In dialogue with Sophie Strand , this conversation moves through Joanna Macy’s dependent co-arising, Simone Weil on attention as prayer, the Ophiocordyceps ant and the technologies of possession we have forgotten, Peter Gray on conjuring as a speculative practice, and the function of fiction in shaping the futures our bodies then live into. Autoimmunity surfaces here as a chimerical condition: the body rebuilt continuously by otherness, in receipt of signals it did not invite, obligated to listen without the consolations of purity or transcendence.

About our guest

Sophie Strand is a writer and poet based in the Hudson Valley. Her work braids mycorrhizal ecology, deep mythology, and embodied disability into narratives that refuse the separation of the biological and the sacred. She is the author of The Flowering Wand: Rewilding the Divine Masculine (2021) and The Madonna Secret (2023), and her essays have appeared in Emergence Magazine, Dark Mountain, and Scaffold. Strand lives within a 20-mile radius of Woodstock, New York, on land she has covenanted with over a long arc, where her body serves as one node in a wider mycelial network of attention.

https://sophiestrand.com/

Show Timings

00:00 Welcome

00:01 Sobriety, not honesty

00:04 Impurity and the drugs that keep us alive

00:05 Material promiscuity: we are all chimeras

00:07 Dancing: stagnation versus movement

00:10 The earth’s lymph

00:12 A covenant with place: homecoming

00:15 Walking the Gaspé

00:17 Following a call versus following an idea

00:19 An unintentional pilgrimage to Jerusalem

00:21 Epigenetics and the bleeding disorder

00:22 Diagnosis at five, the slide began

00:23 The choice of speaking about illness in public

00:26 The pressure to perform productivity

00:27 Jewish ancestry, animism, possession

00:30 The spores of a story: Ophiocordyceps, possession, Jesus as tragedy

00:33 Intuitions, fear, trauma — listening to the body

00:35 Speculation: speculum, mirror, prophecy

00:37 Nocebos and the futures we conjure

00:40 Chronic illness as contact improvisation

00:43 Closing: trust, doors open in the Hudson Valley

References Mentioned

- Joanna Macy — Buddhist teacher, ecologist, and systems theorist. Author of Mutual Causality in Buddhism and General Systems Theory: The Dharma of Natural Systems (1991) and Coming Back to Life (1998, with Molly Brown). Her articulation of pratītyasamutpāda as dependent co-arising for a Western audience is the load-bearing concept of the conversation’s first half. joannamacy.net

- Simone Weil — French philosopher, mystic, and political activist (1909–1943). “Absolutely unmixed attention is a kind of prayer” is from Gravity and Grace (1947, published posthumously). The phrase functions in the conversation as a warning about identification: seven months of writing about illness as seven months of prayer to the illness. simoneweil.net

- Peter Grey, Lucifer: Princeps (2015)

- Sam Lee — naturalist, musician, and curator of *The Nest Collective*. Friend of Sophie’s who has worked with travelling communities in England on songs that are not sung from the singer but received through the breath from the ancestors. His work on the relationship between oral tradition and ecological stewardship is referenced in the discussion of the body as story-keeper.

- Ophiocordyceps unilateralis — the parasitic fungus that infects ants, manipulates their behaviour, and sporulates from their body. The conversation’s central metaphor for the body as a vehicle for stories that exceed the individual. [de Hong et al., *The Fungi* (2024)] on entomopathogenic fungi; Evans, *Sander, and Shaw*, on the Ophiocordyceps genus.

- Agni (Sanskrit: अग्नि) — the digestive and metabolic fire; the cosmic fire; the principle of transformation. In the conversation, agni is invoked as the same fire at the scale of the body and the scale of the cosmos: the metabolism of food into tissue, the metabolism of cosmos into itself, the perpetual sacrifice back and forth.

- Gunas (Sanskrit: गुण) — the properties of matter; the qualitative characteristics through which substance is known. Sattva, rajas, tamas as the classical triad; the conversation uses gunas in the broader sense of properties at different scales.

