WAKE UP! with Joni · Joni Caldwell Lerner: Leadership and Life Strategist Coach

LAURYN AXELROD: Ten simple words that are interconnected and Interactive and will change your relationship to yourself and your understanding of the spiritual journey

·59 min·4 clips

Lauren links acceptance to the Buddha's idea that suffering comes from wanting things to be different.

1. Wake Up With Joni frames this episode around Lauren Axelrod and her book "10 Words," which Joni introduces as an interspiritual guide to becoming better people in a better world. 2. Lauren Axelrod is the guest, identified as an interfaith and interspiritual leader and teacher whose work spans spiritual practice, chaplaincy, and end-of-life doula care. 3. The conversation asks what the episode is for: how ten interrelated words can help people stay grounded, pay attention, and live with compassion. 4. Lauren says she grew up in an interfaith, deeply spiritual environment and then spent about a decade in practice across Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Sufism. 5. She says she kept asking what the sacred is and how to live in relationship to "whatever language you want to use" for the divine. 6. Lauren explains that she distilled decades of study into 10 words because a "spiritual smoothie" can taste good without providing substance. 7. She says the words are not "the Ten Commandments" and are not built around "thou shalt" or "thou shalt not." 8. She says the principles apply in psychology, science, and "the underlying principles to the way this universe works." 9. Attention is the first word, and Lauren says people will stay lost if they are not paying attention. 10. She gives practical examples like setting a bell, brushing your teeth mindfully, and noticing where your hands are. 11. Lauren says meditation is not about having a perfectly clean mind, but about noticing where thoughts and attention go. 12. She points to the Jewish prayer "Shema," meaning "listen," as another form of paying attention. 13. Acceptance follows attention, and Lauren defines it as accepting the world as it is rather than as people wish it to be. 14. She uses pandemic conditions, political chaos, and end-of-life decline to show why wanting reality to be different creates suffering. 15. Lauren says her work as an end-of-life doula and chaplain shows how people can reduce suffering by accepting lost capacities and changing bodies. 16. Authenticity comes next, and Lauren links it to integrity, honesty, humility, and the repeated question "Who am I?" 17. She says social media encourages masks and that people have to keep asking whether they are being true to themselves. 18. The interview has a reflective, conversational pace, with Joni asking follow-up questions that move from definitions to daily practices. 19. Listeners who like interfaith spirituality, mindfulness, and practical self-inquiry will likely appreciate this episode. 20. Listeners wanting fast debate, rigid doctrine, or entertainment-first conversation may skip it.

As heard by us

A warm, practical conversation about authenticity, joy, and spiritual clarity.

Lauren Axelrod and Joni keep the focus on spirituality as something lived, not performed. The conversation moves through authenticity, inner knowing, and staying grounded, and Lauren's plainspoken frame gives it shape without turning heavy-handed.

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Why you'd press play

Press play if you want spirituality translated into everyday language, without the fog.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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