Fractals of Change

In the season's final interview episode, Mary sits down with Alexandra Bowen, founder of the Biophilic Design Community and co-creator of the Learn Biophilic Design course, to explore why the spaces we inhabit shape the people we become. Alexandra traces her path from a childhood immersed in Hawaii's natural world to the disorientation of moving to the mainland — a feeling now recognized as "green withdrawal" — and how a single potted plant on her desk reopened that connection and eventually led her into environmental design. From there the conversation moves through E.O. Wilson's biophilia hypothesis, the science of fractals and awe, the measurable costs of nature-deprived buildings, and the idea — borrowed from Maori law and indigenous wisdom traditions — that nature is not a resource to manage but a relative to honor. Along the way, Alexandra and Mary trade scuba stories, talk through Google's biophilic office design, and land on a closing note for the season: not a choice between technology and nature, but a way of letting both serve our humanity.

✅ Key Topics

• Green withdrawal and the origin story behind a career in environmental design (Alexandra)
• The biophilia hypothesis and E.O. Wilson's 1984 thesis (Alexandra, Mary)
• Fractals as "the fingerprint of nature," from tree branches to dark matter (Alexandra)
• Awe as a recognized pattern in biophilic design, including Terrapin Bright Green's newly added 15th pattern (Alexandra)
• The biological cost of nature deprivation: cortisol, sick building syndrome, nature-deficit disorder (Alexandra)
• Low-cost, high-impact biophilic interventions and their measured outcomes (Alexandra)
• Indigenous knowledge, AI, and the effort to preserve oral wisdom traditions (Alexandra, on Wanda Dela Costa's work)
• Legal personhood for natural landscapes in New Zealand (Alexandra)
• Slowness, ancestral wisdom, and finding balance with AI (Alexandra, Mary)
• Google's internal biophilic design framework and office case studies (Alexandra)
• The Biophilic Design Community and Learn Biophilic Design course (Alexandra)

💡 Takeaways

• Nature connection isn't an aesthetic preference — it's a biological need with measurable physiological effects.
• Strong biophilic design goes beyond a lobby plant; it's grounded in genius loci, the spirit of a specific place.
• Even small, low-cost interventions — a window view, ambient nature sounds, a desk plant — can shift cognition and stress within milliseconds.
• Treating nature as a relative rather than a resource changes how we design, build, and legislate.
• Slowing down isn't opposed to progress; it's how we stay human while using powerful new tools like AI.

🎤 Memorable Quotes

• "We are nature. People forget that very simple concept. It's simple, but it's so powerful." — Alexandra Bowen
• "Fractals are basically the fingerprint of nature... we aren't just surrounded by these patterns, we're made of them." — Alexandra Bowen
• "We only sustain what we love." — Amanda Sturgeon (quoted by Alexandra)
• "Nature is not just a resource. Nature is technology and it's an ancestor." — Alexandra Bowen
• "When you slow down and pay attention, an extraordinary world becomes visible." — Mary Schaub

🔗 Resources

• Edward O. Wilson — Biophilia (1984) https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674074422
• Richard Louv — Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder (2005) https://richardlouv.com/books/last-child
• Terrapin Bright Green — 14 Patterns of Biophilic Design (2014; 10th anniversary edition adding the Awe pattern, 2024) https://www.terrapinbrightgreen.com/report/14-patterns/
• Dr. Richard Taylor, University of Oregon — fractal fluency and stress-reduction research https://blogs.uoregon.edu/richardtaylor/
• Alexandra Bowen — Biophilic Design Community (LinkedIn) https://www.linkedin.com/company/biophilic-design
• Alexandra Bowen — Learn Biophilic Design course https://www.learnbiomimicry.com/biophilic-design

Keywords

biophilic design, biophilia hypothesis, nature deficit disorder, fractals, awe, evolutionary mismatch, sick building syndrome, indigenous wisdom, slowness, biomimicry, environmental design, genius loci, legal personhood, nature connection, mental well-being, sustainable architecture, Google offices, AI and design, season finale

Disclaimer:

***The information, opinions, and recommendations presented in this Podcast are for general information only and any reliance on the information provided in this Podcast is done at your own risk. This Podcast should not be considered professional advice.***

Credits: Written, produced and hosted by: Mary Schaub. Theme song written by: Mary Schaub

Contact: [email protected]  

Website: M. Schaub Advisory (MSA)

What does it mean to truly listen — to a child, to grief, to the signs the universe leaves when we're paying attention? 

