of Death with Social Psychologist Sheldon Solomon
Death anxiety lurks beneath virtually everything we do. Our capitalistic drive for endless growth, our political polarization, even our addictions to consumption – all stem from our desperate attempts to buffer ourselves against the terror of our finite existence! Dr. Sheldon Solomon, pioneering...
-
Getting in Hot Water: The Sacred Practice of Rule-Breaking
What if breaking the rules isn't just about random acts of rebellion, but a sacred, messy practice essential for personal and collective liberation? Let’s explore the nuances of disobedience, how it (and obedience) lives in our bodies, and plunge into why we must regularly practice breaking…
more -
Swipe Right on Your Eternal Self with Professional Mystic Leah Garza
What if we approach dating (and LIFE!) with genuine curiosity rather than the calculated performance and feigned ambivalence? With a commitment to compassionate relating rather than just detached, dehumanizing game-playing? Join Dana and her dear friend Leah Garza—Akashic Records...
-
Awkward Magic: On Being Transformed by Others
In this *spell* of an episode, magic, penetration, entanglement, and love emerge as steps toward understanding and willingness to be changed by others (sometimes oh-so awkwardly). We enter with the Buddhist concept of PENETRATION (via some bibliomancy!)—not just observing from a distance, but...
-
Inner Work is a Radical Act in Times of Crisis, with my Spiritual Teacher Julia Frodahl
There's room for personal growth in collective liberation—in fact, it's a critical component! Join Dana and her long-time teacher of nearly 13 years, Julia Frodahl, as they lean in and explore where our inner rebels come from, how we can show up for the consciousness revolution, the role of inner...
-
We're Too Busy Fighting Crow's Feet to Fight Fascism
Our attention is constantly being hijacked by systems training us to see ourselves as problems needing to be fixed. Let’s play with the phenomena of ‘perception drift’ (when you can’t see changes in/on you— grace à Courtney Cox) and ‘change blindness’ (when you can no longer see change around…
more -
Wands on Wands on Wands: A Tarot Reading for the Collective with Mary Evans of Spirit Speak
What sparks of guidance illuminate your path through uncertain times? When chaos swirls around us, where do we turn for direction? This episode takes us on a magical journey down a wishing well (!!) to meet artist and oracle Mary Evans (Spirit Speak), who offers a revelatory tarot reading...
-
Insecurity at Last: How in Redefining Safety, We Actually Create It
Crybabies, welcome back to the jacuzzi-verse! In episode 2, let's explore the boundaries between security and insecurity, safety and unsafety. You're invited to embrace security as an illusion—a product sold to us, someone else's imagination of a limited version of ourselves, a way to keep us...
-
Osiris Dick in a Box: Mature Rebellion in These Times™ with astrologer Diana Rose
Welcome back, crybabies! Season 3 is here and we're kicking it off with the brilliant relational astrologer, tarot reader, writer, and educator, Diana Rose (currently residing and thriving on the planet Venus). In episode 1, we explore rebellion as an act of maturing aka radical adulting aka...
-
Navigating the Year-end Paradox with Self-warmth & Curiosity
This is a special solstice, holiday slowdown medicine, between-season, late-stage-capitalism-sucking-your-life-juice-dry, you-might-need-support episode full of practical guidance and self-warmth tips! Baba Ram Dass said, “If you think you are enlightened, go and spend a week with your family.”...
-
The Life-changing Art of Falling the F Apart
Falling apart is hard work, crybabies. But you know what's even harder? NOT falling apart and using all of your precious energy and attention to hold your sh*t together in some configuration based on someone else's polycrisis-inducing imagination for your life! In the LAST EPISODE OF SEASON 2,...
-
Beloved Disruption
in this penultimate episode of season 2, we explore the essential role of DISRUPTION as a catalyst for inner & outer transformation. from protest movements to your own deepest inner work, let’s open up to disruption as responsibility, as intervention, and as disorientation from cultural...
-
How to Live Well with your Anger
it's ADVICE DOM time, crybabies. to the dungeon we go! this listener's SUBMISSION is a juicy one because it's about a reoccurring theme in season 2 + a reoccurring theme in HUMANING and just being alive on the planet right now in our "apocalypse era"— how do we live with all the anger!? how do we...
