This is a practice-based episode that speaks more deeply to the issues that were brought up in the last episode, with Jane Clapp, about how social media is changing us. This is from the point of view of a podcast/body-centered mindfulness studio that wants to "make the world a more embodied place" and that is "in the inquiry of being fully human".

In the episode, host Brooke Thomas asks if it's possible to be more embodied and fully human and still connected to the social media algorithms with how they are designed to change our brains and behavior.

She also gives a guided practice for becoming present by receiving through the senses, a way of falling back in love with the world.

Retreat month in the Liberated Being studio begins April 1st. It will be a flexible container for disconnecting from social media and doomscrolling and most importantly reconnecting to our bodies, our beings, our natural environment, and our actual lives.

You can sign up at liberatedbeing.community/studio. It’s not an extra program, just a part of monthly or annual membership.

RESOURCES mentioned in the episode:

The Social Dilemma (documentary)

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff

Jaron Lanier

Feels Good Man (documentary)

Jane Clapp is a mindful strength and movement coach, an embodiment educator and a Jungian analyst in training. She takes an interdisciplinary approach to her work that goes beyond mindfulness, to enmesh each client’s physical condition with the psychological and emotional aspects of their selves while always factoring in that the oppressive systems we live in play out in every system in the body.

She has worked as an expert coach and educator that brings together expertise in the effects of chronic stress and overwhelm on the fascial and autonomic nervous systems, movement and breath patterns since 2006.
Bringing together her many years of somatic study while supporting others through their bodies, with her personal journey through Jungian Analysis and her training as a Jungian Analyst, she has developed what she refers to as Jungian Somatics.

And why do I feel like of all the episodes THIS one is a don’t miss? Well Jane and I are getting into territory that isn’t discussed that much in our circles- that being how social media is quite literally changing us, changing our brains and changing the world. It’s like we’re all hooked up to a neurofeedback machine now that works on us to make us more polarized, more in our survival/reactionistic brains and more dualistic. Among other things…
Jane and I have been swimming in these waters separately but simultaneously, so this was our chance to talk about it with each other. I think we all need to be talking about this more and finding ways, as we are able, to unhook from the algorithms.

RESOURCES MENTIONED

How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell (book)
The Social Dilemma (documentary on Netflix)
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/04/the-internet-doesnt-have-to-be-awful/618079/
How Humans Get Hacked Yuval Noah Harari and Tristan Harris on Wired https://www.wired.com/video/watch/yuval-harari-tristan-harris-humans-get-hacked
It Will Never Happen to Me by Claudia Black (book)
Dr. Iain McGilchrist
James Hillman
Jaron Lanier

Today I’m talking with Master Mingtong Gu Named Qigong Master of the Year by the 13th World Congress for Qigong and Traditional Chinese Medicine, Master Mingtong is on faculty for Esalen Institute, OmegaInstitute, 1440 Multiversity, Spirit Rock Meditation Center, and the Shift Network. He is the founder of The Chi Center / The Center for Wisdom Healing Qigong, a beautiful 79 acre retreat center south of Santa Fe, NM

You can find more of his work and more about the chi center for Wisdom Healing Qigong at www.chicenter.com and if you head to their website, they also have a free ebook Ancient Healing Secrets which is available to download.

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

Today I’m talking with Betsy Polatin. Betsy Polatin, is an Alexander Technique teacher, a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner and has her MFA. She is An internationally recognized breathing and movement specialist,, has been teaching for more than forty five years and is currently a master lecturer at Boston University’s College of Fine Arts. She has worked with numerous individuals and institutions and some of her teaching experience includes Berklee College of Music, the Boston Ballet, and the Opera Institute of Boston. Her background includes movement education and performance, as well as training in music, dance, yoga, meditation, trauma resolution, and the broader healing arts.. She is the author of two books, The Actor’s Secret and her most recent book which we are discussing today: Humanual: A Manual for Being Human.

I hope you enjoy the conversation. You can find more of Betsy’s work at www.humanual.com and her book again is also titled Humanual.

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

This is a practice-based episode. We are so inundated with information all the time! Even information about being less conceptual and more embodied, as on this podcast lol.

Within Liberated Being we also run an embodied practice studio, where we can engage with practices that help us to make the shift into embodying what we know, becoming more real, and changing how we relate to ourselves, others, and the world.

So this week I'm sharing two 15 minute practices that I taught in the studio last week. Take a break from the firehose of learning about things and instead have a chance to digest things by connecting with the home inside yourself.

These practices are for inhabiting the head and the heart- and seeing how locating within those areas shifts the way the world shows up to us.

More information about the embodied practice studio can be found at www.liberatedbeing.community/studio