Reconnecting to my Heart through transformation

Mark [0:00] I just want to welcome Bill Hunter to the Heart of Connection Podcast.  I’ve known Bill for many years and Bill’s an engineer.  He was doing some amazing medical research for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.  In almost, what I’ve seen of it nearly two years of incredible research into developing a medical piece of equipment to help people in the third world countries.   I’m just really pleased to be able to have this opportunity to sit with Bill and have a conversation with him about the Heart of Connection to Self, Others and ‘All That Is.’   Welcome, Bill. Thanks, Mark.  Do you want to just elaborate a little bit more on the brief bio, the brief introduction to your kind self?

Developing Medical Testing Equipment for Developing Countries

Bill [0:52] So this was back when I was probably over 15 years ago that I started work, or in this particular area. It was really about trying to deliver developing countries with particular items of equipment for pathology and for making health diagnoses for people.  We wanted it in a way that was more affordable and better able to be more widely disseminated in developing countries.  Where problems like malaria, and Dengue fever and so on, were pretty endemic.  It was very hard for people to get access to testing to proper testing, which would confirm, whether they in fact, had this disease or not.  So I was in a sort of a vanguard of engineers, I guess, at the time that was spearheading this development of what I’ll call small and low-cost technology.  This would be able to be widely delivered to all sorts of different remote parts of the world, and enable people to have access to better healthcare.   It was a very long journey, a lot of that equipment is now starting to find its way out into the world.  So now there are there have been 10s of thousands of these instruments sold, and many millions of tests performed.  With some amazing outcomes, with things like tests for river blindness and so on, that have come from this technology.  Yes, it was a very interesting, very rewarding, and very, very long journey, shall I say?

Mark [2:37] Can I, as you sharing, watching your laugh there, would you do it again?

Medical Technology takes Energy, Time & Money

Bill [2:43] Well, I would if I had the energy, but I’m now 57. So, one thing people don’t realize with medical technology development is just the amount of time and humongous amounts of money that it costs.  So it frequently takes 15 to 20 years to get something to market and often 10s, if not hundreds of millions of dollars.  So, at 57, I really just run out of time to probably do it again.

Mark [3:13] Coming back to the conversation, the Heart of Connection to Self, Others and ‘All That Is,’ I remember yesterday, at the World Heart of Connection Day gathering.  You raised the question about, there weren’t too many men sitting with the group.  There may be three of us. Yourself, myself and Stuart and John.  The Heart of Connection to Self, Others, and ‘All That Is,’ is there a difference from your experience between men and women’s connection at the heart level?

Men Connect to Ego Driven Pursuits

Bill [3:47] Yes, I think so.  I think women intuitively are able to make those kinds of heart to heart connection. Women are intuitive, I think I won’t say in all cases, but frequently less ego-driven, and more in touch with their, their Soul and their self than men are.

Bill [4:14] Whereas many men get caught up being ego-driven pursuits that end up just taking over their lives.  As a result, they – it becomes difficult for them to relate to other men on anything else other than on an ego level.  So, on that sort of level that says, what I’ve

Connecting to my Inner Still Voice & my Dreams

Mark [0:00] Good morning Lynette Fox, it’s lovely to be able to welcome you to the Heart of Connection Podcast conversation.  I’ve known Lynette for many years and Lynette was a wonderful trainer in Transpersonal and Emotional counselling.  It’s now changed its name to the Association of Transpersonal and Experiential Psychotherapists (ATEP).  Lynette had been a trainer from Queensland and would come down for nearly two years for 10 day blocks over that two year period. There was a break in between and it was an amazing commitment that Lynette gave to 10 of us to train us in transpersonal and emotional release counselling.  So I’d like to thank you Lynette for that.  Lynette by way of introduction, would you mind offering listeners a little bit of a synopsis on your kind self?

Lynette [1:00] Thank you.

