Hosted by Matthew Green. Produced by J'aime Rothbard. 

Born into a farming family in Cameroon, Sonita Mbah grew up imagining that she would always be able to make her living off the land. But as she began to recognise how far patterns of colonialism, extraction and displacement still ruled the lives of African farmers, Sonita felt a deeper calling begin to stir. 

In her inaugural appearance as a co-host of What Is Collective Healing?, Sonita shares about her mission to transform the “trauma architecture” of exploitative global food systems in line with a more equitable and sustainable future.

Rooted in a profound appreciation for Indigenous ways of living in harmony with the more-than-human world, Sonita explains how her approach was shaped by her time living among Indigenous communities in Cameroon, and deep dialogues with the Makhuwa people in Mozambique.

The conversation reveals how Sonita’s journey as an advocate for conscious food systems is intimately braided with her personal process of transmuting the collective trauma of colonialism.  Not only does this global imprint live on in her own nervous system, Sonita explains,  neocolonial ways of relating continue to deprive Indigenous communities of acknowledgement and resources to this day.

This deeply moving episode casts a new light on the many ways in which personal, inter-generational and collective trauma histories are enmeshwed with the exploitative ways we produce, trade and consume our food. 

Sonita’s commitment to reweaving these outdated patterns will inspire anyone with an interest in the relationship between collective healing and the kind of systems change needed to pull life on this planet back from the brink.  

Further Resources:

Designing for  Deep Regeneration from the Edges: A Guide for Conscious Transformation of Food Systems in the Polycrisis

Conscious Food Systems Alliance

Pocket Project

About Sonita Mbah: 

Sonita serves as communications coordinator at the Pocket Project and holds a Masters in World Heritage Studies. She is a passionate food grower, permaculture designer and facilitator. For over 10 years, she was the administrator of Better World Cameroon and co-initiator of Bafut Ecovillage, an off-grid learning center. As Executive Secretary of the Global Ecovillage Network Africa, Sonita brings regenerative community and social enterprise development to several African communities. In 2017, Sonita received the Gender Just Climate Solutions Award from the Women and Gender Constituency for empowering women with earthen cook stove technology. Driven by her passion for healing colonial trauma, Sonita took the Principles of Collective Trauma Healing course with Thomas Hübl.

0:00 What is Collective Healing?

1:49 Introduction to Sonita Mbah

5:13 Being in Community is a Healing Process

7:20 Conscious Food System Transformation

10:20 Story : Discovery of Palm Wine

13:50 Corruption within our Global Food System

19:30 Colonialism's Impact on Food Systems

27:00 Confonting Internalized Colonialism and Healing

31:10 Stories from working with Ecovillages in Africa

43:11 Conscious Food Advocacy within larger International Agencies 

44:20 Enriching the Indigenous Sources of Knowledge & Practices

48:20 Future Implications & Possibilities of Restoring Indigenous Wisdom 

 

 

 

This grounding attunment is a prelude to our next episode Crafting Conscious Food Systems, with Sonita Mbah. It delivers new depth, color and gratitude to anybody curious to explore a mindful eating practice. As you are sitting down to your next meal, you are welcome to settle in with this meditation and receive its sumptuous invitation to connect with all of the elemental, human and nonhuman worlds that when recognized, unlock deeper nourishment of food into mind, body and soul.  

About Sonita Mbah: 

Sonita serves as communications coordinator at the Pocket Project and holds a Masters in World Heritage Studies. She is a passionate food grower, permaculture designer and facilitator. For over 10 years, she was the administrator of Better World Cameroon and co-initiator of Bafut Ecovillage, an off-grid learning center. As Executive Secretary of the Global Ecovillage Network Africa, Sonita brings regenerative community and social enterprise development to several African communities. In 2017, Sonita received the Gender Just Climate Solutions Award from the Women and Gender Constituency for empowering women with earthen cook stove technology. Driven by her passion for healing colonial trauma, Sonita took the Principles of Collective Trauma Healing course with Thomas Hübl.

 

Hosted by Kosha Joubert. Produced by J'aime Rothbard.   

