Meet psychotherapist and Feldenkrais teacher Donna Ray. In this episode, she makes us move! Ok, more like she makes us sit in chairs and roll our eyes and turn our heads a bit and suddenly everything feels better. Welcome to the subtle art of micro-movement. Donna shows us how small physical adjustments in the way we hold ourselves can change both our experience and our body’s overall functioning. She’s a true adept – Donna has been teaching this method for over 40 years, ever since Moshe Feldenkrais first brought his system to North America.Like much of what we explore at CEP, the radical nature of Feldenkrais is hard to capture in words. Not a problem – your body doesn’t need words, it learns for itself by doing, and, in the doing, awareness expands. This is about repatterning the nervous system so that all parts can function in a more vital and free and integrated way. Ultimately it’s an exploration of pleasure as the basis for how to live inside our bodies. Thus we end our conversation with a few PG remarks on Tantric sex, and call it a day.  Donna’s 16 minute Feldenkrais practice begins at 9:02 and ends at 25:20. Links:Donna’s website: http://donnaray.comThe main resource for Feldenkrais: https://feldenkrais.com/Support the show Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

Today we’re joined by the UK-based Valerie Mason-John, also known as  Vimalasara, a leader in the field of mindfulness for addiction and trauma.This episode is about the ways we get disconnected from our bodies and our lives, and the role self-compassion can play in bringing us home. We explore this in the context of our addictions – even addictions we don’t realize are addictions, like, in Vimalasara’s words, “stinking thinking” and technology. And we explore it in the context of contemporary challenges like coronavirus, and the institutional racism and violence directed to Black bodies. For Vimalasara, the medicine is self-compassion – delivered with fierceness and strength. She guides us into a 16-minute meditation she calls the “five basic needs of the heart.” And then at the end of our time together, she guides a sobering inquiry into what she calls the “five questions of the shaman.” One of them – “when did you stop dancing?” – kind of drops a bomb into your brain!To go straight to the “five basic needs of the heart” practice, it begins at 3:35 and ends at 19:33.Links• Valerie’s website, where you can also find all our resources on recovery and addiction https://www.valeriemason-john.comSupport the show Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

Today we’re joined by Dr Baron Short, an Interventional Psychiatrist at the Medical University of South Carolina, and co-founder of Zendo, an electronic device that purports to enhance both the experience and the long-term benefits of meditation.How might a direct current of electricity to the brain affect our meditation? This is not a hypothetical question. All three of us – two hosts and one guide – wire up, select the highest possible setting, and ride out the hum. Tasha and Baron go to Bliss-land. Jeff goes... somewhere else!Baron’s guidance is lovely and supportive and useful for everyone  – you do not need electronic pads to get something out of this meditation. In fact, his 14-minute practice is a kind of guided tour of meditative landmarks many of us experience, from “the body drop” to the “stickiness of thoughts” and more.After the practice, we get into an animated discussion about the pros and cons of technologically-enhanced meditation. Do we need it? Why or why not? Have we always been enhanced, and what might a more enhanced evolutionary future look like? Much ensues from the Zendo tingle!To go straight to Baron’s 14-minute guided meditation, it begins at 14:00 and ends at 28:00.LinksZendo website: ​​https://zendomeditation.comDr Short’s clinician page at the Medical University of South Carolina: https://providers.muschealth.org/sc/mount-pleasant/edward-baron-short-md-mscrSupport the show Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

