Have you ever caught yourself wondering if something is real?

The three of us have lived through experiences where this feels like a life-scale conflict.

The conflict is referring to a very definite unified structure of the modern world that we are asked to acknowledge and inhabit. It says:

“This is how the world is, per measurements that we accept as legitimate. We are fine with you imagining otherwise. But don’t expect us to take it seriously. Or to grant legitimacy to those worlds that don’t fit the consensus a few of us have come up with.”

“Who said so” is our question. Since we rarely if ever have definitive answers. Come ponder with us. Let’s be real together. Even in perceived unrealness.

And here are some quotes that have stayed with us:

Irina:

“For my whole life, my imagination and what is happening in my head had been always more real than the physical reality.”

“Our shared illusion is so powerful that we start believing that something is real just because the other people say that it’s real.”

“The reality stops responding to my attempts to manifest whatever in my illusion, if I’m coming from the motivation to prove that the world is wrong and I’m right.”

“I simply don’t want to live in the world without magic.”

“The more I allow myself to be guided by this feeling of aliveness, the more I find these experiences of shared reality.”

Yulya

“Every time I would discover that the things that make me alive somehow have to do with other states of consciousness or other perceptual planes.”

“Inhabiting a different persona in a really emphatic way creates almost an instantaneous shift in who you are in the waking reality.”

“If I live in another world that for me is real — be it imagination, be it dreams, be it traveling into the underworld — it creates a lot of tension with this world. If they do not recognize it, it’s as if I lose a little bit of my legitimacy.”

“My Bushcraft knife is always with me. You can cut trees with it, you can dig. It’s just something that is always there to remind me who I am and what I’m capable of.”

“Putting on a persona you don’t usually wear — it’s as if an excuse for a part of you to come alive.”

“If we each inhabit different perceptual worlds — what is real, so we can each live a happy life?”

Polina

“I both simultaneously believe nothing is real and everything is real.”

“Reality is something we choose to dress in the morning.”

“If perception is changeable, how can there be a reality?”

“If there’s many realities, why would I choose one that doesn’t excite me?”

“It brings me so much joy when the people that I interact with have range.”

In Flow,

Irina, Polina and Yulia

We cherish your presence, and joining us in flowing.

These conversations are open explorations, that become richer with time and participation of others. We’d love to hear if anything touched you.

📍Chapters

• 00:00 - Intro

• 01:15 - Today’s Topic: Transitions, Rituals & Witnessing

• 05:13 - Somatic Game: What Does “Ritual” Feel Like?

• 09:30 - Somatic Game: What Does “Sacred” Feel Like?

• 27:13 - What Is “Sacred”?

• 30:00 - How Is Sacredness Different From Flow?

• 44:10 - Sacredness of Death & Wisdom of the Morphic Field

• 49:19 - Sacred Creativity: Disrupting the Group Flow

• 53:33 - The Sacredness of Flow of Life

• 56:07 - Empty Rituals vs Sacred Ceremonies

• 59:29 - Polina’s Story: Experiences of Death Rituals

• 01:03:45 - Cosmological View of Death

• 01:07:09 - Altered States vs Flow States of Sacredness

• 01:11:45 - Meaning, Morphic Fields, and Access to Sacredness

• 01:15:10 - The Sacred Transmission: Feeling His Cells in Mine

• 01:17:13 - Sitting Shiva: Rituals That Hold Grief

• 01:18:52 - The Significance of the Underworld

• 01:21:20 - Rites of Passage We’ve Lost

• 01:23:23 - Sacredness of the Physicality

• 01:27:50 - Closing Reflections: Rituals for Accessing Something Bigger

Follow us on the Major Podcasting Platforms here:

Find us here:

• Life in Flow Podcast

• Yulia Bogdanova

• Polina Khodova

• Irina Mishina

💌 Resources used under Creative Commons license:

Music “Echolocation” by airtone, source: CcMixter

We are flowing with sacredness today.

Polina shares with great tenderness the recent story of her dad passing and questions it stirred. About relating to death, and saying good-byes, and also sensing into the transformative power of these moments, however hard and heart-breaking they might be.

What is it, we wonder, in or about rituals and ceremonies that makes them sacred? We’ve all been to those that feel empty even though meticulously organized.

Is it our attention, presence, access to something beyond the individual, cosmologies, or the lack thereof, that infuses ceremony with sacred potency and non-linear happenings?

As children of modernity that largely dismissed sacredness as obsolete and too irrational, how do we make a journey back into inhabiting sacred terrains?

Come, join us in this tender exploration.

Irina:

“To flow with life, one needs to attribute this significance and meaning to everything in the experience that goes beyond the ordinary, beyond the mundane. And for me, this is what makes things sacred.”

“The significance and meaning may come from the things that feel darker and heavier, like from the underworld, not necessarily from the highest realms.”

“We somehow in the modern world lost the connection to the significance of the rites of passage. That is why, I believe, many times we’re not able to go through the transitions: because there are no logistics that provide this passage.”

“Not any flow state or any process in the flow state will be sacred. But I would say that any process in the state of sacredness would be flow.”

Yulya

“Every transition is about death. And so, as a death, it holds a very special connection to the underworld.”

“If we are talking about ceremonies related to death, then one of the conditions for it to be viewed as sacred is holding some cosmological view that life doesn’t just end with the death of someone. Humans have navigated this for a long time. It’s one of the most important thresholds that we pass: we get born and we die.”

“There is a lot of wisdom and protocols that are available if you connect to the morphic field, so you don’t just fall into the precipice of grief. But it’s that sacredness that creates this very powerful container.”

“If you lose someone, you easily fall into the precipice. And when something bigger is available, it’s something that holds you so that the experience of grief can be different.”

“You create that sacredness also through tending to the space at the levels of objects or organizing the space or assigning roles to different people. And so it’s all together like a language or a pass to that door of the morphic field.”

Polina

“It could be an empty ritual, or it could be a very meaningful, significant, sacred ritual. So that made me feel like something that’s ritualized can actually be different depending on the energy and the attention infused into that ritual.”

“When I tune into the word sacred, I start getting the sensation of a longing in my heart area, like the energy of longing. And also something very guttural and significant feeling in my sacral area — some kind of a weight that has the energy of significance to it.”

“I didn’t need to physically be present at the funeral to experience some of the shifts and the transformations that I experienced when I was physically there. I just needed to open up to what already exists in the morphic field, which is like this human thing about ceremonies and rituals and sacredness. It’s already in the field. The most important is: is there the ability to fully tune in, have that kind of flow aspect into the sacredness of what is happening?”

“My partner thought three days later: ‘Well, all right, it’s over. The funeral happened, you cried for a few days — are we back to normal?’ And I almost wish that there would be a ritual and a ceremony that would instruct him to know: well no, I’m still fully giving my attention to this. We’re not back to normal life yet.”

“In the Jewish tradition, they sit shiva for seven days, and the person who loses the family member is not the one organizing everything. The family members come together and help with all of that so the person can actually stay in the experience. This was the first time I was like: wow, I wish I actually was sitting shiva for seven days, so that life could just stop and I could just really give my focus and attention to the meaning and the sacredness of this transition.”

In Flow,

Irina, Polina and Yulia

We cherish your presence, and joining us in flowing.

These conversations are open explorations, that become richer with time and participation of others. We’d love to hear if anything touched you.

📍Chapters

00:00 - Intro

01:15 - Today’s Topic: Transitions, Rituals & Witnessing

05:13 - Somatic Game: What Does “Ritual” Feel Like?

09:30 - Somatic Game: What Does “Sacred” Feel Like?

27:13 - What Is “Sacred”?

30:00 - How Is Sacredness Different From Flow?

