On the Highly Sensitive Man with Will Harper

One day, Will Harper’s upstairs neighbour stopped him in the courtyard and said, “I think you’re highly sensitive.”That neighbour was Dr Elaine Aron.Will is the Emmy Award-winning filmmaker behind Sensitive: The Untold Story, Sensitive and in Love, and the documentary series, Sensitive Men Rising. Elaine joined me on the podcast earlier this year, and she’s the one who suggested I speak with Will.Will grew up in a Black community in Seaside, California, wanting to go surfing and play the flute, and was told that’s not how they rolled. Before he met Elaine, he went to psychologists and psychiatrists to ask whether he was okay, because he cried so easily. Meeting her, he says, was like finally finding his tribe.In our conversation, Will shares how that meeting led to Sensitive: The Untold Story, and how Alanis Morissette came to be part of it.We talk about why the word “sensitive” can make men shut down, how much the environment a sensitive boy grows up in can shape who he becomes, and why you can be highly sensitive and still be tough, play sport and do martial arts. Will also tells the story of Andrew, a big, burly Australian bloke who heard about Elaine on the radio and thought, “That’s me.”And we talk about leadership, about holding on to optimism in hard times, and about what Will would say to a man who is just starting to realise he might be highly sensitive.In this episode, we explore:How a chance meeting with his neighbour, Dr Elaine Aron, changed Will’s life and led to Sensitive: The Untold StoryGrowing up as a sensitive Black boy in Seaside, California, with a father who expected him to be a tough guy and a mother who was highly sensitive herselfWhat high sensitivity is, through Elaine’s D.O.E.S. framework of depth of processing, overwhelm, empathy and sensitivity to subtletiesHow Alanis Morissette came to be in the film, and her need for downtime as a highly sensitive young songwriterWhy the word “sensitive” can make men shut down, and how the term “sensory processing sensitivity” helpedHow high sensitivity may show up differently in men and womenDifferential susceptibility, and why the environment a sensitive child grows up in matters so much (including the risk of coddling)Why therapy can be especially helpful for highly sensitive peopleAndrew’s story, and how highly sensitive men can still be tough and sportyHighly sensitive leaders, resilience, and what sensitive and less sensitive people can learn from each otherWhy high sensitivity isn’t a diagnosis, and where it can overlap with autism and traumaHow to support the highly sensitive men and boys in your lifeWhat Will wants a man who’s just realising he’s highly sensitive to knowConnect with Will Harper at sensitivemenrising.orgGet the free Spotify playlist for nervous system regulation at https://www.yogapsychologyinstitute.com/join Join the Introduction to Yoga and Mental Health training at https://www.mentalhealthawareyoga.com/introduction This podcast is for general informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice or training. Please consult a qualified healthcare professional for personalised guidance or come and join one of our programs at the Yoga Psychology Institute for professional training. While we are grateful for our guests and sponsors, any statements, claims or endorsements made are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the Yoga Psychology Institute.

Have you ever been told to relax, and found you just couldn’t?Or taught a yoga class for nervous system regulation, only to find your students struggling to stay still and looking unsettled or bored?The first time I tried yoga nidrā, I spent forty minutes twitching and wriggling, waiting for it to be over, while my boyfriend (now husband) slept happily beside me. In this solo episode, I share what that taught me about why calming practices don’t always calm us, and why nervous system regulation is about so much more than slowing down and long exhalations.In this episode, we explore:Why calming practices can sometimes make it harder to calm downMy first, very wriggly experience of yoga nidrā, and what it taught me about meeting yourself where you areWhat can help when you’re feeling wired: moving first, then gradually slowing downHyperarousal and hypoarousal, rajas and tamas, in plain languageWhy nervous system regulation isn’t only about slowing down, and how to gently build energy when you’re feeling flatWhen feeling flat calls for rest instead, and how yoga nidrā got me through having two kids under threeThe three guṇas, and why we need a little rajas and tamas tooWhy you don’t need to be calm all the timeA simple check-in: do you need to move, or to rest?For yoga teachers: what to do when students arrive wired, flat, or somewhere in betweenLearn to sequence your classes for nervous system regulation, whatever style of yoga you teach. The How to Teach Yoga for Nervous System Regulation masterclass is $29 (70% off) until Friday 6 November 2026: https://www.yogapsychologyinstitute.com/masterclassGet my free Spotify playlist for nervous system regulation: https://www.yogapsychologyinstitute.com/joinThis podcast is for general informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice or training. Please consult a qualified healthcare professional for personalised guidance or come and join one of our programs at the Yoga Psychology Institute for professional training. While we are grateful for our guests and sponsors, any statements, claims or endorsements made are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the Yoga Psychology Institute.

