Shows
Brave Awareness With Ronn Pawo McLaneThe Vow: The End of a Season, the Beginning of a PathEpisode 12 – The Vow: The End of a Season, the Beginning of a Path
As this powerful first season of Brave Awareness comes to a close, I share something deeply personal with you—the story behind writing the book that inspired it all.
This isn't just a reflection on a manuscript. It's a commitment to a practice that meets life exactly where it is. In this final episode, I reveal The Brave Awareness Vow—a living mantra that invites us to respond to life with clarity, presence, and compassion… without abandoning ourselves.
This vow is not a...
2025-08-1207 minBrave Awareness With Ronn Pawo McLaneHow to Be Okay When Life Isn’tEpisode 11: How to Be Okay When Life Isn’t
When life gets heavy, chaotic, or uncertain — what does it actually mean to be “okay”? Not in a performative, spiritual bypass way. But in a real, grounded, embodied way?
In this episode, Ronn shares a deeply honest look at those quiet moments when everything feels just slightly off — and the tools that often fail us. Instead of reaching for a fix, what happens when we choose to remain?
This is not a pep talk. It’s a practice.
You’ll explore:
The myth of co...
2025-08-0506 minBrave Awareness With Ronn Pawo McLaneRerouting — The Art of Choosing a New ResponseWhat if you didn’t have to react the way you always do?
What if the pattern isn’t the problem — it’s the unawareness of the pattern?
In this episode, Ronn shares a raw, real-life story about stepping out of the over-functioning role in his marriage, resisting the urge to fix, nag, or manage everything, and learning, moment by moment, to choose a new response.
We explore:
– How over-controlling becomes a nervous system survival strategy
– The invisible labor of managing your partner’s chaos
– Why breaking the pattern starts with not doing the th...
2025-07-2907 minBrave Awareness With Ronn Pawo McLaneHow to Stop Abandoning Yourself in Real TimeSelf-abandonment doesn’t always show up as chaos.
Sometimes, it looks like saying “yes” when you mean “no.”
Smiling when you want to scream.
Agreeing to the plan just to keep the peace — even when the peace is fake.
In this episode, Ronn shares a deeply personal story about people-pleasing, internal conflict, and the moment he realized he’d been standing in line for a roller coaster he never wanted to ride, just to avoid disappointing others.
We explore:
– How people-pleasing is often self-protection in disguise
– Why neutrality is misread as rejection
–...
2025-07-2209 minBrave Awareness With Ronn Pawo McLaneCompassion Is a Survival Skill — Not a Soft SkillMost people think compassion is softness. But what if it's your sharpest tool for staying present in a world that demands reaction?
In this episode, Ronn explores the misunderstood power of compassion — not as a passive indulgence, but as a radical, grounded response to life’s chaos, injustice, and pain. From letting go of the need to fix what’s not yours, to standing in neutrality without collapsing, this conversation unpacks why real compassion isn’t weak — it’s precise, resilient, and essential for waking up.
We talk about:
– Why effort doesn’t always lead to the outc...
2025-07-1510 minBrave Awareness With Ronn Pawo McLaneThe Sacred Order of Chaos: What If Thermodynamics Is a Spiritual Teaching?What if physics wasn’t just science… but scripture?
What if the universe has been whispering truths about your nature all along — not through mystics alone, but through math, energy, and law?
In this episode, we explore the Four Laws of Thermodynamics not as formulas, but as spiritual teachings — elegant transmissions from the universe itself about change, connection, and the truth of being.
From entropy to equilibrium, from birth to breath, this isn’t just a science lesson. It’s a wake-up call.
You’ll discover:
How the laws of energy mirror...
2025-07-0807 minBrave Awareness With Ronn Pawo McLaneThe Shame Spiral — And How to Interrupt ItHave you ever reached for your phone, hoping for a little connection — and been met with silence? That quiet drop in your gut, that subtle ache... it's more than disappointment. It’s the early stirrings of shame.