44:10 - Sacredness of Death & Wisdom of the Morphic Field

49:19 - Sacred Creativity: Disrupting the Group Flow

53:33 - The Sacredness of Flow of Life

56:07 - Empty Rituals vs Sacred Ceremonies

59:29 - Polina’s Story: Experiences of Death Rituals

01:03:45 - Cosmological View of Death

01:07:09 - Altered States vs Flow States of Sacredness

01:11:45 - Meaning, Morphic Fields, and Access to Sacredness

01:15:10 - The Sacred Transmission: Feeling His Cells in Mine

01:17:13 - Sitting Shiva: Rituals That Hold Grief

01:18:52 - The Significance of the Underworld

01:21:20 - Rites of Passage We’ve Lost

01:23:23 - Sacredness of the Physicality

01:27:50 - Closing Reflections: Rituals for Accessing Something Bigger

01:36:12 - Outro

Follow us on the Major Podcasting Platforms here:

Find us here:

• Life in Flow Podcast

• Yulia Bogdanova

• Polina Khodova

• Irina Mishina

💌 Resources used under Creative Commons license:

Music “Echolocation” by airtone, source: CcMixter

Flowing with a big question today.

Just have free is our will and how much of those decisions we make is truly ours? And if not who is pulling the strings? Orchestrating? Whispering? Insisting?

Exploring the slippery line between free will and agency. Do our bodies, lineages, and the living world around us co-create every move we make?

Wait! And how old is the question of free will exactly? And the lens of looking at the world where free will is a possibility?

Questions, questions, questions.

Join us in enjoying those as much if not more than answers!

Irina:

“I do want to have a free will. I have God’s syndrome. I want to feel that I am able to create freely my own reality.”

“The majority of people don’t have any free will because they act on just following their automatisms.”

“Your true will is always in resonance with the will of the world.”

“Sometimes when you resist releasing the control for too long, the life may take the decision for you.”

Yulya

“Not having free will means you are being breathed at all times. Means you are heartbeat-ed. Means you are blood-circulated. Means your eyes being closed when it’s time to rest.”

“There is hardly anything in this world which we come into contact with that doesn’t touch us in one way or another.”

“I don’t think humans had an illusion that they had free will because they not only recognized, but lived it as a thread of their whole lives, that they’re so interconnected.”

“If I’m aware what I’m co-creating with, then I can choose.”

“This is what flow is. You synchronizing with the grand scheme of your life.”

Polina

“The best decisions I’ve made have been not decisions, but like, oh there’s energy for this, and I can imagine myself moving towards this energy, so I will move towards this.”

“I didn’t decide. I was decided on.”

“I think the problem is not decisions, I think the problem is ‘we.’ What is ‘I’ in that equation? It could be a million different things that are actually that ‘I’ that is making the decision.”

“Which ice cream will I choose really depends on how inflamed my body is. How much access I have to my taste buds. Is it sunny outside? Has someone just broken my heart, so I’m going to go for the chocolate. But if I’m really happy because nothing shitty happened today, I might go for the vanilla. Is that me making that decision or this operating system that I am occupying?”

“There’s one me that wants to say, fuck this, I don’t like it. There’s another me that says, yeah, we’re just here to jive and flow and see how we can express this system in the best possible way with the variables given at each moment in time. Those are the two primary voices, but the first one is stronger. It really doesn’t like it that it doesn’t get to influence everything.”

In Flow,

Irina, Polina and Yulia

We cherish your presence, and joining us in flowing.

These conversations are open explorations, that become richer with time and participation of others. We’d love to hear if anything touched you.

📍Chapters

• 00:00 — Intro

• 1:15 — Welcome and episode context

• 5:05 — Metaphor game: what does free will feel like?

• 10:13 — Metaphor game: what does no free will feel like?

• 16:05 — What frameworks shape your view of free will?

• 19:15 — Yulia’s framework: free will vs agency

• 33:53 — Polina’s framework: a pointless question?

• 36:05 — The best decisions aren’t decisions

• 42:17 — Polina’s story: being decided on

• 49:44 — The soul’s place in the web of life

• 52:53 — Irina’s frameworks: Human Design meets magic school

• 1:00:29 — Different levels of free will

• 1:08:23 — Is free will a modern invention?

• 1:11:33 — But are we making decisions or not?

• 1:21:29 — The real question: who is the “I” that decides?

• 1:25:08 — Are we happy not having free will?

• 1:32:02 — Where did we each show up today?

• 1:34:40 — Outro

Follow us on the Major Podcasting Platforms here:

Find us here:

• Life in Flow Podcast

• Yulia Bogdanova

• Polina Khodova

• Irina Mishina

💌 Resources used under Creative Commons license:

Music “Echolocation” by airtone, source: CcMixter

Have you ever caught yourself wondering if something is real?

The three of us have lived through experiences where this feels like a life-scale conflict.

The conflict is referring to a very definite unified structure of the modern world that we are asked to acknowledge and inhabit. It says:

“This is how the world is, per measurements that we accept as legitimate. We are fine with you imagining otherwise. But don’t expect us to take it seriously. Or to grant legitimacy to those worlds that don’t fit the consensus a few of us have come up with.”

“Who said so” is our question. Since we rarely if ever have definitive answers. Come ponder with us. Let’s be real together. Even in perceived unrealness.

And here are some quotes that have stayed with us:

Irina:

“For my whole life, my imagination and what is happening in my head had been always more real than the physical reality.”

“Our shared illusion is so powerful that we start believing that something is real just because the other people say that it’s real.”

“The reality stops responding to my attempts to manifest whatever in my illusion, if I’m coming from the motivation to prove that the world is wrong and I’m right.”

“I simply don’t want to live in the world without magic.”

“The more I allow myself to be guided by this feeling of aliveness, the more I find these experiences of shared reality.”

Yulya

“Every time I would discover that the things that make me alive somehow have to do with other states of consciousness or other perceptual planes.”

“Inhabiting a different persona in a really emphatic way creates almost an instantaneous shift in who you are in the waking reality.”

“If I live in another world that for me is real — be it imagination, be it dreams, be it traveling into the underworld — it creates a lot of tension with this world. If they do not recognize it, it’s as if I lose a little bit of my legitimacy.”

“My Bushcraft knife is always with me. You can cut trees with it, you can dig. It’s just something that is always there to remind me who I am and what I’m capable of.”

“Putting on a persona you don’t usually wear — it’s as if an excuse for a part of you to come alive.”

“If we each inhabit different perceptual worlds — what is real, so we can each live a happy life?”

Polina

“I both simultaneously believe nothing is real and everything is real.”

“Reality is something we choose to dress in the morning.”

“If perception is changeable, how can there be a reality?”

“If there’s many realities, why would I choose one that doesn’t excite me?”

“It brings me so much joy when the people that I interact with have range.”

In Flow,

Irina, Polina and Yulia

We cherish your presence, and joining us in flowing.

These conversations are open explorations, that become richer with time and participation of others. We’d love to hear if anything touched you.

📍Chapters

• 00:00 — Yulya Welcomes: Strange Outfits and “What Is Real?”

• 02:37 — Yulya’s Vision Quest: Anza-Borrego and the Underworld Journey

• 07:03 — The Games: Playing With “Real” and Assembling Personas

• 19:33 — Wild Woman, Destroyer, Seductress: The Personas Speak

• 24:06 — Was the Persona Real — Or Just the Costume?

• 29:05 — Irina’s Frame: Becoming the Character from the Outside In

• 36:33 — Dumbledore’s Answer: “Why Should It Mean It’s Not Real?”

• 39:14 — The Black Cube Experiment: How Society Rewrites What You See

• 48:13 — Polina: Everything Is Real, Nothing Is Real

• 50:06 — When Polina Shapeshifted Into a Bird

• 55:51 — Following Aliveness and the Cost of Being Shunned

• 1:02:00 — The Body Refuses: A World Without Magic

• 1:15:39 — Irina’s Bun Date: “Please Take It Down”

• 1:20:49 — On the Outskirts: Three Closings on Aliveness and Owning It

• 1:26:17 — Polina’s Twist: The Joy of Range

Follow us on the Major Podcasting Platforms here:

Find us here:

• Life in Flow Podcast

• Yulia Bogdanova

• Polina Khodova

• Irina Mishina

💌 Resources used under Creative Commons license:

Music “Echolocation” by airtone, source: CcMixter

Today we are flowing with what’s been a challenge for all three of us — saying no to the infinite possibilities the world presents to us, aka converging. Why can’t we just “yes and“ through life?