 Writer and former biology teacher Katie Rizzo joins Mary for a conversation of rare honesty about loss, addiction, guilt, and the unexpected ways art saves us. Katie's son Nicholas died from opioid addiction, and rather than turn away from the pain, she turned toward it — writing her way through the experience in two forthcoming books: The Trimesters of Grief, a memoir, and None of Them Are You, a collection of poems. Together, Mary and Katie explore the uncanny parallels between pregnancy brain and grief brain, the systemic failures of addiction medicine, the shame culture that surrounds both loss and addiction, and what it means to be "half here and half with Nicholas." This episode is about the courage to be broken — and what becomes possible when you stop pretending otherwise.

 ✅Key Topics

• Identity, loss, and what happens to a self built entirely around motherhood 
• The three "trimesters" of grief and the physical experience of bereavement
• Writing as a lifeline
• Nick Cave's practice of externalizing grief 
• The opioid crisis up close
• Shame in addiction: the systems, the families, and the internal monologue that tells addicts they are a moral failure
• The radical act of authentic grief: saying "I'm terrible" to a neighbor who expected "we'll get through it" — and what her running away taught Katie about who can witness pain
• Birds, bald eagles, and the question of what's real: on staying open to signs, connection beyond death, and resisting arrogance about what we don't understand
• Healing as service — not wholeness, not gold leaf over the cracks, but opening your eyes wide enough to climb a fence in Central Park for a stranger with a dropped phone
• How free do you wanna be? — the Al-Anon principle that became Katie's anchor in grief

💡Takeaways

• Grief and new life share the same body: disorientation, longing, inability to eat, altered time. The cruelty of that mirroring is also its strange intimacy.
• The 70–90% relapse rate for opioid addiction isn't a failure of willpower — it's a system in crisis. The drug is that powerful, and the structural incentives for alternatives are that weak.
• Addiction carries a cultural load of shame that kills. The shift from moral framing to disease framing isn't soft — it's survival.
• Art isn't content. It never was. Music, poetry, and story are how humans get back into their bodies, regulate, and transmit what language alone can't hold.
• Healing isn't restoration. It's learning to live as someone with a hole in them, and choosing to open your eyes anyway.
• Connection is not a feeling you generate — it's what happens when you say yes when someone calls, climb a fence when a stranger is crying, and tell the truth when someone asks how you are.

🎤Memorable Quotes

• "This death has shattered me, and I'm not a vase we can drizzle gold leaf over the jagged pieces and push back together. I'm just broken, which isn't as bad as it sounds." — Katie Rizzo, The Trimesters of Grief
• "I felt like I was this liminal creature. I was half here and half with Nicholas. I still feel that way." — Katie Rizzo
• "Art has the power to redress the balance of things, of our wrongs, of our sins... I have found that the goodness of the work can go some way towards mitigating them." — Nick Cave (read by Mary)
• "How free do you wanna be?" — Al-Anon, as quoted by Katie Rizzo

 🔗Resources / External Links (only if applicable)

 The Trimesters of Grief will be released on October 6 by Koehler Books, with Blackstone Publishing. None of Them Are You - A book of Poems will be published on October 31st by Extra Extra Publishing.

Katie's Books

• The Trimesters of Grief — memoir, releasing October 6th Published by Koehler Books & Blackstone Publishing 📸 Instagram: @koehlerbookspub 🧵 Threads: @koehlerbookspub 📘 Facebook: facebook.com/koehlerbooks 💼 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/koehler-books ▶️ YouTube: Koehler Books 📸 Blackstone Instagram: @blackstonepublishing 💼 Blackstone LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/blackstonepublishing 
• None of Them Are You — poetry, releasing October 31st (Día de los Muertos) Published by Extra Extra Publishing 📸 Instagram: @extraextrapublishinghouse

 Connect with Katie

• 🌐 Website: katierizzo.com
• 💼 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/katie-rizzo-098978280
• 📘 Facebook: facebook.com/rizzoboysandagirl
• 📸 Instagram: @katierizzo007
• 🎵 TikTok: @katie.rizzo007

Referenced in this episode

• Nick Cave — The Red Hand Files (blog): theredhandfiles.com
• David Kessler — grief researcher and author: grief.com
• Colin Campbell — Finding the Words (book on grief and connection)
• Dr. Steve Ramirez — memory researcher, Boston University (memory creation/removal in neuroscience)
• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind — referenced in conversation about memory and loss
• Love in the Trenches — East Coast grief support group for parents who have lost children to addiction
• Al-Anon — support for families of people with addiction: al-anon.org
• Matthew Perry — Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing (memoir on addiction, referenced by Mary)

