The Connect, Conquer & Inspire Podcast: Recent Episodes
Danny Allman
It's not through overcoming and denying of ourselves that our experience becomes more fulfilling....It's through a deeper connection with all of ourselves, even the parts that you desire to change or improve..All of you deserves and desires your love and acceptance and only in doing so are you able to show up fully for yourself and others..This podcast is dedicated to those wishing to embrace more of themselves, live more fully in the world and be a light for others to do the same.
In this episode, I sat down with Helen Thompson to discuss the process of healing after an abusive relationship.
How to not become bitter and resentful and claim victimhood.
The long-term effects of not addressing the relationship trauma and how that can pass through generations.
A fascinating conversation.
Enjoy
In this episode, I sat down with Johanna Mcweeney, a breathwork practitioner teacher and copywriter.
We discussed just how powerful learning to breathe properly is and how we can utilize the power of the breath for many advantages and...
How much impact the breathing really has on,
The immune system.
The posture.
Brain development in children
Face shape.
A fascinating conversation with so many key takeaways.
Healing Pre & Post Hysterectomy
In this conversation I sat down with the wonderful Laura Applewhite...
Laura specializes in helping women to deal with the difficulties pre hysterectomy and get back to being themselves post hysterectomy.
We discuss the challenges that women deal with, the information that should be sought out before choosing the type of procedure and...
How to deal with the challenges that many women face after the surgery.
An inevitable and unavoidable hurdle on any journey/movement towards a new experience...
Is bumping into feelings that you would of previously avoided or at least dealt with in a fixed pattern.
As you begin to allow these feelings to be there without responding to them in your habitual pattern, you will give rise to memories that are associated with those feelings.
Until we are in a relationship of complete acceptance of what has happened we will maintain patterns of behavior to avoid it happening again.
This cycle keeps going not just for individuals but also for generations within families....
That it is until you break that pattern...
An inevitable fact that we have to come to terms with if we step into changing any area of our life is...
We are going to have to deal with emotions and probably sensations that previously we dealt with in a way that kept us in our familiar.
If we do not learn a new way of relating to these experiences we inevitably get pulled back to our old patterns and stay in the same space.
Lets explore how to change our relationship with these parts that kept us where we were to enable us to actually move towards that which we are aiming.
People pleasing can be draining right!
Often lurking beneath the desire and need to please is the hope that it will be reciprocated
and a resentment when it is not.
No wonder it is exhausting trying to please.
In this episode we explore how to move away from the compulsion to please...
Kind-Sight Instead Of Hindsight...
I'm sure you have heard hindsight is 20/20 right?
Well my experience is usually that's because we are looking back from a place of could of should of known/done better...
Whilst we look back at any of our past experience through the lens of wrongness we will live in avoidance and fear of it happening again.
This creates a stuck-ness for many/
What if we were to look back in kind-sight, in complete acceptance and embracing of what has been?
The most common factor with all the clients I work with is unresolved hurt from the past keeping them stuck.
It holds them in a space of being fearful of the future...
Moving into any new experience is not possible until we integrate complete acceptance of our past.
Easier said than done you may say...
In this episode we explore the why and how.
The word I has such power
When the word I is used the sense of identity becomes wrapped up in what precedes it.
Wonderful if you are asserting positive qualities and attributes.
Harmful if it's proclaiming suffering.
In this episode we explore some useful techniques to loosen the grip when suffering is experienced.
Much of our sense of who we are is a story of past experiences.
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A set of filters through which we navigate and define our experience
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The degree in which we are governed by these past experiences aka the story
is the degree to which we continue to play out the same patterns over and over in our lives.
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If we can recognize it is only a story and that rather than being a character within it we are the author of it...
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We can create a new one...
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As many times as we wish.
Breathing practices have become more and more popular over the last decade with much of them simply repackaged forms of breathing exercises from old traditions.
Renamed, attributed to people and with music added over the top. However the power of breath-work remains the same, if you are not reaping the benefits...
Considering adding it into your life for me would be highly recommended.