What if protecting your energy didn't mean keeping the world out?When I was training as a psychologist, I was taught to imagine a stop sign as people shared their stories with me. Later, in yoga circles, I was told to surround myself with white light.Neither worked for me, and holding everything at bay took so much energy. What I've learned over the years is to let things in, to feel them, and then let them go.So when Michelle Cassandra Johnson (she/her) described the practice of becoming a transparency, it made a whole lot of sense to me.Michelle is an author, activist, spiritual teacher, racial equity educator and intuitive and shamanic healer, who has spent over 25 years working with communities and organisations. Her new book,You Are Protected, offers practical ways to tend to ourselves so we can keep showing up for others and for the world.Michelle opens our conversation by casting a circle of protection, and from there we sit at her grandmother Dorothy's kitchen table, where black coffee and a daily devotional became Michelle's first lesson in ritual. We talk about what honeybees can teach us about rest, why the crone archetype knows exactly when to say no, and the many allies we can call on, from ancestors and animal energies to the elements that live within our own bodies.When I first held this book in my hands, I wasn't sure how much of it would be relevant to me. Then I found it threaded with things already in my life: chanting, rest, the elements on my altar, the herbal teas I make, the candles I light. I just hadn't thought of them as protection before.If you hold space for others, in a yoga class, a therapy room, your family or your community, I think you'll find something here to take with you.In this episode, we explore:A circle of protection to open, guided by Michelle from the introduction of You Are ProtectedMichelle's grandmother Dorothy, and her daily ritual of remembering she was a divine being before going out into a world shaped by white supremacyThe transparency practice: being fully present with someone's story while letting it pass through you, and why our nervous systems aren't designed to carry everythingRest as protection, and what honeybees teach us about contraction, longevity and sustaining our energyThe protective allies in the book: archetypes, animal energies, saints and deities, energetic forms, the elements, ancestors and natural curiosThe crone archetype, discernment and the wisdom of saying noSimple ways to work with air, fire, water and earth for protectionWhat Michelle is chanting right now, including her devotion to DurgāRemembering that we are worthy of protection and careHow to use the book's invocations, or write your ownWhether protection comes from within us, from beyond us, or bothWhy openings and closings matter, from washing her hands between clients to watching a comedy after deep spiritual workA closing practice to imprint your own protective circleConnect with Michelle Johnson at https://www.michellecjohnson.comJoin the final hybrid Mental Health Aware Yoga training today at https://www.mentalhealthawareyoga.com/hybridGet my Spotify playlist for nervous system regulation at https://www.yogapsychologyinstitute.com/join/ This podcast is for general informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice or training. Please consult a qualified healthcare professional for personalised guidance or come and join one of our programs at the Yoga Psychology Institute for professional training. While we are grateful for our guests and sponsors, any statements, claims or endorsements made are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the Yoga Psychology Institute.

