The Way We Connect

Why is our connection to nature so important? How can coaching and therapy in nature be more powerful than sitting inside a room? And if we know nature is so beneficial for us, how can we begin to deal with the grief of losing it?

Fi Garrard is an outdoor counsellor, youth worker, gardener and dreamer based in Cornwall, UK. Her work is primarily outside and all about helping people connect to and be healed through the natural world. "Whether this is expressing grief about the climate crisis in a group or learning about growing vegetables", Fi says, "every encounter brings us closer to our true nature and healing in our inner world creating, I believe real change in the outer world".

As one of my topics closest to my heart, Nature Connection will provide the backbone to the next few episodes. In this episode, Fi and I discuss her work as an outdoor therapist and the transformational power that being in nature can have on her clients, before we delve into the wider issues of dealing with climate grief, trusting in Gaia, and how we might explain our exploitative relationship with the earth.

What is grief, how does it manifest in our lives, and how can we best process it? How does one deal with the loss of both their parents in their early adult years? What are the costs of ignoring grief and trying to power through?

Jenn M Choi is a real human who is passionate about creating impact at scale. As a Writer, Speaker, and Content Creator she tells inspirational personal stories and shares practical life + work lessons to empower people. As an Empowerment Coach, she empowers real humans to make BIG ASS changes and design the life + work they dream of. She’s also the Founder of a marketing communications consultancy.

Her big dream is to finish writing a memoir on her journey of self-love through the grief of losing both parents. Originally from San Francisco, she’s now cozily settled in Berlin.

In this raw and insightful episode, we discuss everything from Jenn's personal relationship with her parents, what it was like to lose them in her late twenties/early thirties, all the way up to reflections on what might happen after death and the importance of having a strong support network.

What are psychedelics (or 'plant medicine')? How can psychedelics help us to reconnect to who we really are, access deeper levels of creativity, connect to other people and tune in to our connection with the earth? And why are more and more folks over in Silicon Valley microdosing?

Rosie Peacock is a Business and Mindset Coach who has also been hugely inspired in her mission by psychedelics. As well as offering psychedelic integration coaching, Rosie is part of an amazing team (including myself) putting together a legal psychedelic retreat in the Netherlands for conscious, creative entrepreneurs - on a private island (date TBC, of course). In this episode, Rosie shares with us her personal journey with psychedelics, the neuroscience behind why psychedelics can have such profound impacts on our mindset, creativity and connection, as well as some of the risks involved.

You can catch the unedited, video version of the interview here!

What is conflict management and mediation? What is the role of emotions in managing conflict? And how can we deal with conflict in quarantine - when we are forced to spend more time than usual with the people we live with?

My guest, Mirella Kreder, is an organisational consultant and mediator, specialised in communication, business psychology and development. She offers business consulting and mediation to all kinds of organisations and individuals seeking such expertise, in the Czech Republic and abroad.

Join us as we discuss the field of mediation - from international conflicts to conflicts in the living room, emotional intelligence, and the stresses of living under quarantine. We recorded this episode under the COVID-19 lockdown.

What is Emotional Intelligence? How can it help us to connect to ourselves and each other - especially during unprecedented times like these, where we are more physically disconnected than ever before? And how can we face the painful and difficult realities facing us and the planet right now?

My guest, Joshua Freedman, is one of the world’s leading specialists on developing and applying emotional intelligence to improve performance. He is the CEO of Six Seconds, the the world’s preeminent emotional intelligence organization, and works all over the world delivering trainer certification programs and keynotes, and supporting practitioners in their life-changing work in business, education, and communities.

Join us for a moving conversation on the collective consciousness of this moment, where we discuss the need to turn towards the pain of climate change and to grieve, the vital lessons we are learning during lockdown, and how EQ might be part of helping us to create a better world.

Are you not interested in sex... or is the sex that's on offer for you just not that enticing an offer? How can your relationship with yourself improve your sex life? And what makes sex truly worth having?

My guest today, Peggy J. Kleinplatz is Professor in the Faculty of Medicine and Director of Sex and Couples Therapy Training at the University of Ottawa, Canada, and is a Certified Sex Therapist and Educator. She is Director of the Optimal Sexual Experiences Research Team of the University of Ottawa and has a particular interest in sexual health in the elderly, disabled and marginalized populations. Peggy has edited four books (listed under Resources), including the book we talk about today,  Magnificent Sex: Lessons from Extraordinary Lovers with A. Dana Menard, Ph.D.

Peggy's decades of research into optimal sexual experiences have found that what makes sex truly 'worth having' is, perhaps, the opposite of what many of us have been taught by Cosmo or porn. In fact, it may be exactly these expectations that set us up for problems in achieving sexual intimacy. What does make for "magnificent sex" turns out not to be anything to do with toys, tips, or tricks -  the results may surprise you.

Emily Nagoski is the award-winning  author of the New York Times bestseller, Come As You Are: the surprising new science that will transform your sex life and The Come As You Are Workbook, and co-author, with her sister Amelia, of Burnout: the secret to unlocking the stress cycle. She began her work as a sex educator at the University of Delaware, where volunteered as a peer sex educator while studying psychology with minors in cognitive science and philosophy. She went on to earn a M.S. in Counseling and a Ph.D. in Health Behavior, both from Indiana University, with clinical and research training at the Kinsey Institute. Now she combines sex education and stress education to teach women to live with confidence and joy inside their bodies.

In this beautiful interview, we talk desire, arousal, stress, Dual Systems theory, and all things sexually "normal" and otherwise. Is the secret to good sex desire, or closeness? What about those people who claim we need to maintain healthy 'distance' in order to create mystery, which in turn fuels desire? How can stress kill our sex drive? How has Patriarchal thinking destroyed the way we relate to our own, and each other's, bodies? Why are we more likely to have an orgasm if we're wearing socks?

How can somebody go from being cheated on, to being non-monogamous? What is Relationship Anarchy? And what do you do when you realise that society's ideas and expectations surrounding relationships don't make sense to you?

Kira Williams (they/them) is a genderqueer trans woman, a critical human geographer and a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Waterloo in Canada. Their research focuses on international migration, political geography and analytical methodology. 

In this episode, we explore ideas of relationship norms, what it's like when you don't subscribe to society's ideas about romantic relationships, and how Kira's relationship with a woman who cheated on them led them to realise they were non-monogamous. This episode originally intended to look into why people cheat, but instead took me down a completely different road - why don't some people cheat? What keeps people monogamous? And what about those who don't conform to those expectations?