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 disatisfaction 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

Ep 59 Why we Fawn with Rae Halder

Many people have heard of Flight, Fight and Freeze when it comes to our autonomic nervous system’s defence responses but not all of us have heard of Fawn. Fawning is a pretty sophisticated response that shows up as people pleasing or appeasement. Some practitioners also call it hypersocialisation. We fawn to stay in connection with others, to stay safe. The tricky thing about Fawning is that it can sometimes look like it is a personality trait which I guess we could say is true for many responses driven by Trauma.

Today I talk with Rae Halder who is a somatic trauma resolution practitioner about the Fawning response. Rae is a fantastic person to talk about this and she works with many clients with strong Fawn responses.

We also get into talking about sexual fawning and how that shows up in our intimate relationships. When we say yes to intimacy because our brain says yes but our body is a big No to it. What happens when we do this repeatedly and how does it get in the way of authentic connection with our partners and lovers.

You will hear us talk about many different aspects of trauma healing when it comes to the Fawn response, how it shows up in our body when it gets sick of us doing it repeatedly, why we do it, what is underneath it all and how can we connect with our erotic imprints.

If you would like to take the Erotic Blueprints quiz we talk about in the podcast here is the link.

You can find Rae on her website www.raehalder.com, on instagram @rachel.rae.halder or on her FB page

Ep 58 Understanding Human Design with Moira Cormack

Today I am talking to Moira Cormack, my multi talented colleague and friend about Human Design. I have to tell you this podcast was a lot of fun because Moira is fun. Moira is a coach, parenting expert, human design expert and all round super human being. This is Moira’s third time on my podcast, if you didn’t catch the last two on inner child and creativity you should check them out also.

Moira doesn’t so much go into the different human design profile, rather she gives us the bigger context of why we would use Human Design. How does it help us be more human, how does it help us connect with our deeper self.

We talked about:

• Why we would use Human Design and how, at this point in time, Human Design is helpful to people to further their personal growth and development,

• How life is made up of many decisions and choices we make each day and how human design helps us, through understanding our profile, how to better make decisions to align with our energy system in our body,

• How many of us end up in careers, influenced by our family systems, not doing what we really love and how knowing our design helps us to choose work that is more aligned with our natural gifts and energy systems,

• How energy systems in different types work and why not listening to our body leads to health issues,

• How when we move outside our design, we often experience a discordant note or emotion and this is a sign we are not listening to our body.

You can find Moira on Gates of the Moon FB Group, on instagram she is @moira_coach and she has a substack she writes on.

Ep 57 The Pleasure Alchemist with Daniella Matutes

In this episode, I talk with Daniella Matutes who is a somatic coach, breathwork teacher, a very talented human really, who has a not for profit focused on healing gender based violence against women in two generations. We discuss her own journey of healing from abuse and how a body based approach to healing trauma has helped her to process the trauma in her body.

Daniella has created an approach called Pleasure Alchemy that offers a road map to individuals with trauma that helps them to understand the healing journey by orienting and resourcing to pleasure and building capacity in the nervous system to feel more. More sensations, emotions, feelings.

In this podcast you will hear:

• Daniella describe her own experience of healing trauma and the different ways she experienced healing,

• How trauma is passed down generationally through our attachment system and within the physiology of the body,

• Different survival strategies and how they show up in our body,

• How the culture we grow up in is internalised and significantly impacts how we show up in the world,

• Leadership culture in large organisations and how individiual’s trauma plays out on a daily basis,

• Our inner ecology and how it influences what we see in the outer world.

This is a rich and broad conversation that will really deep your understanding of trauma and give you a new set of glasses to help you see new ways of healing.

You will find Daniella at www.somaticself.love, on Instagram, Facebook and Substack.

Ep 53 Moving through life with greater ease with Sophia Breust

As we get older many of us experience joint pain and muscle pain. We think it is just our old joints but it might very well be dry fascia. In this episode I talk to Sophia Breust who is a structural integration practitioner about the many benefits of working with fascia.

Sophia has an interesting story and her own health and wellbeing today is a direct reflection of the benefits of structural integration. After going through some relational trauma in 2014, Sophia was diagnosed with PTSD. Experiencing symptoms from extreme anxiety, recurring nightmares, and shakes to lethargy, Sophia explored talk therapy to help resolve what she thought was a problem in her mind. Over 2 years, she showed up religiously to her psychology sessions, but she felt she wasn't getting anywhere.

​After years of looking for answers and feeling totally helpless, Sophia found Structural Integration & Myofascial Bodywork (MFB) and realised how disconnected she was from her physical body. This was the missing link for her; the problem wasn't just in her mind, it was in her body! Trauma is stored in the body, and if we become disconnected from the sensations that are going on in our physical body, our mind won't get a chance to be at ease.

After many years of healing, processing, feeling, and deeply connecting to her body, Sophia now helps many people make sense of their physical pain and what may be going on for them emotionally. She calls this Emotional Anatomy. While a free and open fascial system creates a more balanced emotional state, Sophia has seen the impact of MFB on excellent recovery, lymph & blood flow, and injury prevention. MFB, according to Sophia and many of her clients, is truly life-changing!

In this episode we talk about all things fascia, the bodymind connection, healing trauma and a bit about ageing bodies. Sophia is based in Adelaide, Australia, you can find Sophia on instagram @muscle_sense or via her website www.musclesense.net

Ep 52 The Midlife Mysteries

Midlife is a profoundly transformational life transition that all people experience. It occurs generally at some period between 40 and 60 years of age for most people. Some people may start late thirties. It happens over time it is a general unfolding. Midlife awakening supports our growth into emotional adulthood.

Midlife is not a crisis it is an awakening. It is about healing your childhood adaptive strategies to become your most authentic self. The development challenge of midlife is radical honesty with yourself. There is a strong mystical side to the midlife transition and this can be best understood by using archetypes to explore the story and road map of what this transition is all about.

What about menopause and how does this fit in? Menopause is the end of our fertility and it is part of the midlife transition. Our hormones changes facilitate growth and development, physically, psychologically, culturally through the different phases of our lifetime.

Listen in to find out which feminine archetype I have found the most useful to provide guidance in what is required in midlife to support our growth during this transition.

If you would like to explore the mystical side of midlife transition more deeply you can also explore my ebook Magical Midlife and Menopause and my Midlife Masterclasses.