Today we’re joined by Stanford psychiatry professor Dr. David Spiegel, an expert in the clinical use of hypnosis. David is co-author, along with his late father Herbert Spiegel, of Trance and Treatment, a classic work on hypnosis published by the American Psychiatric Association. And therein lies a story … almost 20 years ago, Jeff interviewed David’s 92-year old father Herbert Spiegel. Not just interviewed – Dr Spiegel managed to hypnotize Jeff, demonstrating to him first-hand the strange persuasive power of this mind-body intervention. Now listeners can get their own taste. David’s first practice is a guided hypnosis session – essentially, he tries to hypnotize you. Then, depending on your suggestibility, he offers a specific therapeutic strategy for working with anxiety. David’s second short guided practice is an exploration of our innate hypnotic capacity. Hilarity ensues, as Jeff and Tasha observe their own dissociated arms tingle and float.Our conversation explores the nature and neurobiology of hypnosis, how it is different from meditation, and the under-appreciated potential of hypnosis to help with all kinds of health conditions, from addiction to chronic pain to anxiety. As David says, “all hypnosis is self-hypnosis.” This is a safe, internally-directed healing modality that ultimately does not depend on experts, or medication, or anything except a willingness to open yourself to experience. The first 10-minute hypnosis session begins at 8:05 and finishes at 17:51. The second eye-roll / arm floating test begins at 25:05 and finishes at 31:00. To use the Eye Roll Test to figure out your own innate hypnotic capacity, check out this illustration from Jeff’s book, The Head Trip. LinksDavid’s Self-Hypnosis App, “Reveri”: https://www.reveri.com His Stanford Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences webpage: https://profiles.stanford.edu/david-spiegelDavid's clinician page: https://stanfordhealthcare.org/doctors/s/david-spiegel.htmlDavid and his father Herbert Spiegel's classic book: Trance and Treatment: Clinical Uses of Hypnosis: www.appi.org/Products/Psychotherapy/Trance-and-Treatment-Second-EditionThe Eye Roll Test: https://jeffwarren.org/everythingelse/illustrations/the-spiegel-eye-roll/Support the show Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

Today we’re joined by Jeff’s good friend Therese Jornlin, teacher of meditation, yoga, and qi gong. Much happens in this episode! Therese re-introduces us to our breath as both medicine and guide. We learn how the specific way each of us breathes reflects our particular mental patterns and habits. The breath can show us where we’re stuck, and it can show us how to find a way through.  This is really an exploration of the wisdom of cycles: the inhale and the exhale, the up and the down, even life and death. We learn how Therese helped Jeff manage his bipolar symptoms, and how an appreciation for nature’s cycles can help all of us better manage life’s highs and lows.There are actually two practices in today’s episode, one long and one short. Therese’s primary 17 minute practice begins at 6:03 and ends at 23:37. Her shorter two minute “whisper breath” practice begins at 47:11 and ends at 49:27. Links:• Therese’s website • Therese's TED Talk: Reclaiming the Wisdom of Female Intelligence• Therese's coursesSupport the show Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

If you live in the US or Canada, you may have noticed a movement to acknowledge local indigenous groups who've historically lived in a particular territory. For example, Tasha and I live in Toronto, Ontario, which is also where our nonprofit meditation community group –  The Consciousness Explorers Club or "CEC" – operates. These days, at the beginning of every CEC retreats and meditation sits, even our virtual events, we say some version of "The CEC operates on the traditional territory of the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca, and the Mississaugas of the Credit, and is covered by Treaty 13." We say this as a way to situate us in an actual physical place. And we say it because we support the movement of truth, justice and reconciliation for Indigenous peoples in this country. It's been too long in coming.In today's episode, we explore the inner practice of territory and ancestor acknowledgement. Our guide, Warren Hooley, comes from a mixed indigenous and western background. He lives in the Syilx (Okanagan) Territory in Penticton, British Columbia, where he runs workshops on Facilitation, Indigenous Allyship, and Compassionate Communication. He also teaches at the Consciousness Explorers Club. Warren has really wrestled with this question of why territory acknowledgment matters, and how to engage with it in a way that is real and meaningful for the practitioner. His beautiful guided practice is really a ceremony, complete with drum and singing. It has three parts: an acknowledgment of local indigenous groups, an exploration of our own ancestral roots, and finally connecting in a personal way with our own local landscape.Warren’s 21-minute practice starts at 7:00 and ends at 28:00.Links:• Warren’s bio: http://cecmeditate.com/faculty/warren-hooley/Support the show Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