Connections from Primary School Teaching to Jungian Psychotherapist

Lynette [1:03] Well, originally I was a teacher, a primary school teacher.  I became more interested in in-service training. I worked on a really interesting program called the ‘early illiteracy in-service course,’ which is a national program helping and training early childhood and early primary teachers in early literacy strategies.  That’s when I started to work with adults more, and I really enjoyed that.  I also really loved working with children and then at some point, I changed over, I heard a call from within me to leave teaching, but I didn’t know what else to do.  So I resisted leaving teaching at first and finally, I found there was no more energy to be in teaching.  So I developed chronic fatigue and as I result I took a few months off and then my energy didn’t still didn’t come back so I took some more time off.   Then I started to do in that time, just be interested in a range of different interests that I had.  So I started investigating those.  I went off and did a one day programme called emotional release for children.  It was while I was doing that, by the end of the day, I thought, this is the work I want to do.  I started training with Mark Pearson, and his Emotional First Aid for children course – it was a 15-day course at that time.  I then decided to train as a counsellor in order to put that into action.  So that’s how I found my way into Transpersonal and Emotional Release Counselling.

Connection to Mark Pearson & Patrica Nolan

Mark [3:21] Was Patricia Nolan involved with Mark back in those days around the Emotional First Aid for children?

Lynette [3:26] Yes, that’s right.  She was Patricia Nolan and Mark they were actually developing all their ideas and strategies.  They worked in a particular orphanage I think.  They were working in children’s home or orphanage, where they develop their attitudes and work with the children that had all sorts of emotional issues in the home.  Mark was moving to start working in Toowoomba, with Pat Quinn at the Portunicla centre.   When he was working at the Portunicula centre, that’s where I met him as he had put a flyer out for this one day program.  I went along to it.  I lived in Brisbane, but I traveled Toowoomba.  That opened up to eventually I did all of Mark’s training and I trained as a Transpersonal and Emotional Release counsellor with Pat Quinn in Toowoomba, and Mark.  After this, Mark and Helen Wilson started their own business and at that point, Pat was looking for staff members. I applied actually to be an apprentice trainer and I worked there on a part-time basis for 10 years, roughly.  During that time was when I took a break and was working in Melbourne with you, Mark at that point.  So, there was a period where I wasn’t working in Toowoomba because it was a bit much being away so of

Connecting to the Divine Core of Self

Mark [0:00] It’s a real honor today to be able to have a conversation with Corrie van den Bosch. I met Corrie many, years ago when I came back from Perth.  I was starting my inner journey and Corrie was ERC (Emotional Release Counselling) back in those days, which now called ATEP (Association of Transpersonal & Experiential Therapies).  Corrie trained with Pat Quinn in Toowoomba, up in Queensland.  They are both Missionary of Sisters of Service.  Corrie has journeyed with me and been a teacher for many years and it’s a real honor a privilege to be able to sit here today and have the Heart of Connection Podcast conversation with her, so welcome, Corrie.

Corrie [0:51] Thank you, Mark and a lovely title for your series Heart of Connection.

Mark [0:58] The Heart of connection to me is really important, in terms of our connection to our self, others and all that is.  I’m not sure where I got the idea.  It just came to me the idea.  My experience of the inner work, for me, the inner work has been about healing a lot of the wounds that the childhood wounds, all the wounds that we accrue.  I guess, metaphorically, they sit in the heart and prevent people from going there and connecting there.  Having done the inner work, it’s such a gift to be able to connect – heal those wounds, to be able to open my heart and connect much deeper to my heart, so thank you.

Connected to own heart in an intimate way

Corrie [1:51] Yes and if you’re not connected to your own heart, in a really intimate way, you don’t connect to others in an intimate way either.  We become defended.    I don’t want you to touch my broken heart or the wounds in my heart. So I just keep you at that bit of a distance, no matter how nice I am to you.  Once we really get to know our own hearts and realize that alright, they might have carried wounds, but they’re still our hearts.   That’s the core of my life is the core of my vitality, and the capacity to really relate to life.