 Keywords

grief memoir, opioid addiction loss, mother grief book, Trimesters of Grief, Katie Rizzo, loss of a child, addiction and shame, opioid crisis systemic failure, grief and creativity, writing through loss, Nick Cave grief, liminal grief, grief brain, poetry after loss, None of Them Are You, Koehler Books, Blackstone Publishing, Extra Extra Publishing, how to live with grief, Fractals of Change podcast

Disclaimer:

***The information, opinions, and recommendations presented in this Podcast are for general information only and any reliance on the information provided in this Podcast is done at your own risk. This Podcast should not be considered professional advice.***

Credits: Written, produced and hosted by: Mary Schaub. Theme song written by: Mary Schaub

Contact: [email protected]  

Website: M. Schaub Advisory (MSA)

Energy is the most fundamental pattern running through every living system—and most of us are barely paying attention to it. In this solo episode, Mary Schaub traces the pattern of energy from thermodynamics and cellular biology through psychology, relationships, organizations, and social movements, making the case that energy is not a metaphor or a wellness buzzword—it's a precise, observable, cross-domain force that shapes how we live, work, love, and change. Drawing on her own story of how this show began, a client case study in energy misalignment, and research from neuroscience to elite athletic performance, Mary offers both a framework for reading your energy honestly and three practices for managing it with intention.

✅ Key Topics

• What energy actually means across physics, biology, psychology, and systems thinking—and why the pattern is the same in all of them (Mary Schaub)
• Activation energy and the threshold principle: why starting is always harder than sustaining (physics/athletics)
• Freud's concept of libido as life energy and Jung's psychic energy—why suppression redirects rather than eliminates (Freud, Jung)
• Prana and pranayama as ancient energy management systems (Ayurvedic and yogic traditions)
• The brain's energetic cost: why chronic uncertainty is exhausting and clarity is physically restorative (neuroscience)
• Client case study: Dina, a healthcare executive whose energy misalignment was structural, not personal
• How this show itself emerged from Mary tracking her own energy
• Emotional contagion and co-regulation: how nervous systems affect each other's physiological states (research on relational energy)
• Gottman's "bids for connection" as an energetic exchange model (John Gottman)
• Losada's research on positive-to-negative interaction ratios in high-performing teams (Marcial Losada)
• Organizational energy states: from resigned inertia to productive engagement (Heike Bruch & Sumantra Ghoshal, IMD/London Business School)
• Social movements as activation energy events—and why the trigger is never the cause
• How algorithmic attention economies harvest and deplete collective energy
• Three practices: Audit, Boundary as Energy Management, Renewal as Discipline
• Jim Loehr's research on energy—not time—as the fundamental currency of high performance (Jim Loehr)

💡 Takeaways

• Energy is never created or destroyed—it is converted, transferred, concentrated, and dispersed. This isn't just physics. It's the pattern underlying how people change.
• The hardest part of any change is crossing the activation energy threshold, not sustaining momentum once it's established.
• Suppression doesn't eliminate energy—it redirects it. What you don't let yourself feel in one place shows up somewhere else.
• Chronic uncertainty is energetically expensive. Clarity releases resources the nervous system had locked in open loops.
• Depletion is not a character flaw. It is structural information about misalignment—and it has structural solutions.
• The highest performers aren't those who work the most hours. They're those who manage recovery deliberately.
• A boundary is not a wall. It's a selectively permeable membrane that regulates what flows in and out of your system.
• The most transformative moments for clients rarely come from adding something new. They come from stopping something that was quietly draining them.
• Rest is not a reward earned when the work is done. Recovery is where the system actually builds.
• You cannot give what you don't have. Sustained depletion is not noble—it's a solvable structural problem.

🎤 Memorable Quotes

• "Energy doesn't lie. And once you learn to read it, you realize it's been telling you the truth about yourself—and everyone around you—all along." —Mary Schaub (cold open)
• "You are, at the most fundamental level, a pattern of energy moving through time." —Mary Schaub (on cellular biology and identity)
• "The emotion you don't let yourself feel in one context tends to show up somewhere else. In a snapped comment. In a late-night scroll. In a physical symptom. The energy needed an outlet, and it found one." —Mary Schaub (on suppression)
• "When you start treating energy as a pattern rather than a tank, the question shifts from how do I get more of it to how do I connect my energy to what I value and monitor with skillful awareness." —Mary Schaub (Dina case study)
• "The trigger is rarely the cause. The cause is the accumulated energy of thousands of people reaching a threshold simultaneously." —Mary Schaub (on social movements)
• "We are, in a very real sense, harvesting each other's activation energy for purposes that don't serve us." —Mary Schaub (on attention economies)
• "Depletion is information, not weakness. Aliveness is information, not indulgence." —Mary Schaub (closing)
• "Where is your energy most alive? Not where it should be. Not where it looks impressive. Not where you've been told it ought to go. Where is it most alive? Start there." —Mary Schaub (closing)

