Grow Free with Emma B: Recent Episodes
Emma B
Discussions, dialogue and practices that bring lived and professional interest and experience of trauma together to help us move beyond the unconscious reactions and unproductive cycles of fight/flight/freeze so that we can develop resilient, intuitive habits and embody our innate balance, wisdom and power in purposeful ways, in our personal lives as well as in the organisations, systems and cultures in which we live and work.
Humanity is flowering. So many people are beginning to let theirlight shine in unique ways. This isamazing. Yet, part of the process is more fully experiencing the dark as wellas the light within us so that they can come back into balance. This podcast explores experiences of movingthrough this process with people who are brave enough to show us their messinessas well as they marvelousness.
In this episode, Ispeak with the creatively intelligent Shirley Shantel who goes by LemurianDreamweaver on Instagram. She shares howshe had to unpick herself through 5 years of depression after leaving anunhealthy relationship and exhausting career. We allowed curiosity to guide our conversationwhile finding our way through these questions:
- What did your rock-bottom look like within the old paradigm and what has ‘unpickingyourself’ from the conventions, systems and structures looked like foryou? Where were your deepest hooks? How do you hold the moments of fear and/oruncertainty?
- How have you found the guidance and confidence to follow your unique purpose here? We all have unique parts to play – would yousay they are all creative?
- What is it about your relationship with the plants, planets and stars that supportsyou to create? What is this creativityall about?
- What do you see rising from where we are? Whatare you creating and co-creating? Whatexcites you about the way things are evolving?
You can find Shirley at:Dream Weaver (@lemuriandreamweaver) • Instagram photos and videos
If you would like a soul reading or to contact Shirley you can email: lemuriandreamweaver@gmail.com
As always you can find me, Emma B, at:
www.facebook.com/GrowFreewithEmmaB
www.instagram.com/grow.free.with.emma.b
Email me at: emmab@grow-free.com
You can find out about the GrowFree Community at:GrowFree Trauma Healing & Re-Alignment Resources & Community (subscribepage.io)
https://community.grow-free.comyoutube.com/channel/UCIP89EqbQkcbUpHayzUuSCg
These are times of huge transition. We are crossing from an era of Pisces to Aquarius. We're shifting from a time where power has been centralised to one where it is moving back to the people. It's a time where knowledge is coming directly to each of us and updating itself rapidly.
In this context, it felt important to explore 'paradigm' - what it is and how it transforms. This is what we are exploring in this episode with paradigm trailblazer Anneke Sips. As a psychiatric nurse, Yoga Therapist & Teacher Trainer, Anneke sought to bridge paradigms and is now more comfortable co-creating new ones outside the system, connecting a wide spectrum of possibilities within the field of healing and health.
We discuss
-the nature of paradigms (personal and collective)
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her perspective of watching an old one fall while new ones rise
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the parts of paradigm that are resistant to change and those that are more adaptable
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whether there is a difference between transformation and death- what we see rising from where we are.
You can find Anneke at:About – Anneke Sips
You can find Emma B and The GrowFree community at https://community.grow-free.com
Get email updates at: subscribepage.io/GrowFree
Watch video updates at The GrowFree YouTube Channel
Grow Free Community - YouTube
Rising from a rest or a place of safety is different to getting up for another round of battle or keeping up on the hamster wheel. We’ve finished a three-year cycle starting with the onset of Corona 19, the restrictions, and the huge squeezes and shiftsin consciousness it created. We’ve been batted about by polarized views towards personal, collective, and existential extinction and quite frankly we’re done with the narratives and the old normal.
It’s time to rise into something new.
In this episode, I talk with Starkeeper Morton about:
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where we are rising from collectively
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how to navigate feeling betrayed, let down or unsupported by society
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the different nervous system responses to something traumatic happening to you or to someone you feel responsible for
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the practices and resources we can call upon
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the pit you have to reach to really rise
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the struggle, effort and joy of rising
As always you can find me and our community at https://community.grow-free.com
Get email updates at: subscribepage.io/GrowFree
Watch video updates at The GrowFree YouTube Channel
Grow Free Community - YouTube
You can find Starkeeper at:
https://www.facebook.com/starsparks.org
starkeepermorton@gmail.com
And you can find Starkeeper's book 'How To Survive When Society Lets You Down: A Guidebook' at:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Survive-When-Society-Lets-Down/dp/1959555782?ref=d6k_applink_bb_dls&dplnkId=ee5e0cba-f9d6-490b-8ad5-03fd9962e3c2
In a human world that has become a relentless stream of activity, rest has become one of the most radical acts we can take. To return our true connection to our human, and non-human, essence, it is one of the most potent acts we can make.