Mark [2:33] Corrie, can you let listeners know?  Would you mind, it might be a rude question to ask, but the vitality and the energy that is still with you, at this stage in life, how do you do it?  How do you?  How do you get that vitality, and that energy, that flow?  Is that from connection to yourself, connection to the universe, how do you do it?

If you're not connected to your own heart, in a really intimate way, you don't connect to others in an intimate way either. Click To Tweet

Connected to my Flow more than ever through God

Corrie [2:58] I think in some ways I am more in the flow now than I’ve ever been.  It seems strange, at this stage of my life.  I think for me, it’s like living my life against the big horizon.  The big horizon for me, is, first of all, God.

Corrie [3:21] God who is present in the whole of the universe in every being, whether it’s the plants in the garden, or whether it’s the people I know, or whether it’s the morning light, and as I sit here every day and do my morning meditation, and the dawn comes.  The dawn is on the kitchen side.  On the opposite side, which I face, there’s a house and it’s got windows, so I can always look up and see ‘aahh’ – there’s the dawn reflected in those windows.

Connected to my Vitality ~ being in the Present Moment

Corrie [3:59] So for me, vitality comes when we are really present in the moment, present to whatever is there, or whoever is there.  With, and that’s why I like the Heart connection with our heart open.  So that, when that presence is of someone who is in pain, your heart is open to connecting with that.

Corrie [4:31] Basically, it’s love, really.  It’s love, and are more than ever in love with

Connection to my Flow-States and Creativity

Mark [0:00] Lisa, welcome to the Heart of Connection podcast. I’m your host, Mark Randall. It’s lovely to have this opportunity to sit here for the next 20 to 30 minutes and having a conversation with you about the Heart of Connection and what it means to you.

By way of introduction, would you mind letting listeners know who you are? What your role and what is Lisa all about?

Lisa [0:20] Sure, thank you so much for having me, Mark. My name is Lisa Hein, I am the owner of a design agency in Geelong called Evolution Design Agency.

 

World Heart of Connection Day meeting

Mark [0:25] How did we meet? We met through the World Heart of Connection Day idea – that’s how we were first connected?

Lisa [0:30] Yeah. So you came to have a chat to me about how to take that idea to the next level? And what it could be.

Mark [0:37] The connection was through your friend, mutual friend now, Trish.

Lisa [0:50] Yes, beautiful Trish. Lovely person.

Mark [1:00] So, The World Heart of Connection Day was an idea that I found through the podcast conversations with people. Is when we have a connection and particularly a connection – not just to self, others, and ‘All That Is.’ When it gets into the “All That Is,” it goes very deep. There’s just so much beautiful energy there in people. I wonder whether we’ve all just got that natural energy, of loving-kindness and compassion to give to Mother Earth, to give to each other, to give to the world basically.

Lisa [1:49] I love this.

Connecting to our Vulnerability we find Love

Mark [1:52] I really have hope that we all do. I think a significant percentage of us do, in the world. I think that a lot of us – we touched on vulnerability before. I think a lot of us, it is part of being vulnerable, putting that loving, caring, and trusting side out there into the world. It’s something that is the most rewarding thing that you can do. I think that only through vulnerability, we can find love. Connection with Mother Earth. Something that he said to me – really just got me, Mark. It was when you said, you related it back to the incident of the tragic tsunami and how the world just stood still. We all, our hearts just went out to those affected. It really made me think, why is it that it takes something like that for us to send our love, and now hearts out into the world? Why is that? It is a really great example. I mean, it’s beautiful that it happens but it is in also another tragedy that it takes something so devastating for that really occur.

Mark [3:24] Speaking with Janine at the National gathering. We talked about tragedies, and she mentioned the boys in the cave. The divers and how the whole world all came together, connected together to help with the expertise and how to get the divers down and how to get the boys back. All the mothers, all the community, we just came together and there is that heartfelt sense of love and compassion.