Picking up from our earlier exploration of utopia and the dance between the individual and the collective, we acknowledge: the realm of infinite possibilities is beautiful, but nothing actually happens there.

We sense into convergence somatically, muse on why creative people struggle with it most, and wonder whether we’re making decisions at all or just floating on a raft, under the illusion that we steer.

You are in for a game of impossible choices, Yulya’s story of choosing from the body during her son’s illness, and Polina’s reframe-provocation.

And here are some quotes that have stayed with us:

Irina:

“There is this realm of infinite possibilities where everything is possible, but nothing actually happens, because it’s all just possibilities. For these possibilities to take form, we need to bring them into the realm of matter, where not everything is equally possible. We are obliged to reduce the options, focus our efforts on something, and say no to other options.”

“The principle of ‘yes, and’ is the principle of the generative phase. We are saying yes to other options, and it allows us to explore novelty, new possibilities, this realm where everything is possible. But sooner or later, we need to go back to the realm where we have to say no to things.”

“Every choice I make feels like the killer of all other alternatives. Sometimes it feels unbearable. If I go in this direction, does it mean I will never be able to explore all other paths? How come? I want to explore all of them.”

Yulya

“When something is framed explicitly as a decision, it becomes harder than if you take it as a sense of flow, as the flow of life. There is something about improvising versus decisions being framed as specific decisions that signify something, or represent a fork of some kind.”

“When I feel like I’m flowing, I also feel like I’m surrendering to some extent. I feel more guided than I feel in the frame of mind where it’s me making a decision. I do have agency, but it’s a very diffused kind of agency.”

“I’m not buying that it’s completely my choice, or my free choice, because of the many configurations. If my family history had been different, if this and that had been different, my decision would have been different. So it’s never mine. A lot of it is in the field and part of the configuration.”

Polina

“Making a choice depends on the situation, but at the end of the day, it is a gamble. And it’s a gamble where you have very little input or control. It’s a risk you take, hoping for outcomes that will be generative, while knowing you’re signing up for variables you could not foresee.”

“There has to be enough energy in the field to feel a pull toward a decision, especially when you are not sure about the variables you’re choosing. Every single thing we choose is a gamble. So I need some kind of energetic signature to feel that, even though this is a gamble, the energy is leading me that way for whatever reason, without me knowing why.”

“What if none of it is actually true? What if we are never actually making any decisions? We’re just in our little raft floating along, and things have already been decided, or something else is deciding. Maybe we are only becoming more conscious about the different variables in the road, while thinking we are making decisions.”

In Flow,

Irina, Polina and Yulia

We cherish your presence, and joining us in flowing.

These conversations are open explorations, that become richer with time and participation of others. We’d love to hear if anything touched you.

📍Chapters

• 00:00 — Welcome to the Life in Flow Podcast

• 01:15 — Beyond “Yes, And”: Why We Also Need to Converge

• 04:00 — Irina’s Frame: Divergence and Convergence in Every Creative Process

• 06:46 — The Central Question: How Do We Converge Generatively?

• 09:41 — The “This or That” Game: Rapid-Fire Forced Choices

• 24:45 — Behind the Masks: How Does Forced Choice Actually Feel?

• 26:22 — Yulya’s Story: A Sick Son and a Pine Tree’s Guidance

• 33:14 — The FOMO of Convergence: When Every Path Calls You

• 38:00 — Polina: Every Choice Is an Energetic Gamble

• 40:26 — The Subway Map of Lost Futures

• 44:35 — The Energetic Signature: Feeling the Pull Before You Decide

• 47:53 — Does Making a Choice Mean Giving Up Who You Are?

• 58:09 — Freeze, Depression, and the Hidden Cost of Not Choosing

• 01:11:38 — Polina’s Twist: What If We Never Actually Choose?

• 01:14:38 — Yulya’s Vision Quest: Being Dreamed by the Desert

Follow us on the Major Podcasting Platforms here:

Find us here:

• Life in Flow Podcast

• Yulia Bogdanova

• Polina Khodova

• Irina Mishina

💌 Resources used under Creative Commons license:

Music “Echolocation” by airtone, source: CcMixter

In this episode, we let the word woman move through us and follow where it leads.

How do we claim and hold our power and what makes it leak?

What is our true shape if there is any? And what happens if it’s not afforded?

Are we learning or rather remembering something about ourselves?

That was a space where a lot of questions emerged. That we’ve been living since.

We cherish your presence, and joining us in flowing.

Irina, Polina and Yulia

These conversations are open explorations, that become richer with time and participation of others. We’d be thrilled to have you participate, if there was something that touched you. By commenting here, or sending us a message.

Leave a comment

Some Things That Wanted to Be Said:

“My power leaks when I am not afforded my true shape”

“You are like water. You always take the form of the one with whom you are.”

“It’s not about what we’ve learned about being a woman — it’s about what we haven’t yet remembered.”

“Power is about having a choice. You have a choice to change your mind. It is your power”.

“Is there a distinction between our true selves and what we’ve learned to be? The thing is everything we’ve experienced — learned, inherited, remembered — is still ours to claim. It’s all still us.”

“We have wings made of light. We have fangs made of crystal. We have claws of a wildcat. What is a true shape of a woman?”

“We are infinite inside. We might have outside borders, but within we are limitless.”

“When I lose connection to my center, my power leaks. Words disappear. Things I never knew could be forgotten — forgotten.”

“When there’s no need for reproduction anymore, all of a sudden there’s a lot of energy to direct wherever you want. Menopause is not a loss of power — it’s an integration of power.”

Let it flow,

Polina, Irina, and Yulya

📍Chapters

• 00:00 – Entering the Field: What Does It Mean to Be a Woman?

• 01:15 – A Somatic Experiment: Feeling “Woman” in the Body

• 06:01 – Portals, Warmth, and Safety: First Embodied Responses

• 08:43 – Infinite Within Borders: The Feminine as Inner Cosmos

• 10:16 – Air, Water, and the Wolf: Elemental Feminine Imagery

• 12:41 – “Woman is Like Water”: Taking Shape in Relationship

• 15:13 – Creation and Destruction: Dark Feminine Energy

• 17:33 – Holding It All: Softness, Rage, and Power Together

• 19:20 – Wings, Claws, and Fangs: Archetypes of Feminine Power

• 21:06 – What Does Power Feel Like in a Woman’s Body?

• 26:36 – Goddess States, Nature, and Embodied Power

• 33:03 – Power Through Connection, Attunement, and Aliveness

• 37:00 – “Not Afforded My True Shape”: When Power Leaks

• 43:11 – Losing Power: Approval, Disconnection, and Self-Doubt

• 56:09 – What Is Truly “Me” vs Learned? Identity, Memory, and Choice

Follow us on the Major Podcasting Platforms here:

Find us here:

• Life in Flow Podcast

• Yulia Bogdanova

• Polina Khodova

• Irina Mishina

💌 Resources used under Creative Commons license:

Music “Echolocation” by airtone, source: CcMixter

You are in for a winding exploration.

We started with a sneaky question — choosing individual or collective. So, flow found a way out of the duality.

What started as a philosophical, although somewhat experimental, inquiry into utopia and egoless society got shapeshifted by the feminine that it was suggested: “says ‘yes, and.’ Improv might just have been developed by women.”

So what would it look like if there is no need to choose “either-or”? And how do we hold space for both polarities at the same time? Is utopia coming soon? (We wish).

We cherish your presence, and joining us in flowing.

Irina, Polina and Yulia

These conversations are open explorations, that become richer with time and participation of others. We’d be thrilled to have you participate, if there was something that touched you. By commenting here, or sending us a message.

Leave a comment

Some Things That Wanted to Be Said:

• “Sensing into this without making sense — this is what it felt like.”

