Human Becoming

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In this week's episode, I explore two teachers - suffering and compassion. I discuss what it means to open your heart to the suffering of the world and  to allow the rigid categories of disconnected self/other to dissolve. I walk you through my journey with compassion and what I have learned along the way. (Hint: Like suffering, compassion is entwined. Finding compassion for 'other' and 'self' is a co-occurring process - thus, we find compassion for the 'other' through the 'self', and for the 'self' through the 'other'). I speak about the radical potential of compassion, and how fundamental it is in moving us towards our dreams of a liberated world.

This episode is also about holding complexity, about holding space for the paradoxes that arise when we meet the world fully and attempt to chart this unfamiliar terrain with language. This is coupled with a mini quantum physics rant about the quantum superposition principle and how I am thinking about the limits of language as we attempt to capture the immensity of our human experience. I hope that you will join me on this journey!

Recommended reading from this episode: The Compassionate Life by Marc Barasch, and the Compassion Book by Pema Chodron, as well as any book by/about His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

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In this week's episode, we will honour and praise anger, an emotion that can be hugely transformative when it is deeply understood.  This stance on anger that I offer is radically different to the messages that many of us have received around anger through our socialization, and I ask you to be gentle and non-judgmental with yourself as we walk through anger together.
I also introduce my 'theory' of the podcast - that we are in a relationship lab and are able to understand ourselves better through the relationship that we are creating. In this relationship, I invite you to bring your sacred anger to the table, and to spend some time with me sitting deeply in this anger, and becoming curious about it. We will talk about the geography or landscape of our anger,  as well as our core wounds, and I will introduce you to the anger bubble - which has greatly helped me in understanding my anger. This episode, at it's core, is about honouring all of our emotions, and moving from judgment of them to curiosity about them - no matter how 'bad' or 'good' we have previously labelled them.
This is an unashamedly anger honouring, anger loving space. Let us sit in deep anger together.

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This is our second embodied practice, and in it I will be leading you through a 3 step breathwork exercise to connect you to your body more deeply. This is a quickie practice, and once you've listened to it you will be able to lead yourself through it whenever you would like to ground, and connect with yourself and with the world. Enjoy!

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In this episode, I will be speaking about the body and how vital it is in our healing and journey of becoming human. The body is an enormous topic of exploration, but I will talk about the journey that my body has taken in this lifetime. From the shame that arises from our gender socialization, to sex and boundary crossings, to contemplating the nature of my suffering through my descent (or ascent?) into madness. I share how, it was only through allowing myself to become hopeless, and to embrace my suffering, that I could escape the confines of my mind and find refuge in my body. I am weaving many stories together in this episode, and I hope you enjoy the journey – and that it takes you to unexpected places.

Recommend reading/listening after this episode:

Men, Women, and Worthiness by Brené Brown, and The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk (which, I will always recommend when speaking about the body – even though I don’t specifically address trauma in this episode). I’ve spoken about The Body Keeps the Score before, but Brené Brown is an incredible shame researcher, and I think everyone should read (or listen in this case) to her work!

If you’d like to connect, send me an email at [email protected] or follow me on Instagram @tumi.moloto and @humanbecomingpodcast. Take good care, and happy Sunday!

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This is our first embodied practice. It is an opportunity to deepen the learnings from 'an ode to the ancestors'. This is an optional practice, but I highly recommend it. It is a guided meditation designed by Joanna Macy, an environmental activist, author and Buddhist scholar, that has been adapted slightly by my mother for her work, and now adapted by me for you! We will walk through the evolutionary process together, revel in the immensity of our human experience and share gratitude for all those ancestors that have made our lives possible. I hope you can meet this practice with an open heart. Enjoy!

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This episode is very special for me; it is an ode to my ancestors and to the ancestors that we all share. In it, I talk about my relationship with the ancestors and what the journey of connecting and building a relationship with them has meant for me. I discuss deep time, creating an ancestral practice, colonial trauma and grief, and the medicine of the ancestors in healing our lives and relationships. I ask that you open your heart, listen, and allow yourself to feel everything that will come up for you. I am wrapping you in armfuls of love - and so are your ancestors. Enjoy!

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In this episode, I talk about the incredible medicine of psilocybin mushrooms - commonly referred to as shrooms or magic mushrooms. I will speak about my history with this medicine, and how it has helped me on my healing journey, as well what I've seen it do for others. I will share my thoughts on why we shouldn't fear these mushrooms - and why they are so important for healing ourselves and this world. At the end of the episode, I'll give you my guide to receiving this medicine for your own healing!

If you enjoyed this episode and would like to know more, I would recommend reading Michael Pollan's book How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence. It is a wonderful book, and it goes into a lot more detail on this history of this medicine, it's criminalization, and what studies are showing about it's potential.

Resource: My guide to using psilocybin mushrooms for your own journeying. Check it out at this link!

As always, if you'd like to connect you can follow me on Instagram @tumi.moloto and @humanbecomingpodcast or email me at [email protected]. Until next week. Take care!

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Insane: In a state of mind which prevents normal perception, behavior, or social interaction.
Mad: Mentally ill; insane.
Sane: Of sound mind; not mad or mentally ill.

These are the definitions of insanity, madness, and sanity according to our dear friend and resource - Google. In this week's episode I am reclaiming the categories of insanity and madness and seeing what they might have to offer us. This is an episode about what it means to 'go mad', and it is told through the story of my personal descent into madness. This episode was inspired by my own confusion around what these categories of being mean for me, and what they mean for our world, and in it I share my ultimate conclusion that insanity is one of the most human responses to living in a world as wounded as ours.

This is a story about walking off the beaten path, about understanding and embracing madness, and ourselves, about finding new ways of looking at old, or known, 'problems', and ultimately - about liberation. The questions that I pose are: How have people, from various walks of life, interpreted the phenomena of madness? What aspects of our society might cause us to 'go mad'? Are there more empowering ways of understanding madness, and the gifts that it might offer our world?

As always, this story is about what it means to be(come) human - in our fullness and complexity. Whether you have danced with madness or not, I believe that this episode will help you to think differently about a phenomenon that, in one way or another, touches and shapes all human lives. 

Enjoy, and take good care!

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Welcome to Human Becoming, a podcast about exactly that - becoming human! In this mini-episode, Tumi introduces themselves, the podcast, and what you can expect if you tune in weekly. Enjoy!

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In the first episode of Human Becoming, I discuss the inciting incidents that put me on the journey of becoming that I am on now. I discuss my mental health diagnoses of anxiety, depression, and bipolar, my suicidal ideation and psychiatric hospitalization, and what these experiences have taught me about my own humanity and the humanity of others. Finally, I talk about how I am living sans psychiatric medication and how the commitment to doing so has brought me closer to myself. 

In this episode you can expect to be challenged on how you think about mental 'illness' and the brain disease model, to learn a bit more about trauma and how it shapes our human experiences, to understand one person's experience being on (and then off) five different psychiatric medications, and finally, hopefully, to be left with more questions and reflections than answers. 

Suggested reading mentioned in the episode:
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. I highly recommend this book to anyone and everyone who is alive and in human embodiment. It is filled with much knowledge and insight, and is truly a transformational book. Whether you know that you have trauma or think that you don't, this book should be required reading for anyone who is human and wants to love, understand and be in good relation with other humans. 

If you'd like to connect with me, you can follow me on instagram @tumi.moloto and @humanbecomingpodcast, or email me at [email protected]. Until next week, take care.