In this episode, we slow down and look closely at how the shame spiral begins — not when it’s overwhelming, but in those quiet, unnoticed moments. You'll hear a personal story of emotional depletion, the tender need for acknowledgment, and how a single breath and phrase — “Don’t chase” — became the doorway back to presence.
We’ll explore:
Why shame ra...
2025-07-0109 minBrave Awareness With Ronn Pawo McLaneWhat You're Tuning Into Isn't TruthEverywhere you turn — the news, social media, even your own mind — someone’s telling you what to think and how to feel. But what if what you’re tuning into isn’t truth at all… just noise, bias, and fear disguised as facts?
In this episode, we explore the concept of radical neutrality — the third channel of awareness that exists beyond pleasure and pain, beyond opinion and emotion. Inspired by a rare appearance from Connie Chung and reflections on Edward R. Murrow’s legacy, we confront the real cost of confusing opinion with truth… and how finding that neutral frequ...
2025-06-2409 minBrave Awareness With Ronn Pawo McLaneThis Isn’t Meditation—It’s SedationEpisode 4: This Isn’t Meditation—It’s Sedation
Most of what’s sold as meditation is just branded relaxation. Calm voices. Soft music. Another numbing scroll through “good vibes only.” But here’s the truth: that’s not the practice.
The real work is noticing. Catching yourself in the spiral. Interrupting the pattern. Choosing differently—on purpose, in real time.
In this episode, I share a raw and personal story from my own relationship—how one ordinary Thursday night nearly became a blow-up, but instead became a breakthrough. Through the lens of everyday awareness, I walk you through w...
2025-06-1709 minBrave Awareness With Ronn Pawo McLaneMeditation Isn’t About Relaxing — It’s About Waking the F*ck UpForget everything you’ve been told about meditation being just a way to relax. That’s not the point.
In this episode, we get honest about what meditation really is: the radical moment you notice that you're lost in thought, and come back.
This is about metacognition. Awareness. Interrupting the inner chaos with the clarity of presence.
No fluff. No spiritual bypassing. Just a raw, real look at how waking up in your own life changes everything.
If you've ever felt like you're too scattered, too emotional, or too intense to meditate "the righ...
2025-06-1010 minBrave Awareness With Ronn Pawo McLaneBefore the Fear Speaks: Finding Yourself Before the Panic HitsIn a world drowning in outrage, distraction, and performance, fear has quietly taken the wheel.
In this episode of Brave Awareness, Ronn Pawo McLane goes deeper into what fear really is—not weakness, not brokenness, but a pattern that began before we even had language.
We explore fear not as something to conquer or eliminate, but something to see clearly, and gently take the lead from.
This is a poetic, grounded reflection on how Brave Awareness helps us untangle from survival mode, cultural panic, and personal stories that no longer serve.
If...
2025-06-0307 minBrave Awareness With Ronn Pawo McLaneWhat If You’re Not Wrong—You’re Just Afraid?This is the first offering of the Brave Awareness podcast — a spoken transmission for anyone feeling overwhelmed by division, anger, or noise.
In just over six minutes, Ronn Pawo McLane explores the uncomfortable truth that beneath much of our collective behavior—from cruelty to control—lives a single unspoken force: fear.
But this isn't a takedown. It's a return.
You don't have to act on fear just because you feel it. This short episode offers both the clarity and the practical guidance to recognize what's underneath and choose skill over reaction.
Listen...
2025-05-2707 minBrave Awareness With Ronn Pawo McLaneBrave Awareness Begins: A Welcome from Ronn Pawo McLaneIn this welcome episode, Ronn Pawo McLane—meditation teacher, author, and former host of the Backyard Buddhist Podcast—returns with a new voice, a deeper message, and an invitation into a space where nothing needs to be performed.
After a long, internal sabbatical, Brave Awareness is here—not as a rebrand, but as a radical shift.
This is not a self-help show. It’s not a spiritual marketing funnel. It’s a podcast about truth.
Short spoken transmissions. Poetic reflections. Sacred interruptions. And the clear, calm courage to sit with what is real.
If y...
2025-05-2403 min