- Contact improvisation — a post-modern dance form developed by Steve Paxton in 1972, structured around the physical contact between moving bodies, the sharing of weight, and improvisation in response to shared momentum. Laure’s primary movement practice and the conversation’s metaphor for chronic illness: the discipline of dancing with unpredictability, of developing a higher threshold for the unexpected.

- Qigong — Chinese movement practice integrating breath, posture, and intention. Laure’s foundational training for contact improvisation; the retreat with her teacher near Poughkeepsie is the through-line to the in-person invitation in the closing.

- Gaspé Peninsula — a peninsula at the eastern end of the St. Lawrence River in Québec, the home of Laure’s maternal family for several centuries as settlers, and the continuation of the Appalachian range. The unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq people.

- Mi’kmaq — the Indigenous people of the Gaspé and the Atlantic coast of what is now called the Maritimes and Gaspésie. Laure’s family arrived as settlers in the 1600s. Wikipedia

- Twelve-step work — the recovery framework originating with Alcoholics Anonymous (1939), centred on admitting powerlessness over an addiction, turning control over to a higher power, and making amends. Sophie was raised inside conversations about 12-step applied to civilisation and capitalism; her own eating disorder work has used the 12-step structure.

- Steroids / corticosteroids — Sophie has been on synthetic corticosteroids at points in her life; the specific one she researched had been synthesised from diosgenin extracted from *Dioscorea* species (wild yams) sourced from South Africa. The deracination argument is her own: sacred plants uprooted, forced into extractive supply lines, plugged into a medicine they did not consent to produce.

- Hudson Valley — the valley of the Hudson River in New York State, running from the Adirondacks to New York City. Sophie’s home territory; her 20-mile radius around Woodstock is the covenant. Geologically a portion of the Appalachian range; ecologically one of the temperate deciduous forest strongholds of eastern North America.

Podcast Theme music: « Tremblement » de Michaël Boudreau, from the album Terre.Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/michaelboudreau

Learn more: https://autoimmunetheory.com

Laure's website: https://mxmarin.ca

Corey Hess, a Zen-trained bodyworker and teacher of standing meditation, traces what happened when the practice of getting well began to interfere with the possibility of being well. The conversation moves through a month in a dark room at Sōgen-ji monastery in Japan, the difference between energy as substance and energy as contact, the body as a pressure cooker of intensity, the day the striving had to stop, and the second breath that arrived when the first one ran out. Health, in this telling, is not a destination reached through technique. It is the texture of being met by something larger than strategy, available to anyone who can stop trying.

About Corey

Corey Hess trained at Sōgen-ji, a Rinzai Zen monastery in Japan, where he spent years in intensive seated practice under a roshi whose presence he describes as “every cell moving in one-pointed power.” He teaches a bodywork and Qigong practice shaped by that training: standing meditation, non-directed bodywork, breath as contact with the room. He works with individuals in a private practice context and lives in the United States.

His website: https://coreyhessbodytherapy.com/

&& Subscribe to Corey’s substack here: https://coreyhess.substack.com/p/notes-on-dissolving-our-assumptions

Timestamps

00:00 Welcome and the first question

00:02 The body as a pressure cooker of intensity

00:04 The roshi at Sōgen-ji

00:06 Sitting 18 hours a day in pain

00:08 The left eye locks up

00:09 A month in a dark room

00:11 Dropping all the techniques

00:13 What the techniques were protecting

00:14 The room becomes substantial

00:16 The second breath

00:18 Energy, in two registers

00:22 What energy is not

00:24 The body in direct conversation with the room

00:26 The barrier that never made sense

00:28 Health as being met by something larger

00:30 Faith, blind and otherwise

00:33 Listening with the whole body

00:37 Honesty as meeting the moment

00:41 The breath as a way to merge

00:44 A recommendation to feel rather than read

00:45 What the practice is for

00:47 Where we are right now is where it is

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References Mentioned

* Sōgen-ji — A Rinzai Zen monastery in Japan where Corey trained. The full name is Sōgen-ji Sōjiji (総持寺), though the monastery referenced in the conversation is the Sōgen-ji of the lineage of Hakuin Ekaku, in Okayama. The training there is the formative practice behind Corey’s teaching.

