Be Mythical

This week's show is with Maggie Minor who believes that what we surround ourselves with has a profound affect on our subconscious and that by simply making a few changes in our home décor we can uplift ourselves and open up our mind to new possibilities. She is the founder of Maggie Minor Designs, an online resource for colorful furniture and artwork, tips for making your home a more positive place, and consulting services to help you design a home that aligns with what you want. In her former life, Maggie spent almost 15 years traveling the world…as a graduate student in Australia, a student and backpacker in Europe, a Peace Corps volunteer in Bulgaria and a humanitarian worker working in Asia and Africa. Her memoir, Adventures of a Curious Sculptor, recounts her long journey from adventurer to artist, and her appreciation for all of the beauty that surrounds us. In this show we explored how and why what we look at in our homes and offices has a profound subconscious impact what we think about and therefore how we feel. There is a revolution going on right now about about food, spirituality, relationships, and exercise, but no one is really talking about curating what we look at everyday. Maggie would like to help people think more about how they create their environments with a special emphasis on things that they look at most. It's a simple shift that can make a huge difference. What you'll learn from this episode: Humans throughout history have been wired to be impacted by their visual surroundings - it's imperative to our safety- whether it be to locate fruit (or remember where the poisonous ones are) or to hunt or avoid animals. Our environment is constantly being perceived via our senses and is in our awareness, whether we realise it or not - so we can either leave our environment to chance or we can curate environments that serve us. Go around your house and ask yourself: "How do I want to feel in this room?" Look at each item in the room and decide whether it creates the feeling you want. Easy starting points include: What do you look at first thing in the morning? What's giving you 'Should' messages? What do you see when you first enter your home? What do you see when you leave your home? Start with those places first.

This week's show is with Marina Pearson. Marina, is the No1 best-selling author of the multi-award winning book Goodbye Mr Ex, and international speaker. She supports professionals and entrepreneurs to transform all types of stress into effortless results and living through her coaching and events. She is known for catalysing busy and stressed entrepreneurs and professionals out of their stress and struggle into effortless results so they leave feeling at peace and free. In this week's show, Marina shared how has recently broken up with her husband and father of her young son and has been going through the process of creating a new way of relating to and co-parenting with her ex-husband. In essence, we talked how to have a healthy break-up. What you'll learn from this episode: Even when we're in challenging period and it seems as though everything is dark and awful, we all have moments when we don't feel that way - when our thinking clears. It's so freeing to notice that because we understand that our experience isn't coming from the break-up but from our thoughts but our thoughts about the break-up. "We're not on a rollercoaster, we are the rollercoaster." Everything's going to be fine, no matter what. Who we really are is always perfect and untouched by the stuff that's going on in our human lives. We all have the capacity to connect into the true self beneath the turmoil. We have innate resilience, we are never broken or f*cked up There's a universal force thats constantly rearranging things - in ways that we can perceive as being good and lucky and in ways that we can perceive as being bad and unlucky but really it's not personal, it's just life unfolding as it does. In any relationship, the other person's level of awareness or state of mind is largely irrelevant to your experience of it - for example, Marina described how her own level of awareness was key to how she experienced the break-up.

This week's show is with Kat Courtney, an Afterlife Coach. Kat first received the term "Afterlife Coach" after one of the many times she experienced death. She had been working as a Spiritual Life Coach and Shamanic Apprentice for a decade, and felt that her life's purpose was still a little. . . off. As she sat in her 999th or so Ayahuasca ceremony, it dawned on her that there are three things she love most in this world: Connection to soul, Ayahuasca, and death. After the craziest of journeys with this medicine, she finally realised she was not meant to be an Ayahuasquera - she was meant to be the before and after guide. She also works with people in hospice. She adores shadow work. She's in love with death. Ayahuasca only made that a deeper calling and understanding. Kat's been on the show twice before and was so fabulous we had to get her back on to talk about one of her favourite topics: Ayahuasca itself! We explored the history of Ayahuasca and other plant medicines, the active component DMT (also known as 'the spirit molecule') and its role in the human body and what this could help us to understand about the subconscious and universal consciousness. All in all, it's a deeply fascinating show! What you'll learn from this episode: The active component in Ayahuasca is DMT - which is present in our pituitary gland and shows up in dreams and as we die. It's known as the 'spirit molecule' because it seems to allow us to access the space of universal consciousness. Deeply understanding and fully experiencing our deeply held traumas, baggage and pain allows us to move on - as Kat said: We need to feel to heal. It's important to be and feel safe whenever we're accessing a space of complete openness. In Ayahuasca ceremonies this is the role of the shaman, in other situations a different form of safety and guidance would be more appropropriate but regardless it's a necessary aspect of this kind of absolute openness.