Before I spoke with Dr Kelly McGonigal (she/her) on the podcast, I spent a day reading her new book on joy.That evening, when I walked into a yoga class and the teacher asked how I was, I heard myself say, ‘I am so good.’It took me a moment to realise why.Kelly is a psychologist, author and educator. All of her books are based on classes she has taught at Stanford University, including The Upside of Stress, The Joy of Movement and her latest, Joy Is a Risk Worth Taking.In this conversation, Kelly defines joy as the human capacity to be uplifted by what makes life worth living. She believes we have this capacity for a reason. Being human is hard, and joy helps us keep going.We talk about why joy can feel like such a risk. And why, for many of us, myself included, there can be so much guilt about expressing joy when there is so much suffering in the world.Her response to that guilt gave me tingles down my spine, especially her story of two people in Ukraine who joined her online joy class and told her joy mattered more than ever.Listen in as we explore lowering your threshold for joy, what pain and joy have in common in the brain, and why joy, more than any other emotion, wants to be let out.In this episode, we explore:Sharing joy as a first practice, and why ‘positive empathy’ connects us as much as compassion for each other's painLetting someone help you as an underappreciated act of joyHow conversations about joy brought Kelly closer to her father during his final illnessKelly's definition of joy and its functions: a signal of what makes life worth living, a signal to others that they matter, and an energy that moves us toward connectionJoy as small and fleeting rather than peak happinessLowering your detection threshold for joy, and tracking one micro uplift a dayThe barriers that make joy feel risky, including fear of loss and guilt amid sufferingJoy as part of our moral responsibility, and why calling joy a privilege is dehumanisingHow depression can make joy harder to access, and why every practice in the book was tested with people who were strugglingHow pain and joy both work through the brain's meaning systemThe ‘champagne bottle’ of joy: why joy has more ways of being expressed than any other emotion, and how shared joy builds trust and closenessKelly's hope that her book helps people feel better about humanityConnect with Kelly McGonigal at https://www.kellymcgonigal.com/Join the hybrid Mental Health Aware Yoga training today at https://www.mentalhealthawareyoga.com/hybrid Download the free Patanjali’s Eight Limbs and Mental Health Aware Yoga ebook at https://www.mentalhealthawareyoga.com/8limbsThis podcast is for general informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice or training. Please consult a qualified healthcare professional for personalised guidance or come and join one of our programs at the Yoga Psychology Institute for professional training. While we are grateful for our guests and sponsors, any statements, claims or endorsements made are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the Yoga Psychology Institute.

Think of the last time you were so absorbed in something that the world fell away. A good book. Hands in the garden. Watching the ocean. For a little while there was no to-do list, no worry, no self-judgement. Just the moment itself. These ordinary moments are doorways into the final four limbs of yoga, where we head inward.This is the last episode in our five part series on Patanjali's eight limbs.Now that we’ve moved through the yamas, the niyamas, asana and pranayama, we now turn fully inward, through pratyahara and on to dharana, dhyana and samadhi.These aren't limbs that we can force or achieve. They're what unfold on their own when the conditions are right.In this episode, we explore:Pratyahara, the turning inward, and why it can't be forced any more than sleep can‘Throwing the mind a bone’, and why a busy mind settles when we give it something simple to rest onWhat a Byron Bay heavy metal band next door taught me about pratyaharaWhy we never instruct our students to close their eyes, and how to offer the choice safelyDharana, dhyana and samadhi as the fruits of practice, rather than practices in themselvesWhy ‘I'm meditating’ really means ‘I'm creating the conditions in which meditation might arise’Why these deep inward states can be destabilising for someHow all eight limbs, in the end, point us home to ourselves and our own inner wisdomDownload the accompanying Patanjali’s Eight Limbs and Mental Health Aware Yoga ebook at https://www.mentalhealthawareyoga.com/8limbsJoin the online Mental Health Aware Yoga training in September at https://www.mentalhealthawareyoga.com/online Join the hybrid Mental Health Aware Yoga training today at https://www.mentalhealthawareyoga.com/hybridThis podcast is for general informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice or training. Please consult a qualified healthcare professional for personalised guidance or come and join one of our programs at the Yoga Psychology Institute for professional training. While we are grateful for our guests and sponsors, any statements, claims or endorsements made are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the Yoga Psychology Institute.

