Today I’m talking with Steve Haines. Steve has been a bodyworker for 20 years primarily in the field of craniosacral therapy. He is now a senior international teacher of craniosacral, and together with his colleague Ged Sumner he wrote the book Cranial Intelligence and founded a training program at bodyintelligence.com. He is also a lead TRE Certification trainer.

He is deeply interested in pain, trauma, and anxiety and the links between them. As an author, he is the creator of the “...Is really strange” graphic books series which I adore. Titles in that series are: Pain is Really Strange, Trauma is Really Strange, and Anxiety is Really Strange. If you’re looking for simple and straightforward explanations about the current “really strange” science behind these experiences, I highly recommend the books. Today we are talking in particular about trauma and anxiety.

This is my second conversation with Steve, the last one was many years ago. It was great to catch up with him.

You can find out more about his work at

www.bodycollege.net

and

www.bodyintelligence.com

Liberated Being is at liberatedbeing.community, and on Instagram we are @liberatedbeing

Today I’m talking with Enroue Halfkenny. Since 1993, Enroue has been a practitioner within the nature based, West African, Òrìṣà religious tradition of the Yorùbá people. He was initiated as a priest of Ifá in Nigeria in 2000.

In 2008, Enroue graduated as Valedictorian from the Smith College School for Social Work. Since then, he has worked in a community mental health clinic, been an adjunct professor, presented at conferences, sat on various panels, and been a Marta Sotomayor Fellow at his alma mater.

In this role, he consulted on undoing the ways that institutional oppression, as related to Race, Gender and Ability, impacted the students, staff, faculty, advisors and administrators at the School for Social Work.

It is his unique skill set as an activist, priest, and clinical social worker that helps him to develop effective, client specific strategies for those seeking his support.

Today we’re talking about ancestral healing and support- you know these people who are bodies are literally made from! As Enroue says- "We all have a road to go back to."

You can find out more about Enroue’s work at

www.healingandliberation.com

Liberated Being is at www.liberatedbeing.community, and on Instagram we are @liberatedbeing

Today I’m talking with Laura Banks. Laura is a Certified Compassion Cultivation Training© (CCT) teacher through the Compassion Institute and Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE).

Laura has studied literature, languages, folklore, and philosophy to explore expressions of human experience across time. She has traveled around the world to see, hear, smell, taste, and touch life in its countless forms. Joys and sorrows, life and death crossed her path. Again and again, she saw how fear and anger could complicate and magnify pain, but also witnessed people choosing compassion for themselves and others –meeting anguish with loving presence – and spinning the straw of suffering into the gold of connection, healing, and wisdom.

You can learn more about Laura's work here:

https://www.lauralbanks.com/

and she is a teacher in the Liberated Being embodied practice studio which is set to open to new members in January.

You can find out more about Liberated Being at

https://www.liberatedbeing.community/

Resources mentioned in this interview:

A Fearless Heart: How the Courage to Be Compassionate Can Transform Our Lives by Thupten Jinpa

The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World by Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, and Douglas Carlton Abrams

Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection by Barbara Fredrickson

The Compassionate Species, article by Dachner Keltner, faculty director of Greater Good Science Center

Compassion does not fatigue!, research article by Trisha Dowling

Contesting the term ‘compassion fatigue’: Integrating findings from social neuroscience and self-care research, research article by Anne Hofmeyer, Kate Kennedy, and Ruth Taylor

Today I’m talking with Sarah Histand who is blending her worlds as a personal trainer, mental health counselor with a masters’ in social work, and an outdoor adventurer to become a mental health-informed adventure fitness trainer

Born & raised in Alaska, Sarah teaches mindful bodyweight interval training classes that build functional strength -- in both body & mind.

Over the last decade, she has built a body of work that brings together fitness, mental health, and outdoor recreation and has worked with hundreds of women from Alaska to Antarctica, to help them build the mind & body strength necessary for life & mountain time.

Her own life's adventures have taught her that we're all capable of more than we realize and is passionate about helping others realize their own potential, discover inner strength & self-worth, break through whatever is holding them back.