This conversation explores 'rest' in ordinary and extraordinary ways. Emma B taps into Lorna Bailey's experience as a single mother, a devoted daughter and a seasoned shamanic practitioner.
It covers :-
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The ways we understand and frame life, challenge, transition and crisis
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The effect of our language on our nervous system
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personal and collective trauma burdens of self-reliance and longing
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Surrender and bringing in support
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Cultivating inner spaciousness
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Rest as a portal into body consciousness and into the vastness of existence
This episode was part of the GrowFree Rest to Rise Online Retreat that takes place in the winter months. There are many more seasonal, monthly, and one-off offerings, courses and events in the GrowFree calendar. Including a new trauma-informed, nature-based practitioner and peer training in 2024.
You can find out more and join the GrowFree Community at community.grow-free.com, subscribe to the mailing list at subscribepage.io/GrowFree or to The GrowFree Community YouTube Channel.
You can find Lorna Bailey in The GrowFree Community or at her Temple Room Website or Whatsapp Group.
Memory as Medicine is a dialogue with shamanic practitioner and poet seer Lorna Bailey thatdives into the nature of memory. We discuss:
- discuss how unresolved trauma disconnects us from the intelligence of memory,keeping hijacked in repeating loops of the nervous system
- recognize that memory is sometimes labelled as imagination or psychosis
- honour the value of re-membering ourselves into the creation process and
- explore what journeys of remembering can look and feel like
Lorna is a Sacred Feminine Embodiment Practitioner, PoetSeer and Ancient Voice Singer and Musician. Her work is rooted in indigenousearth wisdom, quantum medicine, and shamanism. Having uncovered her own geneticmemories and light codes she takes people through her written poetry andmusicality into the mythic realms of our collective past, present and future.Through communal frame drumming and singing, Lorna supports and facilitatespeople to begin accessing their tribal voices through working with seed soundsand heart beat rhythms. She is also the founder and co-creator of the SacredFaces of Female embodiment programme. This is a shamanic based exploration ofthe ‘new archetypes ‘ of Woman, where she takes women on individual or smallgroup ‘ immersions’ into the inner landscapes of the feminine psyche and somawhere they can meet and recover the lost faces and the burden carriers of thefeminine soul which are calling to be awakened and embodied.
Lorna lives with her partner on the Isle of Sheppey off ofthe North coast of Kent, England.
You can find her online in the Grow Free Community andat her own homes at: www.thetempleroom.co.uk
www.voiceofthedragon.co.uk
In this episode, I explore the relationship between connection and reverence - what they are, where we lost and found them - with three Grow Free Community Members.
We start the conversation by looking at some quotes and definitions from Brene Brown's Atlas of the Heart, and in particular the comparison of admiration and reverence.
'We feel admiration when someone's abilities, accomplishments, or character inspires us, or when we see something else that inspires us like art or nature'.
'Reverence, which is sometimes called adoration, worship, or veneration, is a deeper form of admiration or respect and is often combined with a sense of meaningful connection with something greater than ourselves ... characterised by the capacity of feeling deep respect, love and humility for something sacred or transcendent.
What's interesting is that while admiration fosters self-betterment, reverence seems to foster a desire for connection to what we revere - we want to move closer to that person or thing.
In what is another personal conversation with insightful peers and practitioners who honestly share reflections and moments of their journey, we get to hear about the ways that nature fostered safety and reverence when the human world seemed confusing.
You can find me, my guests, and our community at
https://community.grow-free.com
www.facebook.com/GrowFreewithEmmaB
YouTube - The Grow Free Community
emmab@grow-free.com
Madeleine Besson
www.madeleinebesson.com
Lorna Bailey Health | Banchory Body Sense (thetempleroom.co.uk)
Georgia Brooker - Permaculture Teacher & Humanist Celebrant
https://portal.humanism.scot/celebrant-profile/georgia-brooker
georgia.brooker@humanism.scot
Archetypes and attunement are resources that are significantly affected by trauma and key to moving beyond it.
