Partners in Sublime: Elevating personal growth through psychospiritual wisdom

di Shagun Chopra

How to feel good enough: Miranda struggles with feelings of inadequacy as a stay-at-home mom

Feeling good enough is rarely a matter of doing more, and yet most of us keep answering the question that way, by adding another accomplishment, another role, another proof that we have earned our place. In this week's coaching session, "Miranda" brings that question into the room with a baby wrapped against her chest. She is a stay-at-home mom of three with an MBA, who opens LinkedIn and watches her classmates rise into the C suite, who catches herself thinking things about her children that she is ashamed to admit, and who wonders quietly how much of her own mother she is turning into, all while the feeling of not being enough follows her into her marriage, her body, and her sense of purpose. Joining me afterward to unpack what came up is Shefali Khokhar, a coach, my friend, and a former college classmate I had not seen in some twenty years, who traces her own path from an MBA and a decade in corporate HR into intuitive, image-based coaching and brings that lens to a conversation about anger, guilt, and what we pass down to our children. 00:00 Introduction 01:49 Shefali's journey: Conventional MBA corporate life to becoming a coach 10:22 Coaching session with Miranda: An unutilized MBA, unmetabolized anger, and feelings of inadequacy that crossover into her marriage as well 30:45 Coaching session breakdown: Contact with Self, parenting when angry, self-authorship ABOUT THE HOST: Shagun Chopra is an individuation coach, speaker, and educator. Her unique approach combines Jungian depth psychology with ancient Vedic wisdom to create the ultimate personal transformation. She supports professionals, entrepreneurs, and creatives in bringing their wildest dreams to life and leapfrogging their career, business, and relationships. To learn more, visit shagunchopra.com ABOUT THE GUEST: Shefali is a Life, Leadership and Mental Well-Being Coach accredited at the PCC (Professional Certified Coach) level by the International Coaching Federation. Through modalities ranging from scientific evidence-based practices to more mystical and intuitive ones, she supports people in connecting to the part of themselves that “knows”, thus empowering them to live from alignment, and staying self-led in a world that can get noisy internally and externally. Her toolset includes mind, body, play, imagination, intuition, attention, and also Tarot for the curious. She can be found at shefalikhokhar.com JOIN THE SHOW: To ask a question or get coached on the show, visit shagunchopra.com/ask - all coaching clients are assigned a pseudonym and given the option to not share their video DISCLAIMER: Conversations on Partners in Sublime are for educational purposes only, and do not constitute medical or psychological advice or treatment. Please consult a licensed professional for any mental health concerns.

E26

6 ott 2026

54:49

What does staying comfortable really cost you? Neil's anxious to leave the one job that has been his whole career

There is an ache that comes from staying somewhere long after it has stopped fitting, not because we lack ambition but because the familiar has its own gravity and leaving it means meeting a version of ourselves we have never had to know. In this week's coaching session, 'Neil' brings exactly that ache into the room. He has spent sixteen years at the same global consulting firm, has colleagues who feel more like family than coworkers, and is weighing a move into industry that is complicated further by the realities of visa sponsorship as an immigrant in the US. all while an anxiety he cannot quite name has quietly taken over decisions that used to feel simple. Joining me afterward to unpack what came up is Adam, a Jungian depth coach, yoga teacher, and founder of Inner Alchemy Collective, who brings his own experience straddling two cultures into a conversation about what happens when the thinking mind runs the whole show and the feeling function gets left behind. 00:00 Introduction 01:37 Adam's journey: Outer success, inner work, going beyond the uni-mind 09:42 Coaching session with Neil: Anxiety of leaving a familiar career and potentially getting it wrong 29:17 Coaching session breakdown: Overdeveloped thinking function, hero's journey, anxiety complex ABOUT THE HOST: Shagun Chopra is an individuation coach, speaker, and educator. Her unique approach combines Jungian depth psychology with ancient Vedic wisdom to create the ultimate personal transformation. She supports professionals, entrepreneurs, and creatives in bringing their wildest dreams to life and leapfrogging their career, business, and relationships. To learn more, visit shagunchopra.com ABOUT THE GUEST: Adam Shehata is a Jungian depth coach, yoga teacher, and founder of Inner Alchemy Collective, a practice devoted to integrating psyche, body, and energy. Drawing from Jungian psychology, dreamwork, Active and Embodied Imagination, breathwork, yoga, and contemplative traditions, Adam helps people explore the unconscious patterns shaping how they lead, relate, create, and move through the world. He can be found at www.inneralchemycollective.co JOIN THE SHOW: To ask a question or get coached on the show, visit shagunchopra.com/ask - all coaching clients are assigned a pseudonym and given the option to not share their video DISCLAIMER: Conversations on Partners in Sublime are for educational purposes only, and do not constitute medical or psychological advice or treatment. Please consult a licensed professional for any mental health concerns.

