In this powerful and deeply moving conversation, Dr. Habib Boerger is joined by Rev. Dr. Tomeka Jacobs, theologian, former chaplain, and author of Ecocosmological Spirituality of Southern Queer Black Women: Remembering and Reconnecting Identity. Together, they explore spirituality beyond rigid categories—toward embodiment, wholeness, justice, and belonging.

Dr. Jacobs shares her spiritual journey from Baptist–Pentecostal roots to an expansive understanding of the Divine as All Life—a sacred, interconnected reality that transcends gender, doctrine, and religious boundaries. Drawing from chaplaincy, womanist and feminist theology, mysticism, ecology, and lived experience as a Southern queer Black woman, she reflects on deconstructing oppressive theology, reclaiming ancestral wisdom, and remembering the sacred goodness of the self.

This episode touches on:

• The difference between religion and spirituality
• Decolonizing the spirit and reclaiming embodied faith
• Queerness, race, gender, and divine belonging
• Mysticism, unitive love, and compassionate justice
• Spiritual practices rooted in nature, stillness, and everyday life
• Activism as love, presence, and communal liberation

This is a conversation for spiritual seekers, soulful misfits, and anyone who has ever asked: Does God love me as I am? Is my embodiment enough? Is there more?

Whether you call the Divine God, All Life, Mystery, Love, or are still searching for language, you are welcome here.

Support the show

To make an appointment with Dr. Habib, visit https://www.habibboerger.com/.

In this deeply moving and contemplative conversation, Dr. Habīb Boerger is joined by Hossam Ibn Yusuf, musician, Sufi practitioner, and spiritual seeker whose life has been shaped by sound, nature, and surrender.

Hossam shares his remarkable spiritual journey—from a childhood influenced by Christian and Sufi lineages, to formative years at Dar al-Islam in New Mexico, through loss, resistance, music, and finally a lived embrace of Islam as a verb rather than an identity. Along the way, we explore grief as an opening, faith as direct experience, and the ways the heart softens when it is ready to receive.

Together, Dr. Habīb and Hossam reflect on:

• Sonic theology and the spiritual power of sound
• Qur’anic recitation and dhikr as vibrational medicine
• Nature as the Qur’an al-Takwīnī — the unwritten revelation
• Music, silence, and remembrance as pathways to healing
• Surrender not as dogma, but as lived reality

This episode is especially resonant for those drawn to contemplative spirituality, interspiritual wisdom, and anyone curious about how sound and remembrance awaken the heart beyond belief.

Support the show

To make an appointment with Dr. Habib, visit https://www.habibboerger.com/.

In this deeply moving episode of Beyond Names, Dr. Habib Boerger is joined by Abdullah Pat Aylward—board chair of the Shadhiliyya Sufi Communities and founding leader of the Sufi Center Minnesota—for a wide-ranging and heartfelt conversation about spiritual seeking, transformation, and embodied love.

Pat shares his remarkable spiritual journey, beginning with a Catholic childhood and early yearning for meaning, through decades of study and practice across traditions including Vedanta, Hinduism, Zen and Tibetan Buddhism, mystical Christianity, and ultimately Sufism. Along the way, he reflects on the teachers and saints who shaped him—Krishnamurti, Ramana Maharshi, Dr. Usharbudh Arya, Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe, and Sidi Muhammad al-Jamal—and the ways presence, not concepts, became his true guide.

At the heart of this episode is Pat’s honest account of “breaking the tomb”: a profound period of personal collapse that stripped away identity, image, and certainty, and opened him to a deeper integration of love, humility, and compassion. From this breaking emerged a seamlessness between inner spiritual life and outer engagement in the world—work, relationships, leadership, and service.

Together, Dr. Habib and Pat explore:

• What it means to love ourselves without needing to fix or perfect ourselves
• How spiritual practice becomes real in everyday life
• The deep unity of spirituality and social justice
• Why compassion, inclusion, and joy are not ideals, but lived realities
• How suffering can become a doorway into freedom and belonging

This episode is an invitation to rest in the truth that there is only one heart, one life, and one love—expressing itself through us all.

Support the show

To make an appointment with Dr. Habib, visit https://www.habibboerger.com/.

In this deeply moving conversation, Dr. Habīb Boerger is joined by spiritual healer and artist Michele Hamida Rabinowitz for a rich exploration of spirituality lived through the body, creativity, and presence.

Michele shares her life story as a series of sacred doorways—birth trauma, dance, motherhood, bodywork, loss, healing, movement, and art—each one drawing her closer to God and to her true self. From myofascial release and spiritual healing to expressive movement and intuitive painting, Michele reflects on how the body remembers, how creativity heals, and how art becomes a spiritual practice of unveiling.

Together, Dr. Habīb and Michele explore embodiment as a path to the Divine, the role of joy and curiosity in spiritual life, the courage to say “yes” to transformation, and what it means to become “everything but nothing.” This episode invites listeners to consider how creativity—whether through art, movement, prayer, or simple presence—can dissolve the masks we wear and return us to the light within.

