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The Body Awake

The Body Awake is a podcast for people interested in health and the human body, and in having a conversation beyond the body as merely a machine. It's about what we're made of, how we move, how illness, injury and healing happen, and what we can do with that information to live better lives.
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Now displaying: 2017
Dec 12, 2017

Jill Miller and I range from yoga to biomechanics to humility and hubris to Jill's recent hip surgery, her old teachers and the beauty, pain and wisdom that can come from growing up. About halfway through, Jill shares a truth bomb — sprung from the question "if you could go back and had 5 minutes with your 20-year-old self, what would you say?" — that is SO beautiful, powerful, poignant.

Dec 5, 2017

Are less-embodied movement practices good gateways into a deeper practice, or are they doing more harm than good? Are all movement practices really created equal, or are some better than others? Is what you're doing working? What matters about a yoga posture? Should you practice yin yoga or weightlifting or contact improv or ... ?

Just a few of the deep questions, of many gems, from the chat with this show's guest, Mark Walsh.

Mark is an embodiment facilitator who's worked in war zones, in board rooms and yoga studios. And he is, I think, a sharp sword who is doing some really good work in hacking away old, stagnant beliefs from their roots. 

It's about being in the world — political, if you will — and not about isolating "the body" from our lived experienced, which very much includes one another.

Thanks, Mark. Hope you enjoy, y'all.

Here's the Embodied Yoga Principles video playlist on YouTube.

Mark's e-book Centring: Why Mindfulness Alone Isn't Enough.

Nov 28, 2017

Tom Myers returns to The Body Awake for our third interview. And like the other two but with new territory, Tom's experience and wisdom that came through this chat were really good nutrition for me, and now hopefully for you too.

Tom and I talk, among other things, about:

  • making one's living as a bodyworker or movement teacher; the graces and pitfalls of the commercial vs academic spheres
  • the full flowering, or "five fingers," of a fully integrated bodywork practice
  • the disease of feeling "other," of alienation from ourselves, and what we can do about it

It's a good one.

Listen in on the TBA website or find The Body Awake on iTunes, Stitcher, etc.

Links for this show: Tom's "Anatomy 101 For Yoga Teachers and Students" / TBA listeners use discount code TMYERS100 to save $100 off tuition

Nov 15, 2017

Housekeeping

💛 a new home for my writing: the written word right here at TBA

💛 notes on my physical training, and follow up from the 50K race

💛 the trajectory of the show, both big picture and a list of future interviewees! weeeeeeee!

Links

Oct 28, 2017

What a joy to get to chat with Brooke Thomas, whose latest project, the Liberated Body podcast, may be familiar to some listeners here. Brooke and I talk about the subject/object paradox of both having and being a body, using felt sense as a navigation to begin and end projects, and a whole host of other topics we might camp under something like "embodied spirituality." Or maybe "spiritual embodiment." Whatever we call it, I think Brooke is a joy to listen to! Hope you enjoy <3 LB @ TBA

Oct 10, 2017

"Posture" is such a loaded word for so many of us. It often evokes a sense of not "doing it right" —> lazy shoulders, computer slouch, etc. This kind of thinking might be useful in some circumstances, but in many people it just adds another layer of guilt — and yes, tension — onto an already tense situation.

I love how Ruthie breaks down the infinitely expansive terrain of "inhabit your body" into little bite sized nuggets. She does it in her book Stack Your Bones, and with us on the show.

I so enjoyed this one, and hope you do too :)

Oct 4, 2017

We're back! Here's a 20-min intro to Season 2 of The Body Awake

So lovely to be back with you; thanks for being here.

Jun 21, 2017

This episode — in honor of wrapping up Season 1 of The Body Awake — the tables turn on your host and Liam gets interviewed. It's a peek behind the scenes, both of the show and of the heartmind of its host.

I hope you enjoy, as always, and see you back in the autumn for Season 2 of TBA 💛

This episode On iTunes   ///   Download Direct

SHOW NOTES

STAY IN TOUCH : follow my writing on facebook or on my writing page

Some of my poetry, online

My article "Fascia, Fluids, Nervous System: Past, Present, Future"

Sam Harris interviews Yuval Harari

* and for those who track this, the quote I mentioned at the beginning belongs to Dwight D. Eisenhower: "In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable."

May 16, 2017

Since the show's earliest inception, I knew I wanted to interview Lauren for The Body Awake. When the time was right, I asked, so glad she agreed. Lauren was my main teacher in helping me understand the many layers and types of fluids, bone rhythms and subtleties of working with a body in my care.

She's a rare gem.

We talk about so much ... transmission of information, concurrence of multiple views emerging simultaneously, how to answer the "what's the best treatment here?" question without being too general and without being flippant.

And for the last 20 minutes, she reads poetry and I cry.

So, so enjoyed this talk. I hope you do too. Love, LB

SHOW NOTES

Crafted Touch, Lauren's bodywork and teaching homepage.

Integrative Pain Management, in which Lauren and her husband, Richard, co-author a chapter.

Apr 25, 2017

"Too often we have the industrialized, mechanical model applied to a body. It's too reductive for something that's really a streaming ..."

We're so blessed to have Susan Harper as our guest for this episode. I met Susan several years ago as her student in a weekend workshop, and was very affected by the material, and so impressed with her as a facilitator.

I've been wanting to have this conversation for a long time.

We talk about ...

