#9 Anxiety, Reading Well for Teens – Natasha Devon MBE

Episode Summary

I chatted with the awesome Natasha Devon MBE about anxiety, body image and the power of reading. Natasha is an ambassador for the Reading Agency. On October 10th 2022 they launched Reading Well for Teens. The scheme includes a collection of books being distributed in public libraries in England and Wales aimed at supporting the mental health and wellbeing of teenagers. Anxiety is Really Strange is one of the 27 books on the list. Natasha is an eloquent and fun speaker. Her passion for supporting mental health and diversity in teens comes through very clearly. She talks about her new novel Toxic and, essentially, how we all need a bit of David Bowie.

Episode Notes

A new Reading Well for teens collection will launch in public libraries in England and Wales on World Mental Health Day 2022 (10th October 2022). The scheme will support the mental health and wellbeing of teenagers, providing information, advice and support to help teens better understand their feelings, handle difficult experiences and boost confidence.

• The list features 27 books and a range of supporting digital resources covering topics including wellbeing, anxiety, depression, body image, neurodiversity, bereavement, life experiences, sexuality and gender identity.
• The collection is targeted at teenagers (13-18) and includes a wide range of reading levels and formats to support less confident readers and encourage engagement
• The list was co-produced with a group of diverse young people as well as health professionals from organisations including Royal College of GPs and Mental Health Foundation; the book list has been curated by teenagers for teenagers so that it is authentic to issues they and their peers wish to read about
• In 2020, almost 1 in 2 young people (47%) said they didn’t feel in control of their lives and 1 in 3 (32%) that they felt ‘overwhelmed’ by feelings of panic and anxiety on a daily basis
• At the beginning of 2022, more than 400,000 children and young people were being treated or waiting to be treated for mental health problems in England – the highest number on record
• The focus of Reading Well is to provide helpful reading to support people to understand and manage their health and wellbeing. The lists are created to provide early-stage support and are not a replacement for clinical intervention
• Reading Well for teens is run by The Reading Agency, a national charity that tackles life’s big challenges through the proven power of reading. They help 1.9 million people benefit from reading every year

Bio: Natasha Devon MBE is a writer, presenter and activist. She tours schools, universities and events throughout the world, delivering talks as well as conducting research on mental health, body image, gender and equality. She campaigns both on and offline to make the world a fairer place. Natasha is founder of the Mental Health Media Charter, which scrutinises the way the media report on mental health. She works with a number of charities, is a Patron for No Panic,  as well as an Ambassador for Glitch and the Reading Agency.

Twitter/Insta @_NatashaDevon

Check her LBC show every Saturday 7pm https://www.lbc.co.uk/radio/presenters/natasha-devon/

Check her debut novel ‘Toxic’ https://www.amazon.co.uk/Toxic-Natasha-Devon/dp/1912979896

#8 Non Doing in Biodynamic CST – Steve Haines

Episode Summary

How can we achieve effortless action in biodynamic cranial practice? In this talk Steve Haines explores Daoist and Zen models of non doing and modern research into flow states. There are huge similarities with the teachings of visionary osteopaths in the cranial field and in the teaching Franklyn Sills from the biodynamic cranial community. In biodynamics, change is experienced as a letting go from the inside, not a forcing from the outside. Health is a reconnection to a natural order.

Episode Notes

Clip 1: ‘In biodynamics, we attempt to meet the whole person. Over time we can settle. We can include the complexities without disappearing, without speeding up. One day you’ll skilfully notice this bone, notice this shape, it’s safe, there’s no trauma. Wow. I can finally let go of that pattern as a whole gesture.

I shift from the inside. My breath changes. My heart changes. My gut opens. My head feels free and there’s a movement and an expansion in the whole head, the whole person.

A deep, beautiful, incredible letting go from the inside. That’s biodynamic craniosacral therapy.

We have to start in that place of safety, that wide deep relationship that acknowledges a whole person with all sorts of levels of stories.

That may sound inefficient and time consuming. It’s absolutely not. It’s the quickest way I know of working.

We’re getting into this territory of aligning with the Dao. Aligning with an intelligence that’s greater than our intellect. If we find safety, if we relate to these natural rhythms and forces, if we can pay attention in the right way, then we can facilitate these movements and directions.

We can facilitate these letting goes as sort of a shedding. Just an internal softening. Change in this model is about soft letting go rather than dramatic forcing.’