You can find out more about Sarah’s work at www.sarahmhistand.com

On Instagram she is @sarahmhistand

And you can follow along with Liberated being at www.liberatedbeing.community

or on Instagram we’re @liberatedbeing.

Today’s episode is an excerpt from a longer guest teacher gathering with Will Pye that took place on October 27th of 2020 within Liberated Being.

This is an especially practice based episode, and it is a profoundly delicious meditation practice. It is a gem of a practice session that you can use sometime when you’re able to drop into a meditative state.

Will Pye’s work is summed up by ‘integrating’; integrating psychological wholeness and spiritual awakening, science and spirituality, reason and intuition, personal wellbeing with collective evolution and social justice.

He is the author of two books: Blessed With A Brain Tumor; Realizing It’s All Gift and Learning to Receive and The Gratitude Prescription; Harnessing the Power of Thankfulness for Healing and Happiness.

Will is also the founder of the community of awakening and sacred activism, Love & Truth Party:

You can find that at www.loveandtruthparty.org and more of his work at www.willpye.com.

Our embodied practice community is at www.liberatedbeing.community

This talk is an excerpt from a longer guest teacher gathering with Vanessa Scotto which took place on May 15th 2020. Vanessa Scotto may sound familiar to you- she is a very dear friend of mine the co-creator of a podcast we ran together for 4 years titled Bliss and Grit which was dedicated to embodied awakening.

She is a Teacher, Mentor and Coach in private practice who has dedicated over two decades to exploring the dynamic interplay of the Mind, Body and Spirit. She holds two masters degrees in both Traditional Chinese Medicine and Transpersonal Psychology; and is a certified practitioner of the Realization Process with Judith Blackstone. With a background in Eastern philosophy, Contemplative Psychology, Mysticism and somatic meditation, Vanessa takes a holistic approach to transformation, self-realization and self-love.

You can find out more about Vanessa’s work at vanessascotto.com. And more about Liberated Being at liberatedbeing.community.

This talk is an excerpt from a guest teacher gathering with Nkem Ndefo which originally took place on September 24th, 2020. Nkem is the founder and president of Lumos Transforms and creator of The Resilience Toolkit, a model that promotes embodied self-awareness and self-regulation in an ecologically sensitive framework and social justice context. Licensed as a nurse midwife, Nkem also has extensive post-graduate training in complementary health modalities and emotional therapies. She brings an abundance of experience as a clinician, educator, consultant, and community strategist to innovative programs that address stress and trauma and build resilience for individuals, organizations, and communities across sectors, both in her home country (USA) and internationally. Nkem is particularly interested in working alongside people most impacted by violence and marginalization.

You can find out more about more about Nkem’s work at lumostransforms.com and resiliencetoolkit.co. And Liberated Being at liberatedbeing.community

In today’s episode this is a talk that is an excerpt from a guest teacher gathering with Peter Blackaby which originally took place on August 28th, 2020. Pete Blackaby is a yoga asana teacher and osteopath, and is the author of the book Intelligent Yoga. His interest comes from a loosely humanist perspective firmly rooted in the here and now, and his view has shifted over the years from a largely physical view of yoga to a view that encompasses the complex relationship between things, and the way perception influences everything. What do we make of the impressions that come in through our senses, and how do we respond to those impressions?

You can find out more about Liberated Being at liberatedbeing.community, and more about Peter’s work at peteblackaby.co.uk and intelligentyoga.co.uk

This talk is an excerpt from a guest teacher gathering with Isha Vela that happened within the Liberated Being embodied practice community. It took place on April 6th of 2020. To give you some context, you’ll hear Isha talking about various survival patterns- you can read more about that via Steven Kessler’s book The Five Personality Patterns. You can find out more about Liberated Being at www.liberatedbeing.community, and more of Isha’s work at www.revolutionaryrompereglas.com.

This talk is an excerpt from a guest teacher gathering with Loch Kelly that happened within the Liberated Being embodied practice community. It took place on April 27th of 2020. Just to give you a little context, he is talking about moving from locating in the head, to what he refers to as the heartmind. Locating lower down in the body which he is about to guide you through in this recording. You can find out more about Liberated Being at liberatedbeing.community, and more about Loch’s work at lochkelly.org.