Spiritual Insights for Challenging Times is a podcast hosted by Reverend Ellen Barron, offering spiritual wisdom, meaningful conversations, and practical insights to help you navigate life’s challenges with greater peace, courage, and hope. Through reflections, guest conversations, and spiritual practices, Ellen invites listeners to reconnect with the strength, guidance, and light within.
What if the good you’ve been searching for is already here—but you’re simply not seeing it?
Join Rev. Ellen Barron and Rev. Ana Quintana as they explore gratitude as more than being thankful—it’s a spiritual way of seeing that can change how you experience your life. Discover how turning your attention toward the good and awakening to God as your Source can move you from focusing on what’s missing to recognizing the possibilities already present. How do we actually make that shift and step into our power, especially when life is challenging?
Tune in and discover how the practice of gratitude can change not only what you see, but how you live.
12 Oct 2026
When Worry Takes Over
Do you ever find yourself worrying about something that hasn’t even happened yet—your mind racing ahead to everything that could go wrong?
What if you could pause in those moments and tap into something within you that is stronger than the fear?
In this episode, we’ll explore a simple spiritual practice for noticing worry without being consumed by it, quieting the mind, and turning toward the strength, wisdom, and peace of God already within you.
You’ll leave with a meditation practice you can use whenever worry or anxiety begins to take over.
5 Oct 2026
Coming Home to Your True Self
What if becoming more fully yourself isn’t about fixing or improving anything, but remembering who you truly are?
In this episode, Rev. Ellen Barron and Rev. Teresa Curry explore self-awareness as a path to spiritual awakening—learning to recognize the fears, old patterns, and conditioning that can disconnect us from our authentic, divine nature. Through compassion, self-realization, and a deeper awareness of what’s happening within us, we discover how to move from reacting to life to responding from the wisdom we already hold within.
Join us for an inspiring conversation about letting go of who you think you should be and coming home to who you already are.
28 Sept 2026
How Do We Really Pray for Someone?
How easy is it, when someone we care about is in distress, to become absorbed in the problem and start praying for precisely what we believe they need? Yet if prayer isn't really about our needs—since, as Jesus taught, God already knows what we need—then what does it mean to pray genuinely for another person?
To find out, join Rev. Ellen Barron and Rev. Maggie Alderman as they explore how we can move our focus from the difficulty to the Divine Idea of wholeness, abundance, peace, wisdom, and harmony, thereby helping both ourselves and the person we are praying for attain a greater awareness of God's Presence and what is possible. What if praying for someone isn't about asking God to alter their circumstances, but about holding them in the highest truth of who they are?
21 Sept 2026
When Prayer Changes You
When life feels uncertain or overwhelming, where do you turn?
What if prayer isn’t about asking God to change what’s happening, but about changing us?
What if the peace, strength, and guidance you’ve been praying for are already within you?
Join Rev. Ellen Barron and Rev. Maggie Alderman as they explore a powerful way to pray—not from fear or the need to change what’s happening, but by awakening to the Divine Presence within. Discover how affirmative prayer can shift your perspective, open you to new possibilities, and help you meet life’s challenges with greater faith, peace, and trust.
8 Sept 2026
The Freedom of Allowing
Acceptance is more than understanding - it's a way of living. In Part 2, Rev. Dr. Martha Creek returns to continue a deeper dive with Rev. Ellen Barron into the practice of allowing life to be as it is, without immediately trying to fix it, avoid it, or push it away. Discover how staying present with difficult emotions can become a doorway to wisdom, resilience, and inner peace. Through practical spiritual tools and compassionate insights, you'll learn how allowing creates the freedom to respond to life with greater love, courage, and possibility.
31 Aug 2026
What Are You Resisting?
What if the path to greater peace isn't resisting life, but meeting it with compassion?
In Part 1, Rev. Ellen Barron and guest Rev. Dr. Martha Creek explore the meaning of radical acceptance and why so much of our suffering comes from fighting what is already here.
Together we'll look at how accepting the present moment isn't giving up - it's creating the space for healing, clarity, and transformation.
You'll also discover simple practices you can begin using right away when life feels overwhelming.
