Folding Underwear As Spiritual Practice

Resilience isn’t a personality trait. It’s a return path, and you can practice it in the middle of real life.

I’m Elena Box, shamanic practitioner and death doula, and I’m pulling the thread that runs through everything I teach about joy: preparing to meet death well. That may sound heavy, but it’s strangely freeing. When I stop treating resilience like “pushing through” and start treating it like coming back to center, I get more choice in the moments that used to hijack my body and my mind. I share the quotes and wisdom that guide me, from Carl Jung to Marcus Aurelius, and why studying the Bible for the first time has surprised me with themes I see across so many spiritual traditions: forgiveness, devotion, and surrender.

We also talk about the spiral nature of healing using the river metaphor: you never step into the same river twice, because you are not the same person when you return. I bring this down to ground level with a personal story of running into an estranged family member and what it looks like to pause, notice capacity, and stay present without needing the perfect response. This is mindfulness with teeth, nervous system awareness, and spiritual practice that actually works when the stakes are high.

Then I widen the lens to caregiving, supporting aging parents, and the practical heart of death doula work: dignity for the dying, reducing fear through understanding, and creating more space for closure, legacy, and peace. I close with three core truths and journaling prompts you can use all week to treat daily life as sacred practice.

If it resonates, subscribe, share it with a fellow caregiver or sensitive soul, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

THREE ELENA TRUTHS

• You will meet the same moment again—but you will not be the same person
• Your life is the ceremony; the practice is happening in the ordinary
• The more you turn toward death, the more fully you learn how to live

JOURNALING PROMPTS

• Where in my life am I being asked to return—not avoid?
• What am I afraid to feel right now, and what might be waiting on the other side of that feeling?
• How have I changed since the last time I faced a similar challenge?
• What would it look like to treat my daily life as sacred practice?
• If I were preparing for death—not in fear, but in devotion—how would I live this week differently?