‘Non doing’ is something I first learnt about from my study of Zen Shiatsu. ‘Zen in the Art of Archery’ (Herrigel 1953) opened up a whole new world for me. I still think this is the best book if you want to understand biodynamic craniosacral therapy.

From Zen I quickly discovered Taoism. My understanding was deepened by the teaching of Franklyn Sills. There was real joy in my time as a tutor at the Karuna Institute hearing Franklyn make links between BCST and his study of Taoism. There was a clear focus on change emerging from within facilitated by the presence of another.

In his later writing, WG Sutherland, the founder of the cranial osteopathy, radically changed his early focus on biomechanics. ‘Don’t try to drive the mechanism through any external force. Rely upon the Tide’ (Sutherland 1990). This expansive model of trusting the tide, is foundational for the biodynamic model.

The power of cranial work comes from its gentleness. The ability to facilitate change without force. In a session, when I feel something let go from the inside, it is one of the most exciting things I know. In this webinar I will try to draw out some of the principles and skills we teach in biodynamics that are rooted in non doing.

Available as video podcast https://youtu.be/1S_2Bb3zSBU or https://vimeo.com/750070707

#7 Biodynamics and Movement – Ciara Ni Dhiomasaigh

Episode Summary

Ciara Ni Dhiomasaigh talks with Steve Haines about biodynamic craniosacral therapy (BCST) and movement and much more. Ciara has always used movement and massage to support health. Her discovery of biodynamics transformed her work. Listen for Ciara’s unique insights on BCST, using movement in relationship to table work and how passion is essential for building a busy practice.

Episode Notes

I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. We explore how Ciara’s journey from giving massage at the age of 6 into being a fully fledged bodyworker. Always moving, always massaging, Ciara now is an essential part of Body College Galway. She is also a very experienced yoga teacher across lots of styles and formats. She shares how honouring hidden movements and gestures can supports biodynamic practice.

Things happen around Ciara, not least setting up a vibrant health centre as a destination venue outside of Galway. One really valuable element of the conversation is hearing how Ciara’s complete commitment to being a great bodyworker helps her clarity in her work and draws clients towards her.

Clip 2: ‘If I’m standing at the edge of a cliff, my physiology is completely different than if I’m lying in the middle of a field. The way we brace and hold our bodies when we don’t feel safe is really tangible.

Cliff side, everything in me is contracted and I’m aware of every little bit of wind and I know where my feet are and I’m contracted. I’m wired in that moment. And then the other one is much more languorous, much more slow, very aware of a wholeness and environment.

So how do we support people when they walk in to go from these contracted states, which are possibly long term, and then to bring them to softer, deeper, more relaxed states in their body?

I feel I do this through communication, connection, contact. Just that sense of giving people permission and mapping and supporting them to feel their bodies. Often in the world that we live in we override and ignore, and then eventually we don’t even know how to connect with our bodies.’

Clip 1: ‘Suddenly a totally random new idea will emerge that will meet this client in this moment. And I’m like, you know, I have this idea, how would it be? And we’ll explore something together.

That’s the magic for me in craniosacral, is that there is this wild creativity in relationship, in safety, that can emerge.

The relief in somebody to be so met and so held.

This is fascinating to me. I’ll work for days and weeks and suddenly I’m like, oh yeah, one of these moments is emerging and suddenly the magic of that moment or the wildness of that moment emerges.

And I, I love it. I love it.’

Bio: Ciara Ni Dhiomasaigh has trained in many forms of bodywork. It has been a life long passion to touch and to move. She trained in Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy (BCST) in Karuna with Franklyn Sills and Katherine Ukleja. Ciara is an essential part of the Body College teaching team with Steve Haines and Josef Steiner in Galway. She runs a thriving BCST practice and also teaches yoga. Ciara has a vibrant world wide community of yogis who do a daily 20min yoga class on YouTube. She is also a massage therapist, tango teacher, farmer and sea swimmer. She lives in Connemara, in Galway with her dogs, hens, ducks, and geese surrounded by wild and beautiful nature. She grows all her own vegetables and lives with her partner Josef Steiner, also a craniosacral therapist.

Yoga Instagram: bodywisdom_ciara  |  Naduir Instagram: Naduir.ciara  |  Naduir Face Book Page: https://www.facebook.com/Naduir  |  YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/ciarabirdy2

#6 Pain Is Really Strange – Steve Haines

Episode Summary

Listen to this podcast to explore what you can do change your pain experience and how you can support others to find agency and choice in meeting their pain. It is suitable for people living with pain or therapists working with pain and explores using Relational Touch and embodied approaches to pain. Steve Haines is author of the best selling Really Strange series. Pain is Really Strange was the first book in the series.

