Unconventional Life – Podcast, Blog, Live Events

Category: Spirituality

  • Ep459: Crazy Love: Adam Roa on Self-Love, Creative Calling & Expanding Capacity

    Ep459: Crazy Love: Adam Roa on Self-Love, Creative Calling & Expanding Capacity

    Adam Roa never chased influence. He chased truth.

    Before millions of people would memorize his words, before “You Are Who You’ve Been Looking For” became the most viewed live poetry performance in history, Roa was an actor sleeping in his aunt and uncle’s garage in Los Angeles—learning how to survive rejection without losing himself.

    “I never saw myself as a thought leader,” Roa says. “I just wanted to create.”

    When the Win Isn’t a Win

    The poem that launched Roa into global visibility hit 40 million views in 48 hours. It should have been a victory lap. Instead, it initiated a reckoning.

    Behind the scenes, Roa spiraled into depression. The message of self-love he’d offered the world demanded embodiment—not performance.

    “That poem forced me to confront the truth,” he shares. “I didn’t know how to love myself.”

    Capacity Is the Real Currency

    Roa explains that success is energetic. Visibility, money, love—they all require a nervous system capable of holding them.

    “When my poem went viral, my system wasn’t ready,” he admits. “It fried me.”

    The work that followed wasn’t about scaling—it was about strengthening the vessel.

    Love as an Expansive Force

    In Roa’s framework, love isn’t romanticized sentiment—it’s expansion. The same force that grows galaxies, beats hearts, and calls us forward.

    He identifies three relationships that define a life:

    • The relationship with self

    • The relationship with others

    • The relationship with life itself

    Without self-holding, romantic love becomes compensation rather than connection.

    From Independence to Interdependence

    Roa critiques modern entrepreneurship’s obsession with independence. Freedom without relational skill leads to isolation.

    “We’re not taught how to hold space, communicate boundaries, or receive feedback,” he says. “Yet those are the skills that actually sustain love and leadership.”

    Crazy Love: Art Without Armor

    Set for release in February 2026, Crazy Love is Roa’s most vulnerable work to date—a decade of unfiltered journal entries and poetry written never to be read.

    The book opens with an invitation, then leaves readers alone inside the terrain of heartbreak, devotion, and reclamation.

    “It’s a turning of a page,” Roa says. “Not just for me—but for anyone willing to meet themselves honestly.”

    Connect with Adam Roa

    • Website: adamroa.com

    • Instagram: @adamroa

    • Book waitlist: adamroa.com/crazylove

    • Ted Talk: Click here to watch
  • Ep302: Commitment to Radical Truth with New York Time Best-Selling Author and Political Activist Marianne Williamson

    Ep302: Commitment to Radical Truth with New York Time Best-Selling Author and Political Activist Marianne Williamson

    Ever since the COVID pandemic forced us into our homes levels of fear and anxiety seem to have doubled in the past year, paired with the negativity of news and social media, it seems like the world is the closest to ending it has ever been.

    It is easy to be crushed by hopelessness, but for the author, spiritual thought leader and political activist Marianne Williamson, as long as there is life, there is always hope

    “I believe in the possibility of infinite possibility.”

    An author of 14 books, 4 of which are New York Times bestsellers, Marianne is a passionate believer in the power greater than what we see. Some may call it God, Source, or Divine Intelligence, for Marianne this all centres around the same principle: Love.

    “When our lives are dedicated to love, that’s when we are doing our best to remove the unforgiveness, the blame, the negativity— all those forms of lovelessness that stand like walls in front of our love. When we allow those walls to dissolve something happens.”

    Passionately, she advocates that people should live a life that is not disconnected from spiritual practice, and a centring routine in the morning is essential in creating change around.

    “If we only look at worldly happenings, we are in trouble. Ultimately, the problem is in a deep level of our humanity.”

    For her, meditation, prayer and other forms of connecting to the Divine or Greater Power are no different from going to the gym; it’s simply an activity to build our mental and emotional muscles.