Transcript

Welcome And Season Theme

Elena Box 0:00

Welcome to the Ode to Joy Podcast, a show where we talk about joy. How do we cultivate it? How do we maintain it? And what are the things that get in the way? I am your host, shamanic practitioner and death duela, Elena Box, coming to you with another very special episode from our season, all about resilience. I hope you enjoy Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to another episode of the Ode to Joy podcast. It's your friend Elena Box coming to you with another very special episode, every specials episode. I say it every single time. And as I am here preparing for the episode, I'm going over my notes and I am super excited to talk to you today. So let's just check in. How are you? Where are you? Do you have a drink? Do you have a little beverage? Land yourself in this space with me and just to say, hey, I'm really happy you're here. So if this is your first time tuning into the episode, tuning into this season, tuning into the show, we are just gonna land you right back into what we've been talking about. So the whole theme of the season, this season is resilience. And I have been really chewing on this entire idea about being an athlete of joy, which really is a practice that I have been tuning into lately. And it's been super helpful. So if you haven't already, go back, take a couple listens. We've been talking about it for quite a while now, and I'm really curious to hear how it's been unfolding for you. How has your practice been unfolding as an athlete of joy? And as I've been preparing for this episode this week, I've been really tuning into, you know, why are we actually doing this work? And I realized that everything clues back into my whole reason of being, which is this relationship that I have. I'm in a relationship and I'm in a relationship with death. And what I realized is all of this work about building resilience is really preparation for death. Super casual, super casual. Hey, did you have a sip of your drink? Listen, this is the work, this is what I get super dressed about. And the thing is, all of us are gonna be going through this. That's the truth. Unless you are joining, tuning in, and you're some kind of ethereal uh alien, which is good for you. Congratulations. You're welcome to visit anytime. We're all gonna go through this. And so that's what I geek out about. And this episode, I've actually pulled a couple of quotes and we're just gonna sprinkle them in. So this is a good one, and it's by the man himself, Carl Jung. And he says, You've probably heard this one before, which is the privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are. And so this just comes back to everything that we've been talking about this season, which is all about taking the result as the path, becoming and being who you already are from a soul essence perspective. That's what I get so excited about is how can we strip away all of the layers of who we are not in order to come back into direct connection of our true soul, who we truly are. And that's when it all kind of ties back into the death thing, which we're gonna get into this episode. So we're gonna first clue ourselves back into resilience. So if this is your first time tuning into this season, we are redefining resilience. So resilience is not grit, resilience is not pushing through. Resilience is the ability to return over and over again to yourself, to truth, and maybe most importantly, to the divine. Okay. It's just the all that is. Because at the end of life, that's all that will matter. Rumi says, what you seek is seeking you. Okay. So really what it comes back to is how can we maintain our own inner alignment, connection to self, connection to our true, fullest heck yes, embodiment of self so that we can be in direct connection with the divine, with the universe, with G-O-Z-Baby, however way you want to name it, because that is already who we are. We just sometimes forget sometimes, you know, life, life kind of gets in the way and we forget. Here's another good quote. It's by Nietzsche, Friedrich Nietzsche. He says, He who has a why to live can bear almost any how. So this also really just ties into our purpose as people and how we continue to tune back in to ourself, to our joy, to our souls, and live from that place. And it's a practice. It really is a practice because there's so much in this world and in life that continues to really pull our pull us from our center. And so that's what this practice has been about as athletes of joy is coming back to center, coming back to that sense of resilience, returning to yourself, to the truth, to the divine over and over again. Okay, so I'm about to clue you into something that's been very much in my private life. And it's pretty juicy, it's pretty big for me. So I am studying the Bible for the first time. Now, I know this might be very strange for many people. I have never studied it before. I wasn't raised with any religion. And so it's been pretty interesting for me because as a spiritual practitioner, I have found what I always have called a buffet style spirituality, which means I pull from so many different lineages, so much inspiration from different teachers, from different ascended masters. And I've really just said yes, you know, aside from the reptilian stuff, no offense to Scientologists, it just doesn't, I don't really know about it. Everything else, for the most part, if it feels truthful to me, I go, yeah, sure, why not? Which is also super important when people come to me as clients because it's so important for me to be able to tune in to all of these different wells of wisdom. Because I've always said, and many people have said, it's not me who is the first person who said this, but there really is no wrong way to pray. And the truth is, the more I dive into this and and really reading so many different spiritual texts, which has been my practice. But as I'm diving into the Bible, I'm seeing so many parallels everywhere, which has been pretty cool. And then there's some things, especially the Old Testament, I'm going, yeah, you just don't know about that, you know. And I'm really excited to tune in and I'm hoping to like hang out with a theologian. So if you know any theologians, send them my way. And I know what you might be thinking. You might be like, Alena, we've been here the whole time. We've been studying this stuff the whole time. And I don't blame you. Listen, I'm a little late to the game. I