🔗 Resources

• Freud, Sigmund — Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Essays_on_the_Theory_of_Sexuality
• Jung, Carl — On Psychic Energy (1928) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Psychic_Energy
• Gottman, John — The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work (1999) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gottman
• Losada, Marcial — Positivity ratio research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Losada_ratio
• Bruch, Heike & Ghoshal, Sumantra — Beware the Busy Manager, Harvard Business Review (2002) https://hbr.org/2002/02/beware-the-busy-manager
• Loehr, Jim — The Power of Full Engagement (2003) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_Full_Engagement
• Maroutian, Emily — In Case Nobody Told You (2017) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Maroutian

Keywords

energy, pattern of energy, thermodynamics, activation energy, psychic energy, prana, pranayama, nervous system, emotional contagion, co-regulation, energy audit, boundaries, renewal, recovery, high performance, organizational energy, social movements, attention economy, entropy, mitochondria, jim loehr, john gottman, carl jung, fractals of change, leadership, burnout, transformation, inner work

Disclaimer:

***The information, opinions, and recommendations presented in this Podcast are for general information only and any reliance on the information provided in this Podcast is done at your own risk. This Podcast should not be considered professional advice.***

Credits: Written, produced and hosted by: Mary Schaub. Theme song written by: Mary Schaub

Contact: [email protected]  

Website: M. Schaub Advisory (MSA)

What if the polycrisis — climate breakdown, social fragmentation, economic inequality — isn't primarily a failure of strategy, but a failure of love? Systems scientist and organizational philosopher Dr. Louis Klein joins host Mary Schaub to trace the hidden architecture beneath our most visible crises. Drawing on decades of work in organizational development, complexity science, and collaboration with Morocco's Tamkeen Community Foundation, Louis argues that the governance crisis sits atop a deeper relational crisis — and that systems thinking itself must evolve to invite what it once cast out: wisdom traditions, indigenous knowledge, and the irreducible fact of our shared humanity.

Key Topics

✅Hyper-normalization — Adam Curtis's concept applied to our current cultural moment, and why Gen Z's refusal to "fit in" is a coherent response to an incoherent system

✅The Tamkeen experience in Morocco — how a 10-year learning journey co-creating conditions for human flourishing revealed what mainstream change management consistently misses

✅Tamkeen and Makan al-Makeen — the Arabic concepts of fertile potential and safe, nourishing space that no European language quite captures

Takeaways

💡The crisis is layered. Beneath the polycrisis is a governance crisis; beneath that is a crisis of humanity — of how we relate to each other, to nature, and to ourselves.

💡Growth as anxiety. Our addiction to extraction and economic growth is rooted in a legitimate but distorted impulse: the fear of fragility. Understanding that impulse with compassion — rather than judgment — is the beginning of change.

💡The future is invited, not engineered. Transformative change doesn't come from moving from point A to point B. It comes from recognizing what already wants to grow, and creating conditions for it.

💡Capacity isn't built — it's recognized. The shift from "capacity building" to "capacity recognition" is not semantic. It changes the entire posture of leadership, change work, and community development.

Memorable Quotes

🎤"Don't look for love — just remove the barriers you put up to find it." — Rumi, cited by Louis Klein

🎤"You don't need to earn your living. You're living already."

Resources / External Links 

🔗 Adam Curtis, HyperNormalisation (2016 documentary) — BBC iPlayer / YouTube — on the Soviet concept of living a hollow lie for lack of alternatives, applied to our current cultural moment

🔗Donella Meadows et al., The Limits to Growth (1972) — the Club of Rome's landmark systems simulation, referenced throughout

🔗Tamkeen For Our Humanity Foundation (Morocco) — tamkeencommunity.org — the organization behind the 10-year learning journey discussed in depth

🔗Louis Klein's writing on the Tamkeen experience — co-authored with Karima Kadaoui; searchable via the Systems Sciences community and Louis's organizational profiles (IFSR — International Federation for Systems Research

Keywords  

systems thinking and love · polycrisis solutions · organizational transformation · humanizing organizations · Louis Klein systems scientist · Tamkeen Morocco human flourishing · conscious change management · limits to growth Club of Rome · reflective organization · safe and nourishing spaces · complexity and change · love in leadership · HyperNormalization Adam Curtis · capacity recognition · fractals of change podcast

Disclaimer:

