Episode #9 Falling in love with living – the how and the why
For most of us, falling in love with the absolute wonder of being alive is a distant dream. Nonetheless, changing how we feel is the goal of most self-help courses, a great deal of therapy and most of the routes that lead to alcohol and drug abuse.
Suppose we could do it intelligently, with a generosity-of-spirit that allows us really to fall in love with the act of living. So that each moment of life becomes a wonder, however it is lived?
In this final podcast of series 1, we take a look at this ultimate sticking point in our society. For many of us, feeling just isn’t safe and feeling good is either self-indulgence or self delusion. Or at least, that’s what we’ve programmed ourselves to believe.
But imagine a world where everyone was in love with living every moment of the day. Where we knew as a felt sense, that life was inspiring, and there to be explored. Where the magic of the days touched every interaction with ourselves, other people and the world around us.
None of this is impossible. Childhood trauma notwithstanding, we do have the ability to choose how we feel, moment by moment, hour by hour, day by day. I can open to the things that make my heart grow – or I can recycle the things that make it shrink. (With the coda that for some of us, our history of trauma is too great and we are hijacked by the impact of that on our bodies – therapy is a key resource and one to be used if at all possible.)
For most of us, though, we let our default feelings define the tenor and thread and weave of our lives. And we don’t have to. In fact, we need not to do this for any longer than we can help.
In this podcast, we explore the ways we can shift out of our defaults to something that lets us flourish. Because the world needs nothing less from us now.
Episode #9
Below are the academics mentioned in the podcast with their books. If you click the bold text, it’ll take you through to the relevant pages.
Jonathan Haidt – The Righteous Mind
Bessel van der Kolk – The Body Keeps Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma
Peter Levine – In an Unspoken Voice: how the body releases trauma and restores goodness
Stephen Porges – Polyvagal theory
Jonathan Franzen – What if we stopped pretending?
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE THESE RECENT EPISODES
Of Reindeer, Donkeys and the verb that is Water. Stories of climate-healing with Judith Schwartz
How do we move beyond our myopic focus on carbon/CO2 as the index of our harms to the world? What can we do to heal the whole biosphere? And what role is played by water-as-verb, forest-as-verb, ocean-as-verb?
Building an Economics of Happiness: Why our Future must be Local with Helena Norberg Hodge of Local Futures
How do we build the local futures we all know we need? What does it actually take to become a good enough ancestor? Or even the best ancestor we can be? Our guest this week, Helena Norberg-Hodge, has given her life to exploring the answers, and helping birth them into being.
Autumn Equinox meditation 2024
Here is an Autumn Equinox Meditation to help set you up for the shift from the long days to the long nights.
#Bonus: Thoughts at the Autumn Equinox 2024 – how, what, when, where and why – with Manda Scott
This is our regular September bonus episode – a brief look at where we’re at – how I (Manda) see things just now as we head deeper into the moment of transformation.
STAY IN TOUCH
For a regular supply of ideas about humanity's next evolutionary step, insights into the thinking behind some of the podcasts, early updates on the guests we'll be having on the show - AND a free Water visualisation that will guide you through a deep immersion in water connection...sign up here.
(NB: This is a free newsletter - it's not joining up to the Membership! That's a nice, subtle pink button on the 'Join Us' page...)