GRACEPILLED with Hanna Williams

READ THE ZINE ONLINE HERE:www.hannawilliams.com/zine Connect with me, Hanna, your host: Instagram: @grace.pilledhannawilliams.com (human design library, merch, etc)patreon.com/gracepilled(join as a free member to listen to GRACE 101 for free!)In this deeply personal episode of GRACEPILLED, I read aloud from Dementia, Ego Work, and Grief, a zine I wrote between 2019–2021 while navigating my mother's alcohol-induced dementia, our complicated relationship, and the ongoing challenges of caring for an aging parent.Through a collection of essays, journal entries, and reflections, I explore the strange experience of grieving someone who is still alive, particularly when that person has also been a source of tremendous suffering. I reflect on the relationship between grief and attachment, the effects of childhood trauma and gaslighting, intergenerational patterns of suffering, and the difficult process of establishing boundaries without abandoning compassion.At the heart of the writing is a question about spiritual practice: How do we learn to accept what we cannot fix? Drawing from my experiences with yoga, ego work, and surrender, I explore the movement from hypervigilance and codependency toward greater self-knowledge, personal agency, and the capacity to meet reality as it is rather than as we wish it would be.Reading the zine aloud years after writing it, I offer spontaneous commentary, reflect on how my understanding has changed, and find myself unexpectedly moved to tears on several occasions. This episode is an intimate exploration of dementia, anticipatory grief, complicated family relationships, spiritual growth, and the sometimes painful work of learning to let go.

Connect with me, Hanna, your host: Instagram: @grace.pilledhannawilliams.com (human design library, merch, etc)patreon.com/gracepilled(join as a free member to listen to GRACE 101 for free!)Connect with Meredith, our guest: Instagram: @gravesmeredithIn this episode, Meredith Graves returns to Gracepilled for an exploratory conversation about data science for magicians, spiritual practitioners, and anyone interested in understanding the mysterious patterns shaping their lives.What happens when we begin to approach our lived experience as data? Rather than immediately interpreting every coincidence as a sign, every difficulty as a punishment, or every unexpected desire as a divine instruction, what if we learned to observe our experiences with curiosity, discernment, and a willingness to experiment?Drawing from our respective backgrounds in classical Shakta Tantra and Western esotericism, Meredith and I explore the relationship between spiritual practice and the scientific method. We discuss how spiritual traditions themselves can be understood as accumulated bodies of experiential data, how our personal biases influence what we notice, and why asking "What could this mean?" might be far more useful than asking "What does this mean?"Along the way, we talk about identifying recurring patterns, auditing our actual values, learning to trust our strange obsessions, and distinguishing meaningful information from the endless stream of stimuli we encounter every day. We also explore how gathering data over time can help us become less reactive, less attached to our interpretations, and more willing to make creative experiments out of our own lives.This isn't a conversation in which either of us claims to have all the answers. It's an experiment in itself, two spiritual practitioners thinking out loud about an idea we've both found tremendously useful: what if your life is an ongoing experiment, and you're allowed to be curious about the results?

JOIN ME FOR GRACE 102 ON OCTOBER 27TH AT 6PM MST[get the zoom link by joining my patreon as a paid member, unsubscribe at any time]Connect with me, Hanna, your host: Instagram: @grace.pilledhannawilliams.com (bookings, conflict school, etc)patreon.com/gracepilled[join as a free member to listen to GRACE 101!]What is the most worthwhile thing you can do with your entire life? My answer is simple: cultivate a spiritual disposition that can sustain you through everything life brings, from its greatest pleasures to its inevitable difficulties.In this episode, I explore why making spirituality our primary consideration is not just a good idea, but a practical necessity for anyone who wants to live fully in a world defined by constant change. We examine the cultural obsession with youthfulness, productivity, and avoiding death, and how these attitudes can prevent us from developing a healthy relationship with the realities of human embodiment.I also discuss the difference between relying on perishable things, like our bodies, material circumstances, and external supports, and cultivating something that can sustain us regardless of what happens. What does it mean to develop a spiritual disposition rooted in devotion, surrender, and perseverance? How can we learn to metabolize grief, struggle, and uncertainty rather than spending our lives trying to escape them?But this isn't just a conversation about preparing for hardship or making peace with death. It's also about becoming more deeply available to the beauty of being alive. As we take the spiritual process more seriously, we become increasingly capable of finding joy in ordinary moments, deepening our relationships, and appreciating life exactly as it is.Ultimately, this episode is an invitation to fall in love with the entire spiritual process, rather than constantly chasing its imagined rewards. To stop fighting against the present moment, make friends with the reality of change, and cultivate an approach to life that will serve you for the whole show, from the opening scene to the closing curtain.

Connect with me, Hanna, your host: Instagram: @grace.pilledhannawilliams.com (bookings, conflict school, etc)patreon.com/gracepilled(join as a free member to listen to GRACE 101!)In this episode, I’m talking about Saturn as the force in our lives that teaches us discipline, responsibility, delayed gratification, and ultimately, real satisfaction. Saturn gets a bad reputation because its lessons often arrive through limitation, pressure, hard work, and the things we would really rather avoid, but there’s another way to understand this energy: as the force that helps us build a life we can actually feel good about having lived.I talk about my own Saturn return and the ways it completely reoriented my life, why instant gratification can keep us from discovering what we actually want and need, and why structure and discipline can ultimately create more freedom rather than less. We’ll also get into impulse control, the satisfaction of doing difficult things, the inconvenient things you know you need, and the responsibilities and dreams that will probably keep haunting you until you finally rise to meet them.Toward the end, I also explore Saturn through the lens of karma yoga and selfless service, including a simple question to consider: what would it look like to do the necessary work no one wants to do, for people who cannot repay you, without seeking recognition?Maybe Saturn isn’t here to punish you. Maybe Saturn is trying to help you get your shit together so you can actually live your life.

Connect with my guest, Fiona:instagram.com/fionanodarfionanodar.comConnect with me, Hanna, your host: Art store: distantplanetdesign.etsy.comInstagram: @grace.pilledhannawilliams.com (bookings, conflict school, etc)patreon.com/gracepilled(join as a free member to get access to a collection of talks!)What if tension isn’t a problem to solve, but an essential part of what makes us feel alive?In this conversation, I’m joined by writer, mediator, and growth companion Fiona Nodar to explore tension as a spiritual, creative, and relational force. We talk about what happens when we stop organizing our lives around comfort and certainty and instead become more willing to meet the mystery, friction, and resistance inherent in being alive.We explore tension as the place where we come into contact with reality: in conflict, creativity, sexuality, relationships, change, and the uncomfortable freedom of having choices. We talk about why avoiding tension doesn’t actually make it disappear, the relationship between tension and transformation, and what it might mean to develop a greater capacity for the unknown rather than constantly trying to resolve it.Our conversation also wanders into love and projection, the humiliation of genuinely pursuing what we desire, free will versus determinism, duality and nonduality, and my perennial spiritual question: Can I have both? Ultimately, we consider the possibility that God may not only be found in moments of peace, unity, and transcendence—but in the charged space between opposing forces, where something new is always trying to emerge.