E25

22 set 2026

51:56

What makes addiction so hard to outrun? Sunshine self-medicates to deal with buried grief

Addiction rarely looks the way we expect it to, and it is almost never really about the substance itself. It is what we reach for when we have not yet learned how to sit with pain that feels too big to hold alone, and it can show up as a drink, a drug, overworking, a relationship, or any behavior we cannot seem to stop even when we know it is hurting us. This week's session is with 'Sunshine,' a woman with years of recovery behind her and a real spiritual practice, who found herself reaching for something to self medicate after a miscarriage she had never allowed herself to fully grieve, and who moved through a disorienting few days afterward that she now describes with striking honesty and clarity. What emerges in the conversation is a split many people carry without naming it along with a part of her she calls her inner rebel that resists doing the very things she knows would help. Joining me for the debrief is Darren Lyons, a Jungian life coach and certified peer recovery supporter who has spent over three years in recovery from alcoholism after two decades of struggle, and who brings both his clinical training and his own dark night of the soul into a conversation about identity, conditioning, and what it actually takes to transcend addiction. 00:00 Introduction 01:39 Darren's journey: Two decades of alcohol addiction, sobriety, peer counseling 09:30 Coaching session with Sunshine: Self-medication after a deep loss and confronting the inner rebel 38:39 Coaching session breakdown: Addiction despite awareness, the role of identity, transcending the human v divine conflict ABOUT THE HOST: Shagun Chopra is an individuation coach, speaker, and educator. Her unique approach combines Jungian depth psychology with ancient Vedic wisdom to create the ultimate personal transformation. She supports professionals, entrepreneurs, and creatives in bringing their wildest dreams to life and leapfrogging their career, business, and relationships. To learn more, visit shagunchopra.com ABOUT THE GUEST: Darren Lyons is a Certified Jungian Life Coach, an Addiction/Mental Health Recovery Supporter, and a Chemical Dependency Counselor Assistant (CDCA). He has an MFA in Creative Writing and an MA in International Affairs. He's held positions in behavioral health, academia, private industry, defense contracting, and government service. He can be found at lyonslifecoaching.com JOIN THE SHOW: To ask a question or get coached on the show, visit shagunchopra.com/ask - all coaching clients are assigned a pseudonym and given the option to not share their video DISCLAIMER: Conversations on Partners in Sublime are for educational purposes only, and do not constitute medical or psychological advice or treatment. Please consult a licensed professional for any mental health concerns.

E24

8 set 2026

1:08:21

How to deal with anxiety: Kat saw her anxiety as ambition until she became a mother