Mark [4:00] I am wondering, do we turn it on and off as a race of people? I don’t think we do turn it off, I think it’s always still there. How do we – What do we need to do to keep to make it change in it? So that we can be okay with that vulnerability. We can be more mindful, every day of our lives, in the heart of connection to Self, Others and ‘All That Is.’ What do we need to do you think to perhaps create that space?

Connecting to & needing mindfulness

Lisa [4:38] I think being mindful is a really important word to think about. I think in our daily lives, we might get well I can only speak for myself. We get caught up in daily life in our own worlds and now our minds and what’s going on in the world, it doesn’t really matter. To you know what I mean? Like it just doesn’t matter at all. It just seems as though it does at the moment. In reflection and years have gone by, especially whe

Connected Mother, Business Women & Naturopath 

Mark [0:00] Welcome to the Heart of Connection Podcast, I’m your host, Mark Randall and it’s a wonderful opportunity to sit and have a conversation with you about what the heart connection to self, others and ‘All That Is’ means to you.  Just by way of intro, could you give a brief introduction to your kind self?

Connected to Anglesea where ‘Bush meets the Sea.’

Bree [0:17] Yes. Hi, thank you, Mark, thanks for having me.  My name is Bree, I’m a mother, business owner, and naturopath.  I have two little boys and I own Great Ocean Road Wellness. I also have another manufacturing company Iris practice and I live here in Anglesea.

Mark [0:38] Lovely place to live in isn’t.

Bree [0:40]  It is a beautiful place.

Mark [0:42] The bush meets the sea.

Bree [0:43] Completely.

Mark [0:44] And it’s actually bush here (Laughter).

Bree [0:47] Exactly and beautiful oceans, rawness, and openness.

Mark [0:52] You connected to it?

Anglesea’s My Hearts Home

Bree [0:53] Completely. Yeah, I moved down Anglesea when I was 21.  Had a New Year’s resolution was to learn how to surf and it’s been my heart home ever since.

Mark [1:06] I believe it’s my heart home too but I’m not here and I’m finding the disconnection from the place really painful.  Got to move on.  The heart of connection – How do you – what does it mean to you? How important or unimportant could that concept of Heart of Connection to you?

Connection to Heart is Essential

Bree [1:29] I feel that’s everything.  If there’s no connection with the heart, you have no connection with self. No connection with what is around you.  I feel that, as mentioned briefly, we were talking about before we started was – the seat of the emotion.  I feel if we’re not connected with that – we don’t really understand ourselves or others.  There is a lack of compassion, lack of understanding, everything that goes with a heart.  If it is lacking this particular sadness that comes in people, as well.  So I feel, yes – it’s just – it’s what we are missing.  There is a huge link with heart. I feel there’s great sadness because of that.  There’s also a lot of sadness within the heart that people don’t want to necessarily feel.  So it’s quite an interesting thing – Is it the lack of connection that is bringing the sadness?  Or, is their sadness in the heart that people – it’s too deep to feel and to work through and to understand. It could be from this lifetime, it could be from our families and we don’t quite understand it. So, yeah I feel if there’s a lot of depression and around and if there’s lack of connection of heart, and if you don’t feel safe in it – then there’s you’re not really understanding what is happening with yourself.  Hence, connection with self and then comes anger and projection and so on.  So, then that’s lack of connection with others that come from if – we’re not sitting within the heart space.

If there's no connection with the heart, you have no connection with self. No connection with what is around you. Click To Tweet

Disconnection From the Heart

Mark [1:34] The disconnection from the heart – Is that or could that be from your perspective, because of the sadness or because of the hurts that reside or manifest in there?

