Podcast
Viral Mindfulness the Podcast
Hosted by Alexander Smith | Mindfulness Teacher · EN
Featured on CNN, viralmindfulness.com, HIV Plus Magazine, The Gay HotSpot, and the cover of Positively Aware—my work as a mindfulness teacher and artist encourages you to discover your spiritual rhythm.
I earned a Master of Social Work (MSW) from the University of Utah in 2003, and a Bachelor of Science from Brigham Young University (1999).
During migration from a basement office (with no windows) at Salt Lake Community College’s Health & Wellness Services, I resigned from the traditional clinical world, and moved my practice online in 2012.
I live near the ocean in Huntington Beach, California, and enjoy yoga, running trails at the Wetlands, bird watching, live theater & music, and painting. As a spiritual muse, teacher, and musician, you're invited to join my online tribe.
26episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Sounds & Silence Only -- The Sound of Summer Companion Practice (From Boulder, Colorado)
1w ago00:09:08Tap to summarizeAlready listened to The Sound of Summer? This practice is for you. Several listeners asked for a version with fewer words and more space to simply breathe, chant, and practice. So here it is. Recorded live beneath the Colorado sky, you'll hear birdsong, fresh mountain air, and the gentle sounds of summer as we move through the traditional seed sounds of the seven chakras together. There is very little guidance; just enough to help you settle before we begin. Whether you choose to make the sounds aloud or simply receive their vibration in silence, this is an invitation to slow down, return to your body, and let awareness deepen one breath at a time. The chakra seed sounds: • Root — LAM • Sacral — VAM • Solar Plexus — RAM • Heart — YAM • Throat — HAM • Third Eye — OM • Crown — Silence If this is your first experience with the practice, I recommend listening first to The Sound of Summer: A Guided Chakra Meditation, where I introduce each center and offer more detailed guidance. May these sounds become companions you can return to throughout the season. Much love, soul sibling.
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The Sound of Summer: A Guided Meditation with Breath, the Sounds of the Chakras & Silence
2w ago00:20:39Tap to summarizeWhat if meditation didn't begin with silence? In this gentle guided practice, we'll travel through the seven chakras using the traditional seed sounds that have accompanied contemplative practice for centuries. Beginning at the base of the spine and gradually moving upward through the body, each sound becomes an invitation—not to believe anything or achieve a particular state—but simply to notice, listen, and feel. Along the way, we'll explore grounding, creativity, courage, compassion, authentic expression, clear seeing, and finally, silence itself. Whether you choose to chant the sounds aloud or simply receive their vibrations, this practice offers a spacious place to slow down, breathe deeply, and return to yourself. Find a comfortable seat, or lie beneath your favorite summer tree. Let's practice together. LAM VAM RAM YAM HAM OM Silence
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Breath as Prayer: Rediscovering Meditation One Breath at a Time
2w ago00:21:01Tap to summarizeThis week I'm inviting you to rethink meditation from the ground up. What if prayer wasn't something you said... What if prayer was something you breathed? Drawing inspiration from John O'Donohue's beautiful reflections on breath, spirit, and spontaneity, I explore a gentler, more sustainable way of practicing meditation—one that doesn't depend on perfection, long sessions, or getting your mind to stop thinking. Together we'll explore the ancient Hebrew word Ruach ("breath" or "spirit"), why inspiration literally means "to breathe into," and how simply returning to your breath can become a daily spiritual practice. I also share my own recent struggle with consistency, why missing a single meditation almost derailed my practice, and the lesson that helped me begin again. At the end of the episode, I invite you into a brand-new guided meditation, The Sound of Summer, where we'll explore the healing sounds of the seven chakras together. Sometimes all we need is one quiet minute.
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Hausted & Whelmed: Finding a Simpler Rhythm in a World That Never Stops
3w ago00:22:08Tap to summarizeThis week I found myself reflecting on a provocative idea: no animal, plant, ocean, or nervous system in nature knows what a Monday is. Inspired by a piece from recovery writer Bobby Op, I explore how modern life asks us to live according to industrial timelines while our bodies still long for something older, slower, and more natural. I share reflections from my 11-year sobriety anniversary, a powerful memory from downtown Los Angeles during the final days of my addiction, and the simple practice that helped change everything: one day at a time. Together we'll explore: • Why your nervous system doesn't recognize the seven-day work week • The three questions your body is always asking: Am I safe? Am I rested? Am I resourced? • The recovery practice of living one day at a time • How dividing your day into three shifts can reduce overwhelm • Sharon Salzberg's teachings on presence • Natalie Goldberg's wisdom about practice and showing up for your life Whether you're feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, disconnected, or simply longing for a different rhythm, this episode is an invitation to slow down, reconnect, and remember that this day is enough. Summer Wise Circles are now open for enrollment → https://www.viralmindfulness.com/wise-circle-2026
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The Light Scarf: Pride, Shame and the Freedom to Be Fully Yourself
Jun 100:30:41Tap to summarizeWhat can a light scarf teach us about shame, identity, recovery, and freedom? In this Pride Month episode of Viral Mindfulness, Alexander Blue Feather shares a treasured audio recording from 01 June 2018 featuring his dear friend, Dr. Jude Theriot. What begins as a playful conversation about a lightweight scarf and grape Hi-Chew candy opens into something much deeper: the hidden shame many men carry around appearing feminine. From growing up queer in Utah and navigating masculinity as a Mormon missionary, to embracing a more gender-expansive identity later in life, Alexander reflects on the lifelong journey of liberating himself from internalized shame. Along the way, he explores Pride Month, women's equality, gender expression, sobriety, spiritual reconstruction, and the power of friendship to help us become more fully ourselves. The episode also includes reflections on the HBO series Euphoria, a powerful quote about recovery and spiritual revolution, updates on summer plans, and a delightful audio appearance from Harvey Pink Feather. Topics include: ‣ Pride Month and LGBTQ+ identity ‣ Gender expansiveness and self-acceptance ‣ Internalized shame and appearing feminine ‣ Recovery, sobriety, and spiritual transformation ‣ Friendship as liberation ‣ Euphoria and the poetry of recovery ‣ Living authentically ‣ Finding something greater than yourself Stay connected with me this Summer at viralmindfulness.com
