This interview marks a symbolic full-circle moment. Maíra Irigaray, was Lizzie's former professor at the University of Florida, and now her co-facilitator on a retreat in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon. Maíra Irigaray has walked many career paths, notably as an environmental lawyer, teaching and completing her PhD in geography of indigenous resistance, Amazon activist, a mother, shamanic healer, and one of the most extraordinary humans you will ever encounter.

This conversation will ask you to consider what is possible when you finally lay down the titles you collected to prove your worth, your "good enough" — and remember who you were before the world told you who to be.

• From lawyer to activist to healer: how nearly a decade of hardcore environmental law and indigenous rights activism led to burnout, and then to a completely different kind of awakening.
• "Loss can protect forests, but only love creates protectors." How Maíra stopped trying to save the Amazon through outrage and started bringing people to fall in love with it instead.
• The indigenous wisdom that reshaped how Maíra lives
• Why nature is not somewhere you go — it's something you belong to. And why the Amazon doesn't change who you are, it simply removes everything you're not.
• Reciprocity as the foundation: how Maíra's work with indigenous communities on the Tapajós is built on years of relationship, consent, and direct financial support — not tourism, not extraction, but true partnership.
• Intuition as a practice: how Maíra moved from a woman with a plan for every plan, to someone led entirely by inner knowing.
• Growing up in an ayahuasca church, being introduced to plant medicine at seven years old.
• The witch archetype reclaimed: not woo-woo, not a costume — the most intuitive, embodied, wildly wise part of you that the patriarchy tried to domesticate.

If this episode lit something up in you share it with a woman in your life who has everything on paper and still feels like something is missing. She knows who she is, she just needs to remember.

Connect with Maíra Irigaray PhD

• Instagram: @maira.irigaray_ @insamauma
• Website: www.insamauma.org/aboutus

The Retreat — UNTAMED

October 29 – November 2, 2026 · Tapajós River, Brazil · Five days. Eight women.

One of the most breathtaking rivers on earth. This is not a wellness retreat. This is a reclamation. UNTAMED was born from a vision to bring women into the Amazon not to be improved, but to be remembered. To strip away the conditioning, the performance, the version of you that everyone else "needs" — and meet the woman beneath all of it.

What you'll experience:

• Sacred ceremonies with a Tupinambá Shaman around real fires, with prayers in languages older than nations
• Deep rainforest immersion — hands on ancient trees, pink dolphins in transparent water, white sand beaches as far as you can see
• Amazonian plant baths prepared with intention
• Circle, storytelling, and sisterhood — the kind built around a fire, not small talk
• Movement, embodiment, and wild feminine practices
• Living and dining aboard a high-end vessel on the Tapajós with private cabins and local Amazonian chefs
• A portion of every retreat goes directly to the indigenous communities of the Tapajós — supporting their sovereignty, their projects, and their culture on their own terms.

Apply here: www.insamauma.org/untamed

"The Amazon doesn't change who you are. It simply removes everything you're not." — Maíra Irigaray

In this Nature Series on The Bonded Podcast, Dr. Patty sits down with Jen and Jason, the husband-and-wife founders of HapBE Valley — an equine and wellness retreat farm nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains just outside Asheville, North Carolina. What began as Jen's lifelong love of horses and a solo retreat that changed everything became something neither of them could have planned.

This is a conversation about leaving behind the life you were conditioned to live, following a calling into the unknown, and discovering that horses have an extraordinary ability to show us exactly who we are. Horses are attuned to energy of other beings and their environment for their evolutionary survival, which allows them to sense and reflect the relational dynamics in our life because we carry this energy with us. Equine therapy and retreats provide space for self-awareness to grow into self-compassion for your healing. If this sounds intriguing you must listen to learn more!

HapBE Valley Equine & Wellness Farm

Website: hapbevalley.com Instagram: @hapbevalley Facebook: HapBE Valley Email: info@hapbevalley.com

Equine Experiences — No riding. Just presence, connection, and real-time feedback from horses who don't lie.

Signature Self-Discovery & Self-Compassion Retreat — HapBE's flagship retreat combining equine-facilitated learning with sound healing, yoga, breathwork, and meditation.

Mother Hunger® Healing with Horses Retreat — Coming October 2026. A four-day retreat for women ready to explore the mother-daughter attachment wound, held in a small container of eight with licensed therapists trained in the Mother Hunger® framework and the healing power of horses. Learn more: https://hapbevalley.com/upcoming-retreats/

Wellness Experiences — Sound healing, yoga, breathwork, Reiki with horses, and more — offered individually and woven into retreats.

If this episode awakened or inspired you, please leave a positive review to support the growth of this wisdom and continuation of making these podcasts possible!

Today we sit down with Gabrielle Lanzoni, a regenerative health educator and consultant working at the intersection of agriculture, nutrition, and consumer education. Gabrielle's journey began with a health crisis, a move to Italy, and the realization that the food system, not her body, was broken. Now through her platform Lanzo, she's on a mission to connect the dots between soil health, human health, and planetary health for everyday consumers. This one will change the way you think about how what's on your plate does more than satisfy your hunger.