Bree [3:23] I feel it’s both, to be honest.  I feel, yeah – there is if it’s too sad to sit in the heart – because – as the heart of the emotion, that it’s our life force, it’s our vitality, it’s everything.  So energetically, yes, I feel that a lot of people struggle with that but I also feel

Connection to Self through Meditation

Mark [0:00] Hello Mary, thank you for being a guest on Heart of Connection podcast.  I’m your host, Mark Randall and it’s always a pleasure to have guests on the podcast.  Just by way of introduction, would you mind giving a brief introduction to yourself please for people who are listening?

Somatic Psychotherapist & leads Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR)

Mary [0:17] Sure, really glad to chat with you again, Mark.  I live in Brisbane, and I am a somatic psychotherapist.  I am also a mindfulness stress reduction meditation teacher.  I’ve lived in Australia for 14 years.  I’ve been doing this work for about 11 years.  I’ve always had an interest and have always pursued for a very long time, my late 20s meditation.  I also co-lead meditation retreats, silent retreats, and the insight system and love them.  We do a few of those every year. I do that with Timothea Goddard and the Mindfulness Training Institute here in Australia.   Another part of my work is that I support people who are wanting to teach mindfulness and so they can really understand this process from the bottom up and how can impart this in an authentic way.  I love that work as well, supporting people committed in the journey of finding more about it. for themselves personally, and then how they carry it into the world.  I  am an expressive arts therapist and I  love sand-tray and symbol work.  And that covers a part of what I’ve been doing for the last 10 years or so.

Mark [1:50] When you’re teaching up and coming mindfulness teachers, from the bottom up – are you teaching them to connect to themselves first?

Connection to the self – Meditation offers

Mary [2:03] Very much so.  I see people at actually the stage where they’ve already done some preliminary training.  I’m supporting them as both admissions and program advisor.  I’m not actually at the training but I am kind of holding people’s hands for a year, and I speak to them as they come into it.  So I do notice that it really is important that people turn up to themselves and to what their motivation is:  why am I interested in bringing this to others?  That in itself is a huge area of exploration because we can get very excited about something personally for ourselves, and we can often go too quickly.  We can evangelize about this and want to share it with “everyone”.  So it is important to keep coming back to,  what motivates me?  What is inside me?  Kind of really connecting to themselves first otherwise it won’t be authentic when people are sitting in front of us and we’re sitting and breathing in silence with them; one can feel that.

Mark [3:13] What was your connection to meditation?  What took you back there many years ago to check in with yourself?

Mary [3:23] Oh, yeah – it is a bit of a story. I’ll try to do this short version of it.

Interested in Abstract & different religions

Mary [3:32] I was always interested in the abstract unseen world as I was raised as a Catholic.  I began to suspect around as a teenager that there was a lot more out there.  I was really interested in other religions but wasn’t living in a context (where I grew up in America)  of being able to be exposed to that diversity.  I ended up going to high school on a sailing ship— my parents sent me off to a private school that travelled on a ship around Europe.  I remember going port to port in Africa, Greece, all sorts of countries.  I was exposed to different kinds of people, different colors, and different fates obviously.  It really crafted me.  So I started reading up on different religions and faiths.

Then I would say fast forward to ten years later when I ended up livin

Mark [0:00] Hello, Andrew, welcome to the Heart of Connection podcast.  I’m your host Mark Randall and it is a great opportunity to sit here with you at the Association of Transpersonal & Experiential Psychotherapists (ATEP) gathering and to have a conversation about the Heart of Connection and what it means to you.

Just by way of introduction, would you mind giving a brief introduction as to Andrew, and life in his universe?

Connecting to Acupuncture & Men’s Circles

Andrew [0:18] Well, New South Wales Foster-Tuncurry.  I’m an acupuncturist in Tuncurry.  I’m interested in men’s groups and I’m currently starting up one in Ellenborough in a Wauchope.  Wanting to get men on board into some really deep journey work, or maybe not so deep.  To start – is just getting men interested in hanging around with each other and just sharing space together.  That’s what I’m sort of just inviting myself into at the moment with some like-minded men so trying to get a group together?

Mark [0:56] What’s the connection there for you?  How does that connect to you?