This week's show is with Kim Kaase. As a professional business coach, consultant and transformational trainer she supports her clients by working with them to craft a clear personal vision while creating results that are important to them. She uses her background as a designer to creatively solve problems and approach challenges as a coach from a very unique perspective. Kim's experience in creating breakthrough sales results as well as executing company vision and goals melds perfectly with her coaching career. As a dealer principal, Kim led sales and sales support teams to grow the dealership from $14mm in 2003 to $38mm in just 4 years while industry trends were going in the opposite direction. Kim graduated from the University of Houston in 1990 with a BFA in Interior Design and a certification in Transformative Coaching. Her career has included work with a vast array of professional services firms and successful entrepreneurs.. She is the Principal at her firm, LEAP Business Coaching. In her free time she enjoys transformational work, bird watching, cooking and creating memories with her son, Rex. Kim's vision includes creating a world where everyone leads lives that they absolutely love! In this show we explored Kim's experience of reclaiming her inner juiciness and intimacy with both herself and her partner. As ever, Kim was totally open and shared the insecurities and surprises that she has experienced and what this relationship has shown her about control and vulnerability. Although this show is particularly relevant to anyone entering the dating world later in life or after a break-up, I actually think this show is relevant to anyone at almost any stage of a relationship! What you'll learn from this episode: Falling into flow, into the space of presence just doesn't allow any room for thought-created baggage and insecurities. Kim said the strategies and techniques she'd tried in the past to get over her insecurities around sex didn't work, however when she felt fully engaged and in the flow, they just weren't there! The need for control is very common because it's a way that we can feel safe, however it's that very safety that stops us really living and feeling. Kim said she would now take juicy over safety any day! When we let go of trying to be someone that we believe people will love, instead we radiate who we really are - and as Kim says, others will be drawn to us like a moth to a flame. It's totally attractive!

This week is the second show in which the tables are turned on Lian and she becomes the guest! Primal Happiness co-founder Jonathan Wilkinson is in the host's chair and guides Lian through the second part of the story of her life. f you haven't yet listened to to Part One I would highly recommend you do so before listening to Part Two. But if you have, you'll know that part 1 was amazing, just packed full of crazy, funny stories of Lian's life up until her mid-20s. And on this week's show we carry on that exploration and while there might not be as many of those types of stories, this show is full power. We get into some key events that rocked Lian's world - including her experience of being attacked and then the aftermath, the surprising impact of losing her father, and discovering what was really creating her feelings - these events were the catalyst for incredible growth and transformation. What you'll learn from this episode: I loved how Lian cured her chronic facial pain and panic attacks simply through seeing the nature of thought and how it was creating her experience of life.However it is worth saying that Lian's experience is probably on the rarer side certainly in terms of how quickly she made a full recovery yet understanding the role of thought seems to always have a profoundly beneficial effect, even if it's a more gradual one. It can be helpful to focus more on the direction you are going in rather than the speed at which you are traveling in that direction. Lian shared how when her father died she became aware of her connection to something bigger than her sense of self. No matter what you wish to call the intelligence all-creating force behind life - whether that's God, spirit, source, Universal Mind or what we here at Primal Happiness call the Spirit Fundamental - what is undeniable is that it exists. And once we open up and deepen our awareness of it we can't help but feel more connection, joy, love, meaning, and guidance.

This week's show is with Jeanne Catherine-Gray. Jeanne is deeply committed to transforming the landscape of contemporary psychology and its applications in the real world, Jeanne earned her MA in Psychological Well Being and is currently working on her Ph.D. in the Neuroscience of Psychological Experience. Jeanne has successfully built a community of practitioners and provides training programs for coaches and therapists. Her voracious intellectual curiosity and comfort with listening for insight are complemented by her capacity for action and genuine care for other human beings. Jeanne values a principle-based understanding that naturally improves listening and well being; increasing peace of mind, community satisfaction, and desirable outcomes. With twenty-four years of experience working with groups, Jeanne's willingness to go straight to the heart of the problem, and not be afraid of anything, reaps great benefits at work, as a host on the radio show, Waking Up: The Neuroscience of Awareness and as a volunteer mediator & parent educator in Charlottesville, VA. In this week's show we're talking about Jeanne's transformation from trauma through PTSD to coming out the other side as someone who is now successfully helping others to overcome their challenges. What you'll learn from this episode: When we talk over and over about trauma it means we experience the trauma again - with all of the same feelings as we did during the original trauma. Realising that her thoughts aren't true is what made change happen in all areas of Jeanne's life - not as a practice but as a realisation that naturally occurred. Our brains are always changing, we can go back to an old way of thinking (or an 'old neighbourhood') but understanding that we can move to a new way of thinking (or a 'new neighbourhood') is a powerful choice that we have.