* Rinzai Zen — One of the two major schools of Japanese Zen Buddhism, the other being Sōtō. The Rinzai tradition emphasizes kōan practice, intensive seated meditation (zazen), and face-to-face interaction with the teacher (the roshi). Founded in China as the Linji school, brought to Japan by Eisai in the twelfth century. The lineage of Hakuin Ekaku (1686–1769) is the most influential Rinzai line in modern Japan.

* Zhan Zhuang — Standing meditation, the foundational qigong practice. “Standing like a tree.” The structure of the standing practice is the entry into the cultivation of qi in many Chinese and Japanese somatic traditions. Used in Corey’s practice as a complement to seated zazen and to non-directed bodywork.

* Non-directed body movement — A somatic practice in which the practitioner brings attention to the body without imposing a technique or a goal. The body’s own movement becomes the material of the practice. The exercise Corey describes from the first evening in Missoula, twenty-five people in a room, the body releasing in its own direction, is the entry point.

* Rolfing — A form of structural integration and deep tissue bodywork developed by Ida Rolf in the twentieth century. Corey worked with a Rolfer during the period between the Missoula episode and the move to Japan. The structural bodywork was useful to him, but the limitation he names is the one all structural work eventually arrives at: the body remembers the strategy of control, and the strategy is the thing that has to change.

* Lower dantian / tanden — In Chinese and Japanese somatic traditions, the center of gravity about three finger-widths below the navel. The seat of qi cultivation in qigong and the focus of breath practice in Zen. In the conversation, Corey names the dantian as a thing you can develop physically, and also as something that is “totally way out there,” a paradox of a center that is also a horizon.

Manda Scott traces the self as a set of relations: to body, to earth, to the wider web of life. The conversation moves through the neurophysiology of story, Nora Bateson’s wide-boundary thinking, Donella Meadows’s hierarchy of leverage points, and the two tasks Manda names as the core of shamanic work: give thanks, ask for help. Autoimmunity emerges here as a liminal state, a threshold where the body opens toward a different relationship to the entire living world. She trained as a veterinary surgeon in Glasgow, specialized in equine neonatal intensive care, and taught at the universities of Cambridge and Dublin. Forty years of shamanic practice, study with indigenous teachers in the UK and US, training in acupuncture and homeopathy, and an MA in Regenerative Economics from Schumacher College inform a body of work that moves across disciplines without asking permission.

Born in Scotland at 318ppm CO2, Manda Scott trained as a veterinary surgeon, but is now an award-winning novelist, host of the Accidental Gods podcast and co-creator of the Thrutopia Masterclass. Best known for the Boudica: Dreaming series, her latest novel, Any Human Power, is a mytho-political Thrutopian thriller that explores the potential for a future we'd be proud to leave as our legacy. She believes that the way forward now is for everyone to craft open-hearted connections with all parts of ourselves, each other and the Web of Life. She lives with her partner, Faith, in the Shropshire Marches.

Episode Timings

[00:00] — Introduction and Manda’s path

[00:09] — Svasta: health as self-knowledge

[00:12] — Self-tolerance and the autoimmune narrative

[00:16] — Thrutopian narratives and the boundaries of the human

[00:18] — Nora Bateson, Donella Meadows, and the guide’s message

[00:21] — Where do you end and begin?