• “If currently individuality is being packaged in the same patterns and the same ways of being, then wouldn’t Utopia be actually the opposite of both individuality and collectiveness?”

• “Sometimes you need to limit yourself to start appreciating something in a new light.”

• “What can emerge if we hold these two positions together?”

• “The feminine just hijacked the conversation — and maybe that’s exactly what needed to happen.”

• “These words were not created for me. They do not describe the operating self of me.”

• “What if individuality and collectivism aren’t opposites — but a duality the feminine has always known how to hold?”

• “Maybe we don’t need a new utopia. Maybe we need a new language first.”

• “The masculine says ‘yes, but.’ The feminine says ‘yes, and.’ Improv might just have been developed by women.”

Let it flow,

Polina, Irina, and Yulya

📍Chapters

Chapters

• 00:00 Intro

• 01:16 Welcome & the question: individual vs collective — who wins?

• 05:52 The rules of the game: no “I,” no “you”

• 09:20 Game Round 1: What is Utopia?

• 15:35 Game Round 2: The human blockchain and the vibrating web

• 21:31 Why removing “I” changes what emerges

• 23:55 Creative limitation: dropping “I,” “you,” and “we”

• 25:00 The Dispossessed: can an egoless society function?

• 31:00 Ego as the “operating self”

• 34:12 Duality, non-duality, and the porous individual

• 39:56 Wouldn’t utopia welcome the ego?

• 41:28 The language problem: these words were made by men

• 43:25 Redefining “duality”

• 44:30 The feminine as “Yes, And”

• 48:56 How do we hold both polarities at once?

• 52:58 “Yes, And” as a principle of utopia

• 54:02 Spanish Revolution and the limits of hearing all voices

• 57:20 Tribes, time, and what “collective” really includes

• 1:00:40 Practicality as a masculine perspective

• 1:03:25 Wrapping up: lifting the creative limitations

• 1:04:50 The feminine “hijacked” this conversation

• 1:05:45 Takeaways: celebrating “Yes, And” — but who builds the roads?

• 1:09:10 More yang in the yin, more yin in the yang

• 1:10:31 Sensing into this without making sense

• 1:13:45 Invitation to listeners & farewell

• 1:15:05 Outro

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Find us here:

• Life in Flow Podcast

• Yulia Bogdanova

• Polina Khodova

• Irina Mishina

💌 Resources used under Creative Commons license:

Music “Echolocation” by airtone, source: CcMixter

You are in for another blindfolded conversation. How much are we not seeing with our eyes open. What could reveal itself when seeing is done through senses besides eyes?

So, our invitation for you is to consider listening with your eyes closed. We’d be curious to hear from you on this.

In this episode we explore the word "understand," sense the longing for shared reality, and consider whether true understanding is about energetic resonance that goes beyond words. You are in for shared codes, morphic fields, dancing one’s PhD.

Whether each of us is seen and truly understood remains a question. 😜 We would be curious to hear your opinion.

These conversations are open explorations, that become richer with time and participation of others. We’d be thrilled to have you participate, if there was something that touched you. By commenting here, or sending us a message.

In flow,

Irina, Polina and Yulia

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Some Things That Wanted to Be Said:

Irina

“To be understood is like being the wind welcomed by the branches of the tree.”

“The longing for feeling understood is longing for a shared reality.”

“You can’t tune the piano just once and then it will play the fine tune forever. You need to tune it periodically. It’s the same with our skill of attunement: it needs to be constantly honed.”

“Understanding without words — sometimes the words are coming from different coding systems, but understanding might still emerge if there is attunement at the deeper level.”

“Darkness definitely helps with the attunement and tuning into shared reality beyond words.”

“If I want to feel understood more, it’s also about how I am tuned into the world.”

Polina

“Can you feel me beyond the words? Can you expand your listening and receiving capacity to really feel me beyond the veil?”

“Understanding is like cuddling with your dog — full nervous system co-regulation, sweet unencumbered trust, and merging energetically while being totally different species.”

“If I don’t have clarity of what my desire is internally, how can I expect the other to understand me? it’s like setting everyone up for failure from the get go.”

“Words are code. The actual subtle energetics behind the words is the key to really receiving what someone is communicating.”

“I often experience with the masculine that they only want to understand me from their reference point — I have to fit into their framework. That doesn’t make me feel received.”

“Being understood is not about someone occupying my reality. It’s about there being space for my reality alongside theirs.”

---

Yulia

“The sense of being understood and the longing being satisfied came from being in nature. It’s so much easier to be understood — maybe because there are fewer layers than we humans have for making meaning.”

“I’ve had very precious experiences of being seen by non-humans.”

“To be understood is like seeing all of a sudden so much wisdom and shapes in a cloud that was just passing by.”

“I thought I understood the process of being understood. It turns out I don’t.”

“Maybe if we make space for worlds of others that don’t need to be similar to ours, that’s a good proxy for being understood.”

“Those fleeting moments of being deeply understood — one moment can expand into an eternity or a universe.”

“Maybe darkness and removing the visual stream could be the practice for being understood and understanding better.”

Let it flow,

Polina, Irina, and Yulya

📍Chapters

• 00:00 Intro

• 01:16 Welcome & the question of being understood

• 05:58 Game: Unpacking the word “understand”

• 16:35 Game: “To be understood is like…” — beyond the human world

• 24:08 Into the darkness: masks on

• 25:25 What does it mean to be understood?

• 37:26 How often do we truly feel understood?

• 44:01 Being seen vs being understood

• 48:48 Men vs Women

• 50:12 What does it take to be understood?

• 54:03 Can we be understood in our confusion?

• 59:49 The longing for shared reality

• 1:04:31 Dance Your PhD & stepping out of your coordinate system

• 1:11:43 Altered states and the depth of understanding

• 1:18:04 The darkness experiment: what did it reveal?

• 1:19:41 Can understanding last?

• 1:27:11 Attunement, shared codes and morphic fields

• 1:30:44 Parting reflections

• 1:34:56 Outro

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Find us here:

• Life in Flow Podcast

• Yulia Bogdanova

• Polina Khodova

• Irina Mishina

💌 Resources used under Creative Commons license:

Music “Echolocation” by airtone, source: CcMixter

Wishing you to be penetrated by the new life and love that the air is humming with.

This episode was recorded with the three of us being blindfolded. Experimenting with senses and sensing bodies and how they affect the group space and flow. And we enjoyed the capacity to hold focus and be present that eye-masks generously granted us.

So, our invitation for you is to consider listening with your eyes closed. We’d be curious to hear from you on this.

During this conversation we moved through different ways of understanding “holding space”: as presence, as energetic containment, as an expanded sense of self that can include multiple experiences without being overwhelmed by them. Again and again, we sensed tension between the instinct to reach outward versus the capacity to stay inward.

Holding space for yourself is not easy or given. Yet, without it, our new becomings are wobbly and risk never hatching in this world. So, let’s go through all the labour of holding ourselves with care and love that we can be so generous with when it comes to others.

These conversations are open explorations, that become richer with time and participation of others. We’d be thrilled to have you participate, if there was something that touched you. Ba commenting here, or sending us a message.

In flow,

Irina, Polina and Yulia

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Some Things We Are Taking With Us:

“At first it seemed to me that holding space was just standing there and doing nothing. But when I was in that role, the amount of energy moving through me was immense.”

“It’s not just that you stand there and be there. You are physically holding everything that is going on with your presence, your attention, your energy.”

“The first impulse is to help, to take some of the other person’s pain. But actually, finding your center is the real support.”

“You don’t need any training to sense when someone is holding space for you.”

“It’s possible to hold everything without being inside of it.”

“Unless you have some working knowledge of who you are, it’s hard to truly hold space for yourself.”

“Holding space for yourself is creating a container where any experience can unfold, be recognized, welcomed, and sustained.”

“If you are not able to hold space for yourself, how good is the quality of you holding space for someone else?”