This week the tables are turned on Lian and she becomes the guest! Primal Happiness co-founder Jonathan Wilkinson is in the host's chair and guides Lian through the story of her life. She covered her early years living as a single parent family with her father, travelling Europe, her struggles with fitting in at school and work, and discovering the possible reason for those struggles. This show is packed with so many fascinating, inspiring, slightly weird :) and incredibly funny stories that I know you'll love. In fact, there was so much awesomeness that we had to make this a two part show so this is part 1 and part 2 will follow shortly. In part 2, Lian will share the surprising impact of losing her father, discovering what was really creating her feelings, and more. What you'll learn from this episode: I loved the example of how the universe always provides when you're open and aligned to its flow. That's something we have become so disconnected from in this modern world. And I appreciate for some that's a hard thing to get your head around let alone believe, but it's true. It's only because of the domestication of the human animal that this law of nature has been hidden from view. Have a play with breaking free from your domestication and reclaim your alignment to nature's great flow. I also wanted to highlight the power of the Socratic approach to learning that Lian's father used with Lian and Lian subsequently uses with her children. This approach is around drawing the learning out from the student as opposed to pushing it onto them. In this world of google where we've been conditioned to crave instant answers, instant gratification without first taking a journey of exploration ourselves to arrive at the answer is stunting the growth of our consciousness and the collective consciousness of the world. If you have children or even young family members the next time they ask you something, instead of just giving them the answer maybe take the time to have a mini adventure with them and simply reply "I'm not sure... what do you think?" and see where that takes you. 😃 And lastly, Lian shared her story of being a misfit and the challenges that came from that. And how as she's got older she's become more accepting of who she is and that's allowed her gifts to shine brighter. As ever, when we accept and embrace our uniqueness and the uniqueness in others, it has the power to do incredible things in the world.That's the design of the system that's the default setting, it's just that we've lost touch with how to cultivate inspire and nurture the uniqueness in humans. We no longer celebrate people's unique gifts as we've been conditioned to turn inward in a never ending and soul destroying pursuit of the status quo. A world where we are all trying to be the same simply does not work! How can you celebrate and nurture your unique gifts and how can you do the same in others?

This week's show is a very different show to the norm, this week, we've got Jonathan Wilkinson, the co-founder of Primal Happiness on to tell you about his story. Next week he'll be interviewing me - we thought it was long overdue for you the listener to get to know us both a little better first. It's just the start of monthly Lian & Jonathan shows on a range of topics. This is all part of big changes afoot, there's lots more cool things to come - I'll be telling you more about that at the end of the show. Unless you're part of one of our programs you're unlikely to be familiar with Jonathan - who's actually the other half of Primal Happiness. He's actually the man behind the voice you just heard during the podcast intro at the beginning of the show. Jonathan's story is actually relevant to almost everyone living in today's modern world and acts as a cautionary tale of what can happen to us and our children if we continue living the kind of disconnected lives that are considered normal today. Whilst there's some pretty grim parts to Jonathan's story, I'll let you know in advance that it does have a happy ending. If you're anything like me you'll like to know going in that there's a happy ending! I really think it's a must listen show for everyone who is interested in understanding more about the little known challenges of living in today's modern world and how to live a happy and fulfilling life. What you'll learn from this episode: We typically think of trauma as an input of a traumatic event but there are so many people in the western world that are been brought up deeply traumatised by a lack of something, by a disconnection to something. There's been a normalisation of the 'trauma of lack'. Almost all dis-ease be it mental or physical has disconnection at its root cause. Health is actually natural and normal! Jonathan recognised how he was lacking connection to several of the Primal Fundamentals - which is true for most of us living in this crazy modern world. We can remedy this disconnection and adapt... when we understand how. And that's where The Primal State Formula comes in!

This week's show is with Michael McCaffrey. He began the invaluable practice of meditation and contemplation in 2010. He now speaks publicly on the many benefits of meditation as well as the misunderstandings and misconceptions that act as a block to developing a practice. He also offers meditation in workspaces and runs retreats in the UK. As I said on last week's show, meditation is something that I'm on a real personal journey with at the moment - I used to meditate years ago in the hope of calming my mind, and now when I have a calm mind much of the time, I'm interested in discovering whether I can still benefit from meditation and if so, how. I'm inviting you along for the ride with me. In this week's show, I certainly got what I wanted... Michael shared his incredibly inspiring journey of going from crack addiction to becoming a meditation teacher - and he shares the insights and obstacles he experienced along the way. What you'll learn from this episode: Addiction to something (not just drugs) is almost always a way of escaping some kind of suffering. It's not a choice. Instead of demonising sufferers, how can we offer some support and understanding? When we make the regular practice of sitting and noticing the thoughts - without distraction - we allow ourselves the powerful recognition of what's really going on for us. From that recognition of our true self, we can move from searching for escape to an acceptance of what's going on in the moment.

This week's show is with Alex Mill, a Zen Life Coach, facilitator, leadership trainer and public speaker. He spent nearly 14 years training in a Zen monastery and is now offering his years of experience to transform people's lives and businesses through mindfulness, meditation and compassionate self-awareness practices. In this week's show Alex agreed to me throwing questions at him about all things meditation. This is something that I'm on a real personal journey with at the moment - I used to meditate years ago in the hope of calming my mind, and now when I have a calm mind much of the time, I'm interested in discovering whether I can still benefit from meditation and if so, how. I'm inviting you along for the ride with me. What you'll learn from this episode: The benefits of meditation are typically that you're more in the present, more focused, less lost in thought, more able to direct your attention. I loved what Alex said: we are either here or not here. Meditation gives the regular practice of noticing that your thoughts are not you and giving you access to the space of insights, peace and connection. Take time for yourself to remove the barriers to meditating: just take 5 minutes to sit and focus on the breath.