    “… that gives you the strength to remain still—the strength not to move but to just be there, at which point you become like a magnet in the universe in your presence,” she says, “and less obstruction to the same plan that turns the acorn into the Oaktree or the bud into the blossom.”

    Her faith and commitment to love led Marianne to pursue a career in politics. She believes that to love means also to act and to not just be on the sidelines. In 2014, she ran as an independent to fill a seat in California’s 33rd Congressional District, and in 2020, she ran for the Democratic nomination for president.

    She made headlines for advocating Reparations for slavery and resolving racial injustice but her spiritual verbiage proved too radical for the Democrats and she had to pull out following criticism of her mental state and sanity. She referred to this as ‘Character Assassination’ often done on women to keep them quiet—a modern-day version of Witch Burning.

    Despite laying out a plan for the Government to pay out $500 million in Reparations, she pulled out of the race.

    “To be a radical truthteller at this time, doesn’t always get you applause, and it doesn’t get you applause from everybody,” Marianne shared with us.

    This however was not enough to stop Marianne as she continued to take action rooted in her devotion to the truth.

    She co-founded the non-profit organization Project Angel Food, and the advocacy group The Peace Alliance. And just last year, she started her Substack newsletter TRANSFORM where she shares, guides, and teaches spiritual practice as well as socio-political issues and events.

    Sharing a quote from the Course in Miracles, she says, “An idea grows stronger when it is shared. It’s the idea of creating a resonant field of energy because everybody is on the same page. I created this Substack for people who want to meditate in the morning and make waves in the afternoon.”

    With that, she encourages us to practice the morning of centring ourselves and taking action as well.

    More from Marianne:

  • Ep285: Choosing To Be Who You’re Meant To Be with Mindset Coach Miro Heyink

    Ep285: Choosing To Be Who You’re Meant To Be with Mindset Coach Miro Heyink

    When you don’t know where you belong, mindset coach and philanthropist, Miro Heyink, believes that the universe will always find a way to set a path for you.

    Miro Heyink is the Founder of Manifest X, a community for high-performing conscious entrepreneurs to turn their wildest business dreams into reality.

    Although a mentor for impact-driven entrepreneurs, and a proud, loving dad, Miro has overcome many challenges to reach where he is today.

    Born to a fatherless home in Germany, Miro has experienced taking all the wrong roads – selling drugs, joining gangs, even encountering a near-death experience before even reaching the age of 18. It was when he was at the lowest point of his life were his goals became clear as he reached what he calls his “elevator moment”.

    “It was in that moment, with my nose broken and my black eye, that I had my elevator moment where I decided to follow my dream.”

    Moving to America with no citizenship or support, the world seemed to make a way for him despite the odds. Rather than telling himself to find a regular job, Miro decided to pursue his wildest dreams of becoming an entrepreneur in a foreign land and has since built a community that provides the same support he was looking for years ago.

    “If you’re around four donkeys, you’re going to be the fifth…having that community that believes in you and supports you is so important.”

    “The way the universe works,” he says, “is that we can either experience through these harsh, traumatic moments that put us back into our path or through a way more intentional and conscious alignment”

    Now, Miro has devoted his time to helping aspiring entrepreneurs make their wildest business ideas come true. Whether it’s regular people hoping to make it far or NFL superstars who want to take their career to the next level, Miro’s goal is to give them the proper support and mindset to make the most out of the life they have and the path that they’ve taken

    “You are allowed to be all that you are meant to be and truly have it all.”

     

    More from Miro:

  • Ep283: Finding the Extraordinary in the Ordinary with Artist Choreographer Susan Slotnick

    Ep283: Finding the Extraordinary in the Ordinary with Artist Choreographer Susan Slotnick

    We dream of living in the limelight of life, chasing after complex goals and looking for some semblance of a grand purpose for our existence.  Oftentimes we get lost in the process of doing something amazing that we forget the joy of simplistic pursuits. For the visual artist and renowned dancer and choreographer, Susan Slotnick, finding her purpose started with a humble love for dancing, and a passion for healing and reformation.

    “And I can’t remember a time, even as a child when I didn’t have this strong desire to do something; to heal the world.”