Episode Notes

From the archives, audio from webinar on Pain is Really Strange on 30 Mar 2022. You can also view as a video podcast

There is an epidemic of pain – huge studies in Europe and USA consistently indicate 1 in 5 people regularly experience moderate to severe persistent pain. 

It often feels helpless and overwhelming living with pain. This podcast will introduce some models from the latest pain science that have helped many people shift their pain experience. 

Learning to explore your pain story and learning to find safety in movement and feeling are simple practical tools. The podcast discusses the complexity of pain and some myths around pain. 

#5 Anxiety Is Really Strange – Steve Haines

Episode Summary

Listen to this podcast to explore what you can do change your anxiety experience and how you can support others to find agency and choice in meeting their anxiety. The first hour is an interactive talk on anxiety based on webinar given by Steve Haines – author of Anxiety is Really Strange, ‘Highly Commended’ by the British Medical Association. The last 20 mins explore using Relational Touch and embodied approaches to anxiety.

Episode Notes

From the archives, audio from a webinar on Anxiety is Really Strange on 27 Apr 2022. You can also view as a video podcast

There is an epidemic of anxiety – studies consistently indicate more that 1 in 4 people regularly experience anxiety. In teenagers it rises to 1 in 3.

It is devastating for many people to live with constant worry and fear. Anxiety that becomes panic attacks can be severely limiting.

This podcast will introduce some models, rooted in science, that have helped many people shift their anxiety experience. Anxiety is rooted in protective gestures of speeding up to survive. It is much more a psychological problem. In this webinar we will explore embodied approaches to managing anxiety.

Appreciating the hidden stories and protective reflexes working hard to protect you can transformative for many people. It is possible to learn to self regulate intense feelings. Feeling is hard. But if you can’t feel, it is very hard to heal. 

I will cover simple, practical tools that can help take the edge off anxiety by understanding and relating to our physiology.

#4 Biodynamics, Trauma and Touch – Jane Shaw

Episode Summary

Jane Shaw talks with Steve Haines about biodynamic craniosacral therapy (BCST), touch, trauma and how her study of Jungian psychology informs her practice and teaching of BCST.

Bio: Jane Shaw is a craniosacral therapist based in Northern Ireland. She is the founder and director of the Elmfield Institute an institute dedicated to holistic health education. She has a Masters in Jungian psychology. She writes, teaches internationally, and runs retreats and workshops www.elmfieldestate.com

Episode Notes

‘I would describe Jungian psychology very simply as making the unconscious conscious, which I think we do through the body. So Jung had a quote that I often use, he said ‘The symbols of the self arise from deep within the body’. We talk about orienting to wholeness in biodynamic craniosacral therapy. So that’s the whole body, or the whole person, or wholeness as a concept, I really like. It means that everything is connected. Everything is talking to each other. Everything is in relationship.’

‘I think the unconscious can be scary. And I think that that’s okay. There’s a practice of being okay with the unknown and uncertainty. That can be really, really hard. That can be really tough because we want certainty mostly in life. But I think my practice is being okay with not knowing and being okay with the uncertainty. Jung spoke about the individual unconscious and the collective unconscious and for me, that’s what’s most exciting about it. It really speaks to a great mystery.’

• Why biodynamic craniosacral therapy?
• How do you define biodynamics?
• Can you talk about how you use touch to work with trauma?
• You have a masters in Psychology and are deeply interested in the work of Jung. Can you talk about how that informs your BCST practice and teaching?
• In the last few years you I noticed you have run some wonderful workshops on death, relationships plus an upcoming workshop on intergenerational trauma. The topics are novel in my experience of observing BCST post grads. Can you me more about how you approach post grads?

#3 Trauma is Really Strange – Steve Haines

Episode Summary

This podcast explores models around stress, trauma and appeasement. One of the core themes is that being aware of habitual survival gestures can help us become more resilient. Dissociation is the hidden mystery of trauma, by learning to be grounded we can put the brakes on overactive threat detections responses.

It is hard when we can not regulate feelings of speeding up to survive or shutting down to survive. The podcast offers it is possible to safely find new ways to connect to our body and our environment to find agency and choice.