Attunement can be described and experienced in many ways. It is essentially our ability to receive, feel and respond to the flow of energy or information within and around us. I love how Thomas Hubl describes attunement.
When we are carrying significant trauma burdens however, which most of us are, our internal system has us pinched off from direct sensory experience. A mechanism that kicked in when we first experienced something too overwhelming – in this lifetime or in previous ones – that prevents us feeling the level of threat and vulnerability it perceived us to be facing. This is dissociation. It’s common and collective.
Another field of forgotten embodied resources are our archetypes; constellations of qualities, knowledge and skills that have often been communicated in stories and myth in human form, but also as totems or power animals, plants and planets. My sense is that our inevitable journey is to bring planetary and plant archetypes and ways of attuning into human form.
In this episode, I speak on this theme with a Grow Free Elder Lorna Bailey who is highly and deeply attuned and an embodiment and activator of many archetypes. Having started her adult life living in an indigenous community in the United States, she is one of the most guided, surrendered and reverent people I know. Her work over these recent years has been to receive and journey with a universal set of burden carriers and archetypes (though they don't like this term), which she is developing into a package of resources and retreats.
Lorna's events are listed in the Grow Free Community Platform . Her Lotus Woman Retreat on Sunday July 9th and her Cygnus Moon Drumming Circle on June 25th in Aberdeenshire. Both are being held in Aberdeenshire, yet Lorna lives between here, Kent and Suffolk and is working on offering much of this online too.
Find Lorna at community.grow-free.com and thetempleroom.co.uk
Find me at community.grow-free.com and facebook/growfreewithemmab and emmab@grow-free.com
In this episode, I speak with a firm favourite in the Grow Free Community. One of our practitioner members, Jon Cree was one of the key pioneers of Forest School in the UK, a director of The Forest School Association UK and co-author of The Essential Guide to Forest School & Nature Pedagogy. He is also an emerging expert in nature-based approaches for working through trauma.
Jon is delivering three workshops with us in Aberdeenshire in May this year.
- Together in Nature - nervous system attunement in nature for practitioners and peer supporters
- Involving All, Evolving Play - consent-based , play-led learning for practitioners, educators and parents
- The Power of Connection - a weekend immersion exploring somatics and storytelling.
This conversation teases out some of the language we have used to describe the workshops, finding the phrase 'Fit to Play' as a common thread connecting them all.
We cover themes such as:
- how the multi-sensory world of nature helps us to hold BIG feelings and share life experiences
- the neurobiology of healing
- relational attunement and how it helps to re-focus attention and re-discover delight in the energy of life
- how to walk alongside each other and the more than human to feel o*ur natural state as one of profound interconnectedness, feeling it counteract anxiety
A beautiful conversation with a beautiful bloke, igniting our excitement for him coming in May.
For more information you can email emmab@grow-free.com*
In terms of healing and inner work, ‘Release’ used to feel quite a heavy term with dense emotions and experiences surfacing. Now it feels as much about the energy of the new as the letting go of the past. This is nothing short of miraculous, for me at least. I tied up the threads of my years of healing work at cellular, energetic, DNA levels during the days and Imbolc I got to a moment where I could say 'I am clear'. The core wounds have been heard and held, often by Grow Free members in our Sanctuary.
Where I am triggered, it feels more hollow. New challenges or adversity are coming into a clearer space now, and I can transform those conditioned patterns into creative responses quite quickly.
I wanted to discuss this phenomena of release with someone who works first and foremost through the body. Nicola Harkins based in Aberdeen came to mind instantaneously as the practitioner to approach. She is an incredibly gifted 'bodyworker' who uses techniques such as Kinetic Chain Release and Hawaiian Bone Washing. She also brings in a full set of modalities from breathwork to plant medicine ceremony. She would prefer not to need a label for her work these days, but says something like a metaphysical practitioner would probably be close.
We discuss:
- her pathways into her purpose and practice
- Hawaiin Ho’oponoponoprayers
- Fascia - what it holds, how it releases
- cellular memory
- Quantum healing
- Old systems, new ways
- Working with children
Nicola works one-to-one at her new centre in Pitstruan Place, Aberdeen as well as holding ceremony and group work. She also teaches Kinetic Chain Release.