How you breath impacts your posture, your mood, your digestion, acidity levels in the body (inflammation) and determines how hard your heart has to work to distribute oxygenated blood around your meat suit.
The breath is also a sub-conscious process that we can make conscious enabling access to a deeper level of sovereignty over your own experience.
Either your triggers are a tool for blaming others, fighting to control and maintain your comfort zones....
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Or they are the revelation of where you are in resistance to what your experience reveals and an invitation to let go of the story your holding onto.
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The choice is yours....
A term I hear used so much these days is anxiety....
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Now I won't debate whether or not you do actually have anxiety as you are free to define yourself with what ever words you wish.
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What is important though is to separate the anxiety from the sense of who you are.
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You may experience or part of you may have.
I suffer from or I have become your own sense of identity.
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Anxiety commonly is a fear of what if or what may happen, the revealing of un-reconciled parts or past experiences.
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When anxiety reveals itself an invitation to hold and embrace that aspect of yourself is being revealed.
In this episode we get to hear the story of how Lottie went through abuse at home leading to self harm and eventually moving to foster care.
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Followed by Abusive relationships and finding herself as a single Mum of three at the age of 29.
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Lottie has broken away from her own story and is now healing herself through body art and is on a mission to help others do the same.
Stop Pretending You Care What Others Think When In Reality.....
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You are simply scared they will judge you in the ways that you judge yourself.
i.e it is your judgement of yourself that is the issue.
Now I am not asserting that there is not a dangerous virus going around and I am certainly not proclaiming that lives have not been unsettled, disturbed and in some cases turned upside down.
However I am asserting that the fear the concern the worry has got nothing to do with it.
This is simply the revelation of what has laid beneath the surface.
The bringing to light of that which has been lurking.
The unfurling of the insecurities and worries that have remained hidden behind your own control mechanisms and coping strategies.
What an opportunity to embrace, accept and learn to hold those aspects of yourself that until now have remained hidden but no doubt impacting your life.
We can all succumb to a degree of worrying at times.
Perhaps at present your own levels of worry and concern or ultimately fear of the future are heightened.
In this episode we explore...
Looking at the distinction between caring vs worrying.
Recognizing that projections into the future are a product of unresolved hurt from the past.
The future is the great unknown thus what we project into that space is on us.
Although at present uncertainty seems to be at the forefront of a lot of peoples minds,
uncertainty is the fundamental nature of the future.
If we are able to embrace the unknown if we can hold uncertainty in the same way we hold a loved one....
Uncertainty can be something that is a nudge towards excitement a push towards exploring potential and possibility.
One of the most harmful words commonly used is SHOULD...
As soon as we put the word should onto our self, another or a circumstance we are asserting that it is not how we think or want it to be.
Commonly this results in a resistance with what is and a heightened level of stress.
All well and good if you wear you're stress as a medal of honor, being busy and stressed has become your sense of identity and talking about difficulties has become your way of getting contact with others.
Not so beneficial if your stress levels are harming you and contributing to behaviors that harm others.
Explore your own shoulds and chew on how much you are imposing them on yourself others and the world....
People love to throw their shit at others...
Love to blame others for their own feelings and manipulate others through guilt and shame.
Perhaps you notice yourself doing it behind phrases such as you make/made me feel
or I feel because you.
The game of who is right and who is wrong and why they are right or wrong is not the only game to play.
What if rather than attacking or defending we simply accept someone else is sharing their experience of us?
What if we see our triggers as expectations we are imposing on others?
What if there is nowhere for the shit to land because their is no fixed sense of self being clung to?
Just like the old game at fairgrounds, so to is this game of being you.
Picking up the same ducks over and over, going through the same patterns of action, conversation and behavior.
Playing the same game, picking up the same ducks, hoping wishing or dreaming of different outcomes.
Put the ducks down, step away from the game and explore the rest of the fairground.
How we do one thing is how we do everything and in my experience the dirty truth of avoiding conflict is an inherent avoidance of everything that is deemed as too difficult or uncomfortable.
All well and good if you are happy to carry on in exactly the same way for the rest of your life
however if the desire is there for change discomfort has to be faced and moved through.