Let it flow,

Polina, Irina, and Yulya

📍Chapters

• 00:00 Intro

• 01:15 Welcome & the context: cocooning in the darkest time of the year

• 05:35 The experiment: blocked vision, masks on

• 06:37 Game: Brewing a witchy cauldron for holding space

• 12:33 Stories of mountains

• 18:53 The mountain’s consciousness

• 23:08 Inside the mouth of a volcano

• 28:37 What is holding space about?

• 36:00 Making your energy available: healing circle in Brazil

• 40:33 Center yourself first: holding space in breathwork

• 43:06 Holding space through the body: the daughter’s feet story

• 46:41 Providing an energetic blueprint

• 49:12 Becoming the container: expanded boundaries and blown glass

• 57:25 Holding space for others vs holding space for yourself

• 1:00:42 Do you need to know yourself to hold space?

• 1:06:53 Holding space as creating a container for emergence

• 1:13:50 Nature as anchor: the forest that made you whole

• 1:18:37 Referencing self vs referencing externals

• 1:24:22 Masks off: reflections on the darkness experiment

• 1:26:47 Parting reflections

• 1:33:20 Outro

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• Life in Flow Podcast

• Yulia Bogdanova

• Polina Khodova

• Irina Mishina

💌 Resources used under Creative Commons license:

Music “Echolocation” by airtone, source: CcMixter

We are back again with a new episode, and it’s an unusual one.

Some conversations have a mind of their own and go in unexpected directions. In this episode, we started off trying to answer one question, but in the end, the discussion flowed, making us explore something that was emerging in the field even though we were not aware of it.

From identity changes to cultivating the garden of our inner parts to the elusive existence of the “true self”, it all could be described by one question: what happens when we stop trying to be someone?

These conversations are open explorations, that become richer with time and participation of others. We’d be thrilled to have you participate, if there was something that touched you. Ba commenting here, or sending us a message.

In flow,

Irina, Polina and Yulia

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Things that were said:

“If you couldn't be someone for a month — no identity at all — what would life be like? Maybe not knowing isn't emptiness. Maybe it's a state that allows us to flow.”

“True self might be less about a singular identity and more about an energetic frequency that remains constant even as our parts and roles shift through different contexts.”

“We’re never truly alone. Even when I'm the only human in the room, the trees shape us, the moon affects us, the wind influences us. Our identity exists in a porous way, always co-creating.”

"Our internal system is more like a forest. It's wild, interconnected, full of involution — everything getting involved with everything all the time, with outcomes that are just not predictable."

“We perform not just for others, but for ourselves too. I react and feel in certain ways when I’m completely alone, just because that’s my identity — that’s who I assume I am. But that’s just one of my identities.”

"Identity is something we identify with. The social identity is the mask I put on to fit in. But even when I take it off, I might just put on a different mask that I believe is the 'real me’."

Let it flow,

Polina, Irina, and Yulya

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📍Chapters

• 00:00 Intro

• 01:15 Welcome & setting the stage

• 02:33 The Game: Identity as a costume

• 20:02 Working with inner parts: a machine or a garden?

• 37:06 Inner scapes: cultivated garden vs wild forest

• 44:18 What collapses when you stop performing?

• 52:43 Being, soul, ego & the Forrest Gump question

• 1:03:16 The fluidity of identity

• 1:06:11 The energetic frequency of who we are

• 1:09:07 The true self — does it exist?

• 1:14:11 Shapeshifting

• 1:17:11 We are humus

• 1:20:30 What identity is dissolving, forming, emerging?

• 1:34:31 Parting reflections

• 1:37:54 Outro

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Find us here:

• Life in Flow Podcast

• Yulia Bogdanova

• Polina Khodova

• Irina Mishina

💌 Resources used under Creative Commons license:

Music “Echolocation” by airtone, source: CcMixter

Yes, we, the children of modernity and Western civilization, might be egocentric and egoistic. Self- and planet-distructively so.

Yet, is the ego to blame? Or is the ego an organic product of the social, political, and economic configurations that we live under?

In this episode, we explore the ego not as an enemy to destroy, but as a fluid interface between consciousness and the world.

Through reflections on creative collaboration, improv, and the art of being selfish, we discover that the real problem isn’t having an ego — it’s losing awareness when one of our personas hijacks the controls.

These conversations are open explorations, that become richer with time and participation of others. We’d be thrilled to have you participate, if there was something that touched you. Ba commenting here, or sending us a message.

In flow,

Irina, Polina and Yulia

Leave a comment

Polina

“The stronger those impulses get — of not being heard, not being allowed to be yourself — it accumulates into this big ball. Then you’re going to be hijacked, and the observer is going to be swept away because it doesn’t know how to hold intensity.”

“The ego is like an interface — my human interface for living and dealing with people and society. It’s how people are able to interact with me, make sense of me, exchange with me.”

“Society prescribes numbness: let's manage this, let's numb the pain, let's lower the intensity on how much we feel. But the real answer is learning to welcome and occupy our impulses with an observer in place.”

Yulia

“We’re 99% water by molecule count. Terrestrial life is basically water that found its way outside of the ocean, able to make its own waves. The tendency to flow is inherent to the ego.”

“I can choose to play a bitch. But when I consciously play, even if I identify with the bitch in this moment, it’s my decision. But as soon as I really become a bitch — that means something else took over. That’s the problem.”

“When I’m playing a role, my mature adult self chooses to act a certain way because this is the best way of interfacing. But if I become that thing, I lose the multidimensionality of myself and go full way into it. Then it sucks.”

“The way our egos show up is not an individual responsibility. There are forces at play — in society, in civilization — much bigger than individuals. We’re interconnected. Recognize that and give yourself a break.”

Irina

“Selfishness seems to be about putting the self in the first place. It’s about defining and defending the borders. Here is me. And being selfish is to be oneself.”

“If we are not allowed to be selfish and full self, we end up flowing into the other not from a sense of fullness, but from a sense of push. We get amplified, distorted selfishness that wants to occupy the whole space of the other.”

“The ego is shape-shifting, a product of both the subconscious histories inside and the outside conditions. It’s fluid, constantly reshaping itself depending on the circumstances.”

Let it flow,

Polina, Irina, and Yulya

📍Chapters

• 00:00 — What Should We Do With the Ego?

• 03:09 — When Ego Disrupts Group Flow

• 07:20 — Why “Getting Rid of the Ego” Doesn’t Work

• 11:40 — Ego as Boundary: Where the Self Begins

• 15:46 — What Happens When the Self Has No Borders

• 21:21 — Ego as the Interface Between Inner and Outer Worlds

• 23:46 — Identity as a Living, Shifting Narrative

• 30:20 — Why Structure Is Necessary for Flow

• 34:55 — When the Word “Ego” Gets in the Way

• 38:53 — When Ego Shifts From Play Into Control

• 43:49 — Playing a Role vs Being Taken Over by It

• 49:20 — Intensity Isn’t the Problem — Loss of Awareness Is

• 54:30 — The Observer Helps, But It’s Not the Whole Answer

• 1:05:10 — Living With the Ego Instead of Fighting It

• 1:10:38 — Staying in Relationship With Ego Over Time

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Find us here:

• Life in Flow Podcast

• Yulia Bogdanova

• Polina Khodova

• Irina Mishina

💌 Resources used under Creative Commons license:

Music “Echolocation” by airtone, source: CcMixter

I (Yulia) came to the episode hoping to find a specific answer, that my whole life has been keeping me moving and doing even in times when I was physically sick, or emotionally and mentally stretched to a point of breaking.

I wanted some tips on how to be more. Yet, this is not what happened during this conversation. The flow took us into a rabbit hole of trying to understand what being even means.

We did go on a rich journey though that left us with aha moments, posed questions that hadn’t been in our awareness before and reminded us of the deep intention behind these improvised conversations. They are no meant to give answers. They are spaces for creative and intuitive exploration. For navigating the Flow of Life.

You are in for cats, human bodies, collective consciousness, and a windy path they take us on. Paths are meant to be windy, though, aren’t they?

We wonder what this conversation stirs in you.

These conversations are open explorations, that become richer with time and participation of others. We’d be thrilled to have you participate, if there was something that touched you. Ba commenting here, or sending us a message.