You can find her at:
bkinect@gmail.com
Instagram & Facebook: body_kinect
Website: BodyKinect – Body Kinect Aberdeen
In this episode, I introduce you to two practitioners who are among the pioneers in growing beyond trauma and the matrix it has kept us in and in supporting others to do the same. We have a conversation about the exciting theme of Re-birth & Renewal.
I welcome again Vicki Rebecca who describes herself as a story-healer, and who brings a lifetime of experience that includes professional work as hypnotherapist, almost a previous life as a glamour model as well as an author whose autobiography is soon to be published.
Vicki brings with her Rakasa Lucero who is coming to Aberdeenshire to run a series of workshops with Vicki at her home studio in Aboyne. Rakasa and Vicki met in India in an OSHO ashram. Vicki joined Rakasa's Somatic Experiencing (trained with Peter Levine) and Family Constellation workshops and feel in love with the approached and with Rakasa. Rakasa comes originally from Colombia and now travels to facilitate Trauma Healing work with those who need it. She calls Scotland 'the refrigerator' but is happy to be coming in January-February to deliver 2 4 day workshops.
We speak about:
1) The impact and legacy of early attachments and environments
2) The practices and modalities that support people to process and transform the imprints and gain freedom
3) This time of radical ‘re-birth’ and renewal
Contact Vicki Rebecca at:
www.vickirebecca.com
OR Whatsapp: 07714459692
Find me as always at:
www.community.grow-free.com
emmab@grow-free.com
facebook/growfreewithemmab
instagram/grow.free.with.emmab
In this episode, I explore the theme of death, detox and re-birth with nutritionist, naturopath and fellow plant-enthusiast Rebecca O’Reilly.
To grow – and to grow free – means to continually let go of anything that gets too small or restrictive. Like a snake shedding its skin, we humans can shed personality forms and habits that worked in one moment, but no longer serve us. Only we often don’t shed these skins.
Why not? Trauma – unresolved – keeps us stuck on repeat. The process of healing from trauma can be an uncomfortable and intense shedding of emotions and experiences that were too overwhelming for the resources we had and got stuck within us.
The physical, bodily aspect of this process has been becoming clearer in recent years. Never have we lived in a time with so many toxins and stressors. Many of us are experiencing chronic health issues. Yet we live in a time where our emotional intelligence is rising, and our knowledge base is shifting rapidly and radically into a new paradigm. I decided to explore the issue of allowing old, toxic parts of ourselves to ‘die’ with someone who is at the forefront of nutrition and the quantum intelligence of plants to support our healing and wholeness.
Rebecca O’Reilly is a certified holistic nutritionist, naturopath, and health coach. Her purpose is to help you transform your health; to overcome chronic and mystery illness and find freedom from the symptoms and conditions that hold you back.
Long COVID, Autoimmune dis-ease, Chronic Fatigue, Adrenal Fatigue, Fibromyalgia, SIBO, IBS, Acne, Psoriasis, Eczema, PCOS, Fibroids, Endometriosis, UTIs, Anxiety
Sound familiar?
Maybe you suffer with just one of the above or a combination of seemingly disconnected symptoms, just like Rebecca did. Either way, these are just a few of the issues that are greatly misunderstood in the health community, where diagnoses are doled out without real understanding of the true cause or how to treat them.
But there are answers and that’s what Rebecca is here to share.
Based in Bath, UK, she works with clients both locally and all over the world, through my online and in-person practice.
In this episode we discussed:
Rebecca’s journey with trauma, healing and food
The correlation between psychological death and re-birth and cleansing and re-building our bodies.
The specific contribution of certain plants like wild blueberries, elder, and dandelion for supporting detoxification and nourishment.
I LOVE recording this episode. I hope you find it helpful. We are hoping that Rebecca may join us to create courses and community that members of Grow Free can benefit from.
You can find Rebecca at: www.rebecca-oreilly.com
Email: info@rebecca-oreilly.com
As always you can join the community at: https://community.grow-free.com
And contact me at: emmab@grow-free.com
This season we are bringing in guided meditations, activations and yoga nidra practices to the podcast. This episode is the first such practice. It guides you into a state of relaxation and receptivity to remember our natural cycles. It's just me. No guest. I invite you to sit back and go deep.
To find out more about our monthly themes, course, practices and community join us at: https://community.grow-free.com/
You can also email me at emmab@grow-free.com. I always love to hear your feedback.