Anxiety has a strange relationship with productivity. So many of us learn early on to read our racing minds and tight chests as evidence that we are driven, disciplined, on top of things, rather than as a sign that something in us is asking for attention. We call it being type A. We call it ambition. And because our culture tends to reward that kind of anxious output, it can take years, sometimes decades, before we're able to name what is actually happening in our bodies. That is where Kat finds herself in this week's session. For most of her adult life she understood her anxiety as the engine behind her success, the thing that kept her moving forward while she was single and building her career. It wasn't until she became a mother in 2021 that the symptoms started to feel less like drive and more like something she couldn't shake, a weight on her chest most mornings, a sense of dread with no clear trigger, a feeling that the day is already lost before it has even begun. In our session together, we slow down enough to actually look at where that anxiety lives, and an active imagination exercise takes Kat somewhere she didn't see coming. In this episode, I'm joined by my friend and fellow coach Jenn, who has her own long history with anxiety and panic attacks, to talk through what came up in the session. We get into why our culture is so quick to reward anxious productivity, what it actually looks like to sit with anxiety instead of managing it away, and the practices, from breathwork to active imagination, that Jenn has found genuinely change the nervous system rather than just distracting it. 00:00 Introduction 02:05 Jenn's journey: Motherhood as a gateway into confronting anxiety and panic attacks 09:34 Coaching session with Kat: Embracing anxiety as drive until motherhood revealed its true nature 25:47 Coaching session breakdown: Breathwork, meditation, active imagination as ways to calm the self and decode anxiety ABOUT THE HOST: Shagun Chopra is an individuation coach, speaker, and educator. Her unique approach combines Jungian depth psychology with ancient Vedic wisdom to create the ultimate personal transformation. She supports professionals, entrepreneurs, and creatives in bringing their wildest dreams to life and leapfrogging their career, business, and relationships. To learn more, visit shagunchopra.com ABOUT THE GUEST: Jennifer Schaefer is the founder of Reveal Your Inner Hero™ and Your Emotional Fitness Coach, where she helps women who have done a lot of inner work and still find themselves overthinking, second-guessing, people-pleasing, or talking themselves out of what they know. A Master Jungian Life Coach, Archetypal Family Field Systems Practitioner, yoga teacher, Jennifer is fascinated by the space between knowing yourself and actually trusting yourself. She helps people listen beneath old patterns and conditioned roles to the deeper intelligence within. She can be found at www.revealyourinnerhero.com JOIN THE SHOW: To ask a question or get coached on the show, visit shagunchopra.com/ask - all coaching clients are assigned a pseudonym and given the option to not share their video DISCLAIMER: Conversations on Partners in Sublime are for educational purposes only, and do not constitute medical or psychological advice or treatment. Please consult a licensed professional for any mental health concerns.

E23

25 ago 2026

45:43

How to live after almost dying: Stina embarks on a journey to know herself after a near fatal illness

We might think that surviving a near-fatal illness is what finally makes us brave, that facing death head-on will hand us the courage to be exactly who we are. But courage does not arrive all at once just because we have earned it the hard way, it settles in slowly, and it runs straight into every old habit we built long before the diagnosis, in the identities we split off and kept separate just to feel acceptable, and in the parts of ourselves we still hesitate to show. In this episode, we sit with 'Stina', a woman who survived sepsis and a surgery she was not sure she would wake up from, and who came out the other side certain she wanted to live more authentically, only to find that the harder work was still figuring out what authenticity actually asked of her. Shagun is joined by fellow coach Helen Rigby, who has her own story of surviving a life-threatening diagnosis, to explore the persona we build to get by in the world, the parts of ourselves we quietly abandon in order to belong, and the difference between the wishes we cling to and the hope that remains even after we let them go. 00:00 Introduction 01:50 Helen's journey: Surviving stage 4 cancer and finding herself in the aftermath 12:34 Coaching session with Stina: Near fatal illness and the decision to live authentically 31:30 Coaching session breakdown: Embracing a new vision, accepting human-ness, and staying clear of Ego's traps ABOUT THE HOST: Shagun Chopra is an individuation coach, speaker, and educator. Her unique approach combines Jungian depth psychology with ancient Vedic wisdom to create the ultimate personal transformation. She supports professionals, entrepreneurs, and creatives in bringing their wildest dreams to life and leapfrogging their career, business, and relationships. To learn more, visit shagunchopra.com ABOUT THE GUEST: Helen Rigby is a Master Jungian Life Coach, writer and speaker. Inspired by her own journey through life’s unexpected plot twists, she helps women rewrite their stories, unlock their potential, and create a meaningful next chapter. She can be found at www.helensrigby.com JOIN THE SHOW: To ask a question or get coached on the show, visit shagunchopra.com/ask - all coaching clients are assigned a pseudonym and given the option to not share their video DISCLAIMER: Conversations on Partners in Sublime are for educational purposes only, and do not constitute medical or psychological advice or treatment. Please consult a licensed professional for any mental health concerns.