Meet meditation teacher Willa Blythe Baker. Willa is an authorized Lama in the Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism, and author of our new favorite book: The Wakeful Body: Somatic Mindfulness as a Path to Freedom.She guides us in a practice called GROUND – an acronym that describes progressively more subtle and expansive "layers" of somatic experience. We drop from the physical body, to the subtle body, and finally into the causal or nondual “body” of awareness itself. For Willa, the whole process is about “waking down” – in her words, “metabolizing, not transcending.” We also explore how to work with trauma in our body, and what it means to genuinely “befriend” our experience. Willa’s 15 minute GROUND practice starts at 7:57 and ends at 23:12. Links:• Willa’s book: https://www.shambhala.com/the-wakeful-body.html Support the show Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

Today our explorer-in-residence is Tracee Stanley, a longtime student and teacher of Yoga and Tantra, and author of Radiant Rest: Yoga Nidra for Deep Relaxation and Awakened Clarity. We’ve explored rest before on this pod, but not quite like this! When we sit and attempt to let go, what gets in the way? What messages about safety and worthiness are hiding in our nervous system?For Tracee, rest is about sanity, empowerment, and resistance. Resistance to our own self judgements and the pressures of dominant culture. We talk about all of this from a place of rest. To prepare for this week's practice, prep a space where you can get cozy. There is also a short journaling practice, so have a notebook and pen on hand.Tracee’s 20 minute deep rest practice begins at 4:03 and ends at 24:03 with lots of juicy, insightful discussion after!Just an extra note: our ambition with the “Mind Bod Adventure Pod,” as Tasha calls it, is to become part of your daily or weekly practice regimen. It is a place to explore a broad understanding of practice – from quieter meditation and movement practices, to more engaged life and work and communication practices. To do this in real-time, together. And then, after, we talk honestly about our own experience, as a way to help you get clearer about yours. In this way, we both connect to helpful practice resources, and we develop more confidence around being our own teachers and mental authorities.The other part of this is exploring what kind of conversation emerges after we do a practice – when we're still influenced by the practice itself, when it is still in our nervous systems, as it were. That’s one reason it's important to actually do the practices. They help us see what else might be important. They can change the way we live and relate and listen and communicate.So let’s party! And by "party," we mean close our eyes and do practically nothing.Links:• Tracee’s website: www.traceeyoga.com• Tracee’s Deep Relaxation Course on Commune• Tracee’s Yoga Nidra TrainingSupport the show Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

Today we meet Erik Davis, award-winning journalist and author, most recently, of High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies.Erik guides us in an imagination-based open awareness practice that for him is about cultivating a very specific kind of watchful attention. This turns out to be the perfect setup to discuss one of Erik’s specialities: the defiantly unclassifiable weirdness of psychedelic experience.We explore the ins and outs of the current psychedelic revival, the heretical nature of psychedelics as “practice,” even the possibility of the Buddha himself being a psychonaut. Can we scale-up psychedelic use for the mainstream? Do we even want to? And down we go, into a highly entertaining rabbit hole. Erik’s immersive 16 minute practice begins at 8:36 and ends at 24:20.  Links:• Erik’s website: https://techgnosis.com • Erik’s substack• High Weirdness Book• Psychedelic Sangha: https://psychedelicsangha.org • Erik’s Guided Psychedelic Meditation Music Album ExperienceSupport the show Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

Today’s episode we’re joined by Buddhist minister and social activist Lama Rod Owens, author of Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation through Anger. Our subject is anger, something Lama Rod once had to suppress in order to survive as “a Black queer body in America.” He writes: “My fear of death and policing has translated into a self-policing of my anger, to such an extent that if it weren’t for my meditation practice, I wouldn’t know how to find my anger.”How do we work with the energies of anger in this intense cultural moment? Do we need our anger to keep us motivated in the face of injustice and oppression? For Lama Rod, anger can start us off, but only love will sustain the work. This is the basis of his guided meditation – we connect to love and care as a way to hold both our anger and the “broken-heartedness” that’s often found underneath. A deep practice and a very raw conversation with one of the leaders of the next generation of dharma teachers.Lama Rod’s 15 minute guided practice on care and anger starts at 11:50 and ends at 27:26.Links• Lama Rod’s website: https://www.lamarod.com Support the show Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe