Welcome to another smattering of bite-sized, oven-ready, mini blogs . This month we are focusing on bodywork: interventions that can aid our body's wellbeing, alongside ways to unify the body with the mind. We'll be passing through circadian rhythm, decrepitude, smells, dance and quivering, among other things. Here are some videos to accompany some of these themes...

Emotional Freedom Technique

EMDR demonstration

Vooing

Tension Release Exercises (TRE)

The Butterfly hug

Are you happy with your moral compass? Do you think it's fit for purpose? Would you be up for having it road tested? Then have a listen to this episode. No show notes this week. I'm on smoko.

Games. Playing. Acting. Dressing up. Doodling. Music. Symbols. Imagination. These are just some of the topics we'll be exploring for July. You might want to bring some paper and pens to this episode. As well as your inner child.

"“We need to be childish to understand. Only a child sees things with perfect clarity, because it hasn't developed all those filters which prevent us from seeing things that we don't expect to see.”
Douglas Adams

Here's some links for your attention:

The Roles We Play - Sabba Khan

Ways of Seeing - John Berger

Art of Protest - De Nichols

The Happy Writing Book - Elise Valmorbida

Art Therapy Exercises - Liesl Silverstone

The trouble with this podcast is that there's not enough dissent. It's too fixated on individuals solving their own problems.

There is a whole world of systems, structures and institutions that are failing us day in day out. Can we at least shine a light on this - even if we can't change it overnight? So at the very least we don't end up gaslighting ourselves!!!

This is a sonic journey through a critical lens, passing by evolution, money, voting, democracy, communism, journalism, hell, even small talk. And here's some show notes to add to the general disagreeable nature of the content...

The Triffids Madeline 

Madeline animation 

Where does money come from?

Mid Staffs Report

Wiki page on Harold Shipman

The Women Revolution of Rojava

BBC journalist Andrew Marr interviews Noam Chomsky

Did anyone notice that within the word citizenship there exists the smaller word 'zen'.

This episode sees self-detectivism expands its reach into the realms of universal wellness. Here we share ideas and notions that serve the collective good, not just our own individual needs. Be prepared to be tentatively challenged!!!

Here's some show notes that add to the themes of the episode:

Two Monkeys Were Paid Unequally (You Tube)

Mutual aid

Corporate whoring

Consensus decision making

Article on human-sized

Hannah Arendt: The Quiet Power of Thoughtlessness (podcast)

Person-centredness (You Tube)

Every interactions can be an interventions(You Tube)

We have a process when it comes to death. We call it grieving. But there's not much going on, ritualistically speaking, when death brushes past us. In this episode we will be staying with these reminders, these close shaves. We have instances from poems, songs and prose. While Simon, your host, will also be sharing his own lived experience cheats, inspired by Maggie O'Farrell's non-fiction book I Am I Am I Am.

Here are some more show notes, starting with:

Ten Meter Tower | A Short Film by Maximilien van Aertryck and Axel Danielson

A TIMELINE OF IRA ATTACKS IN LONDON

Freud's Concepts of Thanatos and Eros

Fortune Presents Gifts Not According to the Book

Joe Henry's Ohio Plane Crash

Bongwater's Great Radio

Smog's Lazy Rain

Dr Alimantado's Born for a Purpose/reason for Living

Neko Case's Tightly

Andrew Bird's Fake Palindromes

Courtney Barnett's Avant Gardener

And, and, and... it would a great remiss if we didn't flag up the importance of burping kombucha.

BTW - If you are interested in the logo of this episode, it comes from a medieval movement called Danse Macabre

(Mystery Bonus Track)

How much of our internal world do we understand? Our thinking, feeling, actions? Our senses, hormones, nervous system? Would it be useful to delve into this world for the sake of our wellbeing? If so, listen up.

Here's some show notes:

The Book of Human Emotions

The Action Cycle (aka The Gestalt Cycle)

Bad Faith

Defence mechanisms

Polyvagal Theory

NLP: changing bad memories

If the body expresses what the mind represses then we're going to need some somatic knowledge to help us out.

In this episode Louise shares her lived-experience as well as her professional wisdom when it comes to healing, regulating, and generally being at one with our bodies. She's full of ideas, interventions and challenges. Enjoy.

Here's some links to go with this episode...

Top Ten Somatic Exercises

Grounding Techniques

Brain development and the alarm system

Nervous system/polyvagal theory

Self regulation/Co-regulation

Mirror neurons

Vooing

Peter Levine (1)

Peter Levine (2)

Body Doubling

Isn’t just about everything we do based around relationships in some way or other? Aren’t relationships the source of 99.9% of all our happiness and 99.9% of all our distress? 

In today's episode we are going to explore themes such as games people play, attachments, love, as well as substitutes of love.

Here are some show notes that follow up on some of these themes...

Games people play

https://xabierlopez.co.uk/a-classification-of-games-people-play/

A strange situation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRejV6f-Y3c

The elephant in the room

https://www.nyc.gov/assets/olr/downloads/pdf/wellness/elephantintheroom-poembyterrykettering.pdf

Harlow's monkeys

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrNBEhzjg8I

Mental Load

https://english.emmaclit.com/2017/05/20/you-shouldve-asked/

It's all very well having a cognitive self. But if we want to work out stuff that isn't so easy to pin-point or find answers to, then we'll likely need a wider approach.

Welcome to the world of creativity - as a means of tapping into our unconscious self. Welcome to the idea that when we are actively expressive we are less dominated by our neocortex and more open to accessing more aspects of ourselves.

In this session you'll be invited to undertake 10 relatively simple tasks. With time and space, alongside pens, pencils and 10 sheets of paper, let's have an experience and see where it takes us.