In this episode I explored the nature of darkness with Catherine Björksten a holistic practitioner, specialising in supporting people who are going through a Spiritual Awakening. Her motto is integrated and embodied awakening. Following a career in marketing & advertising and becoming a mother of two, she went through a major awakening herself, which led her to study psychotherapy, spiritual counselling, shamanism and apprenticing with Indigenous leaders and mystical masters worldwide.
In line with this month’s theme in the Grow Free Community, the episode teases out what heavy emotional energy – like depression and shame – can offer us when we learn to accept them. These energies are called different names in different traditions – dukkha in Yogic and Buddhist approaches – and we explore the path of healing – through our own experience - as one of accepting these feelings and learning how to balance the light and dark within us.
We speak about:
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What it means to ‘bypass’ these emotions
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The importance and nature of practice
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Catherine’s personal journey and the teachings she has received
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Her perspective and approach to supporting others
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What it may mean for us to accept more light and dark culturally
Catherine believes in activating and empowering paradigm shifters by helping them remember who they truly are in essence as they are key representatives for the change Humanity needs. This is done through reconnecting with an animistic way of life; showing people that they are part of the greater web by reconnecting them with nature, spirit, the Divine and each other.
She is the author of “You are Loved: Essential Spirit Guides and Guardians”, part of the Now Age series (Random House), which aims at introducing different topics of spirituality to the wider public. “This book is an invitation into the realms of spirit in which I share from my own experience, and teachings from various ancient sacred lineages.”
Catherine has a private practice and consulted many years at the College of Psychic Studies in London, where she lives. She offers individual sessions, public speaking and facilitates workshops and retreats.
She provides a practical and grounded approach to spirituality to help people experience daily life as sacred; because it is!
Web akasha-awakening.com
IG @akasha_awakening
As always you can find out more about the Grow Free Community at https://community.grow-free.com/
You can also contact me directly at emmab@grow-free.com if you would like to join our courses or be a guest on this podcast.
This was one of the most exciting podcasts I have recorded. My guest is the illustrator of the new Grow Free Animation 'Connection is Everything'.
Working on the animation with Lina has supported the formation of the whole Grow Free approach; transforming knowledge and ideas into a creative medium crystalizing and refining it.
In this episode, we talk over:
- the epic task of representing the connection between everything
- the process of researching and forming the final illustrations
- the directions that we would like to take it further
- and the nature of life on this planet
You can watch the animation on our YouTube channel: Connection is Everything (Animation) - YouTube
You can watch this podcast episode to get a fuller appreciation of when we're discussing aspects of the illustration: (2) Season 2 Episode 10 Connection is Everything Illustration with Lina Kusaite & Sahajo - YouTube
You can find out more about Lina Kusaite and her work here: www.cocooncharacters.com
Lina Kusaite on Behance
In this episode I invite back two previous guests who were obvious choices for the theme of 'Support'. Madeleine Besson is the healing sound artist from the last episode and my singer teacher / therapist. Deborah Armstrong is an intuitive shamanic practitioner working in North East Scotland. Both have supported me in my journey and both are insightful practitioners and speakers.
This is a perfect conversation for April 2022. We discuss:
- their experience of finding their own support
- how they help guide others to find their own support
- what they see coming in our world as more of us re-connect to the support available to us.
The opening soundtrack is from Madeleine's work for our Grow Free Animation.
You can find more about Madeleine at her website: Madeleine Besson
You can find and listen to her music and sound activations on her YouTube Channel: Madeleine Besson - YouTube
You can purchase Sound Activations that Madeleine has produced with Maja Metlicar (another podcast guest) here: Golden Dome – Maja Metlicar
You can contact Deborah Armstrong on dalife@hotmail.co.uk
In this episode I speak with Madeleine Besson who is a sound healing and creative artist that I am working with one-to-one to release my voice.
In this episode we speak about:
- How trauma impacts our ability and desire to express
- How singing and voice work can help bring us back into our body and release deep patterns
- How sounds works as a very gentle intervention to support and cleanse our patterns
- How our senses, perception and consciousness can open to the sound and vibration of everything the more and more deeply we settle back into our bodies.