In flow,

Irina, Polina and Yulia

Leave a comment

Polina

“Being is more like letting go and fully occupying whatever the experience or the moment is. It’s like you were on your toes, and then you went down and could feel all of your feet.”

“Five minutes, if I just let myself fully occupy each minute, could actually feel like a very long stretch of time. It changed the experience completely — that’s a marker of being.”

“Collective being — what would it feel like if we all collectively just turned off the doing and the value systems and relaxed into being? It’s intoxicatingly beautiful. Worth living for.”

Yulia

“Laziness for me is a forbidden fruit. It feels like anxiety and guilt, like a stone in my chest. But it’s also a dirty little secret — a naughty little secret.”

“What place do I occupy if I’m just being? It’s almost like something I haven’t even fully been able to explore. What would truly being be like?”

“The digital world pulls me into a vortex. I’m very sensitive to the increase in speed, to the difference in energy. And once I start moving fast, I cannot stop.”

Irina

“If I found myself on an uninhabited island with no one to share my creation with, I’m not sure I would be creating. Even action born from my unique expression is influenced by social conditioning.”

“I don’t think it makes sense to oppose being to doing. We can be in being while doing—it depends on the plane we’re talking about.”

“Humans struggle with knowing who they are because we look for the answer in cognition and reflection, and that’s not where being lives.”

Let it flow,

Polina, Irina, and Yulya

📍Chapters

• 00:00 — Welcome to Life in Flow

• 01:52 — “Staying in Bed for Two Weeks!?”

• 05:28 — “Laziness Feels Like Anxiety and Guilt”

• 08:40 — Are We Afraid of Being?

• 09:05 — “My Biggest Fear Is Not Being Valuable”

• 10:46 — Doing as a Condition for Love

• 12:45 — “What Place Do I Occupy If I’m Just Being?”

• 14:46 — Helping, Saving, and Moral Worth

• 18:08 — Occupying the State of Being

• 20:45 — Essence vs State: Ser and Estar

• 24:45 — Visible vs Invisible Planes

• 27:40 — Does Being Require Awareness?

• 35:30 — Being and what shapes identity (outside in or vice versa?)

• 47:57 — What else can be occupying my state?

• 1:14:00 — What Would Help Us Live More in Being?

• 1:14:53 — How We Can Shift Time

• 1:23:27 — Collective Being and Shared Fields

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Find us here:

• Life in Flow Podcast

• Yulia Bogdanova

• Polina Khodova

• Irina Mishina

💌 Resources used under Creative Commons license:

Music “Echolocation” by airtone, source: CcMixter

We are flowing with value today. Which for all three of us has presented quite a lot of challenges. Some, being revealed as life stories.

In this one you are in for some deep personal stories. Of growing up with obligations or requests to demonstrate our value. Wondering what those might bring into your awareness.

Measured value, whether openly stated or masqued and hidden is deeply rooted in how we relate to ourselves and the world, we find.

How do you relate to value? As assigned to self, life, other humans?

These conversations are open explorations, that become richer with time and participation of others. We’d be thrilled to have you participate, if there was something that touched you. Ba commenting here, or sending us a message.

In flow,

Irina, Polina and Yulia

Leave a comment

Irina

"I came into this world to fulfill the ideals and dreams of my parents. I was good from moment zero of my life. And so this equation was created: we love you because you're good."

"Value always involves evaluation. There's a part that is being evaluated and a part that is creating this evaluation. So am I worthy enough to create this beauty, this expansion?"

"Maybe there's no such thing as inherent value. Because for value to exist, there should be another one to create this value. Even self-love — there should be two of me: the one who gives value and the one who has value."

Yulia

“I’ve had quite a few experiences where what I thought was valuable was clearly not seen as such by other people. That mismatch made me wonder—what is valuable, what makes it valuable, and to whom?”

“Lately, I realized that I’ve become quite scared and apprehensive about the word valuable. I think it’s the word that I’ve been operating by in many interactions, especially in a business context, and it’s really hard to find a place where this value is actually shared.”

“In nature, I don’t need to demonstrate anything to anyone. Whatever value is, no one cares—and that feels like radical acceptance.”

Polina

"The word value originally meant to be strong, to be well, to be worthy. It wasn't about how much something was worth — it was about being alive."

"I experienced not being good from the very get-go. So I learned that being good was a game — a way to get access to more safety and predictability. But that original sense of 'just let me be me' was there the entire time."

"When children are simply noticed instead of evaluated, they don't stop seeking connection — they just find it through presence instead of approval."

Let it flow,

Polina, Irina, and Yulya

📍Chapters

• 00:00 – Welcome to Life in Flow

• 2:52 – Valere: value as strength + aliveness (not performance, achievement, or proving).

• 16:07 – Worthiness in the body: tightness, anxiety, and bracing for judgment.

• 19:50 – When value collapses: freeze response, numbness, and “nothing matters” energy.

• 21:10 – Beauty, femininity, and worthiness: expansion vs the mind’s “it’s unsafe.”

• 23:04 – The body’s deeper question: “Am I beautiful enough to expand into the world?”

• 31:52 – When value becomes a system: conditioning, hierarchy, and who gets to feel chosen.

• 36:52 – Childhood conditioning: how being “good” becomes the currency of love.

• 37:54 – People-pleasing decoded: earning approval instead of living from truth.

• 44:01 – Rebellion vs perfectionism: different strategies, same wound—“I must earn love.”

• 52:45 – External validation vs authenticity—and the paradox of becoming “invaluable.”

• 53:07 – The fake scoreboard: the moment you see external value isn’t real (but still runs us).

• 54:00 – “Invaluable” as a spiritual paradox: beyond measurement, status, and comparison.

• 55:20 – Cracking the Shell: releasing the identity built to prove your worth.

• 59:33 – A kindergarten bans “good”: what changes when praise is removed from identity.

• 1:21:43 – Healing value: what if we stop measuring ourselves completely and just be?

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Find us here:

• Life in Flow Podcast

• Yulia Bogdanova

• Polina Khodova

• Irina Mishina

💌 Resources used under Creative Commons license:

Music “Echolocation” by airtone, source: CcMixter

Trees are dreaming. Fungi and flowers cocooning in the underworld. Remaining birds are speaking in subdued tones.

We, humans, are not much different than the wild creatures in how darkness metamorphoses us.

It plays on our ‘darkness receptors‘ penetrating us through the eyes. Firmly directing us to rest, dream, hibernate.

It calls us into the void of mystery, that can feel like longing, loss of orientation, or pain that has its roots in places and times not of the present.

Resisting will only dissipate precious energy.

So, why not surrender to darkness, as the force that will find its way into our bodies and souls. Through the thickest armour.

It’s what this exploration is about.

We are not saying darkness is easy. Or there are ways to always find positives in those dark caves.

Instead exploring the mighty primordial force with respect and curiosity. As rich space beyond clear definitions.

What are you learning about darkness?

Irina

“Darkness shows me the limits of my agency.”

“It’s not the darkness itself that hurts, but my resistance to it.”

“When I stop trying to change the darkness, something else becomes available.”

Yulia

“At first it felt threatening, but then it became intimate.”

“The dark was not empty—it was full of sensations.”

“There was a strange pleasure in not knowing where things were going.”

Polina

“There’s a particular exhaustion that comes from trying to fix what cannot be fixed.”

“Darkness invited me to stop producing and start digesting.”

“It felt like the system finally had permission to rest.”