[00:24] — The neurophysiology of story

[00:26] — Transference, suggestibility, and three medical stories for the same blood

[00:29] — Vanessa Andreotti and the core wounding of separability

[00:31] — Internal civil war and its alternatives

[00:35] — N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth

[00:37] — Thomas Hübl: trauma as frozen time

[00:39] — Conflict as generative edge

[00:44] — Autoimmunity as fulcrum

[00:45] — The two tasks

[00:47] — Beverly Lanzetta’s prayers

[00:49] — Teachings from the hill

[00:52] — Mantra and inner resonance

[00:54] — Closing

References Mentioned

- Nora Bateson — wide-boundary and narrow-boundary thinking; founder of the International Bateson Institute; author of Small Arcs of Larger Circles (2016) and Combining (2023). Her concept of “warm data” insists that relational information — the interdependencies between contexts — is what narrow-boundary analysis systematically excludes. https://norabateson.wordpress.com/about/

- Donella Meadows — “Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System” (1997, Whole Earth), expanded in Thinking in Systems: A Primer (2008). The 12 leverage points ascend from parameters and buffers through rules and goals to paradigms, with the highest leverage being the capacity to transcend all paradigms. donellameadows.org

- Vanessa Andreotti — Brazil-born decolonial scholar, author of Hospicing Modernity (2021). Her work on the belief in separability as the core wounding of Western modernity draws on teachings from an indigenous grandfather. decolonialfutures.net

- Richard C. Schwartz — founder of Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy. The “internal civil war” framing appears throughout his work on parts and the Self. ifs-institute.com

- Francis Weller — psychotherapist and author of The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief (2015). His distinction between trauma culture and initiation culture, and the image of the newborn expecting forty adoring gazes, draws on decades of soul-centered psychotherapy. francisweller.net

- Thomas Hübl — contemplative teacher and author of Healing Collective Trauma (2020). His reframing of trauma as “a moment frozen in time” and the thawing process that restores flow and relationality. thomashuebl.com

- N.K. Jemisin — The Broken Earth trilogy (The Fifth Season, The Obelisk Gate, The Stone Sky, 2015–2017). Three consecutive Hugo Awards. A far-future Earth where a sentient planet retaliates against civilisational extraction, and orogenes — people who can manipulate geological forces — are feared, enslaved, and used as living tools. nkjemisin.com

- Beverly Lanzetta — interfaith theologian and contemplative, author of Path of the Heart: A Spiritual Guide to Divine Union (1985, expanded 2014). The prayer Laure quotes is from this text. Described as “a rare combination of mature spiritual wisdom and poetic quality that transcends confessional lines.” beverlylanzetta.net

Classical Frameworks Referenced (by Laure)

- Svasta (Sanskrit: स्वस्थ) — the Ayurvedic definition of health: being established in oneself. Not the absence of disease but the presence of self-knowledge.

- Rakta Pitta (Sanskrit: रक्त पित्त) — a condition in which the metabolic fire (pitta) vitiates the blood (rakta), causing it to become too hot, too toxic, and to leak from its channels. The Ayurvedic frame for what allopathic medicine calls immune thrombocytopenia.

- Qi deficiency with heat in the blood — the Chinese medicine frame for ITP-pattern bleeding. A very different story than “the body attacking its own cells.”

Works by Manda Scott

- Accidental Gods — podcast exploring how humanity navigates the meta-crisis toward a regenerative future. 200+ episodes. accidentalgods.life

- Any Human Power (2024) — a Thrutopian mytho-political thriller, her most recent novel. mandascott.co.uk

- Boudica: Dreaming series — four historical novels (Dreaming the Eagle, Dreaming the Bull, Dreaming the Hound, Dreaming the Serpent Spear, 2003–2006) exploring pre-Roman Britain through a shamanic lens.

- Dreaming Awake — contemporary shamanic practitioner training, co-run with senior apprentice Louise Mayor. dreamingawake.co.uk

- Thrutopia Masterclass — teaching writers to craft narratives that map pathways beyond dystopia and utopia into viable futures. thrutopia.life

The host: Laure Marin is an Ayurvedic consultant, bodywork practitioner, and writer based between Tiohtià:ke/Montréal and Kerala. I have lived with immune thrombocytopenia for over twenty-five years.

Subscribe to the newsletter for long-form essays and episode companions: autoimmunetheory.com

Theme music: « Tremblement » de Michaël Boudreau, from the album Terre.