-
Just a Little Death *boop* (with a Side of Death Cult)
broadcasting straight from the heart of the jacuzzi-verse (in a quantum overlap with the heart of the western imperialist, death-cult empire!), let's talk about death, baby. but death and uncertainty as secret core drivers of our lives via the unconscious decisions we make, the people we…
more -
A Magical Field Trip to Rage-ville
it’s another trip to the magical library for some BIBLIOMANCY divination! let’s explore the transformative power of rage, drawing connections between our big (sometimes scary) feelings and the boundless potential they hold when tended to with curiosity and compassion. as per always, you’re…
more -
Every Criticism is a Longing
holy jacuzzi, crybabies! what if the criticisms we experience and feel (in our relationships with others, the world, and with ourselves) is actually our deepest longings & needs trying to be known? in this jacuzzi-verse layer, we tend to our inner critics with curiosity and compassion—unlocking a...
-
What to do when your dreams don’t (and do) come true?
welcome back, ever-evolving souls—it's ADVICE DOM time. to the dungeon we go! today's listener SUBMISSION is a two-fer. TWO Qs, ONE CUP full of As. one question about what to do when you’re trying and not getting what you want + another about what to do when you’re getting everything.believe it…
more -
Who's Your Mommy: Support System, Self-warmth, and the Pluriverse!
who really belongs in your support system? maybe not everyone who's there right now!! in this episode, we'll peel back layers and layers of your relationship to your relationships, explore what might be holding you in old patterns and feeeeel into support in our own miraculous bodies with some...
-
Unlocking the Mysteries of Existence with Bibliomancy
It's time for season 2's first field trip to the magical library, where we engage in the ancient wisdom of bibliomancy—using texts as tools for divination. Join dana, CONNIE the quantum (book) worm, and THE LIBRARIAN as the library serves up another oracular text so we can explore our…
more -
The Only Kind of Heart Worth Having is a Broken One
what if brokenheartedness wasn’t something to get through, but an honored & trusted guide toward interconnectedness, courage, and grief as catalyst for heartfelt action? in this episode we explore the wild paradox of love and sorrow, and the transformative power of embracing both…love in the time...
-
Digital Intimacy: How much honesty is too much?
to the dungeon we go! today's listener SUBMISSION is all about navigating honesty, transparency, and intimacy when running an online presence & business. we explore oversharing and vulnerability, authenticity and digital intimacy, and entertaining the possibility that saying the damn thing could...
-
Wonder & Awe: Learn to Flirt with the World
wonder & awe, the keys to belonging and connection! or at least that's how we see it here at crybaby HQ in the bubbling cauldron center of the jacuzzi-verse! yes, being human is complex. so much so, that we can forget we have agency—even under violence & oppressive systems—to choose how we show…
more -
In Our Descending Power Era
aaaaand…we’re back! season 2 of crying in my jacuzzi is upon us, BUT FIRST, we need a warm-up. so let’s start with a little drunk history rendition of the buddha’s enlightenment and ride that all the way to the student encampment movement…along the way, we’ll explore the “immovable spot” of...
-
Call Your Energy Back to Yourself: A Guided Meditation for These Times
message of support from dana in these complex times: "this is a simple guided meditation/visualization that i've used for years in my own energetic practices, with clients to support their presence, and i'm honored to share this with you. use when you're feeling scattered, overwhelmed…
more -
Slowdown Medicine
in this last episode of season 1, meet the love of dana's life. no, not her husband (sorry, ray ray). and not baby honey biscuits the cat (like she cares). but slowdown medicine, the entity that chose her so many years ago and continues to radically guide her (and now you) through our world...
-
Celebrate Everything if You Want to Enjoy Anything
in this episode, infused with the sweetness of desire, abundance, and huzzah!, we're going to dig into CELEBRATION AS THE SERIOUS FRIGGIN' BUSINESS THAT IT IS. in our dominant (westernized) culture, CELEBRATION gets a bad/twisty wrap. it's the thing that you have to hold out for, only do on very...