Connection to Like-Minded Men

Andrew [1:11] Connects me because I’d like to spend a bit more time with like-minded men.  The connection without a beer in our hands.  So we can socialize in more of an un-ordinary space, I suppose.  This then becomes ordinary, everyday normal, but away from every day at the same time.  So, it’s sort of just creating a space for ourselves and then that lets us go a little bit deeper.

Mark [1:46] In letting it go a little bit deeper with that bring us men closer to connect to our hearts?

Andrew [1:54] Yeah, for sure.  That’s what it’s about.  When I said going deeper than – that really probably translating for me would be, connecting more with your feelings, than what’s going on inside you.   The hearts in there somewhere (Laughter).

Connecting Men to their Hearts

Mark [2:16] Yes, it’s interesting, I do a lot of work with men through Geelong Men’s Counselling Service and men we seem to be so up in our heads and so disconnected from our hearts.  Would that be something you’d share or is it similar?

Andrew [2:22] Yeah, I’d share that belief.  Yeah, there’s a bit of a split between the head and the heart I’ve found in my life.  When you do get a bunch of guys together and talk this sort of subject, you really do find that we all start in our heads when we get together and then we sort of overtime drop down a little bit, you could say drop down into our hearts, and start sharing a little bit deeper stuff, within a safe environment.

Safe Men’s Circles to Share our Vulnerabilities

Andrew [3:07] That’s what we’re trying to get going at Ellenborough for our men’s group.  A safe place to get a little bit real, I suppose and drop down into your heart.  Be a bit vulnerable in the circle, and what shared in the circle stays there so it’s safe.  Yeah, and then that has the opportunity to drop deeper in your heart and whether that means sharing stuff that you wouldn’t normally share, outside even to your family, that’s a possibility.

Andrew [3:38] So you just open up and if you want to crack open a little bit further you can. You can share a tear or so.  I had the opportunity to do that after my father passed away about a year ago.  I was just in the circle with the men at Ellenborough and I was able to naturally say it’s been a year since my Dad passed away.  I was able to – just the tears just naturally came up in there.  I wasn’t expecting that, I wasn’t planning that. It just sorts of – the emotion just came up.  That was a blessing because I hadn’t really cried that much after his death but in that environment knowing that I

Connection to Unconditional Love & Respect

Mark [0:00] Rachel, thank you for being a guest on the Heart of Connection podcast.  I’m your host Mark Randall and it’s lovely to have this opportunity to speak to you about the process and your experiences at heart of connection.  Just by way of introduction, could you give a brief introduction to yourself, please?

Connection & Love of Role at Work

Rachael [0:17] Yeah, sure.  My name is Rachel.  I’m 39 years old and I currently I am living in Bacchus Marsh which I absolutely love.  I work for Cadburys chocolate so that can make anyone happy really?   I very much do enjoy my role in my job at the moment, so that’s me.

Mark [0:41] Living in Bacchus March is that a connection to the country?

Lovingly connected

Rachael [0:48] Well yes.  My partner lives here and I’ve moved out here with him.  As you would know, I lived in Williamstown most of my life and loved the sea. I love the ocean.  Moving out here, it’s completely different, it’s quiet, it’s lovely and it’s beautiful.  A much more connected to nature than I felt the ocean could provide for me. So I’m really loving it out here.

Mark [1:18] How do you work at connecting to yourself?  What’s your process to check in where Rachael’s at, making sure that you know her well-being is okay?  How and what does Rachael do?

Connecting to myself with various techniques

Rachael [1:33] I use various techniques.  I do like to dabble with crystals. I feel crystals are something that I’ve been able to connect with very well.  In my time, I sort of learned and studied crystals a few years ago, and I just taught myself.  So I would just investigate certain crystals, find out what energies they could provide, and whatever I resonated with.  So essentially, when you’re choosing crystal you, it could be the color, it could be the feel, it could be any of those elements that connect you to that.