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Being With the Dying: How to Offer Love at the End of Life
Mar 2400:41:29Tap to summarizeIn this first spring episode of Viral Mindfulness, Alexander Blue Feather reflects on grief, transition, and what it means to be present with someone who is dying. After sharing updates from his new South Bay home and the one-year threshold of his father’s passing, he responds to a listener’s question about how to support a brother in hospice and how to navigate the possibility of a peaceful passing. Drawing from Walking Each Other Home by Ram Dass and Mirabai Bush, this episode offers compassionate guidance on being with the dying: how to listen, how to sit in silence, how to let go of control, and how to become what Ram Dass calls “a loving rock.” This is a tender conversation about presence, humility, grief, ritual, and the mystery of death. If you are accompanying someone at the end of life, grieving a recent loss, or learning how to sit beside what cannot be fixed, this episode is for you. Spring Wise Circle Open For Enrollment. Start Tuesday, April 21 and Finish Tuesday, May 19. Save $50 Early Bird Registration Through April 5. viralmindfulness.com/
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"Live The Life That Chooses You" The Final Chapter of Our Winter Soul Care Series
Feb 1900:21:25Tap to summarizeAre you feeling disillusioned? Disappointed? Bitter? Sour? In this final installment of the Winter Soul Care Series, Alexander Blue Feather offers a powerful closing reflection on self-compassion as medicine for modern life. Opening with Rebecca Del Rio’s poem Prescription for the Disillusioned, this episode explores how the overly critical mind contracts the soul. Be inspired to learn how compassion creates space for ripening, renewal and fresh beginnings. Drawing from Francis Weller’s teachings on the “generous heart,” Alexander reflects on self-judgment, the muscular agenda of self-improvement, and the quiet violence we sometimes direct toward ourselves. Through personal story (including the one-year anniversary of his father’s passing and a new chapter in South Bay) this episode becomes both teaching and testimony. What if the soul does not demand perfection or acceleration, but instead asks for mercy? What if compassion means “to suffer with," especially with yourself? This is an invitation to soften, to include your ancestors, to release rigid expectations, and to befriend your life as it is unfolding now. For spiritual explorers navigating grief, transition, and change, this episode offers a gentle and grounding prescription.
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Our Frenzied Fidelity to Speed -- May We Approach Geologic Speed
Feb 800:20:40Tap to summarizeModern life trains us to move faster. You must produce more, respond quicker and stay endlessly available. I give your soul permission to refuse this pace. In Episode Six of the Winter Soul Care Series, Alexander Blue Feather invites you into a therapeutic, imaginal space to explore geological speed. This is the pace at which the soul actually heals, remembers, and transforms. Drawing from Francis Weller’s In the Absence of the Ordinary, this episode reframes slowness not as a metaphor, but as medicine. You’ll explore the cost of our addiction to speed, the loss of intimacy with place and body, and why constant urgency leaves us spiritually exhausted. Through story, reflection, and grounded teaching, Alexander introduces three essential practices for restoring soul rhythm: patience, restraint, and reciprocity. Geological speed moves in seasons, layers, and cycles. It values stillness, spaciousness, and reciprocal relationship with the living world. This episode offers a powerful counterbalance to modern frenzy, and a practical invitation to slow down, listen, and return to what matters most. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, disconnected, or spiritually tired, this episode offers a different way forward. One rooted in time, earth, and soul.
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Intimacy With Soul - Core Practices That Sustain Us (Reflection Question 02)
Jan 2600:12:43Tap to summarizeIn this episode of the Winter Soul Care series, Alexander invites you into a gentle writing practice centered on one essential question from Francis Weller: What core practices help sustain your intimacy with soul? Listeners are encouraged to pause, set a timer, and write—without editing or judgment—before returning to hear Alexander’s lived response, recorded along the ocean at Huntington State Beach. Through stories of caregiving, music, silence, creativity, ritual, and seasonal devotion, this episode explores how intimacy with soul is formed not through force or productivity, but through repeated, embodied practices of presence. This episode is an invitation to remember what has always sustained you—and to recommit to the practices that keep your inner life alive, nourished, and connected.
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Write About Repetition - Reflection Question 01 : Nourish the Ritual of Everyday Life
Jan 2500:10:39Tap to summarizeIn this episode of the Winter Soul Care series, Alexander invites you into a simple, grounding writing practice inspired by the work of Francis Weller. Following the previous walking meditation, this episode shifts from movement to the page—using writing as a way to give the mind something nourishing to chew on. You’re offered a single reflection question: In what ways do you nourish the ritual of everyday life? Listeners are encouraged to write for ten minutes, then return to hear Alexander’s own lived response—exploring ritual, repetition, grief, tending, and the sacredness hidden in ordinary acts like laundry, sleep, movement, and daily care. This episode is an invitation to slow down, make room for intention, and rediscover how the small, repeated moments of life can become a source of nourishment and meaning.
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