"The wider apart your polarities the greater your neurosis. The more integrated your polarities the, the more collapsed your neurosis."
Weight loss in the highly neurotic Yoga world can be a controversial subject along with which tradition is the real tradition where Yoga originates and what Yoga is really about.
We then have the issue of living in a time where people like to blame others for their feelings and terms like fat shaming appear.
However all that aside for a moment in this episode we explore some of the ways Yoga can help with weight loss.....
Bungee runs can be fun but being stuck on one is perhaps not preferable.
Any attempt to change can feel a little like being on a bungee run, effort is applied and bang we get pulled back to the start again.
In this episode we explore ways to break this pattern.
Enjoy
In this episode I sat down with Psychotherapist and councilor Mariam Panosetti.
We discussed different therapeutic approaches, the resistances encountered in the process of change and growth and our own journeys into therapy.
We discussed the limitations of only speaking to friends and family about our difficulties and just how much possibility there is for a person willing to let go of their old stories and forge and author a new one.
Enjoy...
In this interview I sat down for a more in depth discussion with the Wonderful Elaine Denton.
We discussed how Yoga is often presented as a cure all and how along the way there will inevitably be the necessity to work on aspects of yourself not traditionally acknowledged within the system of Yoga.
We discuss our own journeys and the encountered obstacles and how they revealed themselves. As well as how to work through the process.
Enjoy
It's always easier to point out what's wrong or to blame rather than to acknowledge it is our own relationship with what is arising.
The big problem with blaming what appears is it holds us in the position of being a victim of circumstance as opposed to being the creator and authority of it.
To listen deeply to another is a great skill that in my experience many do not develop or acknowledge.
It is easy to go into problem solving, trying to fix or rescue or interrupting because the assumption has been made what another means.
In learning to shut up and simply listen not only will you be more present and allowing for another to express but you will also become aware of how you listen to the aspects of yourself revealed to you by another.
Now let's talk about glasses, can you recall how at the opticians they put the different lenses in and say better or worse...
I see this a lot like conscious thought, we can see how thinking in certain ways contributes to a better or worse experience. However better or worse are a judgement and that judgement is defined by the frames or the subconscious.
It seems inherent within the subconscious are some fundamental constraints that we all tussle with to some degree or another.
Fear of inadequacy or not being enough on some level.
Fear of the unknown.
A sense of being un-loveable on some level.
A sense of separation.
There are several others that seem to underlie the human experience. The common approach is to try and overcome or rid ourselves of these things however this approach often results in the denial of as opposed to embracing, accepting and carrying on in spite of.
No is a little but powerful word as our ability to say it defines our boundaries.
Without the ability to say no it is easy to become a doormat to others which leads to resentment but more importantly dis-ease with the word no is a common trait of the people pleaser, the co-dependent.
Finding your no is crucial for establishing boundaries, essential for genuine connection and implicit in recognition and valuing of ones own needs.
In this episode I sat down for a chat with Phillipa Butler, physiotherapist Pilates teacher and yoga teacher in training.
We discuss pain and our perception of it, how the mind and body are interdependent and some common areas of pain.
No I don't mean a post coitus wipe down if that's where your head went.....
I'm referencing patterns of thinking where we become a little stuck.
Those patterns of thinking that we bump into occasionally that do not seem to get resolved and appear in response to certain circumstances in our lives.
In one aspect of yoga philosophy these sticky parts are called samskaras, neural pathways or patterns of thinking that we have repeated so many times it appears like there is no choice or we could say it's a character trait. Sometimes these sticky parts result in a joyful experience and sometimes they can result in an experience of suffering. These patterns that result in suffering are what I term as sticky bits and there are ways in which we can clean them up a bit.
What if when we encounter resistance to an aspect of our own experience rather than fighting to return to a zone of comfort we recognize its an invitation to a deeper level of acceptance?
I'm sure we have all felt motivated to change aspects of ourselves or lives at certain points.
We may have the initial motivation and then a few days down the line find that we have gone off course and either given up or bumped into an obstacle outside or inside that seems to get in the way.