E22

11 ago 2026

53:58

How to handle a difficult family: Jason cuts contact with parents after years of trying to please them (ft. Debra Maldonado)

We often think the hardest part of a difficult family relationship is the other person, their control, their criticism, their refusal to see us as who we have become. So we set a boundary, or in the more painful cases, we go no contact, and we tell ourselves that once the contact stops, the pain will stop too. But the relationship rarely ends where we think it ends. It continues quietly inside us, in the patterns we picked up as children just to stay safe and loved, and in the parts of ourselves we still cannot see even after the phone calls have stopped. In this episode, we sit with 'Jason', a man who cut off his parents after years of trying to please them, only to find that the deeper work was still ahead of him. Shagun is joined by veteran coach Debra Maldonado, co-founder of Creative Mind, to explore Jung's concept of the mother complex, the imago we build of the people who raised us, and the uncomfortable shadow work of realizing that the control we resent in someone else might be a pattern we are carrying too. 00:00 Introduction 01:49 Debra's journey: Quitting the corporate world, practicing hypnotherapy, and finding a home in coaching 11:19 Coaching session with Jason: Controlling parents, sibling dynamics, disrespecting boundaries 42:08 Coaching session breakdown: Mother complex, shadow work, and the desire for control ABOUT THE HOST: Shagun Chopra is an individuation coach, speaker, and educator. Her unique approach combines Jungian depth psychology with ancient Vedic wisdom to create the ultimate personal transformation. She supports professionals, entrepreneurs, and creatives in bringing their wildest dreams to life and leapfrogging their career, business, and relationships. To learn more, visit shagunchopra.com ABOUT THE GUEST: Debra Berndt Maldonado left the corporate world in 2003 to pursue her passion to empower others to live their dreams. She is a Certified Master Jungian Life Coach Instructor, TEDx Speaker and author of LIKE A SPARK FROM FIRE (CreativeMind Media 2022) and the bestselling book, LET LOVE IN (Wiley 2010). Debra has been featured by ABC News, ABC Radio Network, FOX News, NBC News, WB2, Cosmopolitan, Natural Health, Huffington Post, YourTango, Publisher’s Weekly, Complete Woman, and more. She can be found at https://creativemindlife.com JOIN THE SHOW: To ask a question or get coached on the show, visit shagunchopra.com/ask - all coaching clients are assigned a pseudonym and given the option to not share their video DISCLAIMER: Conversations on Partners in Sublime are for educational purposes only, and do not constitute medical or psychological advice or treatment. Please consult a licensed professional for any mental health concerns.

E21

28 lug 2026

1:06:13

How to overcome creative blocks: Experienced journalist Linda can't finish her own book proposal (ft. Melanie Bates)