Ask most people what yoga is, and they'll picture the postures. Maybe the breathing. And fair enough, it's what we mostly teach, and what most people think we're doing. But in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, asana barely gets a mention. So what are the postures and the breath actually for?In this five part series on Patanjali's eight limbs, we've finally reached the two limbs most people think of as yoga - the postures and the breath. But in Mental Health Aware Yoga, these were never about achieving the perfect posture. They're tools for regulating the nervous system, and for coming to know ourselves from the inside.In this episode, we explore:Why asana barely gets a mention in Patanjali's Yoga SutrasSthira sukham asanam, steady and comfortable, and why this is quietly radical in a culture that prizes the hardest version of every practiceWhy how we invite our students to practise matters more than what we teachThe gunas as a practical map for reading the energy in the roomHow the Window of Tolerance and ancient yogic maps line up beautifullyA more useful question than "what's wrong with this person," and how it changes the way we teachThe breath and the mind as a two-way street, and how we can breathe our way toward calmWhy we invite students to slow the exhale rather than force it, and what to do when the breath feels unsafeA simple breath-led movement practice you can take into your very next classDownload the accompanying Patanjali’s Eight Limbs and Mental Health Aware Yoga ebook at https://www.mentalhealthawareyoga.com/8limbs  Join the online Mental Health Aware Yoga training in September at https://www.mentalhealthawareyoga.com/online Join the hybrid Mental Health Aware Yoga training today at https://www.mentalhealthawareyoga.com/hybrid This podcast is for general informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice or training. Please consult a qualified healthcare professional for personalised guidance or come and join one of our programs at the Yoga Psychology Institute for professional training. While we are grateful for our guests and sponsors, any statements, claims or endorsements made are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the Yoga Psychology Institute.

In this third episode on Patanjali's eight limbs of yoga, we’re exploring the niyamas and how they can support mental health in our yoga teaching.While the last two episodes were on the yamas, on how we engage with the world, in this one, we turn inward to the niyamas, on how we relate to ourselves.We look at the five niyamas not as a self-improvement checklist or an impossible ideal to measure ourselves against, but as practical ways of tending our inner world with awareness, clarity and care.In this episode, we explore:Sauca as clarity rather than purity and how it shapes the spaces we teach in and the way we tend to our own inner worldWhy cleanliness and purity can quietly tip over into shame, and the importance of ahimsa Santosha, contentment, and why choosing it is a quietly radical actThe science of gratitude, and how it can help to down-regulate the nervous systemTapas, the inner fire, and why it is never about self-punishmentSvadhyaya, self-study, and the discernment that only you can make about when to push and when to restIsvarapranidhana, surrender, and making this niyama accessible for those for whom the language of God feels difficultHow the niyamas keep our practice and our teaching resourcing rather than depletingDownload the accompanying Patanjali’s Eight Limbs and Mental Health Aware Yoga ebook at https://www.mentalhealthawareyoga.com/8limbs  Join the online Mental Health Aware Yoga training in September at https://www.mentalhealthawareyoga.com/online Join the hybrid Mental Health Aware Yoga training today at https://www.mentalhealthawareyoga.com/hybrid This podcast is for general informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice or training. Please consult a qualified healthcare professional for personalised guidance or come and join one of our programs at the Yoga Psychology Institute for professional training. While we are grateful for our guests and sponsors, any statements, claims or endorsements made are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the Yoga Psychology Institute.

Welcome to the second episode in a special five-part pop-up series on Patanjali's eight limbs of yoga, exploring what each limb means for us as yoga teachers supporting our students' mental health.In the last episode, we explored ahimsa. In this one, we dive into the other four yamas - satya, asteya, brahmacarya and aparigraha.We look at how these four yamas can guide our yoga teaching, from finding our own yes and our own no, to letting go of the endless comparison that leaves so many of us feeling we're not enough.In this episode, we explore:Satya, truthfulness and why honesty is always held alongside kindnessBeing truthful with ourselves, and the quiet cost of saying yes when we mean noWhy you don't have to have all the answers to be a good teacherAsteya, non-stealing, and moving from comparison and envy toward appreciationCultural appropriation, and the questions asteya invites us to sit with as yoga teachersBrahmacarya as energy management, and being mindful of sexual energy and the power imbalance in the teaching relationshipAparigraha, non-grasping, and letting go of how we think our classes, our students and ourselves should beHow every one of the yamas points us back toward our own inner compassDownload the accompanying Patanjali’s Eight Limbs and Mental Health Aware Yoga ebook at https://www.mentalhealthawareyoga.com/8limbsJoin the online Mental Health Aware Yoga training in September at https://www.mentalhealthawareyoga.com/online Join the hybrid Mental Health Aware Yoga training today at https://www.mentalhealthawareyoga.com/hybrid This podcast is for general informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice or training. Please consult a qualified healthcare professional for personalised guidance or come and join one of our programs at the Yoga Psychology Institute for professional training. While we are grateful for our guests and sponsors, any statements, claims or endorsements made are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the Yoga Psychology Institute.

