Liberated Body Podcast

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

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 Enro

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:

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

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

This is a homeplay episode! In other words, it's a chance to be guided through some embodied practice. In this case, it's about inhabiting internal space so that we can relate to ourselves, others, and the world in a more present and clear and heartfelt way. At its core, embodied practice has to be relational or it risks being a hobby or, weirdly, a disembodied "thing to do" or object to acquire. Fortunately, this ability to shift the quality of how we relate is also the big win of embodied practice. Check it out and play with it for yourself in today's episode.  For more information on the longer embodied relating course that Brooke is teaching in the month of December 2020, you can visit www.liberatedbeing.community/spaciousandsturdy Registration is open now through November 30th. 

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.c

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.

This talk is an excerpt from Bayo Akomolafe's guest teacher gathering on Liberated Being which took place on May 26th 2020. You can find more of his work at www.bayoakomolafe.net and more about the embodied practice community at www.liberatedbeing.community.

This talk is an excerpt from a guest teacher gathering with Jeannie Zandi that happened within the Liberated Being embodied practice community. In this gathering, Jeannie brings deep embodied presence to the question of how we meet this moment in history. It took place on March 27th of 2020. You can find more of Jeannie’s work at jeanniezandi.com, and more about Liberated Being at liberatedbeing.community

This is a recording of a free class that I taught on July 26th 2020. In the class I talk about why the ability to deeply experience and know safety is so foundational to any shift being able to take place in us and in how we relate to the world. We work with an embodied approach, and go through two practices for coming into embodied presence- both in time and also locating in the body. The full Embodying Safety and Capacity course begins August 4th and is open for registration at https://www.liberatedbeing.community/course  

As we all spend time at home these days, I've been reflecting on where Liberated Body took me. So I wanted to record an episode that traced that. It all boils down to one question I think: That question is: What is embodiment? It's an exploration from my own experience- certainly not the final word on anything- and I hope it's interesting and useful for you.

This episode functions like a little embodiment gift, courtesy of myself and Liam Bowler, who is the creator of the podcast The Body Awake. It is also an appetizer, a teeny tiny appetizer, of our upcoming weekend course: Living Your Body’s Intelligence, this July 28-29 2018 in Seattle. So many of you have gotten in touch with me over the years to say how much you liked the “home play” part of the Liberated Body episodes- i.e. the body-based explorations at the end of each show- so you can think of this as one long home play episode! I hope you enjoy it. If you have listened to Liberated Body and to The Body Awake you know Liam and I are kindred spirits. For both of us our work is dedicated to the larger, and I would say unanswerable inquiries around what is a body? How do we really connect with our bodies and from there with our lives? What gifts does the body have to deliver if we learn how to have an intimate and reciprocal relationship with it? Over the course of our parallel inquiries it becamse clear tha

For the past 3 years I have talked with somatic visionaries about new paradigms of understanding about the human body- and today is the final episode of the show. I have had the great honor of exploring inner space with the exceptional people I got to interview, and with all of you listeners who have formed such a warm and inquisitive community. For the final episode my dear friend Vanessa Scotto- who is also my co-host over at my new show Bliss and Grit- is talking to me about the whole Liberated Body journey. How it began, how it evolved, what some of the biggest a-ha highlight moments were for me, and why my work is now focused on embodied spirituality.

It is my great good fortune for this to be my second interview with Mary Bond. Mary has an MA in Dance from UCLA, and studied with, and was certified by, Dr. Ida Rolf, the originator of Rolfing Structural Integration. Mary is currently Chair of the Movement Faculty of The Rolf Institute® of Structural Integration in Boulder, CO. She also teaches workshops online and in person tailored to the movement needs and interests of various groups such as runners, dancers, Pilates and yoga instructors, and massage therapists. Mary is also a prolific writer whose articles have appeared in numerous magazines and she has written several books. You may know her best for her book The New Rules of Posture, and in today’s conversation we’re talking about her forthcoming book: Your Body Mandala: Posture, Perception, and Prescence. And her mission, which, much to my delight, is to contribute to humanity’s deeper embodiment.

Today I’m talking with Judith Blackstone. Judith is the creator of The Realization Process, which is an integrated approach to embodiment, psychological, relational, physical healing, and spiritual awakening. That maybe sounds like a tall order, but I’m here to tell you as someone who has been in the somatic fields for 20 years and who just finished my certification in The Realization Process, it’s the most accessible and glorious embodiment work I have come across. So it’s a delight for me to be able to introduce one of my teachers here on Liberated Body. Judith is a clinical psychologist and a meditation practitioner and student of contemplative traditions with more than 40 years of experience. She is the author of several books including Belonging Here and The Enlightenment Process, and she is also the co-founder of the Nonduality Institute which is dedicated to the science and practice of non-duality. In today’s conversation we’re talking about “the issues in the tissues”, or how emotional pain gets bound

Today I’m talking with Peter Blackaby who is the author of the book Intelligent Yoga which he is currently writing the 2nd edition for. Pete started practicing yoga in 1978 and began teaching in 1986. He then went on to become an osteopath. In 2002 he became involved in the British Wheel of Yoga (which is the governing body in England), and ran a two-year teacher training program for them. Since then, Pete has been running courses for teachers and teaches functional anatomy and biomechanics in the UK and internationally. His interest in the last 15 years has been to put some scientific underpinning to the practice of yoga, both in the biomechanical sense and in the mind/body relationship. In today’s conversation we’re talking about moving away from the Western reductionist view of anatomy, what a bottom up approach to yoga looks like vs. a top down approach, how the whole person’s lived experience is tied into how they move, and how yoga teachers can approach working with students who have chronic pain.