realized I had a bit of an epiphany after the sauna the other night, or a couple of weeks ago, actually a couple months ago now at this point. And I really realized that it's so important to really tune into the lineage of our ancestors. Now, I know I also hear you over there laughing at me. It's fine. It's okay. You laugh, you know what, laugh all you want, because I'm laughing too. It's so funny to come into this now at this age. I'm 36 years old and I've been studying so many different lineages. And it's because I was taught from a very young age that our ancestors had left the Catholic Church because the story I was told, which is so interesting because I've never actually really looked into it, but they said that the church supported Franco, the dictator in Spain. And so I was always taught that my grandparents were atheists and they're just, it was really G-O-D was a four-letter word, really, in my house growing up. And so that's why I had to find my own spirituality and I had to find my own faith. And I realized, even on my dad's side, too, you they were Methodists and he was raised really within the church. And so I never received any of those teachings for the most part. We celebrated Easter, we celebrated Christmas, then there really wasn't much else than that. For me, how I was raised, architecture was really the divine. Both my parents were architects, my grandfather was an architect. That was really the divine order. And when I tell you, how many churches have I been to all over the world? Many, many. The answer is many. And I wasn't raised with any of the actual teachings outside of that. So here I am, all this to say beginner's mind. And what I have found, which again, you might be laughing at me. It's okay. Laugh all you want. I'm like a little babe in arms learning it all. The core teachings I have seen is forgiveness. Ding, ding, ding. We love that one. It's a big one. I have a whole chapter about it in my book, Grieve Outside the Box, Devotion, we also love, and surrender, which is another huge theme, especially when we get into the geek territory that I live in, which is that birth-death cycle. And all of it is pointing to how do we meet death well? And so much of the work that I do as a shamanic death doula and practitioner is learning about all of the ways in which we die over and over and over again in our lives. And what the through line is, at least for me, is how do we continue to come back to center and not only to our center, but back to the divine. So I have this quote by Jesus Cristo himself, and he says, He said, supposedly, but he didn't actually write it. I'm learning a lot. I'm learning a lot. He said, for whoever wants to save their life will lose it. But whoever loses their life for my sake will find it. It's a heady one, man. It's a heady one. All this to say, if you're seeking the divine, you will find if you're seeking the divine, you will find the divine. That which you wish to seek, that what you seek, what you seek is seeking you. Seek the seeking. Listen, I'm losing it. I'm losing it. All of this to say, my work that I've been geeking out over for the last who knows how long, and these teachings that I have found have many, many parallels with many, many, many, if not all the main religions. It's all the same river. So this is where I'm going with this whole episode. Everybody's like, I'm in the river with you, I'm in the river. But do you even have a paddle in the? I mean, where are we? Where are you leading me? All of this to say, I love this, which is the idea that you never step into the same river twice. I've said it before, I'll say it again. I'm not the first to say it. I won't be the last. Life is a spiral, it's not linear, which means you're gonna keep facing the same wounds, the same people, the same dynamics, the same traumas. But here's the difference: you are different. Every single time you jump back into that river and that river meets you and whew smacks you in the face. You're not the same person. So tying this back into resilience is resilience is who you are when you return. Huge. So I'm really hoping I say this one correctly because it's such a great name. He's one of the Stoics. Heraclitus. Heraclitus said, could be Heraclitus, but we're gonna say Heraclitus, he said, no man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river, and he's not the same man. Huge, huge, huge, huge. See, wasn't the first, won't be the last. They've been saying it for thousands of years. So I'm bringing this into practice. I know you, fellow traveler on this road, have these similar wounds. We all do. And I'm not gonna sit here and pretend that I have resolved everything because I really believe that we're not done working the work and doing the thing and learning the learning, learning the learning until we're dead. So all of those things are going to continue to come back. And it's my job to continue to do the work behind the scenes so that when I meet that river, which is not the same river the next time, I'm tuning back into who am I now as I'm returning back into this room. So a little planting you into my little life over here on the north shore of Long Island. I had this. I had this happen recently. And I ran into an estranged family member. And I'm not gonna sit here and pretend that everything's resolved. You know, even my husband, he's like, you know, how come you're not over this? It's not those core wounds, they're always gonna be there. And let me tell you something, it doesn't matter how many times you sit with the plant medicenas in the jungle and you work on it and you work on it and you work on it, life is a spiral. You're going to meet those triggers, those wounds again. And so once again, I was faced with really my core, my core wounding. And instead of having it completely derail me, which having something like this happen in the past would have derailed me for weeks, if not months. And this is where the athlete of joy resilience practice is, which is that when this happened, and I was literally at the library with my husband and my baby, instead of going into that fight or flight, which is so easy to do when these wounds show themselves, is automatically the whole body just wants to go, oh my God, I got we gotta run, we gotta fight, we gotta, what are we gonna do? We're gonna freeze, what are we gonna do? Instead, my resilience practice allowed me to just pause and be with what is, noticing my response, noticing my capacity in that