You can read more about Madeleine at her website: Madeleine Besson
You can find and listen to some of her music and sound activations on her YouTube Channel here: Madeleine Besson - YouTube
Including her single Rise that we speak about in the podcast: Madeleine Besson - Rise (Official Music Video) - YouTube
You can also purchase Sound Activations that Madeleine has produced with Maja Metlicar (another podcast guest) here: Golden Dome – Maja Metlicar
‘Coming Home’ can mean many things, it takes place within us on many levels, and we need to ‘come home’ for many reasons. The more we honour it, the more we recognise there is to honour.
It’s physical in that our body, as part of nature, needs to shut down and reset and we need the safety of feeling at home to be able to do that. We need to do this often and cyclically, pausing within the day, each night, and seasonally in winter we need a big deep rest down.
Coming home might mean literally, coming back to the place and people where you ‘belong’. It might mean coming in from the activity of life and settling down beside the fire and the heart(h) of the place you call home.
It might mean picking up your guitar, pencils, dog lead, dancing shoes and taking some active rest in the kinds of things that bring you into peaceful focus, a sense of centred calm. It might mean taking refuge in meditative practices that let you shed the roles and veils, set aside all those fractured parts and feel yourself as the same consciousness and with the same breath and heartbeat that runs through all life.
Coming home is the all-important counterpart to ‘going out there’, ‘getting things done’, and ‘making it happen’. Both are required for balance, wisdom and wellbeing. And yet . . . how much coming home do we really allow ourselves these days, and why not?
In this episode, I speak with Dr. Gail Brenner, a psychologist and non-dual teacher in California around her personal and professional experience of 'coming home'. We speak about shifting our identity, micro-dosing to move through stuck emotions and the power of community. Gail is beautiful and gifted in holding safe and supportive spaces that help people to move, be still, and heal. You can read more about her at www.gailbrenner.com.
The theme of ‘Honouring Our Past & Loving Our Parts’ in the Grow Free Community for November 2021 refers to a process of turning towards the parts of us that got exiled from our awareness during and following traumatic experiences and learning to relate to them with care and compassion. It refers to tuning into the bodily memory of experiences that were too much for us and to letting the raw feelings (not sanitized or rationalized ones) be felt and expressed in safe ways. It refers to holding space for all the personalities that got stuck at different developmental stages and opening up supportive dialogue between them.
In these ways, we can not only honour the past, but also digest it. This is something that begins to happen organically the safer we begin to feel with the feelings of being unsafe. We can then process them, take the learning and the value from the experiences and release the rest.
I was delighted when, last month, a new member arrived in Grow Free who has focused a lot on getting to know the different parts or archetypes within his psyche, as he describes it. So delighted, in fact, that I asked him to join me for the podcast. We had a few technical issues as we were recording but ... 'Welcome Athol'. You can find our conversation below. I feel like we will hear more from Athol in the coming months.
September’s Podcast is a conversation on Respect with three previous guests:
- Anneke Sips (Yoga Therapist, Trainer & Psychiatric Practitioner in Amsterdam, Founder of Network Yoga Therapy),
- Deborah Armstrong (Indigenous & Shamanic Therapist & Practitioner in North East Scotland) and
- Jon Cree (Forest School Association Director, Author & Activist bringing more trauma-informed outdoor education to young people).
The conversation starts with the connection between safety and respect and moves into areas such as:
- the difference between conditions that allow for versus the rules that aim to produce respect;
- how nature and the potential consequences of not respecting it is a great teacher;
- whether we may benefit from a new label for this beautiful experience and
- the role of presence and boundaries in supporting respect.
It is a beautiful conversation that took me further into surrendering into deeper respect. I am touched in a profound and uncomfortable way when I speak with people who are open to experience in ways beyond where I have been able to. It still draws a sense of grief for me as I continue to digest and process what closed me down, and yet offers me such insight and direction for where and how to take myself forward in new ways.
Season 2 Episode 4 - Rest & Digest with Sarah Ryan
August’s Podcast is a conversation with the super experienced Yoga Teacher Trainer & Therapist & Vedic Chant Teacher Sarah Ryan. We re-connected earlier this year and it has been lovely to do so from a clearer head and heart space. Sarah gave me such loving and supportive guidance some years back but at a time when my habits and triggers still saw me withdraw or push away the love I really wanted and needed and instead seek out survival in empty rabbit holes. Sarah was the first person I heard speak about the need to digest all of our experience, not just our food and I am so pleased to have been able to have this conversation with her on this theme now. As always, it’s well worth a listen.