Description: For Dr Bayo Akomolafe, Global Social Witnessing is a way to “be with each other in the fires, and not burn.”

As the Pocket Project prepares to launch Phase Two of the Global Social Witnessing Facilitator Training on September 3, 2025,  this episode features a dialogue between Bayo and Kosha Joubert, the Pocket Project CEO, from Phase I of the course. 

 “For those of you who would like to show up for this sharing together, this is not a place of checking each others’ stories – it’s a way of holding with compassion the stories that are emerging,” Bayo tells participants.

“If we don’t start to cultivate the capacities to hold nuance in this way, then we are unfortunately part of the projects of war,” Bayo says. “This is an invitation to a stranger kind of paradigm. It’s about being there with each other in the fires, and not burning.”

This episode offers key insights into the principles of Global Social Witnessing — a potent tool for establishing a sense of presence, sensitivity and agency in relation to the pain and suffering transmitted through the news. 

It also opens a window into what to expect from Phase Two of the facilitator training and self-study courses offered by the Pocket Project in this essential practice. 

To find out more about regular Global Social Witnessing calls hosted by the Pocket Project, please click here.

Further Resources:

Pocket Project 

Phase Two of the Global Social Witnessing Facilitator Training

Self-Study Course: Holding Space for a World in Transition

Global Social Witnessing Calls

About Bayo Akomolafe: Rooted with the West African Yoruba people, Bayo Akomolafe is a widely celebrated international speaker, posthumanist thinker, poet, teacher, public intellectual, essayist and author of two books: These Wilds Beyond our Fences: Letters to My Daughter on Humanity’s Search for Home (North Atlantic Books) and We Will Tell our Own Story: The Lions of Africa Speak. 

Bayo is also the Founder of The Emergence Network, a planet-wide initiative that seeks to convene communities in new ways in response to the critical, civilizational challenges we face as a species. 

He is host of the postactivist course/festival/event, ‘We Will Dance with Mountains’ And currently lectures at Pacifica Graduate Institute, California, and sits on the Board of many organizations including Science and Non-Duality (US) and Ancient Futures (Australia).

0:00 Introduction to What is Global Social Witnessing

1:39 What is Global Social Witnessing?

5:34 Significance of Greeting Each Other

6:55 Curating an Intentional and Emergent Space 

7:50 Story of Martin Luther King and Harry Belafonte

9:13 "Integrating into a burning house"

14:30 The Continuity of Wartime

18:05 Going Deeper, Beyond Consensus and Becoming Different

20:05 Being Habituated into Forgetfulness 

22:40 Staying Open to the Cracks that Are Emerging

24:50 Invitation for Participants to Sit Together 

25:50 Guidelines for Global Social Witnessing 

29:30 As a "Ritual of Presence" 

30:50 Participant refelctions 

32:50 The Future Potentials of Global Social Witnessing 

35:10 Phases of Global Social Witnessing Trainings & Invitations 

 

Hosted by Matthew Green. Produced by J'aime Rothbard.

Born in the former East Germany, Nadja Lichtenhahn started her career as a legal and business strategist, serving 20 years in leadership positions in the film and media  industry. 

In the past decade, Nadja has honoured a deep sense of calling that took her in a new direction: serving as a transformational coach, guide, and facilitator for individuals and organisations. 

In this episode, Nadja describes how the Pocket Project, and the Timeless Wisdom Training and Collective Trauma Facilitator Training  led by Thomas Hübl, has helped her refine her capacity to work with the “reciprocal living field” that unites all life – a core principle of integrating individual, ancestral and collective trauma. 

“I've come to a deeper understanding that this very moment carries all the information that we need,” Nadja says. “And often what I experience in our group work is that we get reflections back of our own light, of our own authenticity, that we often cannot see ourselves.”

Nadja speaks candidly about her lifelong quest to establish a secure sense of belonging after moving to West Germany — tracing the roots of her sense of dislocation and inner-outer divide through her homeland’s collective experience, and her own soul path.