moment, and noticing what has softened. So I was able to meet this person, which who played a huge role in my life in the past. And I allowed myself to be in this spaciousness, which was not needing to have the perfect response, not needing to know what the outcome of that meeting would be. It was me stepping into a new river. And that's what this resilience practice is. It's not avoiding the river. In the past, I might have seen this person and taken off running. Like, no, no, no, no, no, not can't jump into that river. No way. I can't be derailed for a couple weeks. The resilience practice is not avoiding the river, but stepping in again. And again, what's super important when you step into that river is noticing your capacity. So if in that moment you know, gut check, hey, I don't have it in me. I see the river in front of me and my capacity right now. I'm I'm I'm at my capacity. I can't step back in the river. That's okay. It's so important to really witness and notice yourself and notice your response as you're going through this. It's so important to have courage in life. It really is. And it is so important to grant yourself grace. So we have another, another quote by the man, the man himself, Carl Jung. We love this one. You've probably heard it before. Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate. Huge, huge. So I'm a big fan of doing the deep work. When you come in for a session with me, when you come into a workshop with me, we are meeting that river. And we make sure we have water, we make sure we have snacks, we make sure that we're in a container where we can be really held to dive into that river and we leave equipped with tools to continue to hold ourselves and to grant ourselves grace. It's so important to make the unconscious, conscious to work through all of those deep, deep, deep wounds. Because when we allow all of the ways in which those wounds have forced us to harden, when we allow all of that to soften, we can step more greatly into our fullest, most embodied, joyful selves. And it ain't a walk in the park. It's work. It's joyful work and it's work. So we gotta bring it back down. We gotta bring it back down to what the work actually is. Okay. So this is where I think people really get spiritual practice wrong. Okay. Oftentimes I notice people think that spiritual work, if you're going to be a spiritual person, religious or not, whichever flavor you want to take it. A lot of times people think it's long rituals, right? Like I needed to get my titties out in front of the moonlight with all of my crystals surrounding me. I needed to be in an ancient stone circle, which listen, I love to be in an ancient stone circle. I'm about to be in one in a couple of weeks. We're going to Ireland. More on that later. You don't need to have the perfect conditions. The real work is who are you when you're folding laundry? Who are you when you are just walking down the street, you know, going on your little promenade? Who are you when it's three in the morning and the baby's crying and you can't get them to settle down? Who are you in these moments where you're really just living life? And that's where this resilience practice comes into play. It's every moment you return to your center, even if it's this micro moment at three in the morning, whenever it is, when you're just walking down the street, it's returning to yourself, which really means you are practicing how you will meet death. I know because what? I'm just walking down the street, or what? I'm just falling, I'm just folding my underwear. Who you are when you are doing that is really coming back into this place of how you do anything is how you do everything. And so we often die how we lived. And that's a big one. It's a really, really big one. Here's a good quote that I'm really I love to nerd out on this one. It's a good one, especially if you're super into all of the nature wisdom, which if you're not, like, what are you even doing here? Lao Tzu said, supposedly, he said, nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished. So also letting yourself take your time with it. Grant yourself that grace. Remember that you are nature. And nature is the divine. Nature is G-O-D-Baby. Huge, huge, huge, huge. So we're tying this back into really all of the work that I do. And the work that I do, who is this for? It's for everybody, but it's for caregivers. It's for mothers. And most importantly, I think where I'm stepping into in this moment in my life, it's also for people who are supporting aging parents. If you've been following along on the Instagram at Alana Box, you know we've been going through it with my mother, dearest Abwella. And she's going in for another surgery on Monday. And this is where the practices come in. Can you tune into joy when you're in the emergency room at three in the morning? Where's the joy? Where's the play? Where is the really remembrance of that cosmic giggle? And so the question underneath all of it is am I prepared for this? And not just logistically, but spiritually on all levels. Am I prepared to meet this moment? Our guy Marcus Aurelius said, you could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think. Huge, huge, huge, huge. And so why does this all matter? Why does the work around death matter in life, really? And I'm coming back to this place of understanding that this is where it's all leading. And so let's casually just lay the groundwork and lay the foundation right now, which as a death doula, it's bringing dignity to the dying and to remove fear through understanding. It's huge. There's so many misconceptions. I support both the dying and the living, and I help people prepare emotionally, spiritually, practically. And really, all of this work is leading to creating more space around closure, around legacy, and really around finding peace. So Much of this work is preparing ourselves, even if you're like, hey, ha ha, I'm a young spring chicken. Ain't no death coming for me anytime soon. Plant yourself in this space right now of what legacy are you building? And not only that, the people who are your loved ones in your life, what legal legacy will they be leaving? And what peace do you hope to feel once they're on the other side? Because then they become a well ancestor. And that will hopefully, and then that's a whole other kit and caboodle. It's huge. It's casual, it's huge. So why do I do what I do? Why do I do all of this shamanic energy medicine? Is I help people to feel