Will Awakening Ruin Your Relationships? The Zen Ox-Herding Answer

I had a dream this summer about Alex leaving that stirred up grief connected to a painful experience from when I was 15. On holiday, I noticed myself using a book to avoid the feeling - and chose instead to welcome and feel the grief without resisting it or building a story around it.

In this episode Alex and I explore the real meaning of vulnerability and how letting ourselves be truly seen has transformed our relationship, our healing, and our spiritual awakening.We explore the fear of being judged, the importance of feeling safe enough to be seen, and how intention is the key difference between healthy vulnerability and self‑abandonment. Through a series of honest personal stories—from early moments in our relationship to childhood memories, a big “shame car wash” release, and how we model emotions with our kids—we share how being witnessed in our most tender places can unlock profound healing. We talk about how vulnerability has transformed our marriage, our inner lives, and our work, and how allowing all emotions (including grief, shame and sadness) is inseparable from awakening to our natural state of presence and contentment.

One year ago this week I didn't know if I'd make it back to my wife and kids in one piece. For two weeks after a retreat I was electrically alive — plugged into the mains — with a tremendous amount of fear I was losing my mind. In this episode, one year after my kundalini awakening, I need to be honest about what actually happened: the fear, the empty Sunday where there was no Simon, the energy that wouldn't switch off, and the test that mattered most — would Simon turn up to work?

Saying Yes When You Mean No: The Subtle Art of Self-Abandonment. In this conversation, Simon and his wife Alex unpack the subtle but pervasive pattern of self-abandonment—saying yes when you mean no, overriding your body’s signals, and outsourcing your sense of worth to other people’s approval. Simon shares how self-abandonment forms in childhood, how it shows up as people-pleasing, overthinking, and numbing behaviours, and why learning to stay with your feelings is the first step to real change. Alex brings her own lived examples of boundaries, guilt, and the “expansion” that follows when you finally honour what you actually want. They then connect this work directly to spiritual awakening: how stopping the internal battle and saying a loving “yes” to your inner experience opens the door to experiencing oneness, love, and the “frequency of reality” as it really is.

THE SHIFT HAPPENS RETREAT WITH SIMON & ALEX (October 3rd in London): https://shift-happens-retreat.subscribepage.io/