Connecting to Crystals

So I did use a lot of crystals and do a little bit of crystal work.  So, if you come home from work, having a bad day, or I also use to play with angel cards.  So of a morning, I might draw an angel card and ask the question, where you know, where could my day go today?   They were my positive – if an angel card may have had a positive affirmation, I’d use that throughout the day.  I use to carry crystals with me throughout the day.  While I’m at work, obviously, those things aren’t always at hand with me.  So, I always just asked the question, because essentially, it’s going to be a feeling before thought on how you’re actually feeling.

Connecting to Angel Cards

So if you’re feeling funny, or you’re feeling a bit anxious, and you’re not sure why it’s just sort of going through the tensing up the muscles and relaxing them to help sort of figure out where is my attention in my body right now.  Then essentially, with you having done those exercises, I found that the answer comes pretty quickly.  It could be, I haven’t had a break for three hours, or I could actually be hungry.  It could be something that someone may have said to me, a few hours ago that has quietly bothered me. So I very much do sit and ask myself the question, what is it that I’m feeling right now?  Where am I holding that in my body?

Mark [3:00] That enables you to connect to yourself?

Rachael [3:02] Yeah, absolutely.

Mark [3:37] Sometimes when we’re connecting to ourselves, we’re connecting ourselves to an unpleasant or a painful feeling.  What do you do?  How do you process that sort of emotion and feeling?

Connecting to my emotional release & no judgment

Rachael [3:53] I’m a big believer in not holding anything in.  So I feel if you w

Connection through Heart of Yoga

Mark [0:00] Hello, Jill welcome to the How to connection podcast. I’m your host Mark Randall, it’s lovely to have the opportunity to have a conversation with you about the heart of Connection to Self, Others and ‘All That Is.”  Just by way of intro, would you mind giving an introduction of yourself, please?

Jill [0:16] Sure.  Thanks for having me, Mark. Yes, my name is Jill Harris.  I’m a yoga teacher, a yoga teacher trainer & my Yoga Studio is called Yogabijam. I am studying to be a yoga therapist at the moment.  As well as the other hats of my life, which is a mother and you know, so forth.

Mark [0:32] How many children do you have?

Jill [0:33] I have two boys.

Mark [0:35] Oh great. How old?

Jill [0:37] 12 and 8 years old.  Fun times.

Connections through Yoga Therapy

Mark [0:42] Can you tell me a little bit about yoga and yoga therapy. What does that entail?

Jill [0:47] So, yoga therapy is a way of looking at the person in a sort of holistic sense.  So it’s not just about yoga as per movement.  It’s more about understanding what’s going on in the body, as well as what’s going on in the mind, and the emotions and the whole picture.  Of the person and then applying a practice for that person that can ultimately reduce suffering, which is what Yoga is about.  It is the idea of reducing suffering.  It’s another modality, I guess, for people who are not just having problems within the physical body, but may be problems emotionally and in other layers of their system.

Mark [1:28] When people are experiencing those sorts of problems, does that impact on their connection to themselves?

Jill [1:34] Yeah, sure does. Yes, absolutely.

Mark [1:37] What do you notice?  What do you experience?

Connecting to our Suffering “Dukhum”

Jill [1:40] Well, everybody will present a little bit differently, I suppose.  Generally, there’s this great sense of suffering in some way.  Yoga talks very much about suffering, as being like, they call it “dukhum” which is essentially it means sort of darkness.  So it’s almost like a closing of the heart space if you want to, you know, look at that in those terms.  So people generally find that there’s a restriction of some sort.  It might not be physical, it might be a feeling of restriction.  This can manifest in different ways.  Generally, most people will come to yoga therapy, because they’re suffering in some way and they want to reduce that suffering.

Yoga talks very much about suffering, as being like, they call it “dukhum” which is essentially it means sort of darkness.Click To Tweet

Mark [2:19] And do they move into yoga therapy coming from yoga?  Or might they just be attracted externally to yoga therapy?