• How living in Italy resolved years of chronic inflammation, brain fog, and digestive issues
• What regenerative agriculture actually is
• The soil microbiome and the human microbiome striking similarities
• We're experiencing a hidden hunger epidemic: about 2 billion people are nutrient-deficient not because they aren't eating enough calories, but because the food itself has lost 40–60% of its nutritional value compared to 30 years ago
• The mental health connection: ultra-processed food consumption directly correlates with depression and anxiety symptoms
• The mindset around food matters too — research shows that eating in good company actually lowers inflammatory markers, even when the food itself isn't perfect
• Your body has innate wisdom — color, flavor, and aroma in food are nature's signals that nutrients are present
• Energy and intention around eating impacts digestion

• Gabrielle Lanzoni www.lanzohealth.com IG: @lanzohealth
• Sacred Treehouse www.sacredtreehouse.org @sacredtreehouse

Visit your local farmers market — introduce yourself to vendors, ask how they farm, and start building a relationship with your food source. You don't even have to buy anything at first. Just being in that environment is its own kind of medicine.

Look for these certifications on packaging:

• ROC — Regenerative Organic Certified (the gold standard)
• Regenified
• Greener World
• Soil and Climate Alliance

Documentaries:

• Kiss the Ground
• Common Ground
• Groundswell

Read: Growing a Revolution by David Montgomery & Anne Biklé

Today Lizzie is joined by Ryann Morris, an Ayurvedic chef, nutritional health coach, and founder of Food Brilliance. Ryann shares how her health crisis of MRSA, five months of IV antibiotics, and a silenced vagus nerve led her to Ayurveda and completely transformed her relationship with food. She explains what Ayurveda actually is: not a restriction, but a gentle and loving way to live in harmony with your body and the natural world. If you've ever thought of cooking as a chore, this episode will offer some medicinal reframes.

Key topics discussed:

• Why your emotional state matters as much as what's on your plate
• The most overlooked part of receiving nourishment
• Cooking as gift to self and community
• The community garden as second home: how a small food forest in the heart of downtown Delray Beach became Ryann's greatest teacher in patience, presence, and connection
• Three Ayurvedic plants worth knowing: Tulsi (calm and clarity), Ashwagandha (stress resilience and sustained energy), and Amla (vitamin C, skin glow, cooling energy)
• Potlucks as portals into other people's stories, cultures, and memories

If this episode nourished something in you, share it with a friend who loves to cook, a fellow foodie, or someone who needs a reminder that taking care of themselves can start in the kitchen (or garden)!

Ryann Morris: foodbrilliance.com @food_brilliance

Film: Food is Everything, a short documentary about cooking with intention, spices, growing food, and how food gathers people. Releases on YouTube June 21st for one month.

Swinton Community Growing Project: The Delray Beach community garden where Lizzie and Ryann first met and the food forest that inspired so much of this conversation.

Sacred Treehouse: Mindfulness classes, retreats, coaching www.sacredtreehouse.org

In this Nature Series on The Bonded Podcast, Lizzie takes the episode outside — literally. Recording from her Florida backyard, surrounded by cicadas, wind, and bird song, she explores what sound and sight actually do to our bodies, our nervous systems, and our capacity to heal. From the womb to the wild, this episode is part science, part philosophy, and part prescription to get outside!

In this epsiode Lizzie explores:

• Hearing as the first sense we develop in utero, our nervous systems are already learning to read safety and threat through sound.
• Noise pollution is a public health issue: chronic exposure to man-made noise has been linked to elevated blood pressure, impaired memory, and increased hyperactivity in children.
• Bird song is ancient medicine: a 2022 King's College London study found that hearing or seeing birds improved mental well-being for up to eight hours — even in people with depression.
• What we see heals us too: patients with tree-view hospital windows went home sooner, needed less pain medication, and recovered faster than those facing a brick wall.
• Green views build community — apartments with more natural views had up to 56% fewer violent crimes, and residents reported stronger trust and belonging.
• The prescription is 20 minutes: sitting or walking in a nature-adjacent space is enough to produce the greatest measurable drop in cortisol.
• And the big question: if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it — does it make a sound? Lizzie has an answer.

If this episode resonated, try this week's eco-mindfulness invitation: go outside, close your eyes and just listen — then plug your ears and just look — then let both senses come together. Your ears were built for this before you were even born.

Can a forest, a river, or a favorite tree offer the same qualities we seek in our closest relationships?

Could nature help us heal attachment wounds and remember our belonging to the living world?

Explore these questions and more in this deeply moving conversation, we sit down with author, researcher, eco-chaplain, and founder of the Heartwood Institute, Dr. Lindsay Branham, to explore the profound ways nature can support healing, belonging, and reconnection in a disconnected world.

From secure attachment with trees to the language of the body, erotic ecology, eco-grief, and collective healing, this conversation invites us to remember that we are not separate from nature—we are nature.