We tell ourselves so many stories about why we can't finish the thing we most want to create. We call it procrastination, we call it perfectionism, we call it simply not having enough hours in the day, and sometimes we call it brain fog, as if our own mind had quietly turned against us for no reason at all. But creative blocks are rarely about the craft itself, especially when the person stuck is someone who has done this work for decades without trouble. More often there is something unconscious sitting between us and the page, an old voice or an old role we absorbed long before we ever sat down to write, and it only reveals itself when we stop trying to push past it and instead turn to look at it directly. In this episode, we watch that process unfold in real time with 'Linda', a professional writer of nearly thirty years who finds herself unable to finish the one book that is actually hers. Shagun is joined by her former coach Melanie Bates, known for years in the publishing world as the book shaman, to unpack everything from Jung's idea of the autonomous complex to the martyr and rebel archetypes hiding underneath a stalled book proposal. 00:00 Introduction 01:49 Melanie's journey to becoming the 'book shaman' 09:57 Coaching session with Linda: Writer's block, brain fog, and fear of being canceled 35:18 Coaching session breakdown: Debunking standard writing advice and embracing the autonomous nature of creativity ABOUT THE HOST: Shagun Chopra is an individuation coach, speaker, and educator. Her unique approach combines Jungian depth psychology with ancient Vedic wisdom to create the ultimate personal transformation. She supports professionals, entrepreneurs, and creatives in bringing their wildest dreams to life and leapfrogging their career, business, and relationships. To learn more, visit shagunchopra.com ABOUT THE GUEST: As the 'Book Shaman', Melanie Bates helped authors write their books, build their businesses, and land on the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists. What she eventually understood was that the book was never the point. The writer always was, and what the writer needed wasn't craft. It was excavation. Today she works as a Master-Certified Jungian Depth Coach, Certified Equus Coach, and Certified Spiritual Teacher. She guides women in the second half of life who are done making the trade the culture offers and are ready to welcome home their heretics—those exiled, disavowed, and still-wild bits within—so they can finally create: the writing, the business, the life. She can be found at https://melaniebates.com/ and her writings at https://melaniembates.substack.com/ JOIN THE SHOW: To ask a question or get coached on the show, visit shagunchopra.com/ask - all coaching clients are assigned a pseudonym and given the option to not share their video DISCLAIMER: Conversations on Partners in Sublime are for educational purposes only, and do not constitute medical or psychological advice or treatment. Please consult a licensed professional for any mental health concerns.

E20

14 lug 2026

1:00:52

When words fail you: Known for her eloquence, Remedy goes silent with those closest to her (ft. Maria Bluff)

We spend years learning how to express ourselves, and then find, sometimes to our own horror, that all of that facility with language completely deserts us in conversations that matter most. Most of us never look closely enough at the unconscious forces underneath to understand why. This episode centers on a coaching session with Remedy who is sought out for her eloquence in her public life but goes quiet with the people closest to her in her personal life. Shagun is joined by fellow coach Maria Bluff, who shares her own story of cultural displacement, shedding a high-achieving persona, and finding her way to a life that actually fits. Together, they reflect on Remedy's curious juxtaposition, its many layers, and what the path forward might look like. 00:00 Introduction 01:48 Maria's individuation journey: lawyer persona, need for control, outgrowing discipleship and more 21:45 Coaching session with Remedy: Choking up in close relationships 37:09 Coaching session breakdown: Avoidance, fear of intimacy, balancing the thinking function ABOUT THE HOST: Shagun Chopra is an individuation coach, speaker, and educator. Her unique approach combines Jungian depth psychology with ancient Vedic wisdom to create the ultimate personal transformation. She supports professionals, entrepreneurs, and creatives in bringing their wildest dreams to life and leapfrogging their career, business, and relationships. To learn more, visit shagunchopra.com ABOUT THE GUEST: Maria Bluff is a Jungian purpose embodiment coach guiding heart-centered high performers to success through the embodiment of their mission. She can be found at https://www.instagram.com/maria_m_bluff JOIN THE SHOW: To ask a question or get coached on the show, visit shagunchopra.com/ask - all coaching clients are assigned a pseudonym and given the option to not share their video DISCLAIMER: Conversations on Partners in Sublime are for educational purposes only, and do not constitute medical or psychological advice or treatment. Please consult a licensed professional for any mental health concerns.