24 Aug 2026
Are You Really Listening?
What if one of the most powerful ways to bring more peace into your life wasn't talking - but truly listening?
In this episode, Rev. Ellen Barron and guest Bettie Spurill explore the spiritual practice of active listening, sometimes called compassionate conversation. Discover why listening without judgment, criticism, or the need to fix someone can deepen understanding, heal relationships, and perhaps even change everything.
If you have ever longed for more meaningful conversations in these challenging times, this episode offers practical wisdom that can truly transform the way you relate to others.
17 Aug 2026
Spiritual Practices That Carried Me Through Life's Greatest Challenges
What if the greatest challenges in your life could become the doorway to your deepest spiritual growth?
In this personal episode, I share the journey that began over forty years ago when I entered a recovery program and unexpectedly discovered a spiritual path that transformed my life.
Through the practices of self-awareness, mindfulness, and meditation I found an inner strength that carried me through life's most difficult moments, including the illness and loss of my son.
Join me as I explore how a daily spiritual practice can become an anchor of peace, resilience, and hope - no matter what life brings.
10 Aug 2026
Awaken to This Moment | Part 2 of Our Conversation with Rev Annie Nelson
In Part 2, Rev. Ellen Barron and guest Rev. Annie Nelson continue their conversation inspired by The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle, moving beyond the idea of simply living in the present to exploring how presence becomes a doorway to spiritual awakening.
Together they discuss the observer within, the pain-body, stillness, and practical ways to move from reacting unconsciously to living from your deeper divine nature.
You'll also be guided through a simple spiritual practice you can begin using right away to cultivate greater peace, presence, and awareness in your everyday life.
3 Aug 2026
Embracing Change with an Open Heart Part 2
Rev. Ellen Barron and her guest, Rev. Therese Lee continue their conversation by exploring how we can move beyond simply serving life's changes and begin growing through them. Together, they share practical spiritual tools - including the transformative practice of journaling - to help us move from the constant stories of the mind to the wisdom of the heart.
Through self-compassion, honest reflection, and spiritual principles, they invite listeners to see life's challenges not as something to fix, but as opportunities for healing, deeper self-awareness, and spiritual awakening.
If you're navigating a season of uncertainty, this episode offers gentle guidance and hope for embracing change with greater peace, courage, and trust.
28 Jul 2026
Embracing Change with an Open Heart
In this episode of Spiritual Insights for Challenging Times, Reverend Ellen Barron welcomes Reverend Therese Lee, a Unity minister and Grief Recovery Method specialist, for a heartfelt conversation about embracing change and opening the heart.
Together, they explore why change can feel so uncomfortable, especially when it comes through grief, loss, relationships, health, finances, or the uncertainty of the world around us. Rev. Therese shares how moving from the head to the heart can help us stop trying to “fix” pain and instead begin to honestly feel, witness, and release it.
This conversation offers gentle wisdom, practical spiritual tools, and a powerful reminder that healing is not about rushing past pain. It begins with allowing ourselves to be heard — by others, by Spirit, and by our own hearts.
20 Jul 2026
Finding Light When the World Feels Heavy with Rev. Annie
In this opening conversation of Spiritual Insights for Challenging Times, Reverend Ellen Barron is joined by Rev. Annie for a thoughtful and uplifting discussion about finding spiritual grounding when life and the world feel heavy.
Together, they explore how faith, inner wisdom, perspective, and spiritual practice can help us move through uncertainty with more peace, courage, and hope.
This episode is Part 1 of a two-part conversation and sets the tone for the heart of this podcast: real conversations, meaningful reflection, and spiritual insights to help us navigate challenging times with grace.
Listen in, take a breath, and remember — you are not walking through these times alone.
18 Jul 2026
Spiritual Insights for Challenging Times | Podcast Trailer
Welcome to Spiritual Insights for Challenging Times, a podcast hosted by Reverend Ellen Barron. In this series, Ellen explores how spirituality, reflection, and meaningful conversation can help us stay grounded, hopeful, and connected during the uncertain times we are living in. Subscribe and join us for thoughtful conversations, spiritual encouragement, and insights to help you move through life with more peace, courage, and compassion.
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