Jill [2:28] It can be both ways.  Often, I find generally, people are coming to yoga a lot, often don’t so much need the yoga therapy.  They’re already doing the work in some ways.  Having said that, if there’s a particular injury in the body or something that they that they’ve tried to work through, then yoga therapy would be helpful.  Sometimes I’ll say people who don’t know a lot about yoga at all, really, and they’re just coming to use it as another way to achieve some health in their life.

Mark [2:58] Connection on yoga, how does the connection and yoga merge together?

Yoga Is all about Connection – “Yoke ~ Union”

Jill [3:10] Well, yoga’s is all about connection.  I mean, the word Yoga actually means union.  The root word of yoga is yoke, which is the idea that – it’s the center.  If you think about an egg, you’ve got the egg white and the egg yolk and it’s the merging of those two parts to create the egg.  So Yoga

Connection to Nature’s Life of Love ~ an Eco-Philosopher’s Open Heart

“Gratitude is a state of being in which we feel connected to everything in the universe. It is a fullness of the heart that recognizes the blessings of Nature within and without. Gratitude is love for the goodness of life itself.” ~ Deepak Chopra

Mark [0:00] Caressa, welcome to the Heart of Connection podcast.  I’m your host Mark Randall and it’s lovely to have an opportunity to have you as a guest.  Just by way of introduction, would you mind giving a brief outline of who you are and what life means to you and all the rest of it?  Wonderful to have an eco-philosopher of ECOllaborations – partnering with life on the Podcast.

Connections to Self are multi-dimensional

Caresse [0:15] Cheers Mark, it’s lovely to be here with you.  Well, on many things, I’m aware, I’m a multi-dimensional being.  I think one of the things that’s from what influences my sense of self in the world, is being an eco-philosopher.  So my sense of connection to the earth, and the evolutionary process is pretty central to my sense of identity and my understanding of who we are as humans.   I’m also trained in transpersonal and experiential psychotherapies (ATEP).  That has really, both of those two things really informed my way of being in the world.   What I discovered through my own experience, as well as my study was, how profoundly the world – how profoundly life is meeting us, how profoundly life is in conversation with us. In every moment of our lives. It’s just the most beautiful thing that I realized.

Life meets us in our Evolution

It’s challenging as well, that life meets us in our evolution and if we don’t meet it, we end up in breakdown and violence.  So I’m really keen on supporting people to, meet the evolutionary challenges, the challenges to grow.  It’s kind of, you know, for me the way my reading of nature is, is you grow, you die.   We undergo little deaths all the time when we compromise, I’m not saying something to somebody, not speaking my truth.  I’m killing off parts of myself, or a breakdown of a relationship, and I shut somebody out.   We’re all in those kinds of little dying moments, right throughout our lives, unless we’re prepared to really engage with each of those. To see what the invitation is, you know, that there’s an actual invitation in there from life itself to become more.

Connecting through our ego death

The path of that becoming is often through our own ego death.  Yes, so that’s, that’s the sorts of things I’m interested in curious about, and, now that I’m involved also in another project called ‘Wicked elephants.’  We’re interested in how we take ourselves on how do we actually step beyond ourselves and our own single views, and really heal one another, really connect deeply to one another or even shallowly?  It doesn’t really matter?  How do we step beyond our own perspective and hear, through hearing others in their differences?  Then collaborate in order to generate solutions to some of the wicked problems, like climate change, that we’re facing climate change, domestic violence?  I mean, those really big issues that just don’t have simple solutions.

Mark [3:38] Are we listening?

Caresse [3:40] Are we listening?

Connection with Nature is forcing us to listen

Mark [3:42] Or beginning to listen?

Caresse [3:44] I think we’re being forced into listening.  I think it’s through the crises that we experience, through the flooding in Townsville, or the fires in Hobart or the drought.  We start, have an interest in listening beyond our own separate, self, separate place where I’m where you invested in our creation,