Welcome to the first episode in a special five part pop-up series on Patanjali's eight limbs of yoga, exploring what each limb means for us as yoga teachers supporting our students' mental health.We're beginning where Patanjali begins, with ahimsa.Ahimsa is the ground everything else is built on, so it felt only right to start here.In this episode we look at what ahimsa asks of us as teachers, what real students told me helped their mental health in class and what harmed it, and how we can create a safe container for the people who walk through our doors.Everyone is welcome to listen to this episode, but for this special series I'm speaking directly to yoga teachers.In this episode, we explore:How Patanjali's Yoga Sutras still speak to our very modern mental health challengesWhy almost 80% of yoga students come to yoga for mental health reasons, and what that means for us as teachersThe yamas as conditions for safety and non-harming, rather than moral rules to live up toAhimsa, non-harming, and why it might be the most important consideration when supporting our students' mental healthWhat real students said helped their mental health in class, and what harmed it, in their own wordsPractical ways to create a safe container, including invitational language, predictability, consent, boundaries and scope of practiceAhimsa toward ourselves, and why the way we treat ourselves is part of what we teachDownload the accompanying Patanjali’s Eight Limbs and Mental Health Aware Yoga ebook at https://www.mentalhealthawareyoga.com/8limbsJoin the online Mental Health Aware Yoga training in September at https://www.mentalhealthawareyoga.com/online Join the hybrid Mental Health Aware Yoga training today at https://www.mentalhealthawareyoga.com/hybrid This podcast is for general informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice or training. Please consult a qualified healthcare professional for personalised guidance or come and join one of our programs at the Yoga Psychology Institute for professional training. While we are grateful for our guests and sponsors, any statements, claims or endorsements made are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the Yoga Psychology Institute.

Your throat tightens in a conversation, a few seconds before you've worked out why.You feel a flutter of anxiety in your belly before your mind catches on to what’s happening.Your body is always talking to you, sending signals from the inside, all day long.That inward-facing sense has a name, interoception, and in this solo episode of A Grateful Life, I'm stepping out from behind the interview chair to explore it.Instead of introducing you to one of my guests, I'm sharing something we've been exploring inside the programs at the Yoga Psychology Institute recently. What interoception actually is, why so many of us have turned its volume right down, and how we can gently turn it back up.Whether you teach, practise, or are simply curious about the meeting place of yoga and psychology, consider this an invitation to listen inward, and to trust what you find there.In this episode, we explore:The continuum of embodimentThe spectrum of interoceptionWhy inner signals get muted, and why that disconnection is so often protectiveThe link between interoception and emotional literacyLearning to listen to the whispers of the body, rather than waiting until they're screamingSimple, practical ways to strengthen interoception in everyday lifeWhy yoga is such a powerful vehicle for exploring our internal worldHow teachers can gently support interoception in a class, always with safety and choice firstA small interoceptive practice to take awayJoin the hybrid Mental Health Aware Yoga training today at https://www.mentalhealthawareyoga.com/hybrid Join the online Mental Health Aware Yoga training in September at https://www.mentalhealthawareyoga.com/online Listen to the music for nervous system regulation playlist at https://www.yogapsychologyinstitute.com/join/This podcast is for general informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice or training. Please consult a qualified healthcare professional for personalised guidance or come and join one of our programs at the Yoga Psychology Institute for professional training. While we are grateful for our guests and sponsors, any statements, claims or endorsements made are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the Yoga Psychology Institute.