Nadja also opens up about the sometimes challenging process of embracing greater visibility and sharing her authentic voice in her collective healing work — exploring the struggle many practitioners face in publicly owning their gifts as facilitators as they transition from more conventional careers.

The unique quality of Nadja’s transmission will serve as an inspiration to anybody seeking a deeper understanding of how to tap into the power of collective intelligence to change their own life – and the lives of the people around them. 

Further Resources:

Pocket Project

Nadja Lichtenhahn

LinkedIn

Instagram

About Nadja Lichtenhahn: 

Nadja is a coach, guide, and facilitator committed to the responsible stewardship of human life force. She supports individuals, groups, and organizations to navigate complexity by reconnecting with the underlying intelligence of their systems and fostering inner and outer coherence, trauma-restorative presence and integration. 

Born in former East Germany, Nadja spent the first two decades of her career as a legal and business strategist in leadership positions in the film and media industry. Her passion for human and systemic transformation eventually led her to expand into coaching, and facilitation. For nearly a decade, she has been guiding and facilitating transformative processes across personal, organizational, and collective levels. Nadja bridges strategic clarity with deep presence and energetic attunement, helping clients restore authentic agency while strengthening their connection to the collective field and integrating polarities within. She is a graduate of the Timeless Wisdom Training and Collective Trauma Facilitator Training led by Thomas Hübl and his global team.

00:00 Introduction to Collective Healing   02:32 Nadja Describes Collective Healing   04:11 The Reciprocal Living Field   06:41 The Role of Group Awareness   09:57 Personal Healing Journeys   15:53 Meeting & Training with Thomas Hübl   19:30 Each Moment In Time Contains All Information    22:06 Nadja's Personal Healing Process   27:00 How Thomas Hübl Describes Fragmentation    34:00 Collective Patterns of Hiding & Invisibility    39:10 Nadja's Work with Women's Groups   41:50 Bridging Personal and Universal Experiences

Hosted by Matthew Green. Produced by J'aime Rothbard. 

Kosha Joubert, chief executive of the Pocket Project, sees Global Social Witnessing as one of the most potent tools for helping people to access a greater sense of presence, sensitivity and agency in relation to the many crises on our news feeds. 

In this episode, Kosha, one of the co-hosts of the What is Collective Healingis podcast, describes how her own relationship to the practice has evolved since her first remarkable experience with Global Social Witnessing a decade ago, in a workshop run by Thomas Hübl. 

With the Pocket Project launching Phase Two of its Global Social Witnessing facilitator training on September 3, 2025, Kosha explains how this work is helping to birth a new way of being in the world – where we experience our innate inter-dependence in a more intimate, tangible way. 

Global Social Witnessing can also help prepare the ground for working with layers of collective and inter-generational trauma, Kosha explains, by helping people to slow down and recognise “the one sacred thing” that they feel called to do next.

“And the beautiful thing is that as we meet the world more deeply out there, we also meet the world more deeply in ourselves. More intimacy arises within and without,” Kosha says. “And that to me is a miracle.”

To find out more about regular Global Social Witnessing calls hosted by the Pocket Project, please click here.

Further Resources:

Pocket Project

Phase Two of the Global Social Witnessing facilitator training

Self-Study Course: Holding Space for a World in Transition

Global Social Witnessing Calls

Global Social Witnessing Episode with Manda Johnson

 

About Kosha Joubert:

Kosha Joubert is the CEO of the Pocket Project, where she works closely with Thomas Huebl and a global team to grow a culture of trauma-informed care. Kosha is an expert facilitator, coach and organisational development facilitator who has worked on systems regeneration, trauma-informed leadership and post-traumatic growth in more than 48 countries. Kosha has authored several books and received the Dadi Janki Award (2017) for engaging spirituality in life and work and the One World Award (2020) for building the Global Ecovillage Network to a worldwide movement reaching out to over 6000 communities on all continents.