Whether you're feeling overwhelmed by the state of the world, longing for deeper connection, or curious about eco-mindfulness practices, this episode offers wisdom, hope, and practical ways to begin cultivating kinship with the living world around you.

• The concept of secure attachment with nature and why it matters
• Why Lindsay uses "they/them" pronouns for nature
• Queer ecology, belonging, and what nature teaches us about diversity
• Allowing safety, boundaries, and consent to support healing sexual trauma
• How the body serves as our primary language with the natural world
• What "erotic ecology" means and how nature invites us back into aliveness
• Eco-anxiety, eco-grief, and how grief can become fertile ground for transformation
• Lessons from trees, forests, and mycelial networks about cooperation and community
• Why healing ourselves and healing our relationship with the Earth are deeply interconnected

"Nature is not going to cross those boundaries of consent or violate them. There is a profound safety available in relationship with the Earth."

• Heartwood: The Wisdom and Healing Kinship of Trees by Lindsay Branham: Review the book on Amazon to help spread the wisdom!
• Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass
• Joanna Macy's work on Active Hope and Deep Ecology
• Suzanne Simard's research on forest communication and mycelial networks

Stay connected with Lindsay on Instagram: @lindsaylaurenne https://www.heartwood.institute/

What if the ocean could become part of the healing process?

In this episode of the Bonded Podcast, Lizzie and Dr. Patty sit down with surf and trauma therapist Jess Ripley, LMFT, to explore the transformative power of nature-based healing and reconnecting with ourselves through the ocean. Jess shares her personal journey from recovery and recreation therapy to creating her own integrative approach to surf therapy blending mindfulness, trauma healing, play, embodiment, and the wisdom of nature. Whether you’re a surfer, nature lover, therapist, or someone longing to feel more alive and connected, this episode offers an inspiring look at healing through relationship — with ourselves, others, and the natural world.

This conversation dives into:

• How nature and the ocean can support trauma healing
• What surf therapy actually looks like in practice
• The role of mindfulness, play, and embodiment in healing
• Why healing outside the therapy office can be so powerful
• Corrective experiences through movement, challenge, and connection
• Ocean metaphors for life, timing, fear, trust, and resilience
• The ethical considerations of doing therapy outside the office
• The healing impact of awe, beauty, and feeling part of nature
• How surf therapy supports addiction recovery, PTSD, anxiety, and depression
• Reconnecting with nature as a path toward wholeness

If this episode sparked something in you, share it with a friend who surfs, works in mental health, or finds refuge out in the ocean!

Connect with Jess

🌊 Website: www.sealovehealing.com

🌊 Instagram @sealovehealing

🌊 Surf Therapy Training: For recreational therapists who want to work within their scope of competence outside the office, co-creating therapeutic spaces with nature. Learn more: www.sealovehealing.com/become-a-surf-therapist.html

Resources

Surf Therapy International: A global hub for surf therapy organizations, research, and resources. https://intlsurftherapy.org/

Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life by Dacher Keltner. The book on awe that Lizzie and Dr. Patty reference in this episode — a beautiful companion read.

In this Nature Series on The Bonded Podcast we explore how humans can build secure bonds with each other, with animals, and with the natural world. Today we sit down with Hanna Wise, a Registered Clinical Social Work Intern (RCSWI) specializing in veterinary social work. Hanna shares how she stumbled into this niche, deeply meaningful field, and what it looks like to support both the humans and animals who walk through the doors of a nonprofit veterinary clinic in Jacksonville, Florida. From pet loss grief groups to staff burnout, this conversation will open your eyes to a field you've probably never heard of but will absolutely relate to if you've ever had an affection for animals or pets.

Key Topics Discussed:

• Veterinary social work is built on one core principle: respecting the dignity and worth of all species.
• Pet loss is disenfranchised grief — it's valid, it's real, and it deserves the same space as any other grief.
• The human-animal bond as a secure attachment — how our relationships with pets mirror the principles of healthy human connection, including trust, consistency, co-regulation, and boundaries.
• What pets can teach us about relationships — body language, respecting "no," early socialization, and growing independence over time.
• The potential for sacred reciprocity within human-animal bond.
• Pets can serve as a mirror for healthy relationships — modeling boundaries, trust-building, and independence.

If this episode sparked something in you, share it with a friend who has loved their pet, works in veterinary medicine, or is curious about the intersection of mental health and animal welfare.

🐾 Virtual Pet Loss Support Group — First Wednesday of every month. Open to anyone in Florida through EveryPet.org email Hanna at hwise@everypet.org

Learn mindfulness and self-compassion tools at www.SacredTreehouse.org

Strengthening the Human-Animal Bond This website has so many great links that can be utilized for individuals and families, with a lot of the topics that we discussed being addressed. https://mhanational.org/resources/strengthening-the-human-animal-bond/

Jacksonville Specific

• https://jaxhumane.org/pet-help/pet-owner-assistance/
• https://www.jacksonville.gov/departments/office-of-administrative-services/animal-care-and-protective-services

Veterinary Social Work Resources

• https://vetsocialwork.tennessee.edu/
• https://www.iavsw.org/