Episode Notes

From the archives, audio from a webinar on Trauma is Really Strange on 26 May 2022. You can also view as a video podcast

Trauma is anything that overwhelms our ability to cope. Frequently, people approach healing trauma as a psychological problem. That can be useful, but this webinar will explore how relating to body physiology can help us re-connect to safety. The most basic decision a human being is making is ‘Am I Safe?’. If there is perception of danger, or the habit of feeling unsafe, we can get stuck in primitive defence cascades.

Living every day as if it is an emergency, endlessly turning on reflexes of ‘fight-or-flight’ or ‘freeze’, is exhausting. We will explore bottom up approaches to feeling safe. There are lots of simple tools and principles that help turn down the volume on triggering danger messages.

Steve Haines is author of the best selling Really Strange series. Trauma is Really Strange is far and away the best selling book in the series, people really want to learn about what is happening when we feel overwhelmed.

The first hour is an interactive talk on trauma. It is suitable for people affected by trauma or therapists working with trauma.

The last half hour explores using ‘Relational Touch’ and embodied approaches to overwhelm. This section is aimed at people interested in training with Body College in Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy

#2 Touch is Really Strange – Steve Haines

Episode Summary

Learn how touch works. Learn how to harness the power of slow touch that focuses on a whole person.

So often touch has a narrow focus on trying to change local tissue dynamics. That type of touch does not work particularly well to change pain. This talk looks the research and science of slow C-fibre touch. Touch that is always emotional and promotes social bonding.

Episode Notes

From the archives, audio from webinar on Touch is Really Strange on 23 Jun 2022. You can also view as a video podcast

Touch is an under appreciated tool for promoting health. Being touched and engaging with the world through the antennae of our limbs is fundamental to our sense of self.

All our early learning is rooted in touch. We meet a world that pushes back, not alway gently. The ability to contemplate and think develops after our primal experiences of touch and moving to interact with our environment. Thinking is dependant on feeling.

There are two main types of touch – slow touch, quick touch. Slow touch, also know as affective touch or relational touch, is essential to create bonding, to promote safety. Slow touch is a powerful way of conveying emotions and support and promoting health.

This webinar will celebrate the power of ‘Relational Touch’. So often in pain, anxiety and trauma there is a sense of fragmentation, disconnection and confusion as to what we feel. We will explore touch as an art to be cultivated.

Skilful slow touch can be used a lever to helps us feel real and whole again.

Steve Haines is author of the best selling Really Strange series. Touch is Really Strange is the latest book in the series and the distillation of decades of experience of being a bodyworker.

The first hour is an interactive talk on touch. It is suitable for people living with pain, anxiety or trauma or therapists who want to develop their touch skills.

The last half hour explores using ‘Relational Touch’ and embodied approaches to health. This section is aimed at people interested in training with Body College in Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy

#1 Taking Heart and Making Sense – Dr Karin Lindgaard

Episode Summary

Dr Karin Lindgaard talks with Steve Haines about her new book ‘Taking Heart and Making Sense – a New View of Nature, Feeling and the Body’.

Karin is a philosopher and biodynamic craniosacral therapist based in Australia. We talk about the importance of feeling states to being conscious, the origin of concepts as ‘structures of experience’, change as a fundamental and embodied cognition. Karin is wonderful guide to some rich philosophy that is directly relevant to embodied models of health and healing. There are some valuable insights that could really help clarity in clinical practice.

Episode Notes

Taking Heart and Making Sense argues that theoretical developments in the neuroscience, psychology and philosophy of feeling and emotion indicate a need to amend our most basic understanding of the world.

Lindgaard proposes a worldview based on the fundamental reality of change, best understood through the concepts of process and relation. This new metaphysics clarifies theories of feeling and the physical body, and validates concepts such as attunement, interaction and histories of functioning.

Her theory conceptualises feeling as the perspective from the inside of a certain kind of living system, which exists as a whole process over time. In relation to much longer trajectories of evolution, human feeling is prefigured in animal consciousness and meaning is immanent in nature.

Bio: Dr Karin Lindgaard is the author of Taking Heart and Making Sense: A New View of Nature, Feeling and the Body, published in April, 2022. Her unique perspective on consciousness, feeling and the body draws upon more than twenty years of research, including a PhD in philosophy from Swinburne University in Melbourne, Australia. Karin is a registered Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapist whose work is highly influenced by personal practices, including insight meditation and dance. She lives in Castlemaine in Victoria, Australia.

https://embodimentphilosophy.com