Clapp with Jane with Jane Clapp

We dedicate this podcast to Michael Young. Without his courageous battle with addiction and his passing, Anie and I might never have crossed paths.

Join me for a conversation with my dear friend, Anie Boudreau, Addiction Recovery and Chronic Pain Coach and Yoga Therapist.

In this conversation we talk about how she supports her clients by:

Helping her clients see possibilities and getting back to their spirit and believing that they should be here.

Harnessing the container of playfulness, wonderment and an open heart to help people who have shut down on themselves and to help them connect with wonderment again.

Harnessing nervous system health during addiction recovery and that those who are looking for a point A to point B through the nervous system will find there’s no such thing.

Sharing her own discoveries that when it feels like her whole life is a storm, she repeats the mantra, "it is impossible for 100% of the things in your life to be going wrong … it may be my nervous system giving me false information."

Embodying the teaching: “The opposite of addiction is not sobriety, the opposite of addiction is connection”- Johann Hari

Anie Boudreau has been on her own healing journey for over 20 years.  She has lived with a brain injury after suffering from nearly 30 concussions as a downhill mountain bike racer and snowboarder.  It’s been a journey, to say the least, learning how to maneuver through pain every day while living a joyful life.  Anie has learned the capacity to meet discomfort with kindness and curiosity.  Meeting pain with awe and wonder instead of fear, anger and shame allows for a greater sense of connection to body, to self, and to environment. This genuine connection is the antidote to suffering.  

As a Certified Yoga Therapist, an Advanced-level Addiction Recovery Coach & Trainer, and Life Mentor, Anie’s intention is to empower you with practical tools that can be used in the ups and downs of your daily life. Anie uses advanced embodied & mindfulness techniques and is a specialist in pain science, nervous system regulation, movement for trauma, psychedelic treatment for addiction recovery and contemplative psychology .  She works one-on-one with individuals, teaches classes, and facilitates groups, programs and workshops specializing in topics such as living with chronic pain, addictions and emotional distress.

Anie has realized that the healing power of sharing her story and having it heard, seen and acknowledged significantly eases her symptoms. This is the practice of speaking from the heart, and it's a huge part of the work she does at School of Reverence. It's potent and powerful.

Through all the pain, trauma and training, Anie is immensely grateful for the way her life has unfolded because she is able to help others in a really skillful way that brings her so much joy.

Instagram: @schoolofreverence
Website: anieboudreau.com

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Tune into my conversation available last week with Afeef Nessouli, a journalist, activist and videographer. We discuss his experiences participating in Black Lives Matter protests in New York and his own journey living with a history of trauma and health challenges.

Two of my favourite quotes:

"I feel so connected to the point of getting on the streets and making change because of my acute pain towards systems. I'm not happy that I have that pain. I'm just not resisting it anymore."

"You get to be the kind of person that trusts themselves so thoroughly that you are going to make a mistake and you are going to fail. You're going to get something wrong and then you're going to correct yourself along the way because that's the process."

Afeef's experience as a journalist ranges from freelancing for CNN to being a news producer for The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. After two years reporting in Lebanon and documenting the lives of those displaced, he returned to New York at the start of the COVID-19 crisis. He's been playing an active role in the protests in New York by videotaping and providing a different perspective than what's shown in mainstream news sources. Afeef's mission as a journalist is to give his audience a real and human look at the experiences of those who are oppressed.

Instagram: @afeefness
Website

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Join me for a conversation with Vanessa Scotto that challenges all the self love memes we see every day and takes us into the longer and more winding path to reaching a place of self love.

We talk about: 

• Self compassion as a gate way to self love.
• Cognitive approaches to self love versus self love that happens on a cellular level. 
• How difficult it can be to absorb and accept love from others when we have experienced abuse, trauma and mistreatment.
• How Vanessa used to believe that if anyone really knew her, they wouldn't love her and how she got to a place of self love in her life.

Vanessa Scotto is a Teacher, Mentor and Coach in private practice who has dedicated over two decades to exploring the dynamic interplay of the Mind, Body and Spirit. She holds two masters degrees in both Traditional Chinese Medicine and Transpersonal Psychology; and is a certified practitioner of the Realization Process with Judith Blackstone. Vanessa is also the co-host of the Bliss and Grit podcast; A show devoted to intimate conversations about awakening and embodied spirituality. With a background in Eastern philosophy, Contemplative Psychology, Mysticism and somatic meditation, Vanessa takes a holistic approach to transformation, self-realization and self-love.