Let it flow,

Polina, Irina, and Yulya

📍Chapters

• 00:00 – Welcome to Life in Flow

• 01:42 – When Nothing Works: The Experience of Hitting Darkness

• 05:10 – Refusing the Pain Olympics

• 07:29 – Working With the Body, Not the Story

• 08:15 – Metaphors of Darkness: Wells, Labyrinths, Monsters

• 10:48 – “No One Is Coming to Save Me”

• 14:47 – The Weight That Changes Reality

• 17:25 – Building Somatic Resilience Before Going Deeper

• 21:41 – Nature as a Regulator: Receiving Strength From the Outside

• 26:27 – Facing Fear With a Steady Core

• 31:26 – Trusting the Pull of the Future

• 38:57 – The Spiral: Power That Can Destroy or Create

• 42:10 – What Darkness Is Actually Teaching Us

• 52:23 – Darkness as Hibernation, Not Failure

• 1:10:41 – The Gifts of Darkness & What Emerged

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Find us here:

• Life in Flow Podcast

• Yulia Bogdanova

• Polina Khodova

• Irina Mishina

💌 Resources used under Creative Commons license:

Music “Echolocation” by airtone, source: CcMixter

And Happy Holidays if you are celebrating.

It’s interesting that the publication of this episode should land during the biggest Western holidays of the year. Because paradoxically, this time can feel piercingly lonely, would you say?

If holidays are feeling lonely to you, please know you are not alone. I, Yulia have been wondering lately how it came to that and what holidays are about beyond their modern form.

Deep time ago holidays seem to have been about embodied enactments of oneness, between humans and non-human beings. Time of facilitated ecstatic rupture, and the collective state of remembering ourselves and our place in this world.

I wonder what it might have been like.

Meanwhile, I am feeling protective of my loneliness among the ubiquitous lights and the loud cheer. Imagining myself in a tiny hut in the middle of a forest, haha.

Wondering how this time feels to you? Might be very different from Yulia’s experience. However it is, we welcome and honor that.

Irina

“Loneliness is the pain of existential separateness.”

“It’s a state where there is no reflection, no echo coming back.”

“Loneliness is when the system collapses into a single point and looks for source.”

Yulia

“Loneliness has a certain sharpness to it, like something piercing.”

“Loneliness made me relate differently to nature, to trees, to silence.”

“There was no one to mirror me, and that changed how I experienced myself.”

Polina

“Some of my deepest loneliness happened while I was surrounded by people.”

“Being alone gave me space, but loneliness asked a much harder question.”

“Loneliness is an existential question.”

Let it flow,

Polina, Irina, and Yulya

📍Chapters

• 00:00 — Welcome to Life in Flow

• 01:22 — When Loneliness Takes Over

• 03:24 — What Loneliness Feels Like (Before We Explain It)

• 08:53 — When You’re the Only Witness

• 10:35 — Depth, Dark & Light, Song, Beauty

• 13:22 — Alone Isn’t the Same as Lonely

• 17:29 — Loneliness in Loud Rooms

• 21:22 — Being the Only One

• 23:26 — Losing the Knife

• 26:37 — What Exile Does to the Body

• 32:29 — When the Group No Longer Fits

• 35:22 — More Than the Human Animal

• 45:37 — What Loneliness Is Shaping

• 50:39 — Remembering Love

• 01:10:32 — Loneliness is a state that needs to be shaped

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Find us here:

• Life in Flow Podcast

• Yulia Bogdanova

• Polina Khodova

• Irina Mishina

💌 Resources used under Creative Commons license:

Music “Echolocation” by airtone, source: CcMixter

We are curious how it’s unfolding for you at the moment?

In today’s episode, we’re exploring what it is like to listen without filters. When the intention is radical acceptance and welcoming, how does it affect the flow between us?

Polina

“Do you want me to listen just to hold space because you need to get some stuff out and you don’t want any advice?”

“Filters can really change the way we hear and how we listen and what experience we’re providing for the person that is speaking with us.”

“Radical acceptance, approval, and granting something as real, can be an extraordinary shift.”

Irina

“The way we listen, whether there’s judgment or not, and how we relate to the tension in the body, all of those things mix into our ability to flow together.”

“This kind of interaction (listening without filters) requires a new set of skills. It requires deliberate practice, an intention from all the participants, a willingness to learn this new interaction.”

“The mere question invites us to become aware: what am I saying, why am I saying it this way? Unconsciously, we do want to cause something.”

Yulia

“Until the things that bubble me up are voiced out and I just release this steam, no more constructive steps are possible towards transformation of the system.”

“There are not many people that I’ve met who are able just to hold the basket and really create that space where I feel safe in offloading myself and not loading them with my stuff.”

“I alone won’t cause anything. Maybe something is being initiated through me. Being aware and curious what other forces are involved is super important.”

What are some of your most memorable moments of being fully accepted and held?

If anything you heard or read here resonated, do let us know. We would be delighted to connect.

Let it flow,

Polina, Irina, and Yulya

📍Chapters

• 00:00 – Welcome to Life in Flow

• 03:16 – A Game That Loosens the Mind

• 08:46 – How Reality Lands in the Body

• 09:28 – The Hidden Pressure Behind Listening

• 15:18 – How Judgment Silences Connection

• 17:03 – The Listening Question That Changes Everything

• 19:52 – The Courage to Ask for How You Want to Be Heard

• 22:29 – Agreements That Make Space Sacred

• 29:18 – How Taking Things Inward Changes the Field

• 37:09 – When Presence Becomes the Only Way Forward

• 47:02 – Trusting What Emerges Beyond the Rational Mind

• 57:42 – Radical Acceptance: Meeting in the Human Center

• 01:06:12 – Welcoming vs. Filtering: The Felt Difference

• 01:14:52 – The Inner Question Shaping the Field

• 01:33:19 – Surrendering the Perfect Self to Let Flow Lead

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• Life in Flow Podcast

• Yulia Bogdanova

• Polina Khodova

• Irina Mishina

💌 Resources used under Creative Commons license:

Music “Echolocation” by airtone, source: CcMixter

Feeling part of something bigger…

What does it mean? Why do humans look for this feeling, and how does it show up in the body?

The conversation moves through transcendence, belonging, approval, coherence, not belonging, and moments of silence.

We talk about sadness that expands and contracts, about being held by the breath of life, about crossing borders and never belonging to one world, about coherence, and more.

Irina

“Sadness is the process of transforming pain into love.”
“I felt the pain of the world transforming in my heart into love.”
“Any tiny shift in the state of one person creates a shift in the state of the whole system.”
“The experience of being held by life was so moving and unexpected.”

Yulia

“My nature is about crossing the borders… I’m always connecting worlds.”
“Group flow creates this good sensation that there is a place for me here.”
“When social conditioning was removed, I was just being content in love and totally connected to everyone in the room.”

Polina

“Going beyond the limits of something has been the name of the game for me.”
“Immigrating to another country was a transcendent experience, like landing on the moon.”
“Maybe belonging is when I feel welcome, when there is space for me, and when I am approved without having to perform.”

What does feeling part of something bigger mean for you?

If anything you heard or read here resonated, do let us know. We would be thrilled to hear from you!

Let it flow,

Polina, Irina, and Yulya

📍Chapters

• 00:00 – Welcome to Life in Flow

• 04:21 – Somatic Improvisation Game: “Transcendence”

• 06:40 – Sadness as a Pathway to Love

• 09:19 – Touching the River of Collective Emotion

• 12:06 – Going Beyond Your Human Form

• 16:01 – Transforming Pain Through Generations

• 20:11 – Transcendence as a Daily Life Practice

• 21:15 – Transcendence as a Hobby

• 24:36 – Moments When We Felt Part of Something Greater

• 31:06 – Belonging to Your Own Timeline

• 40:17 – The Power of Deep, Unquestionable Approval

• 53:39 – Can Belonging Be Created on Purpose?

• 57:58 – Higher Self, Energy Work, and Self-Approval

• 01:00:16 – Peeling Away Social Conditioning & Becoming Porous

• 01:11:23 – Being Held by Life, Nature, and Other Humans

• 01:18:12 – What We’re Taking With Us

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Find us here:

• Life in Flow Podcast

• Yulia Bogdanova

• Polina Khodova

• Irina Mishina

💌 Resources used under Creative Commons license:

Music “Echolocation” by airtone, source: CcMixter

Today, we explore who we are outside the human systems that shaped us.

We start with the image of humans living in a “zoo,” surrounded by rules and beliefs that can feel like our own voice but were often learned.