You can work with Sarah in various ways, including via online chanting teaching, one-to-one therapy. Read more on her website below.
http://sarahryanyoga.co.uk/
July’s Podcast is a conversation with Hypnotherapist & Story Healer Vicki Rebecca. The conversation explores the importance of language and of the stories that come to inform our sense of ourself and our world. Vicki work in neurolinguistics has meant she has been clued into the power of language for some time. She’s also working towards publishing a autobiography that I know is part of a powerful movement towards clearing trauma in the feminine psyche. I hope you enjoy listening as much as I enjoyed recording it.
Vicki trains in the core skills of personal and spiritual growth including various means of relaxation and mind mastery. Her Hypnosis and Neuro Linguistic Programming practice has included retreats all over the world including Egypt, India, Turkey, the sacred sites of Scotland and more and is supported by her extensive background in health promotion, fitness training, yoga and meditation practice. Vicki has professional qualifications to trainer level in psychotherapy, advanced clinical hypnosis and Neuro Linguistic Programming (UKCP accredited psychotherapist, trainer, and supervisor; and Society of NLP trainer). Vicki is also a Sekhem Master and has been fascinated by the mysteries and esoteric study her whole life.
This month’s podcast introduces Maja Metlicar. Maja – Your Uniqueness Activates Your Greatest Joy (majametlicar.com).
Maja has inspired many women to re-connect with their body, their purpose and their Joy. She does not describe herself as an expert in trauma, and yet she offers great insight, practices and a map to open many keys along the way.
In our podcast, we spoke about:
- Maja’s experience of being rejected as a child; feeling unsafe in her body and her journey of connecting back into it
- How Maja discovered and explored the ways in which states or qualities can be activated within us, as well as then practised
- How our personal work is always the first step towards collective and cultural change.
This month’s podcast introduces Madelanne Rust D’Eye who offers Body Informed Leadership courses and trainings, which you can check out at www.bodyintelligence.ca . Originally from Canada, we are lucky to have her living here in Scotland. I love the way that Madelanne speaks so beautifully and blends science and sensuality in her approach and explanations. We have a webinar from her for our Grow Free Community Media Club this month, and both this and our podcast conversation brought deeper insights for me.
In our podcast, we spoke about:
- what trauma is and how it affects us, especially how it impacts our ability to connect with ourselves, others, and out world.
- Madelanne’s personal journey within this field
- what a somatic approach is and explored the idea and sense of ‘somatic safety’
- how collective or cultural trauma extends from and relates to personal trauma.
Please do share these podcasts with others. By sharing vulnerability, we move beyond it and closer together – into community.
This month’s podcast dives deeper into COMMUNITY, my experience of feeling outside, of preventing myself joining in and more recently opening, softening, leaning into and creating it. I also introduce a new podcast guest, Julia Morten from The Haven in Stonehaven in Aberdeenshire, who tells about their perspective of community and how they have been strengthening it there. Deborah Armstrong from Episode 3 also pops into to give some more indigenous perspective to our conversation.
This month’s theme, in preparation for embracing more of what our community space has to offer, has been Navigating the Potential & Pitfalls of the Digital World. Like real life and Grow Free, it’s all about awareness and attention. In this month’s podcast episode, a few of the community members explore with me what they find to be the pros and cons of social media, online formats and a life with devices. There are pros and cons to everything – let's maximise the benefits and be wise about the potential harms.
Episode 8 - Being with Vulnerability to Move Beyond It.
In this episode I explore by myself some conversations we have had in the Grow Free Community over the past couple of months. Our focus has been on ways to communicate that allow us to listen and connect more deeply with each other, rather than react unconsciously to our perceived differences and various perspectives.
I discuss vulnerability and how being able to stay with the experience of it is important to finding helpful ways to communicate and to respond to the realities and transitions of life. When we don't acknowledge it we keep defend anything we perceive to be threatening it.
The Political is Personal & The Personal Political with Jon Cree, A Director of The Forest School Association UK.
Jon Cree describes himself as ‘just another bloke’ at the beginning of this podcast. And he is. But he is a bloke that I would like to hear more from. Our conversation inspired some of the Spirit of Dialogue Sessions and helped bring me back to earth with it. Coming back to earth and into my body is something that I have had to work on a lot. Jon on the other hand, seems to me to be someone who has kept himself grounded and open throughout his life through his connection with nature.