00:00 Introduction to What is Collective Healing  03:25 Exploring Ancestral Connections 05:45 Embracing the Unknown 11:07 The Concept of Collective Healing 12:18 Roots of Collective Healing in South Africa   16:44 Global Social Witnessing: An Overview 17:53 The Birth of Global Social Witnessing 20:18 Personal Experiences with Global Social Witnessing 22:34 The Power of Collective Witnessing 34:00 Discerning Your One Next Step 36:15 Practical Impacts of Global Social Witnessing 47:15 How to Get Involved - Join or Train as a Facilitator 51:53 Conclusion : What is Collective Healing

Hosted by Matthew Green. Produced by J'aime Rothbard.

The Great Famine in Ireland – also known as an Gorta Mór, or the Great Hunger – claimed the lives of a million people, or one in eight of the population. More than a million more only managed to escape starvation by emigrating, many of them children who undertook the gruelling voyage to the United States or Canada, never to see their parents again.

In 2024, Simon Courtney, Bill McCart and Kathy Scott led a year-long Pocket Project International Lab to support people of Irish descent – whether living in Ireland or the diaspora – to explore the legacy of the 1845-1852 famine, and how it echoes into Irish lives in the present.   

In this powerful episode, Simon recounts the deep sense of calling that led him to this intimate work, and how the Lab allowed participants to begin to unearth and integrate what their Irish ancestors were unable to heal in their own time.   

The Lab explored the impact of British colonial policies that led to enormous avoidable suffering and death during the famine years. In a moving exchange, Simon and Matthew (a British citizen), recognise their shared hope that more people from their respective nations will find opportunities to explore what so often remains unspoken between them – and establish deeper connections. 

This episode will be hugely valuable for anyone with an interest in collective and ancestral healing, and all those inspired by Simon’s mission to create more spaces for Irish people to embrace new futures by integrating the most painful chapters of their shared past.  

(You can read more about the Pocket Project Lab on the Great Famine and other Pocket Project International Labs here.). 

Further Resources:

Report on the Pocket Project Lab on the Great Famine   Sacred Storybook: A Tapestry of Healing and Renewal

About Simon Courtney:

Simon is a trauma-informed psychotherapist and coach with a deep reverence for the healing potential of group work and relational facilitation. His approach integrates individual, ancestral, and collective dimensions of healing, grounded in a somatic and systemic understanding of trauma. He is especially drawn to the power of shared space, where witnessing, resonance, and presence can restore what was fragmented and reawaken the soul’s inherent capacity for belonging.   PROMOTIONAL LINK :  The Global Social Witnessing Facilitator Training offers a profound journey into embodied witnessing – cultivating our ability to attend to world events with inner spaciousness and relational depth. This training supports the emergence of a culture of ethical presence, where attention becomes a healing force and leadership is rooted in coherence. https://pocketproject.org/global-social-witnessing-training-phase-2/     00:00 Introduction to Irish Suffering and Historical Context   00:50 The Role of the Irish Diaspora in Healing   01:53 Collective Healing and Personal Reflections   02:04 Exploring the Great Famine's Legacy   05:50 Understanding Collective Trauma   07:42 Personal Journey into Collective Healing   09:21 Engagement with Thomas Hübl's Work   12:49 Deep Dive into the Great Famine 17:00 The Collective Trauma Integration Process   24:34 The Emotional Weight of the Great Famine   32:35 Modern Implications and Reflections   34:20 Irish Refugees and Modern Immigration Issues   35:38 The Deep Impact of an Gorta Mor   36:39 Personal Revelations and Historical Grief 40:11 British Colonialism and Irish Suffering   42:30 Healing Through Collective Trauma Work   45:23 Intimacy and Ancestral Connections   51:20 Practical Impacts on Family and Relationships   01:00:37 Concluding Thoughts and Future Potential

Hosted by Matthew Green. Produced by J'aime Rothbard  Growing up in her native Romania, Teodora Rădulescu was taught that the path to success lay in acquiring enough education and resources to leave the country, and join the millions of her compatriots seeking a better life in Western Europe.

In this deeply moving episode, Teodora speaks about her process of reckoning with the painful legacy of the East-West divide, and her commitment to reclaim the land-based Indigenous practices that makes Romania such a rich repository of culture, kinship and community. 