For more information on mentorship or upcoming classes with Vanessa please go to www.vanessascotto.com or go to www.blissandgrit.com to tune into her podcast.

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In this beautiful and moving conversation with Worthy, I was left with my heart full and my hunger for life affirmed.  Worthy's story about her near death experience and her brave heart moved me to tears. I know this episode will help breathe life back into your soul and soma.

One of my favourite quotes from Worthy in this episode (so hard to pick just one):

"Our bodies and souls are so intelligent that there can be a microscopic spontaneous shift in the fabric at any moment."

Worthy Stokes is the founder of HeartMind® Meditations and author of The Daily Meditation Book of Healing. She is a polytrauma survivor who lives with life-altering sensory loss since overcoming a complicated traumatic brain injury overseas at the age of 34. Her vivid Near Death Experience, a decade of advanced meditation training that began in 2008 with her introduction to Dzogchen, and her battle to retrieve her very own mind inspired her career of teaching and coaching at the nexus of nondual wisdom, emergent neuroscience, and healing.

Worthy is endorsed by world renowned medical doctors teaching at Columbia University, University of Pennsylvania, and beyond. She is known as a healer for the healers among award winning CEOs, trauma survivors, psychologists, and somatic experts who appreciate her groundbreaking, interdisciplinary perspective of healing.

Worthy has spent countless hours with her neurologists reviewing maps of her own brain, she has followed clinical research since meeting the late Dr. Candace Pert in 2007, and she directly apprehends the mystical complexity of transformation.

She shares her free time with her husband, who is an adult literacy expert; he helps her read and write. Worthy holds a bachelor of arts degree in Journalism, and she is currently writing her second book. Worthy is her real, given birth name.

Worthy's book you can purchase here: The Daily Meditation Book of Healing

www.worthystokes.com
Instagram: @iamworthystokes
Author of The Daily Meditation Book of Healing
HeartMind® Meditation Teacher on Insight Timer

QUICK LINK TO JOIN MY CONSCIOUS BODY SUPPORT GROUP

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Finding our passion, wonder and inspiration while living with the effects of trauma in ourselves or someone we love and a candid discussion on the challenges of navigating the mental system to find support for complex PTSD.

That's what this episode with Heather Tuba really highlights. How we can both survive some days and thrive other days.  We really dig into how much shame is created when mental health services fall short for trauma survivors and their partners and families. Heather is fierce and clear, boundaried and compassionate. I adore and respect her.

Heather and I also talk about how she found me through an article titled CIGARETTES, SHAMES AND SELF COMPASSION, a very honest and vulnerable share of what it was like to move out of shame when I got the support I needed to recover from complex trauma.

MORE ABOUT HEATHER:

Heather Tuba is a writer, coach, and trauma-integrated practitioner with a specialization in support for partners of individuals with complex trauma. She is a graduate of the University of Winnipeg, the Attachment and Trauma Centre for Healing, and is certified as a trauma recovery coach. She is also an alumni of the Humber College School for Writers.

Heather is recognized for her ability to communicate the nuanced and diverse experiences of partners within the context of another’s trauma. Her approach is multi-faceted and draws on thought and practices inside and outside the trauma field. As someone with the lived experience of being a partner to an individual with cPTSD, she is committed to the creation of practical strategies to improve the quality of partners’/supporters’ daily lives. In addition to individual coaching, she consults with sexual assault centres, trauma clinicians, and non-profits providing psychoeducation on secondary traumatic stress in partners and what partners/ supporters need to know about trauma. Her work/ideas are regularly referenced and shared on trauma related blogs and websites.

Website
Instagram @heathertuba
Facebook @heathertuba

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Join me for a packed conversation with Kimberly Johnson: Vaginapractor, Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, Sexological Bodywork and author of The Fourth Trimester.

BRAIN JUICE coming your way.

We talk about:

• Her new book that is in the works
• How the trauma recovery world leaves out (re)building healthy sexual expression
• Her work in facilitating pelvic mapping sessions
• Parenting teenagers during COVID19
• Authenticity in social media

Kimberly  is a Sexological Bodyworker, Somatic Experiencing trauma resolution practitioner, Structural Integration bodyworker,  yoga teacher trainer, birth doula, and single mom. She specializes in helping women prepare for birth, recover from birth injuries and birth trauma, and heal from sexual trauma.
She is the author of  The Fourth Trimester: A Postpartum Guide to Healing Your Body, Balancing Your Emotions and Restoring Your Vitality. Kimberly specializes in helping women heal from birth injuries, birth trauma, and sexual boundary violations.  She is the creator of Activate your Inner Jaguar, an online course ushering thousands of women into their full voices and sexual expression and the founder of Magamama.com.