- "functional" beyond human function

- some "how to" instruction on helping yourself and others open up perceptual possibilities in movement, bodywork or any kind of dedicated awareness

- the beauty and potential of vibrant language

- the body as a summation of trillions of tiny verbs, of processes

... and more :)

Enjoy!

SHOW NOTE

Susan's website: Continuum Montage

 

Apr 12, 2017

An anatomy lesson with an immediate application, if you want to look for it, around earlier / deeper barriers.

We look briefly at the 3 primary embryological layers and their respective tissues and functions, some of the anatomical layering of the body, and from there how we can work with that information, especially for those wanting to know their bodies in a deeper way.

I mean that both energetically, but also just in a straight up anatomical sense.

We cover:

- layers of all-pervasive anatomical tissue

- layers of the "energetic body" (present in different traditions in different ways)

- a brief tour of embryological development, how those processes express in the adult body, and correlations to ayurveda's map of the doshas

- what "fluid alignment" or "electrical alignment" might look like

- plus some updates of what's up and coming with Embodied Anatomy

CORRECTION: at 8:30 I mention the 3 layers covering the brain and spinal cord — dura mater, meninges and pia mater. I misspoke and said they are collectively called the dura. They are collectively called the meninges. (And only the dura mater is called the dura for short.)

 

SHOW NOTES

The "First Barrier Yoga" video: https://youtu.be/hLN3N1iZHK0

Radiolab: search for "The Primitive Streak"

Mar 14, 2017

James Hamblin, MD, is a writer and senior editor at The Atlantic magazine. His writing and videos have been featured in The New York TimesPolitico, NPR, BBC, The GuardianElleMother Jones, and New York, among others. Time named him among the 140 people to follow on Twitter, Greatist named him among the most influential people in health media, and BuzzFeed called him "the most delightful MD ever."

I reached out to him because I'd read his book, If Our Bodies Could Talk, and enjoyed it a ton, much more than I thought I was going to! I was drawn in by his writing, and that he's not only an intelligent guy, but has a good sense of humility and insight both ... a potent mix.

We talk gluten, statins, multivitamins and eggs. Also research and implicit biases, promises and expectations and their relation to health outcomes, knowing what we don't know, and the bodymind as one integrated whole.

Here's our conversation.

SHOW NOTES

James' book, If Our Bodies Could Talk (I've read it, and loved it)

The Atlantic's page of James' writings

James Hamblin .com

The Louis CK skit I mentioned early in the interview, about the 1st-world horrors of waiting on a runway

Feb 21, 2017

By popular demand, and my own great interest, Tom Myers returns to The Body Awake for a second interview.

In this second round — see episode 5 for the first — we cover:

  • the nature of fascia as the body's very under-mapped "biomechanical autoregulatory system" 
  • how "you" could be seen as a vessel for your digestive system to get around (at 36 min)
  • do we know what "trauma is stored in the body" means? what is memory? (at 39 min)
  • Tom's story of his own birth, and experiencing liberation from a traumatic event many, many years later (50 min)
  • a look into Tom's 1-on-1 work as a bodywork practitioner (this was of particular interest to me)
  • even a PG-13 Robin William's joke you can tell at your next cocktail party (at 35 min, 20 sec)

SHOW NOTES

Anatomy Trains, Tom's main website

In vivo videos from French hand surgeon Jean-Claude Guimberteau

Sign up for the Fascial Dissection Lab for Feb 2018

Jan 31, 2017

Somatic Experiencing is, in some ways, just like it sounds: a direct experiencing of the body and its sensations. Where the magic of this work comes in is experiencing layers of sensation and reaction that have been long covered up — perhaps early life trauma. What can follow from "digesting" this childhood trauma can be monumental in one's now-adult life.

(And there is even research — brought to life in like this Scientific American article, and this one in Nature revealing how trauma that happened well before you were born could be impacting your life now.)

Irene Lyon is a practitioner of SE, and a thinker and healer regarding helping people unwind old trauma patterns. She was a well of insight for me in this talk. I hope you enjoy; you can check Irene's work out via her link below.

SHOW NOTES

Irene's website, including resources, teaching dates and online programs

Amanda Ford's blog: Movement Muse

Wikipedia article on Polyvagal Theory (the dorsal/ventral vagul, which is of course just two branches but are contained within this theory of how works this branch of the Autonomic Nervous System)

Peter Levine's Somatic Experiencing work

Jan 11, 2017

Here's the breakdown for my first, signed-up-on-a-whim 50 kilometer mountain run training plan:

*** This should be fun. (If it's not, it's time to modify accordingly.) ***

*** I want this to increase my overall vitality, mobility, strength and tissue hydration. (Decreasing some or all of those is a common strategy, however unknowingly employed, on service of achieving training goals.) ***

1. Train to run in a way where force translates the easiest way possible through my hips. (This is a deep, deep world for me, relevant and apparent in weightlifting, downward dog, tango, capoeira, running, sitting, meditation, to name a few.)

2. Via these "training regimes" — all subject to change: capoeira (twice a week), some kind of structured partner dance (once a week), strength training (1 - 4 times a week, depending on my energy levels), yoga (daily), and running twice a week: one hill interval, metabolic conditioning type run; and one longer run.

3. Continue to noodle around, beyond everything above, as per my interest level.

4. When running: run-walk cycling as per what feels like elastic capacity of my tissues. When I feel like I'm starting to thud, or losing my resilient form, I'll walk til I regain it.

I am really curious to see how this training philosophy plays out in such an athletic environment!  I'll keep you posted :)

Thanks for being here, LB

 

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