To listen: https://michaelboudreau.bandcamp.com/album/terre

Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/michaelboudreau

Ojas Is Not the Immune System

When ojas is reduced to immunity, every dimension that matters is lost. Vaidya Dr. P. Rammanohar explains why Ayurveda's framework makes visible what Western immunology structurally cannot see, how a randomized controlled trial was designed around Ayurvedic clinical reasoning rather than against it, and why the body in autoimmune distress is better understood as angry than as attacking itself. The conversation ends with dharma as ecological repair, and the claim that sustainable development goals are dharmic goals by another name.

Guest: Vaidya Dr. P. Rammanohar, Research Director at ĀCĀRA (Amrita Centre for Advanced Research in Ayurveda), Amritapuri, Kerala, India.

References mentioned:— Rammanohar, P. "Research for Understanding as Opposed to Evaluating Ayurveda." Ancient Science of Life 34, no. 2 (2014): 61–63. DOI: 10.4103/0257-7941.153456— Furst, D.E., Venkatraman, M.M., Ram Manohar, P., et al. "Double-Blind, Randomized, Controlled, Pilot Study Comparing Classic Ayurvedic Medicine, Methotrexate, and Their Combination in Rheumatoid Arthritis." Journal of Clinical Rheumatology 17, no. 4 (2011): 185–192. PubMed: 21617554— Furst, D.E., Venkatraman, M.M., Ram Manohar, P., et al. "Well Controlled, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Trials of Classical Ayurvedic Treatment Are Possible in Rheumatoid Arthritis." Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases 70, no. 2 (2011): 392. ard.bmj.com— Caraka Samhita, Janapadodhwamsa passage (Vimāna Sthāna 3)— Caraka Samhita, Vatarakta passage: "Kṛpābhyāsaiva krodham vātaraktam niyacchati"— Etuaptmumk (Two-Eyed Seeing): Mi'kmaq principle of layered knowing, originating from Elders Albert and Murdena Marshall and Dr. Cheryl Bartlett at Cape Breton University. Referenced in WHO-affiliated integrative health frameworks. Wikipedia; Tremblay & Martin, "Etuaptmumk/Two-Eyed Seeing," in Global Handbook of Health Promotion Research, Vol. 3 (Springer, 2023).

Texts by Rammanohar:— "Research for Understanding as Opposed to Evaluating Ayurveda", Ancient Science of Life 34(2), 2014— "The Translational Framework of Ayurveda as a Knowledge System", Ancient Science of Life 35(4), 2016— "Backing Up Ayurveda with Good Science: The Modus Operandi", Ancient Science of Life 34(3), 2015

The host:Laure Marin is an Ayurvedic consultant, bodywork practitioner, and writer based between Tiohtià:ke/Montréal and Kerala. autoimmunetheory.com

Subscribe to the newsletter for long-form essays and episode companions: autoimmunetheory.com

Theme music: « Tremblement » by Michaël Boudreau, from the album Terre.

To listen to the track, here: https://michaelboudreau.bandcamp.com/album/terre

Michaël’s link tree: https://linktr.ee/michaelboudreau

À propos des invité-es:

Marie Cachou Trudel-Langevin et Caro Dupeyras, co-fondatrices du projet À Corps Consentants (depuis 2021), facilitent des ateliers pratiques sur le consentement et le développement de formes d’intimité plus conscientes depuis 2019. Leur approche est expérientielle, somatique, féministe-Queer et sensible aux traumas.

Danseuses dans la communauté d’impro contact de Montréal, iels co-animent des classes et des jams en mixité choisie pour femmes et personnes Queer. Au travers de leurs pratiques, iels explorent les liens entre émancipation sensuelle, artistique et politique. 