How do we summon dedication so that the fire keeps burning?
From where do we find the resources to maintain momentum even when barriers appear?
I'm sure you have your own expectations of yourself and you may very well have expectations of others....
What comes up for you when those expectations are not met?
What if we step outside of the circle for a moment and acknowledge that circle presents one possibility?
What if we allow space for preference whilst accepting that which is not preferable?
Getting a good nights sleep consistently can elude many of us and perhaps given the current circumstances it may be even more difficult.
In this episode I sat down with sleep coach and hypnotherapist Sarah Louise Waters.
We discussed what impacts your sleep, what you can do to help aid a good nights rest and factors that contribute to a poor nights sleep.
Stay awake for this one.
The roller coaster ride continues so in this episode I share a little poem I wrote enjoy:))))
Many of us walk around with a critical inner narrative, whether about ourselves or others or even just components of our experience.
What if we could learn to hear that voice in a different way better understand it and learn to get it to work with us as opposed to seemingly against?
The ego thrives on division and comparison, we often reference ourselves in opposition to and in preference towards. Subsequently its very easy to feel or perceive criticism whenever our view of our self is not shared or is challenged.
This can result in a defense mechanism however it can also be a great tool for insight into where we are unaccepting of ourselves and others.
Let's keep it simple here, if we can become ok with the unknown much of our stress and struggle falls away!
A common language pattern I pick up on both in myself and others is I will feel ( insert whatever you believe you are disconnected from now) when or if (insert desired circumstance) comes to fruition.
Neither good or bad, it does however reinforce that what I'm looking for is external to me, something to attain.
What becomes available for you if rather than seeing yourself as separate from you let go of that which is in the way of you being connected to it now?
Lets face it loving our body can be a challenge, particularly if we feel that it has to look or perform a certain way or worse still meet another's expectations.
What becomes available to us if we give ourselves permission to love ourselves as we are, what behaviors and habits might fall away?
We all have a degree of expectation of ourselves good and bad, but imposing those expectations onto others not only denies there own journey and experience but potentially harms your relationships.
What if rather than expecting we had hopes for others without the need from us for them to meet or reach that expectation?
Many of us are good are beating ourselves up, giving ourselves a hard time and kicking our own ass.
It's hard to enjoy the journey if we are being nagged at the whole way, like a child in the back of the car saying are we there yet and then punishing yourself for not being there.
How different could your experience be if you took the time to acknowledge the wins along the way and give yourself that pat on the back part of you may be needing.
We are currently residing in challenging times, If you feel that stress is starting to negatively impact your health and relationships, this may very well be of use to you.
Are you a people pleaser or someone who takes responsibility over others peoples experience at the expense of your own health and wellbeing?
If you are chances are that you find it tricky to ask for space and feel guilty if you do.
Watch this before you start to resent those that your trying to take care of.
Stress and its impacts are something many of us have difficulties with.
Whether that is a mental and emotional difficulties or full on physical symptoms.
In this episode we explore a few effective techniques to combat and dissolve stress and it's impact.
Many of us have a tendency to blame others or ourselves and then subsequently dispense our own form of punishment on others or ourselves.
Getting out of this loop leads to insight and ownership.
When suffering is experienced on some level we are saying no to our experience.
If freedom and peace are your pursuit saying yes to this moment more and more is essential.
Much like a lot of our life is patterns and routine, so to are our thoughts. If you want to change the patterns of thinking that are leading to the patterns in your life you wish to change understanding the light and shade of them is crucial.
Self Development is a buzzword and a craze right now with varying levels of success for all those that go down that get on the wheel.
What if any attempt to improve ourselves simply feeds into the idea that there is a self and that it needs fixing???
In any are of development it has been my own experience that moving into new spaces will require becoming comfortable with new experience.
With our fundamental tendency to resist change and be cautious of what's new and different this can be challenging.
Whether it is working on physical, mental or emotional health there will be hurdles obstacles and zones of discomfort to address.
In this episode we explore how to transition through discomfort with more ease.