things and process things when what they're feeling feels too big. And I help people tune into things when the logical mind wants to come in. We work in that space, in that liminal space, which is beyond the logical mind, which is beyond words, because so much of how the soul and the spirit wheat works is through symbolism, is through really this space in between spaces. And why am I sharing all of this? I think it's because I want to help people reconnect to soul and to their intuition and to also know that there is so much unseen support around you at all times, even when you're folding the laundry and you're washing the dishes. You have this whole crew of beings of support around you. And this is a huge support, especially when we're going through life and grief comes around and rears its ugly head, which is, gosh, on a random Tuesday, right? We are feeling so much right now with everything, everything going on. And it also supports trauma and major life transitions, which I don't know about you, but did everybody just go through something huge in these past few weeks? It feels like everyone I'm talking to, they're like, yes, I've been through it. I need a massage and a spa. So why do I do this work? It's because death is coming for all of us in the best way possible. And I find that most people are maybe unprepared. And hey, listen, come to me at the end of my life. I am doing all the preparation I can. And maybe even then we're gonna be like, oh my gosh, I forgot this one thing. Listen, so many of us are afraid to feel. That's what this work is about. That's what I'm here to do. And when you face death, you learn how to live. One of my favorite teachers, Joseph Campbell, he said, the cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek. Huge. And so we're tying it back into joy. Gosh, who knew we could talk about death the entire time, and then actually we're gonna wave it back into joy. Yes. So remembering this, I've said it before, I'll say it again. Joy is not the opposite of grief. Joy is what becomes available when you stop resisting life. My friend, check in, have a sip of that tea. My local friend, you are an athlete of joy. You've been practicing. If you've been listening to the podcast, or hey, if this is the first time you're listening, we're practicing returning as athletes of joy over and over again. It's not light work, but it's devotional work. Okay. Absolutely huge. So we're integrating. What are you doing? I'm integrating. This is what I want you to know. You will step into the river again, again and again. The question is: who are you becoming each time? Because one day you will step into that final crossing. And the way you've lived is the way you will meet it. Marcus Aurelius, he said, it is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live. Oh, yeah. I mean, ha ha. The end. You know what I mean? Marcus Aurelius, he nailed it. So here's my invitation. I would love for you to notice where is life asking you to return? And just to let you know, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, we have an upcoming retreat. If you've been wanting to come and hang out with me in person, we are getting a whole bunch of epic death workers together this July for the Beyond the Veil retreat. It's going to be in upstate New York. More details are coming in hot. And I'm going to be having all of the co-facilitators on the podcast. So very exciting stuff coming up. And of course, always an opportunity to come work with me one-on-one in my home studio here in Port Washington, a New York on Long Island, or we can do a little Zoom session and we'll have a couple of workshops coming up, some group experiences to tap into and tune into this work, which is all super necessary if you're a human on Earth. Again, if you're the alien and you're like, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, I'm good. Don't need it. Listen, props to you. Go for it. And we'll leave you with this Joseph Campbell quote, which is follow your bliss, and the universe will open doors where there were only walls. Boom, boom, boom. Okay. And now finally, we're gonna close it out. And I'm gonna drop you a couple of these truth bombs, the three Elena truths, and then we got some journaling prompts, and then we're calling it at Zay. Now remember, all of these are in the show notes. So if right now you're like, hey, I gotta go. The kettle's boiling, I got another cup of tea, and we got a whole other load of laundry to do, go for it. If you're here to stick around for the truths, let's hear them. Truth number one, you will meet the same moment again, but you will not be the same person. Truth number two. Your life is the ceremony. The practice is happening in the ordinary. Truth number three. The more you turn toward death, the more fully you learn how to live. Casual, acute, cathartic. Let's come on to the turtling prompts. We got a couple for you. So remember, maybe you pause and just answer them to yourself. Maybe you pause, write them down in the journal. Take your time with this. Choose one, choose all. Maybe choose them over the course of the next week. Number one. Where in my life am I being asked to return, not avoid? Number two, what am I afraid to feel right now? And what might be waiting on the other side of that feeling? Number three, how have I changed since the last time I faced a similar challenge? Number four, what would it look like to treat my daily life as sacred practice? Number five, last but not least, if I were preparing for death, not in fear but in devotion, how would I live this week differently? Casual, cute, fun, irreverent. It has been such a pleasure to tune in with you. And as always, I love talking with you. So please, I really enjoy hearing how this lands for you. Let me know how the journaling prompts are going for you. Are they getting kind of sticky icky? Right? Are they tuning into those places that you're like, oh gosh, I know it's the river I gotta step into, but I don't want to step into it. Let me know. I'm so curious. As always, this is your friend, Alana Box, and I will talk to you again very soon. This has been another episode of the Ode to Joy podcast. It is my sincere joy to bring you these episodes every week. And listen, if you feel called, it would mean so much. If you could go ahead and, you know, drop us a review, maybe throw us a couple of stars. If there are five of them, even better. And just sending you so much love. I'll talk to you again very soon.