A tender, expansive dialogue for anyone longing to integrate spirituality with the lived realities of body, emotion, creativity, and everyday life.

Support the show

To make an appointment with Dr. Habib, visit https://www.habibboerger.com/.

In this deeply moving episode of Beyond Names, Dr. Habib Boerger is joined by Dr. Sabrina N’Diaye—therapist, teacher, author, peacebuilder, and founder of the HeartNest Center for Peace and Healing—for a wide-ranging conversation on spirituality, trauma, transformation, and the lifelong work of love.

Dr. Sabrina shares her spiritual journey from Catholic childhood to Sufism, reflecting on identity, ritual, motherhood, caregiving, and the call to become a bridge between worlds. She speaks tenderly about being named Saarah by her teacher, about patience (sabr), and about embracing the sacred assignment of caring for elders, clients, and communities with compassion and presence.

Together, Dr. Habib and Dr. Sabrina explore spiritual memoir as a healing practice, the power of storytelling circles, forgiveness as a daily discipline, and why only a heart that can break can truly let the light in. Drawing on Qur’anic wisdom, interspiritual teachings, psychotherapy, and ancestral memory, Dr. Sabrina invites us to see our lives through a wider lens—where trauma rests in one hand and transformation in the other.

This episode is a soulful offering for anyone longing to heal, to remember who they are, and to consciously participate in growing their light.

Support the show

To make an appointment with Dr. Habib, visit https://www.habibboerger.com/.

In this deeply honest and compassionate conversation, Dr. Habib Boerger is joined by writer, speaker, and professor Dr. Alane Daugherty to explore the lived intersection of spirituality, somatic awareness, trauma healing, and emotional resilience.

Dr. Alane shares her personal journey through severe anxiety and emotional distress—and how meditation, Quaker spirituality, Zen practice, and somatic approaches became gateways to profound healing. Together, they reflect on why spiritual awakening and healing includes the body, why safety and trust are essential for healing trauma, and how heartfulness emerges when mind, body, and spirit are integrated.

This episode explores:

• How trauma lives in the nervous system—and how it can be gently healed
• Why somatic practices can feel overwhelming for some—and how to honor that
• The role of divine connection, safety, and compassion in embodied healing
• Heartfulness as a lived experience, not a belief system
• Simple physiological practices that support spiritual receptivity
• Why there is no single “right” entry point to healing or awakening

The conversation concludes with a guided somatic-spiritual practice led by Dr. Alane, inviting listeners into grounded presence, gentle awareness, and connection with the Sacred—however they name it.

This episode is for anyone navigating anxiety, trauma, spiritual disconnection, or the longing to feel whole again—and for those seeking a spirituality that honors the wisdom of the body and the wisdom of the heart.

Support the show

To make an appointment with Dr. Habib, visit https://www.habibboerger.com/.

In this luminous episode, Dr. Habib sits down with renowned Sufi teacher and author Dr. Rosina Fawzia Al-Rawi for a conversation that moves from the streets of Cairo to the heart of Jerusalem, from the inner meaning of la ilaha illallah to the healing language of nature.

With profound clarity and gentleness, Fawzia shares:

• Her early spiritual awakening and the moment that changed her life
• The inner essence of unity and how to live la ilaha illallah beyond dogma
• How mercy (rahmah) becomes the force that transforms ego into universal consciousness
• The role of nature as the first book of revelation
• How to balance religion and spirituality – outer knowledge of religion and inner experience of spirituality, of being with God
• The Sufi understanding of adab, respectful presence, and how to respond to a culture of increasing disrespect
• What it means to stand for justice, protect the vulnerable, and hold even those who harm others within the one human family

Whether you’re grounded in a religious tradition or exploring spirituality with curiosity, this episode invites you into a deeper way of seeing—one that honors multiplicity while revealing the oneness beneath it.

May this conversation help you return to your heart, soften into compassion, and remember the light that lives in you.

Support the show

To make an appointment with Dr. Habib, visit https://www.habibboerger.com/.

Dr. Habīb welcomes spiritual director and emotional-integration practitioner Nina Lau-Branson for a deeply compassionate exploration of the inner life. Nina shares her powerful spiritual story — from growing up in a Chinese immigrant family, to a midlife awakening that led her away from corporate achievement and into a 15-year contemplative “wilderness,” and eventually into transformative work with emotional integration.

Together, Dr. Habīb and Nina explore:

• How early experiences shape our image of God
• The sacred role emotions play in our spiritual growth
• Why no emotion is “good” or “bad” — and how each carries intelligence
• What happens when communities suppress emotional expression
• The path to reclaiming the freedom and authenticity we see in sacred stories
• How contemplative practices, silence, and presence support emotional and spiritual healing

This conversation invites you to welcome all parts of your humanity — body, mind, spirit, and emotion — as companions on the journey home to yourself and to the Divine.

Support the show

To make an appointment with Dr. Habib, visit https://www.habibboerger.com/.