E19

30 giu 2026

1:06:18

Why we help beyond our means? Jan's resentment grows as she supports her sister through a divorce (ft. Amy Lukas)

Most of us have been there: you step in to help someone you love, and somewhere along the way the helping starts to feel less like a choice and more like something you simply cannot stop doing. There's a fine line between genuine care and the kind of compulsive caretaking that quietly drains you, and most of us have never really looked at what lives on the other side of that line. In this episode, Shagun sits with Jan, who finds herself in the thick of exactly this pattern, supporting a family member through a major life transition and noticing something uncomfortable beginning to surface in the process. What follows is a live coaching session that goes somewhere unexpected, and afterward, Shagun is joined by fellow Jungian-trained coach Amy Lukas to reflect on what the session reveals, including some territory that feels very close to home for both of them. 00:00 Introduction 01:27 How Amy's creative career ended in burnout and illness 10:50 What Amy's inner work looks like now 16:02 What is the Savior Complex 18:41 Coaching Session with Jan: Savior Complex in Action 38:26 Debriefing Jan's session and Shagun and Amy's personal savior stories About the host: Shagun Chopra is an individuation coach, speaker, and educator. Her unique approach combines Jungian depth psychology with ancient Vedic wisdom to create the ultimate personal transformation. She supports professionals, entrepreneurs, and creatives in bringing their wildest dreams to life and leapfrogging their career, business, and relationships. To learn more, visit shagunchopra.com About the guest: Amy Lukas is a Depth Coach, founder of Fallow Renewal, and former design entrepreneur. After a successful 30-year career in the creative industry, she now supports accomplished professionals, creative leaders, and entrepreneurs—many of them women in midlife—who appear successful on the outside yet feel called toward something deeper on the inside. Amy guides clients in reconnecting with authenticity, creativity, and purpose during seasons of transition. Her work explores the transformative power of self-awareness, intentional renewal, and what she calls “The Art of Becoming.” She can be found at www.fallowrenewal.com Join the show: To ask a question or get coached on the show, visit shagunchopra.com/ask - all coaching clients are assigned a pseudonym and given the option to not share their video Disclaimer: Conversations on Partners in Sublime are for educational purposes only, and do not constitute medical or psychological advice or treatment. Please consult a licensed professional for any mental health concerns.

E18

16 giu 2026

1:02:42

Is spiritual bypass necessary? Ava is unexpectedly calm after a blindsiding breakup

We've all had that friend who just went through something devastating and seems almost too okay, or been that person ourselves, turning to faith or practice or the certainty that everything happens for a reason, and finding, at least for a while, that it actually works. In this episode, Shagun explores spiritual bypass, a term coined by transpersonal psychologist John Welwood for the tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep unresolved emotional pain, and makes the case that it may be less a failure of the spiritual path than a necessary resting point along it. To illustrate what spiritual bypass actually feels like from the inside, she shares a live coaching session with Ava, who arrives less than a week after a blindsiding breakup with parents involved and marriage on the horizon, and is, somehow, calm. The session raises a question that Shagun then takes on directly from her own experience: what is the difference between genuine peace and the kind of peace that comes from not yet having let yourself feel what's actually there, and what happens to everything we leave unfelt? 00:00 Introduction 01:52 What is Spiritual Bypass 06:04 Why spiritual bypass isn't as bad as you think 12:06 Navigating Emotions: The Impact of Breakups 12:25 Coaching session with Ava: Navigating post-breakup grief 29:09 Session debrief: Understanding Ava's grief journey and spiritual bypass potential About the host: Shagun Chopra is an individuation coach, speaker, and educator. Her unique approach combines Jungian depth psychology with ancient Vedic wisdom to create the ultimate personal transformation. She supports professionals, entrepreneurs, and creatives in bringing their wildest dreams to life and leapfrogging their career, business, and relationships. To learn more, visit shagunchopra.com Join the show: To ask a question or get coached on the show, visit shagunchopra.com/ask - all coaching clients are assigned a pseudonym and given the option to not share their video Disclaimer: Conversations on Partners in Sublime are for educational purposes only, and do not constitute medical or psychological advice or treatment. Please consult a licensed professional for any mental health concerns.

E17

2 giu 2026

39:09

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