Ep 64 Roots: Understanding somatic decolonisation with Sasha Ostara

What if the systems that have shaped our world for centuries aren't just political structures but are actually living in your body right now? In this rich conversation, I sit down with my dear friend Sasha Ostara, writer, coach and decolonisation educator, to explore how capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy, and human supremacy don't just exist "out there"; they show up as chronic tension, hypervigilance, collapsed chests, shame, and the relentless hum of never-enough.

Drawing on Sasha's viral blog post and Rupa Marya's book Inflame, we trace how colonisation becomes embodied and what it means to begin the slow, tender work of decolonising from the inside out.

In this episode, we explore:

• The four "legs" of colonialism — human supremacy, white supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalism — and the distinct somatic signatures each one leaves in the body,

• Why decolonisation isn't just a political act, but an embodied one: the ideas that have lived in our nervous systems for generations can't be thought away,

• How white supremacy lands differently in different bodies, as hypervigilance, fear, shame, and disgust; and why those experiences are more interconnected than we often assume,

• The somatic cost of patriarchy: the tight throat, the collapsed chest, the learned habit of making ourselves smaller and policing our own voices to stay safe,

• Why men are often the first and most hidden victims of male supremacy; cut off from their own feeling, craving connection but conditioned to perform disconnection,

• Capitalism as extraction: how the "never enough" of consumerism mirrors the same extractive logic we apply to our bodies, our time, and our life force,

• What actually happens in the body when safety begins to return — and why healing often feels heavier before it feels lighter,

• The invitation to move from a mechanistic relationship with our bodies to an ecological one — drawing on Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass and the concept of the Honourable Harvest.

There's also a gorgeous thread on the gifts hidden inside perimenopause, the "hungry ghost" of consumerism, and why — as Sasha puts it — the moment we start seeing these systems clearly, we begin changing the paradigm for everyone around us.

Find Sasha at: sasha-ostara.com, on instagram @sasha-ostara, tiktok, and facebook.

Ep 61 A map for growth and healing

A quick little podcast with just me today. I have been reflecting on how some people struggle through growth and healing, more in terms of being lost in the liminal space. In the darkness we might say. I did write a blog about the anatomy of life transitions where I talked about it a few months ago but I think with a podcast you can sometimes say a little bit more.

Recently, I had an experience where something of mine came up again and I was thinking wow I have all the resources, training and skills to know what is going on. What I noticed is that the impact of it was significantly less than in the past. Minimal really. It was more a noticing and then I was able to resource myself.

So often, when people begin trauma healing or embark on a personal growth journey, they imagine it will be a straight line: one step after another, always moving forward, never looking back. But real healing and growth rarely follow that kind of neat, linear path. Instead, they are more like a spiral or a tide, flowing in cycles, circling back, rising and falling.

Healing also has the rhythm of the tide. There are moments of expansion, clarity, and energy—like the incoming tide that fills and nourishes. And there are moments of retreat, rest, and stillness—like the tide going out, leaving space for reflection and integration. Neither state is better or worse; both are necessary.

When we expect healing to be linear, we can feel shame or discouragement when old triggers resurface or when we find ourselves “back where we started. Recognising this cyclical rhythm allows us to meet ourselves with more compassion.

Ep 60 Transforming Relationships with Caroline Shahbaz

Caroline Shahbaz is a colleague, mentor and friend who I am so happy to talk to today. She is a meta psychotherapist, who is deeply experienced and who has trained in many different therapeutic modalities. She is a Clinical Psychologist, has a masters degree in Depth Psychology, is trained in Family Constellations work, is a certified in providing psilocybin assisted therapy and has trained in many wisdom traditions and modalities. Caroline is also a member of the kink community and she trains other therapists how to work with Kink and BDSM.

We talk about how relationships are crucibles for our transformation and growth throughout our lifetime. They trigger our core wounds so that we may heal and burn away who we think we are. We learn how to be in relationships through our family system and internalise much of this from our parents and caregivers, but we are born into a cultural narrative or story that shaped you and often our growth is about reclaiming part of that or alternatively it may be about letting go what we no longer need.

You will also hear:

• Understanding the midlife narrative through the Jungian Lens. We also apply an astrological frame to it (Neptune square Neptune),

• How our hormones and the changing hormonal cocktail we have facilitates changes through our lifetime,

• Understanding the deeper architecture that drives the general level of dissatisfaction in midlife many of us experience,

• The Hero and Heroines Journey and how they are an archetypal framework for the many initiations we face in our lifetime,

• The concept of the Shadow and how it plays out in our relational life,

• The different alchemical stages of relationship transformation.

Caroline runs a program called Transforming Relationships that is for couples and individuals who want to explore themselves deeply in a group container.

You can find Caroline at Transformingrelationships.com.au or metapsychotherapy.com