Caro développe depuis plusieurs années sa pratique comme travailleuse sociale en santé mentale et en éducation sexuelle. Marie C, artiste et massothérapeute, poursuit actuellement des études en éducation sexuelle somatique. Iels sont en formation continue auprès de The School of Consent, école co-fondée par Betty Martin, créatrice de la Roue du Consentement ©

Site web de À Corps Consentants

À Corps Consentants sur Facebook

The School of Consent

Carmen Leilani De Jesus (référence autout de 38 minutes)

About today's guest: Jonas Mago is am a certified Unified Mindfulness meditation coach with a deep fascination for the science and mathematics of consciousness and wellbeing. His work bridges the gap between scientific inquiry, practices of the body and mind, and the wisdom of ancient traditions.

Rooted in lineages such as Buddhism and Christian prayer, Jonas find inspiration in exploring how contemplative practices across traditions offer pathways to profound states of consciousness and flourishing.

In his academic work, Jonas is pursuing a PhD in Neuroscience at McGill University, where he studies how contemplative practices enable the brain, body, and mind to access new states of consciousness. His research focuses on how these states support holistic wellbeing and transformation, weaving together insights from neurobiology, cognitive science, and phenomenology.

Jonas' personal contemplative practice is deeply influenced by the teachings of Culadasa (John Yates), Rob Burbea, and Michael Taft, as well as his training under Shinzen Young, who certified him as a meditation coach. He currently
offers one-on-one coaching sessions, guiding individuals in exploring the many dimensions of consciousness and cultivating a life of clarity and purpose.

Learn more about Jonas' work at his website: https://www.jonasmago.com/

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About the host: Laure Marin de la Vallée is a somatic educator, bodyworker, naturopath in training, and cultural worker passionate about the art of nourishing life. Living with over 20 years of chronic autoimmunity, Laure’s work is rooted in fostering deep connections between self, community, and the living world. Through their research, writing, and practice, they create spaces for dialogue and embodied exploration beyond the porous boundaries of the skin.

Learn more at https//laure.love.

Podcast website: https://dialoguespodcast.com

About today's guest: Nick Ingrisani is a musician, writer, and meditation teacher driven by an insatiable curiosity and appreciation for the dynamic richness of life. Following over a decade of dedicated meditation practice, he recently completed Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach’s 2-year Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program to embrace the gift of reciprocity and step onto the teaching path.
Nick's music (artist name: Nick Oaken) drives toward connection to the wider currents of our shared experience on this earth through a harmonic blend of folk simplicity, percussive flow, and raw spirit. His new album 'In Between the Seasons' is set to be released on December 13. 
He is also a co-founder of AuthenticLife, a Montreal-based community offering heart-centered relational and awareness practices to foster deeper, more meaningful relationships with ourselves and our world. 

Listen to Nick's music: 

• ⁠Spotify⁠⁠


• ⁠⁠Apple Music⁠⁠


• ⁠⁠YouTube Music⁠⁠

Practice with Nick at his upcoming daylong meditation retreat on December 13 2024 in Montreal's vibrant Mile-End neighborhood. Click here for more information and registration:

 AuthenticLife: https://www.meetup.com/authenticlife/  

About today's guest: Following a path of multiplicity and ambi-valence, Devlin Flynn has gathered together many ways of being- trained jazz musician, professional puppeteer, working with kids and teenagers with complex neurological disorders, metal vocalist- and has in recent times turned towards something of the sacred. Devlin has turned towards Death and Sound as two prisms through which he engages with his work. Now working often as a “sound healer” (but don’t call him that, he doesn’t like it) and practitioner of vocal resonance, he is interested in how we story ourselves, how we can be in better relationship with Place, Ancestry and Time.

Devlin on Substack

Sound of Belonging on Facebook

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Find out more about Laure's work and read the Emergent Life blog: www.laure.love/in-honor-of-breath-and-belonging

https://dialoguespodcast.com

Lalaina est né en France au cœur d’un foyer empli de musique et d'aventure, il a été élevé par une mère enseignante et musicienne pétrie d’humanisme. Elle lui lègue son amour de l’aventure, du mystère et de la transmission ce qui déterminera son parcours : Il termine une maîtrise sur l’improvisation musicale avec les machines puis se retrouve à enseigner et jouer de la musique sur les routes de France et du Canada.