***The information, opinions, and recommendations presented in this Podcast are for general information only and any reliance on the information provided in this Podcast is done at your own risk. This Podcast should not be considered professional advice.***

Credits: Written, produced and hosted by: Mary Schaub. Theme song written by: Mary Schaub

Contact: [email protected]  

Website: M. Schaub Advisory (MSA)

We tend to think of boundaries as restrictions — limits that hold us back. But boundaries are what make anything possible. In this episode, Mary explores boundaries as a universal pattern: the structures that define what is inside and outside a system, regulate what flows in and out, and protect the capacity that makes growth sustainable. From cellular biology to family systems, from organizational design to spiritual traditions, the pattern holds — and understanding it changes how we relate to ourselves, each other, and the systems we're part of.

✅Key Topics

• What boundaries actually are — and why filters, not walls, is the right frame
• Autopoiesis and the biology of self-maintaining systems (Maturana & Varela)
• The immune system as a model of self/non-self-distinction 
• Polyvagal Theory and how the nervous system regulates input (Stephen Porges)
• Family systems and the spectrum from enmeshment to disengagement (Salvador Minuchin)
• How porous and rigid boundaries show up differently — and what drives each 
• Organizational boundaries: bounded rationality, decision rights, and information flow (Herbert Simon)
•  Societal boundaries: identity, belonging, and imagined communities (Benedict Anderson)

💡Takeaways

• Boundaries exist on a spectrum — too rigid leads to brittleness; too porous leads to dissolution. Healthy systems calibrate, not eliminate
• What looks like generosity is sometimes a lack of boundary. What looks like strength is sometimes protection from vulnerability
• Building healthier boundaries starts inside — getting clear on what is yours to carry before negotiating anything with anyone else
• In relationships, boundary erosion doesn't always look like conflict. Sometimes it looks like losing yourself gradually in a pattern you never consciously chose
• Organizational clarity — defined roles, decision rights, structured information flow — is boundary design at scale.
• Revisiting your boundaries isn't a sign that something went wrong. It's a sign that something is growing.

🎤Memorable Quotes

• "Boundaries aren't walls. They are filters." — Mary Schaub

🔗 Resources / External Links  

• Salvador Minuchin — family systems and structural therapy https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapy-types/structural-family-therapy
• Herbert Simon — bounded rationality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bounded_rationality
• Erich Fromm — Escape from Freedom (1941) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_from_Freedom

Keywords boundaries, personal boundaries, systems thinking, self-regulation, polyvagal theory, enmeshment, codependency, organizational design, family systems, biophilia, autopoiesis, relational intelligence, capacity, regression, Fractals of Change, leadership, psychology, transformation, inner work, nervous system

Disclaimer:

***The information, opinions, and recommendations presented in this Podcast are for general information only and any reliance on the information provided in this Podcast is done at your own risk. This Podcast should not be considered professional advice.***

Credits: Written, produced and hosted by: Mary Schaub. Theme song written by: Mary Schaub

Contact: [email protected]  

Website: M. Schaub Advisory (MSA)

What if the most dangerous security breach isn't in your devices — it's in your mind? In this episode, Mary sits down with Corina Pantea, a researcher at the intersection of brain security, cognitive warfare, and digital psychology, to explore how the same techniques used in military psychological operations now run invisibly through marketing, social media, workplace dynamics, and everyday technology. They trace the collapse of the boundary between influence and thought, examine why emotional manipulation is more effective than logical persuasion, and make the case that genuine self-knowledge — not software — is the primary line of cognitive defense.

✅Key Topics

• PSYOPs then and now: from wartime propaganda to ambient digital influence
• The human mind as an attack surface — and why it's largely undefended
• Why social engineering accounts for 90% of data breaches, yet the cybersecurity industry focuses on the other 10%
• How neuromarketing, Psycho-Cybernetics, and social engineering are different names for the same mechanism
• The reptilian brain as the easiest entry point for manipulation
• How chronic dysregulation — stoked by media and social platforms — keeps populations pliable
• Synthetic relationships, AI companionship, and the erosion of authentic identity
• The economics of keeping people helpless
• Practical cognitive self-defense: silence, self-knowledge, high-quality information, and repair in relationships

💡Takeaways

• The human brain hasn't evolved past its ancient vulnerabilities — that's precisely what PSYOPs and modern marketing exploit. The attack surface isn't new; the scale is.
• Emotional triggers bypass rational thought entirely. Fear, urgency, shame, and outrage are mechanisms of access, not persuasion.
• Knowing your own trauma, triggers, and worth is not therapy-speak — it's security architecture. You cannot be exploited through a wound you've already healed.
• Authentic human connection is the last line of defense. When real relationships get replaced by synthetic ones, the final external reference point for reality disappears.
• Information overload is a feature, not a bug — a brain running too many tabs cannot connect the dots.
• You are the value. The economic model collapses without human labor and human consumption. The narrative that you're replaceable is itself a manipulation tactic.

