10. Living in Your Ancestral Human Body - Katy Bowman

Birth and death are the bookends that mark every human life, and in them and in between them there is movement. Our ancestors moved in a variety of ways throughout their days- foraging, hunting, seeking new landscapes, building shelter, birthing and carrying children, breastfeeding, processing food, finding water, etc. Physiologically, we are the exact same species; our bodies are identical to those of our prehistoric forebears.

Our biology hasn't changed, but our culture and physical environments have. Today, even the most active among us are mostly sedentary, and exercisers have just as many health problems and experience just as much injury as non-exercisers. We don't need more exercise (yay!), we need more MOVEMENT.

A biomechanist by training and a problem-solver at heart, Katy Bowman is radically changing our assumptions about what it means to live in an ancient human body in a modern and ever-changing world. She makes movement fun and shows people how to integrate it into every aspect of their lives. Her award-winning blog and podcast, Move Your DNA, reach hundreds of thousands of people every month, and thousands have taken her live classes. Her funny, wise, life-changing books have been critically acclaimed and translated worldwide.

In the Intro:

• How Katy's work changed my concept of myself & what I'm capable of
• Giveaway, Upcoming Event, etc.
• Herb Learnin'- herbs are not "pseudo pharmaceuticals"

In the Interview:

• Ancestral movement: stepping outside ourselves and looking at the wide scope of human time
• Exercise as monoculture and movement as permaculture
• Stacking your life- integrating movement into everything else
• Finding your own roots (not someone else’s), and why 2018 is the year Katie finds her ancestors
• Katy’s connection to the great-grandmother she was named after
• Self reliance and how we’re shaped by the times we live in
• The recent unassisted home death of Katy’s father, and the parallels Katy saw between that and birth
• The many other deaths in Katy’s life within a 12 month period and how her movement practice kept her in a state of grace throughout the process
• Movement as a metabolizer of stress and emotions
• Bringing movement into grief- wailing, keening, caring for the body, (pallbearing!)
• Keep moving because “there’s always another wave coming”
• Katy’s recurring whale dream and the moment she lived it in real life
• Reverence for the capacity and consciousness of cetaceans
• Katy helps me break through my limited thinking around some of the things I spend most of my time doing (while sitting still)
• The conscious practice of paying attention to what captures your imagination

Links:

• Katy's website Nutritious Movement
• Medicine Stories Patreon & my journey w/ pain & (non)movement
• My interview on the Self Care Club podcast
• The Good Medicine Confluence
• Our Extra Potent Elderberry Elixir
• Medicine Stories Facebook Group
• Music by Mariee Sioux (from the song Wild Eyes)
• Take my fun Which Healing Herb is Your Spirit Medicine? quiz