Training in the principles of integrating individual, ancestral and collective trauma with Thomas Hübl and his global team of practitioners, Teodora began to confront the many ways in which Eastern Europe seemed to have been forgotten by the West – as if wrapped in an “invisible dark cloak.”

As she worked through layers of grief, fear and anger related to the role Austria had played in Romania during the First and Second World Wars,  Teodora discovered a new impulse to connect with people from a country she had long regarded “in my blood and in my bones” as an enemy.

The transformation she experienced – and the network of new connections she began to weave as a result – are a powerful testament to the many ways collective healing can resolve inter-generational wounds, and open a path to a more collaborative future.  

And don’t miss the moment where Teodora – drawing on her love of Romanian folklore – calls in the benevolent female spirits who roam the fields at sunset, ready to extend their protection to those women who can still sing the songs of old.

Further Resources:

Teodora’s website

Teodora’s Instagram

Pathways Collective

About Teodora Rădulescu:

For over a decade, Teodora has lived, worked, and facilitated in intentional communities across Europe. Whether she's training facilitators in climate dialogue, hosting emotionally charged processes on war and justice, or supporting people in reclaiming their voice and vitality, her work is grounded in compassion, fierce truth-telling, and embodied presence.  She is a founder of Pathways Collective, supporting the next generation of Earth-Based Leaders; a certified Trauma-Informed Coach and Facilitator; a Global Ecovillage Network Europe Council Member & Community Builder; and creator of Transform your Triggers. 

  00:00 Introduction to Collective Healing   01:24 Matthew Green's Conversation with Teodora   01:51 What has shaped Teodora's Perspective on Romanian Trauma   04:02 Understanding Collective Healing   06:28 Teodora's Journey into Collective Healing   08:05 The Impact of Eastern European History   12:21 Challenges and Resilience of Eastern Europeans   22:59 Ancestral Trauma and Healing   29:25 The Power of Ancestral Healing   30:30 Historical Context: Romania and Austria   32:16 Personal Journey of Reconciliation   41:38 Connecting with Indigenous Practices   49:30 Facilitating Collective Healing   56:41 Final Reflections and Gratitude

This week we feature a complimentary 11 minute attunment for our listeneners:

This bonus episode offers a guided attunement to support you in connecting to your own internal resourcefulness through an embodied awareness of the resourcing that is always present within your body.

Listen to the full episode with Jaden Ramsey here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7EkFTdNdMxVmh2ddAkMva1?si=aa02e7c0d2bc4ed5

In last week's episode, Jaden shares his perspective on collective healing as a natural, life-affirming process that unfolds when we create spaces of safety, presence, and connection. Through his facilitation of open group sessions, he emphasizes the importance of attunement and resourcing—helping individuals recognize and access the internal and communal resources that are already present but often outside of awareness. Jaden speaks to the gentle power of relational spaces that allow the nervous system to settle, the body to open, and shared experiences to be witnessed and held. In doing so, participants experience a sense of belonging, resilience, and capacity to meet life’s challenges. 

Hosted by Matthew Green. Produced by J'aime Rothbard. 

Intensely dedicated to a daily spiritual practice, Jaden Ramsey noticed that his search for transcendence seemed to be taking him further away from the world – rather than rooting him more deeply in it.

Drawn to the idea of engaging in community, Jaden joined the two-year Timeless Wisdom Training led by Thomas Hübl and team,  and began to learn the principles of integrating individual, inter-generational and collective trauma. 

That process brought Jaden into contact with the many ways in which growing up without his biological father had shaped his life – and prompted him to begin writing letters to the man who had left his mother before he was born.  The letters – which Jaden knew his father would probably never read – grew into an ongoing book project that has helped him recognise his story as part of a larger, collective wound.

In this deeply moving episode, Jaden speaks about how reckoning with the impact of his father’s absence deepened his capacity to create collective healing spaces, particularly for the Black community. These include Reparations Cafés,  run in collaboration with Antoinette Cooper (who featured on Episode Six of What Is Collective Healing?). Jaden speaks about how the sense of belonging fostered in such contexts can unlock the renewed sense of agency needed to drive lasting change – and transcend the sense of separation that keeps old structures stuck. 