🎤 Memorable Quotes

"If you do not program your brain yourself, someone programs it for you — because they have the exact buttons that work with you specifically." — Corina Pantea

"A human is unhackable when they are sovereign. When you know who you are, there is no trigger point." — Corina Pantea

"Self-knowledge is not a luxury. You need to know yourself because that is a defense position." — Mary Schaub

"Knowledge is not only power — it's freedom." — Corina Pantea

"Knowledge is light in times of darkness and ignorance." — Corina Pantea (episode close)

🔗Resources / External Links (only if applicable)

• Corina Pantea — Follow on Medium and LinkedIn
• MK Ultra — Declassified CIA program on identity manipulation and trauma-induced dissociation. Netflix documentary
• Robert Sapolsky — Behavioral biologist; referenced for work on behaviorism and stress biology. YouTube lectures widely available.
• Daniel Kahneman — Thinking, Fast and Slow — the two-system model of cognition referenced in this episode.
• Jonathan Haidt — The Anxious Generation — cited re: social media's impact on youth and legislative responses in Australia and elsewhere.

cognitive warfare, brain security, PSYOPs, psychological operations, social engineering, neuromarketing, Psycho-Cybernetics, manipulation, attention economy, reptilian brain, digital manipulation, data privacy, cognitive sovereignty, authentic identity, self-defense, trauma, synthetic relationships, AI companionship, dysregulation, information overload, mind hacking, Corina Pantea, Fractals of Change

Disclaimer:

***The information, opinions, and recommendations presented in this Podcast are for general information only and any reliance on the information provided in this Podcast is done at your own risk. This Podcast should not be considered professional advice.***

Credits: Written, produced and hosted by: Mary Schaub. Theme song written by: Mary Schaub

Contact: [email protected]  

Website: M. Schaub Advisory (MSA)

Regression isn't failure—it is a structural response of any system under strain.

 When demands exceed capacity, systems—biological, psychological, relational, and organizational—do not innovate; they revert to previously learned, stabilized patterns. This episode reframes regression as a necessary and predictable part of growth, rooted in recursion and polarity. Through examples from neuroscience, psychology, history, and lived experience, the episode illustrates how contraction follows overextension, and how recognizing regression in real time enables more skillful, intentional response rather than unconscious reactivity.

✅Key Topics

• Regression as a systemic pattern (not pathology) 
• Capacity thresholds and nervous system response 
• Recursion and polarity as underlying structures 
• Psychological regression (Freud, Jung) 
• Eastern perspectives (Buddhism, Taoism) on contraction and rebalancing 
• Historical cycles of societal regression and expansion 
• Relational regression and co-regulation breakdown 
• Organizational regression under pressure (control vs. trust) 
• Pattern recognition and conscious intervention 
• Expanding response range as the essence of growth

💡Takeaways

• Regression is predictable: Systems revert to prior patterns when capacity is exceeded. 
• It is adaptive, not defective: Regression prioritizes speed and survival over complexity. 
• Growth is non-linear: Expansion and contraction operate as a polarity, not a progression. 
• Awareness creates agency: Recognizing regression in real time interrupts automatic patterns. 
• Capacity precedes capability: You cannot solve effectively while dysregulated. 
• Relational systems amplify regression: Two systems under strain can reinforce downward cycles. 
• Organizations behave like individuals: Under pressure, they centralize, control, and simplify. 
• The goal is not elimination: It is upgrading what you regress to and expanding your range over time.

🎤Memorable Quotes

• “Regression isn’t the opposite of growth. It’s part of the pattern.” 
• “When life asks more of you than you’re able to give, you don’t become more capable—you fall back on what’s already wired.” 
• “The system doesn’t invent something new under pressure. It pulls from what it already knows.” 
• “Regression is efficient. It’s not trying to be right—it’s trying to be fast.” 
• “Growth is about expanding your range of response. Regression narrows it.” 
• “You’re not responding as who you are today—you’re responding as who you were when that pattern was learned.” 
• “Regression isn’t a deviation from growth. It’s how growth stabilizes.”