-
Desire is Hiding in Your Discomfort Zone (the call's coming from inside the house!)
humans have never been very good at uncertainty — the impermanence of existence is uncomfortable for us. so while we can't actually do anything about the groundless nature of reality we've learned to do some things about the discomfort. namely avoid, conflate comfort with safety and a bevy of…
more -
What If You Can't Get it Wrong?
welcome back, brave souls — to the cave we go! with ADVICE DOM leading the way! in today's journey we explore the complexity of embarking on bold, new ventures, while tending to heavy, old patterns. where's the real growth happening? what do you do when you inevitably fall back into the old...
-
What to do When Change Sits on Your Face and Proposes Marriage
as a rebellious girl-child of the '80s, dana had zero dreams of marriage. and yet, a surprise(ish) marriage proposal from her long-time no-marriage sweetheart became a portal of profound transformation in her relationship with herself, to change — oh, and him too. we live in a relational world…
more -
Curiosity, Compassion, and a Field Guide to Getting Lost
buckle up, buttercup! join dana on another trip to the magical library, where we engage in the ancient wisdom of bibliomancy -- using texts as tools for divination. the library (and THE LIBRARIAN OMGGGG) serves up a well-worn copy of Rebecca Solnit's, "a field guide to getting lost," a reflection...
-
Feeling YOURSELF: A Practical Exercise for (Self) Centering
this episode is part 2 on self-centeredness. and it's a coaching exercise! in these 30 minutes, we'll look at your relationship to your relationships, your patterns of stretching yourself too thin in efforts to maintain connections at your own expense, and how to come back to (or visit for the...
-
Feeling Myself: The Unexpected Portal of Self-Centeredness
let's dive into the unexpected power of self-centeredness. seeing it not as a negative trait — dominant culture narrative be damned! — but as a liberatory tool that can help dissolve (and uphold! oh, the brilliant paradox!) personal boundaries and cultivate deeper connections. introspection as a...
-
Wealth & Hellness: My Crisis Can't Always Be Your Service
in ep #5, we (dana, with help from the lesson minions) dig into the weird world of therapeutic service that can pressure us to transform every life experience into a marketable service offering. health & wellness or wealth & hellness? let's play with mindfulness, gender socialization,...
-
Life Lessons from the Depths: Embracing Slowdown Medicine with Marine Mammals
Like a magic schoolbus for grownups ~ ~ Join Dana on a little adventure from your daily hustle & flow into the wonder & mystery of living! We've got oracular books, divination, sea creatures, slowdown medicine, the art of knowing your heart, and more. /// podcast art ~ natalee miller, theme song…
more -
How to (not so) Accidentally Move to the Desert
not your typical "how-to" in easy peasy steps... more of a how-to-feel-and-trust-your-desires-in-order-to-create-a-life-of-resonance. here's a guide to making your biggest life decisions through the story of dana and ryan's move from nyc to the mojave desert (almost 9 years ago, eeep!). we'll...
-
Guess I'll Go Eat Worms
in episode #2, dana explores a universal experience — your oldest, most painful pattern shows up...so what the heck do you do? you'll get an insight into dana's recent dance with one of her oldest and stickiest core patterns and how she worked her way through it. dana shares step-by-step…
more -
Welcome to My Jacuzzi, Have a Transcendent Hotdog
welcome, welcome, to crying in my jacuzzi: the ebbs and flows of living an examined life! in this first episode, you'll: meet dana, your reverently irreverent host & guide (+ seasoned life coach & former radical political organizer), as well as robot cohost alex, robot co-producer janet, and the...
About this show
Join seasoned Transformational Coach & longtime activist, Dana Balicki, for a wildride into the jacuzzi-verse to explore the ebbs & flows of living an examined life. Each and every episode invites you to explore the strange magic of humaning together in these wild times.™ With 13 years of coaching expertise, Dana blends irreverent reverence, spiritual insight, decolonial teachings, collective movement-building, high-woo, personal narrative, and grounded growth-oriented practicality for deep, thought-provoking conversations.
Sound editing and design by Rose Blakelock, theme song by Kat Otteson, artwork by Natalee Miller! Extra support by robot cohost Alex & robot producer (and part-time cohost) Janet.
Hosted by
dana balicki