    Whether it be her daily walks or eating the same breakfast for the past 50 years, Susan has found sacredness in the most common activities. She makes it a point to appreciate mundane life as there is an art to be found in simple living.

    “Some of the most extraordinary things about the direction our lives take has to do with inherited proclivities…” Susan gleams. “… Most of life is ordinary, most of the way we spend our time is on ordinary activities. And if we don’t find those activities extraordinary, we’re going to feel that our lives are a little bit dull or a little bit boring.”

    Susan has even managed to transpose her simple love for dance and the freedom it provides into something meaningful.

    “Dance is a birthright,” she emphasizes, “it belongs to the world.”

    Today, even at the tender age of 76, she still conducts dance classes at the Woodbourne Correctional Facility and DFY (Division For Youth prison) every Friday and Sunday to bring the joy of modern dance to incarcerated men and boys under the auspices of RTA Rehabilitation through the Arts.

    Through her passion for the arts and her desire to bring healing to the world, she has helped countless men and women live reformed lives with their newfound freedom through dance.

    She claims it as the apex of her long career. She has volunteered for 15 years in boy’s and men’s prisons as well as with AIDS and cancer survivors, the homeless, and the indigenous poor of the Caribbean, All have been the recipient of her love, talent and attention

    “What I’m the most proud of,” reminiscing, she says, “in terms of taking the road less travelled, is the direction that I put all my talents to.”

    In addition to her work in dance, Slotnick continues her career as a painter. For ten years her painting, Compassionate Baby was on display in the Sloan-Kettering Hospital’s Pediatric Oncology Waiting Room. Currently, Susan Slotnick is a member of Roost Art Gallery where she has exhibited in a one-woman show.

     

    More From Susan:

  • Ep281: Death, Doubt and Dedication with Bestselling Author Jack Raymond

    Ep281: Death, Doubt and Dedication with Bestselling Author Jack Raymond

    It is ever so often that life throws us in the most breaking of experiences, for the sake of our own learning. Writer Jack Raymond knows this all so well. In his lowest point, he found relief in art and made beauty out of his own struggles.

    Before he made his Best Sellers, Jack was living a comfortable life selling corporate insurance. Only after the death of his dad did he consider a career in writing.

    “When my father passed away, and morbidly enough, while in the middle of writing his obituary, it dawned on me that this is what I want to do with my life.”

    “Prior to that I was wearing a suit and tie every day, sitting in traffic, and made a bunch of money off that,” Jack said. “I was on top of the world at 25 years old and he passed and it kind of brought me back down to earth”

    It was a humbling experience for Jack, but it was a dark period of grieving. He turned to alcohol and filling up hundreds of notebooks with his writing that he kept to himself. It was only after the recommendation of a friend did he decide to share his work on Instagram. One post every day, up until today. He found a niche of people by the thousands that could relate to his words.

    “I started to just share my work and it kind of took off from there and within six months a publishing company reached out to me and published my first book”

    But despite his quick start to being a published author he still doubted whether his work was good or not, before coming to the conclusion that one can only move forward. In his own words, “There was no artist that I care to even hang around with, or learn from, or associate with, who thinks their shit doesn’t stink like everyone.”

    “Even if they think it’s good… if they look at it too much, they’ll start to hate it so they have to quickly move on to the next one. That was helpful for me, going through these tragedies.”

    However, Jack recognizes that his first works appealed to people for their heavy and melancholic themes. It was hard writing from a happy place of recovery and acceptance, but he reminds us that “It’s okay to be happy.”

    Though most of his sadness has passed, the virtue of staying true to himself has kept his writing great and ever-improving. “I’ve always pride myself on just being authentic, being genuine, being honest, and after my dad passed away and while writing that obituary, it felt like from that day on, that was all that mattered.”

    Empathizing with other writers who are torn between their market and being authentic, he shares with us this mantra, reminding us why we make art. “It’s my art, not theirs. I write it for me. If you relate to it great, no offence but that’s not even the point.”

     

    More from Jack:

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