🔗Resources  

• Sigmund Freud — Concept of regression as return to earlier developmental coping strategies 
• Carl Jung — Regression as part of individuation and integration 
• Buddhism — Contraction of awareness under suffering 
• Taoism — Rebalancing through natural compensatory movement 
• Historical examples referenced: 
  • Collapse of the Western Roman Empire → fragmentation → later Renaissance expansion 
  • Post-World War I instability → authoritarian regression → post-World War II global cooperation

Regression, systems theory, recursion, polarity, nervous system, capacity, contraction, expansion, psychological patterns, Freud, Jung, Buddhism, Taoism, organizational behavior, leadership, stress response, adaptation, co-regulatio

Disclaimer:

***The information, opinions, and recommendations presented in this Podcast are for general information only and any reliance on the information provided in this Podcast is done at your own risk. This Podcast should not be considered professional advice.***

Credits: Written, produced and hosted by: Mary Schaub. Theme song written by: Mary Schaub

Contact: [email protected]  

Website: M. Schaub Advisory (MSA)

Human beings are not wired for productivity or achievement—they are wired for connection. Yet modern life increasingly disrupts that foundation, leaving many navigating stress, trauma, and fragmentation without the relational systems the nervous system depends on.

In this conversation, Mary Schaub speaks with psychologist Dr. Megan Schmidt about connection as a biological process—rooted in co-regulation, implicit memory, and the body’s ongoing “conversation” with others. At the center is attunement—the experience of “feeling felt”—as both the origin of development and the pathway to healing.

✅ Key Topics

•  Co-regulation as the foundation of human development 
•  Attachment, implicit memory, and early nervous system formation 
•  Misattunement and adult patterns (hypervigilance, collapse, self-doubt) 
•  Attunement and “feeling felt” as mechanisms for growth and repair 
•  Rupture and repair beyond apology 
•  Over-attunement (“fawning”) and boundaries as regulation 

💡Takeaways

•  Connection is biological, not optional 
•  The body encodes experience before conscious awareness 
•  Attunement organizes identity, emotion, and meaning 
•  Repair is relational, not verbal 
•  Regulation cannot be achieved through cognition alone 

🎤 Memorable Quotes

• “We are mammals… designed to co-regulate… in a body-to-body conversation.” — Dr. Megan Schmidt
•  “Our body tells a different story than the one we can explain.” — Dr. Megan Schmidt
•  “Behaviors that seem problematic are often adaptations.” — Dr. Megan Schmidt
•  “You can’t think your way into this—you have to feel it.” — Mary Schaub

🔗Resources

•  Gabor Maté — https://drgabormate.com
•  Bessel van der Kolk — https://www.besselvanderkolk.com
•  Still Face Experiment — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apzXGEbZht0
• NICABM — https://www.nicabm.com
•  Polyvagal Theory — https://www.polyvagalinstitute.org
  
  

co-regulation, attachment theory, trauma, nervous system, emotional regulation, attunement, relational psychology, developmental trauma, neuroplasticity, recursion, identity patterns, dissociation, polycrisis, leadership psychology, somatics, consciousness, human connection, behavioral health, systems thinking, transformation

Disclaimer:

***The information, opinions, and recommendations presented in this Podcast are for general information only and any reliance on the information provided in this Podcast is done at your own risk. This Podcast should not be considered professional advice.***

Credits: Written, produced and hosted by: Mary Schaub. Theme song written by: Mary Schaub

Contact: [email protected]  

Website: M. Schaub Advisory (MSA)

Recursion is a foundational pattern: systems feeding outputs back into themselves, shaping continuity and change.

This episode explores recursion across mind, relationships, organizations, and society—from identity and trauma to culture and systems. We don’t escape the loops we’re in. We change them—iteration by iteration.

💡Key Takeaways

•  Recursion drives both stability and change 
•  The present is built from repeated patterns of the past 
•  Identity is recursively constructed through narrative and behavior 
•  Relationships reflect repeated interaction patterns 
•  Culture and organizations emerge from repeated behaviors 
•  Social systems are sustained by reinforcing feedback loops 
•  Awareness enables intervention 
•  Small changes, repeated, reshape systems 

🎤Memorable Quotes

•  “The system becomes the input to its own future.” 
•  “Over time, biography becomes strategy.” 
•  “We live inside the stories we repeat.” 
•  “Trust is built through repeated experience.” 
•  “Culture is recursion made social.” 
•  “Institutions become what they repeatedly rehearse.” 