Sa pratique artistique couplée à son amour pour la méditation et la philosophie l'amènera à étudier les pratiques ancestrales de son peuple d’origine, faite de cérémonies rituelles profondément communautaires mélangeant musique et danse. Ces dernières le poussent à s’initier aux arts du mouvement, dans une recherche d’unisson entre le corps et l’esprit. A travers l’art et sa transmission, il cherche à observer au quotidien l’application de la loi d’Antoine Lavoisier, “rien ne se perd, rien ne se crée, tout se transforme” .

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Pour en apprendre plus sur Laure et son travail, visitez www.laure.love.

Lisez le blog post en lien avec cet épisode (anglais): www.laure.love/lalaina-dialogue/

Today's Dialogue welcomes Shanthi Minor, D.O. Shanthi is an Osteopath, Massage Therapist, Life Coach, Somatic Educator, and Dance Facilitator. She has certifications as a Somatics + Dance Facilitator (Contact Improvisation, Feldenkrais and Massage, Focusing Massage, Authentic Movement), Yoga Teacher, Life Coach, and a longstanding dedicated personal practice of meditation, energy work, and personal growth since 2007, including 3 cumulative years of intensive practice in India. She supports and holds space for participants to explore and discover their own insights along their paths.

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How can we practice in a context that is not supportive to practice?

How do we make a life of practice in a context that is, overall, quite hostile to it? A context where the culture's priorities are not cultivation of closeness with what is true; the culture's priorities are material gain.

How do we develop the momentum to keep going?

In conversation with Shanthi Minor, we explore these questions and more on today's Dialogue.

The answer that came to me? How do I keep the momentum going?

Self compassion.

I have witnessed that there is a very slow, imperceptible change on a daily, monthly, yearly basis, and it is momentum that keeps me going. It's a force that is alive, that has mass, and that moves through me. And self-compasson is important when I trip and fall, because this momentum is carrying me forward, and sometimes I can't make sense of what needs to happen right now, so I fall, and there's a period of time of not doing anything.

And it used to be that that period of not doing anything would be weeks, or months. But in the last few years, it's been days. And so, I tell myself, you know, it's okay to fail. It's okay to not be able to do anything but lay on the floor right now. It's okay to need to espace into the beauty of a novel until this wave of despair is over. And then, once that wave of despair has passed through, you can go back to practicing your forms, you can go back to standing in your postures, you can go back to attempting stillness of mind. Which is just too painful to do, when there is complete and total despair.

So, the practice is of progressively and slowly growing the capacity for staying with what is difficult, rather than wallowing, or self-victimizing, or escaping. But just staying with what is internally difficult, and continuing on with it, and in spite of it, and in collaboration with it. And it's the momentum that makes that possible. It's habit. It's sheer force of habit.

To build momentum in changing habits, we all need:

1. a sense of completion
2. a feeling of success

What's all that about? Listen in and learn about barriers we face to practice and lifestyle change.

Sign up for our November 2024 retreat for somatic self care and nourishing life, Cocoon!

Join us for a spa weekend of somatic self-care in nature to harmonize ourselves with the change of seasons. Come unwind with us in our cozy container and learn practical skills to destress in everyday life. Fully catered, therapeutic heated pool, sauna on site.

Experience:

• Hands-on practice in Unwinding, a key skill for nervous system regulation from Craniosacral therapy and Osteopathy

• Qigong exercises for strength and longevity

• Yoga + somatic exercises for nervous system regulation (poly vagal and trauma informed)

• Therapeutic Contact Improvisation + Authentic movement - presence and deep listening for movement to arise (no experience necessary)

• Somatic tools to transform your health and wellbeing, as well as those of possible clients, and others in your life.

• Delicious healthy vegetarian and vegan meals

• Spa on site - therapeutic heated pool, sauna, hot tub

• Forest paths to walk in nature

• A deep rest for your nervous system

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Learn more about Laure's work: www.laure.love -- writing, bodyworking, podcasting.