This is an essential listen for anyone interested in healing the wound of the absent father; the relationship between collective healing and systems change; and how the gifts people find wrapped in their deepest traumas can help them to serve their communities in new and more potent ways.  

Further Resources

Jaden’s website

Jaden’s Awake in the Dream newsletter

Reparations Cafés

Jaden’s Instagram

About Jaden Ramsey   Jaden is a bodyworker, somatic coach, and facilitator trained in Collective Trauma Facilitation. Through his work weaving artistry with trauma-informed embodiment practices, he creates spaces of restoration where wholeness can emerge. His commitment to collective repair processes is fueled by a deep social curiosity and what becomes possible when we’re in touch with Being. He lives, works, and studies in Northern California.     00:00 Introduction to Collective Healing   01:51 Meet Jaden Ramsey: A Journey of Self-Discovery   03:34 Exploring the Concept of Collective Healing   05:13 Jaden's Path to Collective Healing   10:16 The Impact of Absence and Personal Healing 12:08 Writing Letters to an Absent Father   15:05 Connecting with Ancestral Roots   24:28 The Role of Collective Healing in Personal Growth   29:20 Reparations Cafe: Healing the Black Community   35:19 Rediscovering the Intelligence of the Body   36:15 The Body as a Storage of Ancestral Wisdom   37:56 Collective Embodiment Practices   40:22 The Role of the Body in Healing Trauma   44:03 Creating Safe Spaces for Black Bodies   48:19 The Impact of Colonialism and Collective Healing   53:10 Personal Healing and Collective Transformation

Hosted by Matthew Green. Produced by J'aime Rothbard. 

Despite building a highly successful career as tech start-up entrepreneur, Claude Terosier could sense that something in her life wasn’t working.

In this episode, Claude describes how new pathways began to open up when she began to reckon with the previously unacknowledged complexities of her mixed race identity as the daughter of a white French mother and Black father from the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe.

Through years of training with Thomas Hübl and his team, Claude worked steadily to integrate the ancestral trauma suffered by her enslaved ancestors, the perpetration committed by forebears who had owned slaves, and the collective harms caused by centuries of French colonialism.

Deeply painful at times, as well as profound, this still-unfolding process has inspired Claude to pursue a new professional path. She now offers collective healing spaces for people of mixed race, and works with the collective trauma of colonialism, racism and slavery, running groups in France, Guadeloupe and internationally.   This deeply intimate and inspiring episode will be of value to anybody who wants to gain a deeper understanding of the principles of healing individual, ancestral and collective trauma – and how this work can take our lives in entirely unexpected directions as we seek to put what we have learned into service for the whole.

About Claude Terosier 

Born and raised in Guadeloupe, Claude started out in IT consulting and telecoms leadership before founding an EdTech startup in France that empowered young people by teaching them to code. Passionate about collective intelligence and healing, she has since forged a new career as a coach, facilitator, and writer exploring mixed-race identity, colonial trauma, and how to unlock individual, organisational and collective potential.  

Further Resources:

Claude’s LinkedIn

Claude’s Exploration (Substack in English)

Les Explorations de Claude (Substack in French)

To Be Black and to Succeed – Part 1 

To Be Black and to Succeed – Part 2

To Be Black and to Succeed – Part 3

  00:00 Introduction to Collective Healing 01:29 Personal Journey and Background 03:09 Defining Collective Healing 05:32 Exploring Ancestral and Collective Trauma 09:26 Professional Life and Realizations 12:51 Confronting Internal and External Barriers 15:16 Stepping into Collective Healing 20:23 Understanding Roots of Stress and Trauma 25:37 Struggles with Parental Connection 26:25 Legacy of Slavery and Family Bonds 28:54 Personal Identity Crisis 29:34 Embracing Mixed Heritage 30:47 Victim and Perpetrator Dynamics 34:56 Collective Healing and Group Support 38:53 Writing and Sharing Personal Stories 46:45 Future Aspirations and Collective Spaces 52:18 Final Reflections and Gratitude