🔗Resources

•  Hofstadter — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_loop
• Jung — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individuation
•  Watts — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Watts
•  Ram Dass — https://www.ramdass.org/
•  Fromm — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_Fromm
•  van der Kolk — https://www.besselvanderkolk.com/
•  Levine — https://traumahealing.org/
•  Bromberg — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_M._Bromberg
  
  

Related Episodes

•  Emergence — https://fractalsofchange.buzzsprout.com/1783825694/episodes/14614664-emergence
  
  
•  Polarity — https://fractalsofchange.buzzsprout.com/1783825694/episodes/14701886-polarity
  
  
•  Disruption — https://fractalsofchange.buzzsprout.com/1783825694/episodes/14795072-disruption
  
  
•  Thomas Gartenmann — https://fractalsofchange.buzzsprout.com/1783825694/episodes/14864025
  
  
•  Cottrell & DelMay — https://fractalsofchange.buzzsprout.com/1783825694/episodes/14732069
  
  

Disclaimer:

***The information, opinions, and recommendations presented in this Podcast are for general information only and any reliance on the information provided in this Podcast is done at your own risk. This Podcast should not be considered professional advice.***

Credits: Written, produced and hosted by: Mary Schaub. Theme song written by: Mary Schaub

Contact: [email protected]  

Website: M. Schaub Advisory (MSA)

We don't have a leadership crisis. We have a nervous system crisis. Executive coach, organizational psychologist and Founder and Managing Partner of Aergon, Dr. Thomas Gartenmann joins Mary Schaub to explore what happens when human biology — designed for a slower, smaller world — collides with the accelerating complexity of the polycrisis, the 24-hour news cycle, and the relentless pressure of modern organizational life. The result, Thomas argues, isn't bad behavior. It's biology operating without awareness.

Drawing on decades of work with leaders across cultures — from Swiss boardrooms to Asian multinationals to US consulting firms — Thomas traces a path from the body's automatic survival responses to the kind of conscious, relational presence that transforms not just individuals, but the systems they lead. Along the way, the conversation moves through road rage and Swiss train precision, childhood scripting and shadow selves, singing in a choir and what it taught him about listening, and the Egyptian philosopher whose answer to "who is the most important person?" stopped both host and guest in their tracks.

Key Topics

✅Fight / flight / freeze / fawn responses in homes, teams, and organizations

✅Leadership as modeling: culture change starts with the leader’s regulation

✅Responding vs reacting (Viktor Frankl’s “space”)

✅Playfulness and the “jester” archetype as a tension-release mechanism

✅Identity, self-states, and context (“Who are you, and how many?”)

✅Shadow in individuals and organizations; the risk of rigid labels (“toxic culture”)

✅Relational ethics: presence with “the person in front of me”

Takeaways

💡Threat compresses time. When activated, we’re not in the moment—we’re in the past, running a familiar script.

💡Awareness creates options. Naming internal activation (“I’m feeling angry” vs “I am angry”) opens a wedge of choice.

💡Regulation is contagious. A leader’s dysregulation spreads; a leader’s steadiness can also stabilize a room.

💡Language matters, but the body leads. Insight helps, yet real change comes from practicing state-shifts under pressure.

💡Joy can’t be forced. Chasing it directly often backfires; it tends to arise as a byproduct of safety, attunement, and flow.

💡Culture is patterned imitation. What becomes “normal” spreads—especially under stress—unless interrupted by conscious modeling.

Memorable Quotes

🎤 “The harm we’re facing today isn’t caused by bad people or bad intentions. It’s caused by nervous systems operating beyond their capacity.”

🎤 “If our nervous system is in fight, flight, freeze, fawn, we’re just reacting… We can’t create the future out of the past.”

🎤 “I make a difference between reacting and responding… I choose my response.”

🎤 “Life is a below-the-neck experience. It’s not happening in our head.”

🎤 “If I realize I’m not my thought… that relaxes me.”

Resources / External Links 

🔗Thomas Gartenmann — Airgon (airgon.com) — his consultancy integrating psychology and business leadership

🔗The Emperor’s Cupboard (2022) — Western psychology + Eastern wisdom for business leaders: https://a.co/d/02LodV3e

🔗Espresso your Mind (2024) — A–Z insights into psychology: 

🔗Viktor Frankl — Man's Search for Meaning — the foundational text behind the stimulus-response gap framework referenced throughout

🔗Adam Curtis, HyperNormalisation (2016) — BBC — referenced in context of collective cultural stagnation (also cited in Episode 30 with Louis Klein — a nice thread to draw across the season)

🔗Christian Madsbjerg — Look: How to Pa

Disclaimer:

***The information, opinions, and recommendations presented in this Podcast are for general information only and any reliance on the information provided in this Podcast is done at your own risk. This Podcast should not be considered professional advice.***

Credits: Written, produced and hosted by: Mary Schaub. Theme song written by: Mary Schaub

Contact: [email protected]  

Website: M. Schaub Advisory (MSA)