I met Jon on an Engaging Children in Permaculture course. (Well worth looking into if you have any interest in our natural and social world). He has worked in outdoor education for around 30 years, much of which with traumatized young people. He has recognized and campaigned for the importance of giving children and ourselves time in nature, doing the things we do when we connect with it as our home and fundamental resource. Like Anneke in last month’s episode, he has stayed curious. I was struck straight away by how engaged he is with contemporary perspectives on what it is to be a conscious being in a human body.
He is soft. He attributes his softness to the soothing ability of nature, and to his Aunty Jean. He works with nature and storytelling in various ways inspired by his mum. In our conversation he shares very openly in ways that are illuminating and heart-opening, and that make clear that even the biggest arenas are made up of personal interactions.
I have been planning how to facilitate opportunities for safe and open dialogue around current issues. Dialogue that supports us to explore various perspectives, perhaps ones that we haven’t considered or been aware of or ones that we were pretty sure were flawed or just wrong. Dialogue that moves us closer to 'others' that might hold one a perspective different to our own in a way that actually deepens our understanding.
This kind of dialogue feels like something that is important personally and collectively. It is what I discuss with Anneke Sips in this month’s podcast. When I think of Anneke I think of these qualities: listening, connection and coming together (I could throw in curious and compassion too). Anneke works in psychiatry and Yoga Therapy. Having been frustrated as an 18 year old at not being listened to when she suggested bringing Yoga into the hospital where she worked, she now teaches a Yoga training for medical professionals and is called upon to integrate Yoga into healthcare settings in The Netherlands.
Anneke also speaks about what it is to navigate rather than react through our lives; how to keep an eye out for dangers, recognise milestones and develop your toolkit. She is someone who has helped me at pivotal points in my journey and helped me to bring some of the clarity to the Fight Flight Freeze & Me Course that I offer.
Our conversation has inspired us to work together in opening up dialogue within our communities. It’s well worth a listen. Please also get in touch with either of us if you would like to be part of our Spirit of Dialogue project.
As usual, get me on emmab@grow-free.com.
Contact Anneke on anneke@networkyogatherapy.org
Or follow her at www.instagram.com/annekesips
Grow Free with Emma B Podcast Episode 5 - Permaculture: Threat, Risk & Feeling Safe.
This episode explores how feeling safe may be a necessary foundation for us to live sustainably on this planet. I am joined by Jon Cree, Director of The Forest School Association (FSA) in the UK and Lina Kusaite, an illustrator and outdoor practitioner in Belguim.
Permaculture is a beautiful, nature-led approach to living. The principles of permaculture draw from the wisdom of nature and indigenous cultures around the world. The more I learned about Permaculture and trauma, it became obvious to me that in order to live by these principles we need to be able to feel safe, relax, pause and live by the rhythm of the universe.
Both Jon Cree and the FSA have done an amazing amount of work to understand how we work, how trauma affects us and the important role that being in nature has for our wellbeing. You can find out more about the FAS here. You can read a little about Jon and contact him here.
Lina Kusaite developed and runs a beautiful programme of workshops, called The Plant Kingdom, designed to connect children and young people with their environment. She also develops illustrations and works with people as an art and creative consciousness coach. You can find out more about Lina and her work here.
Episode 4 Grow Free with Emma B Podcast is live from the AiR Show.
Aberdeen in Recovery (AiR) is an charity to promote and support recovery from addiction. I am on their Board of Trustees and I was a guest on this episode. We spoke about the Fight, Flight, Freeze & Me course that I was about to deliver to their members. You can find out more about AiR here.
I enjoyed making this Episode 3 so much! Ever since studying Cultural Anthropology, I have been inspired by different ceremonies and their role in supporting healing and transformation. When we couldn't run our outdoor Summer Solstice events, which were all about ceremony, I asked Deborah Armstrong in for the podcast instead to talk about all things ceremony and how they help us recognize and regulate our fight/flight/freeze.
Let me know how you find this episode, and get in touch if you fancy joining any of our community or ceremony offerings.
I also introduce my new 'Coming Out Clearer' workshop, perfect for anyone who has had any stuff come up during lockdown. Let's really Grow Free!
emmab@grow-free.com
In this episode I introduce myself; how mothering has inspired and challenged me to start this podcast and just what I mean when I speak about Growing Free from Fight / Flight / Freeze.