To be human is experience stress as well as being on a trauma spectrum. In this episode—part three of the Somatics Series—we define trauma in relationship to stress, in connection with Polyvagal Theory. Trauma is the energy of overwhelm in which we feel (and then, most often, come to believe) that we don’t have the resources to make life work. This episode concludes by introducing the pathway out of trauma and stuck energy.

In this second episode in the Somatics series, we explore Polyvagal Theory as a tool for raising awareness and befriending your body. Exploring the three central states in Polyvagal Theory (safety/connection, fight or flight, and shutdown), as well as the freeze state that most humans get stuck in, we name practices for getting your body unstuck and moving forward towards flourishing.

In this episode—the first in a new series about befriending our bodies—we explore how awareness of our body’s feelings, experience, and sensation is the engine of sustained change. In a society in which we are encouraged, implicitly if not explicitly, to disembody—to dissociate from embodied awareness—we begin to lay out a path towards fully inhabiting our bodies and, thus, our lives. This, as this series bears out, is the crucial foundation for building a life of abundance and flourishing, for our sake and for the sake of the world around us.

In this final conversation with Celtic thinker and author John Philip Newell about his book ‘The Great Search,’ we explore themes of returning to the wisdom of childhood and learning to encounter the light of the world in the midst of darkness. What emerges is a map for navigating the challenging landscape of our contemporary culture, with its emphasis on external power over inner wisdom. As we reflect on the wisdom of three twentieth century luminaries, an invitation for transcending the darkness emerges. Come for his brogue, stay for his mind and heart: this final conversation with John Phillip Newell will leave you re-discovering wisdom, hope, and courage.

At the center of our cultural crisis is a battle for reality—for the role of facts, objective law, and thought itself. As mainstream media is derided as “fake news” and blatant lies become rampant, it starts to feel like we are in a shell game with the truth. Meanwhile, long-held Constitutional norms are violated and the rule of law and due process are threatened. All of this is facilitated, in part, because of the growing culture trend to engage outrage over reason and emotivism over thought. In this episode, we explore examples of the war on reality, how we can reject the temptations to live in alternate realities, and name practices for staying grounded in calm and joy throughout it all.

At the center of our cultural crisis is a clash of values. The current administration’s actions reflect an age-old paradigm: us versus them, winners versus losers. It is driven by animal kingdom values, where “might makes right.” In this episode, we explore a different paradigm and a different set of values for transcending such limited thinking.

We are living through perilous times—an age of anxiety, crisis, and polarization. In this return to the Our Cultural Crisis series, we explore the 9 mechanisms—emotivism, blindness, tribalism, victimization, moral posturing, de-humanization, outrage, one-sidedness, and violence—that drive our current predicament. These dynamics are as old as time but pertinent as ever. By naming them, we can engage the work of transcending them, sobering up to our times and reckoning how to live powerfully and humbly in such an age of anxiety.

Transformation ultimately has less to do with thinking our way into change than living into it in bodies that have been trained to feel and be fully present. In this episode, we explore a way to create a strong foundation for ongoing transformation by not only recognizing glimmers—moments that slow your body down into an experience of calm and beauty—but challenging yourself to experience more glimmers than you might have thought possible. As you expand your awareness about just how much calm and beauty you can experience, you create the possibility of full embodiment and of living in radical abundance.