As we talk, this image opens into questions about what happens when those structures disappear, when the roles and the stories that organized our lives no longer tell us where to go.

What is left when we are not a role, not a name, not the expectations that tell us what a “well-lived life” looks like?

Yulia

“We humans also kind of live in a zoo. But do we really know what we need and what’s important to us?”
“The question of who we are beyond social roles always brings me to the mirror—when I really look into my own eyes, I meet something alien, not of this world.”
“When I connected deeply to nature, it was as if the removal of all the social rules created a clearing and more access to my ancient self.”

Irina

“We are animals—and we are social animals. The biology and the social nature are part of the same soup.”
“Even if you remove yourself from society, you’re still interacting with something that shapes you.”
“The conditioning is inevitable. You leave the city, and you’re conditioned by the forest, by the environment.”

Polina

“Removing myself from all the zoos—the work zoo, the family zoo, the New York zoo—was the first time I began to integrate who I actually am.”
“I think the way we navigate it is through awareness and choice—owning what’s emerging, and deciding which part of me I want to give voice to.”
“I have the right to change my mind, to be different in the next season of life. That’s part of the evolution.”

Who are YOU beyond all the social roles that first come to mind?”

Thanks for being here. Till next time!

Let it flow,

Polina, Irina, and Yulya

📍Chapters

• 00:00 – Welcome to Life in Flow

• 01:42 – What shapes us? The unseen force of conditioning

• 03:11 – The Zoo Game: how environments train us

• 07:17 – Are we living in invisible cages?

• 08:33 – Instinct vs. obedience: the “leash effect”

• 12:52 – When love becomes a role you must perform

• 16:38 – Family scripts: responsibility, success & pressure

• 23:25 – The inner check: “Is this actually me?”

• 25:04 – The motherhood story: desire, biology, or expectation?

• 29:49 – Identity at the crossroads of culture and biology

• 37:22 – Beyond roles: touching the essence of who we are

• 43:57 – Gender and identity: the fluid self beneath the labels

• 48:42 – Rediscovering the wild self through nature

• 1:04:57 – You’re always conditioned by something—so what frees you?

• 1:06:32 – Choosing your way: awareness, fluidity, and self-trust

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Find us here:

• Life in Flow Podcast

• Yulia Bogdanova

• Polina Khodova

• Irina Mishina

💌 Resources used under Creative Commons license:

Music “Echolocation” by airtone, source: CcMixter

In today’s episode, we explore what makes our relationships meaningful.

We talk about resonance, exchange, reflection, and the space we occupy in each other’s being.

Sometimes it feels like ease, and sometimes like tension. Meaning, we discover, isn’t fixed.

It arises in connection, in awareness, and in how we meet each other — again and again.

Irina

“For me, a relationship becomes meaningful when there is a certain resonance — a connection at any level.”
“It may last just a few moments, or it may stay for years.”
“Sometimes it’s shared values, sometimes shared worldview, or simply the sense that something registers between us.”
“Even difficult relationships that reflect something back to me — those can be the most meaningful.”
“I’m leaving with this idea of what the relationship allows for: learning, development, and the possibility of group flow.”

Yulia

“A meaningful relationship has a body — it occupies space in my being.”
“It’s about diffusion — something of me and something of the other person exchange and stay.”
“Conflict is part of it. There is so much energy in conflict, in tension. Without it, everything gets flat.”

Polina

“Meaning for me right now is the ability to be real — to share what’s easy and what’s hard.”
“It’s not about being perfect; it’s about cleaning things up, clarifying, finding our way through the dark together.”
“Maybe meaning isn’t always shared. Sometimes it’s what happens inside me — the reflection that changes how I see myself.”

📍Chapters

• 00:00 – Welcome to Life in Flow

• 12:26 – Losing Meaning by Defining It

• 15:44 – Resonance as the Heart of Connection

• 20:21 – Diffusion: When We Occupy Each Other

• 33:13 – The Wall of Pretending vs. Realness

• 41:40 – Imperfection, Repair, and Growth

• 47:29 – Painful Reflections in Relationships

• 48:52 – Why Conflict Creates Meaningful Bonds

• 51:26 – Can Harmony Exist Without Conflict?

• 59:55 – Healthy Conflict as Growth Engine

• 1:01:05 – Linking vs. Merging (Dan Siegel)

• 1:03:05 – Penetration as a Metaphor for Meaningful Depth

• 1:05:26 – The Felt Sense of Meaningfulness

• 1:17:19 – Group Flow and Belonging to More

• 1:25:30 – When “Meaningful” Isn’t: Family & Re-Negotiation

Thanks for being here. Till next time!

Let it flow,

Polina, Irina, and Yulya

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Find us here:

• Life in Flow Podcast

• Yulia Bogdanova

• Polina Khodova

• Irina Mishina

💌 Resources used under Creative Commons license:

Music “Echolocation” by airtone, source: CcMixter

In today’s episode, we talk about creation—who or what made the world, how we each imagine the beginning, and what it means to trust life.

What are we really trusting? Is there a higher intelligence, a God, a living Earth? Or are we part of a self-organizing system of consciousness exploring itself?

In this episode, we share myths of origin and our own ideas.

A star exploding from loneliness, Gaia dreaming through us, bacteria learning to move—each story opens a different window into creation.

We play, wonder aloud, and imagine.

Irina

“I like to think of creation as an act of self-awareness—a single consciousness realizing itself and multiplying like mirrors reflecting mirrors.”
“Maybe the Big Bang was not an explosion, but an awakening.”
“For me, God is life itself—a self-organizing intelligence that allows everything to exist and evolve.”
“When we remember we are part of this system, not separate from it, we stop acting like the cancer of the world and start flowing with it.”

Yulia

“I see Gaia as the creative force—the Earth herself experimenting with different ways of sensing and being.”
“She’s in constant creative flow, not controlling but participating, like a dancer improvising with the cosmos.”
“The more I connect to plants, the more I feel their messages of protection and wisdom.”
“To surrender to life is to trust this vast, intelligent web that’s far beyond human control.”

Polina

“Maybe we’re walking plants—life deciding to move, to explore, to play.”
“I don’t know if consciousness comes from matter or the other way around. Maybe both.”
“When I surrender, I’m trusting my higher self and the energy that permeates everything.”
“Perhaps the voices we call guardian angels are just other expressions of energy—us meeting ourselves beyond time.”

Join us in reconnecting with the vast, playful mystery that made us.

📍Chapters

• 0:00 – Welcome to Life in Flow

• 1:47 – Today’s Big Question: Who Created the World?

• 2:20 – Trust, Surrender, and the Flow of Life

• 3:54 – Fireplace Game: Our Myth of Origin

• 14:21 – What creation stories do we tell ourselves?

• 18:40 – The Big Bang: Self-Awareness Multiplying

• 20:06 – Gaia as Living Creator: Earth’s Experiments with Life

• 23:33 – Interconnectedness of Rocks, Plants, and Humans

• 25:05 – Walking Plants and the Spark of Life

• 26:51 – Consciousness vs. Matter: Which Came First?

• 29:01 – Is There a God? Definitions, Doubts & Beliefs

• 30:19 – Nature, Time, and the Creative Flow of Gaia

• 36:53 – Energy, Frequency, and the Greater Intelligence

• 41:16 – Observers, IFS, and Non-Human Perspectives

• 44:08 – Stardust and Human Origins

• 46:07 – Life as God: The Self-Organizing System

• 50:51 – Guardian Angels, Higher Self, and Spiritual Guides

• 59:03 – Surrendering Control: Who Do We Trust?

• 1:01:46 – Final Reflections on Interconnectedness and Flow

Thanks for being here. Till next time!

Let it flow,

Polina, Irina, and Yulya

Follow us on the Major Podcasting Platforms here

Leave a comment

Find us here:

• Life in Flow Podcast

• Yulia Bogdanova

• Polina Khodova

• Irina Mishina

💌 Resources used under Creative Commons license:

Music “Echolocation” by airtone, source: CcMixter