Instagram @magamamas

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Join me for a packed and mind blowing conversation with Britt Frank, a leading trauma specialist and mental health thought leader. One of my favourite episodes to date.

We cover everything from:
Misconceptions in trauma recovery that hold us back
Grieving the end of our childhood
Narcissism as an addiction, not a personality disorder
The overuse and misuse of the phrase “Nervous System Regulation” and the new term Britt coined in our conversation "Toxic Regulation"

Britt Frank, MSW, LSCSW, SEP is a speaker, teacher, and trauma specialist. Britt received her BA from Duke University and her Master's from the University of Kansas, where she is now an award-winning adjunct professor. She is certified in Somatic Experiencing and is Level 1 Internal Family Systems trained. Her mission is to empower people to understand the inner workings of their minds and brains so that the change process moves from mystery to mastery.

Find Britt now:
Instagram @brittfrank
Website 

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Tune into a rich conversation with me and Brooke Thomas where we talk about the embodiment of spirituality and what the crisis is brewing in each of us.

Brooke Thomas has been doing embodiment work in private practice for 20 years and is trained as a Rolfer and a Realization Process teacher. Her work sits at the intersection of where the body meets consciousness and how playing with this can shift our way of being in the world. She is the founder of the Liberated Being community, which is dedicated to embodied practice and inquiry, and a co-creator of the Bliss+Grit podcast. Her past podcasting project was Liberated Body.

You can find Brooke here:
www.brookethomas.me
www.liberatedbeing.community
www.blissandgrit.com

Instagram:

@brookethomas108
@liberatedbeing
@blissandgritpodcast

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Get ready for a powerful episode that will move you from the inside.

This episode is all about looking our at pervasive awareness of death during the pandemic, something we normally try to chase away. I speak about my experience with a life threatening illness and how it fuelled my desire to live fully while my work with people living with cancer informed so much of my current work in helping to bring people back to fully living.

Then I speak with my friend, Robin Pacific, artist, activist and spiritual director, about her project MISSING YOU and her relationship with spirituality through a rich inner life, something she believes we can access to support ourselves during the pandemic and beyond. 

In MISSING YOU, Robin Pacific photographed 70 people, each in a special place that has meaning for them, and then asked them a series of questions about their own death. I was one of the 70 people.

Robin Pacific‘s work has spanned thirty years and a wide variety of media.  In addition to writing personal and critical essays, she has produced artworks in a variety of media encompassing painting, drawing, video, installation, performance, and numerous community based collaborations.

In 2012 Robin completed a Diploma in Spiritual Direction at Regis College in the Toronto School of Theology, and now practices Spiritual Direction one day a week.

She holds a PhD in English Literature from York University and a Masters in Theological Studies from Regis College. She is currently enrolled in the University of Kings College MFA in Creative Nonfiction.

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I met Marit Stiles, Canadian politician, many years at my last studio and got to know her first as a human being wanting movement coaching, not a politician. I wanted to speak with her and you all to meet her to see she lives and breathes her commitment to social justice to her very core.

Marit was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario in the 2018 Ontario general election. She represents the riding of Davenport as a member of the Ontario New Democratic Party. She is the Official Opposition Education Critic.

Now, whenever I listen to her speak out for social welfare during the COVID19 crisis, I feel hopeful knowing people like her and her team are advocating for people in need.

Marit embodies the Mr. Rogers quote: "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”

We talk about things that apply to folx all over the world:

• Housing insecurity in the most expensive city in Canada and lack of clear protection for renters and what your local politician can do to help you.
• The fear for small businesses and commercial lease obligations and how many small businesses could 'go under' and what you can do now to protect yourself.
• Focusing on non-partisan politics in order to get support to people ASAP.
• Efforts in Toronto to provide safe shelter to the homeless and why this can't be the case without a pandemic.
• The concern for kids in violent homes who no longer have a safe space to go every day. 
• The complications of working from home and intentionally coming together every day as a family.

And more...

Marit is truly a solid human being you all need to meet personally, in her home, navigating this crisis both personally and professionally. 

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