Expanding Consciousness

Nikolas and Michael get personal about masculinity and the father wound: how boys are quietly taught to suppress emotion, the difference between inheriting a parent's fear and reacting against it, and what it takes to change a pattern carried since childhood. They talk about parenting the way they wish they had been parented, loving a child for who they are rather than what they do, and the hard question of whether a relational wound can be completed without the parent. It ends on blame, grief, and the good memories worth holding onto.00:00 Intro00:45 Masculinity and the father wound02:54 Looking at the father relationship for the first time06:05 How boys get taught to suppress emotion10:30 Masculinity as a denial of "soft" qualities13:13 How suppression is passed down16:40 Transmission, reaction, and the "shy kid" label20:31 It took suffering and awareness to change23:03 Parenting as a second-time father26:57 Love for who you are vs what you do: the shame wound31:47 Relational wounds and relational repair34:23 Safety, TRE, and reparenting yourself36:44 Can you complete a father wound without the father?39:54 Letting go of blame43:23 Grieving what you did not get46:28 Wrap-up

Nikolas and Michael turn the lens on themselves and the podcast itself: the quiet fear of saying the wrong thing, where self-censorship comes from, and what honest conversation actually costs. They trace their path from software engineering into psychology, move through charged territory like COVID and polarization, and get into the strange discomfort of hearing your own voice. Nikolas introduces the "true mirror," and they land on podcasting as a kind of shadow work and a practice in staying present.00:00 Intro00:45 The discomfort of putting yourself out there04:29 From software engineering to psychology08:14 Self-censorship and the fear of saying the wrong thing09:56 Being apolitical, and the social cost of speaking11:55 COVID as a charged entry point16:07 Platforms, news, and whose interests18:10 Relaxing the self-censorship20:35 Intention and the casual, unscripted format23:44 Hearing your own voice: the cringe26:39 The "true mirror": seeing yourself unflipped29:23 Self-observation and self-acceptance31:55 Podcasting as working on yourself37:21 Staying present and becoming a good conversationalist43:19 Why this should be taught, and the joy in it45:00 Wrap-up

Michael brings his first experience of Hakomi, a gentle, mindfulness-based somatic therapy, and the two of them unpack what actually happens when the body starts to unwind on its own. They get into following impulses instead of forcing them, why a guided container helps, the discipline of allowing rather than controlling, and how exaggerating a tension can be the thing that finally releases it. Along the way: repression and chronic pain, fascia and non-directive movement, and where Hakomi sits next to TRE.00:00 Intro00:45 Michael's first Hakomi session06:45 Remote vs. in-person somatic work09:48 The body unwinding on its own: following the impulse12:30 Why a guided container helps16:00 Allowing vs. controlling19:00 Expectations, impatience, and resistance22:15 Bringing what is below awareness back online26:45 Exaggerating a tension to release it30:45 Repression, chronic pain, and compartmentalization35:15 Fascia, unwinding, and not needing to know why40:15 Aftereffects and worse before better42:45 When it is too much: TRE and overdoing it46:05 Hakomi vs. TRE: a tool or a whole path48:55 Wrap-up

Megan's Website:https://unitybreathwork.com/In this episode of Expanding Consciousness, we sit down with Megan Ashton, founder of Unity Breathwork, to explore the transformative potential—and the responsibilities—of conscious connected breathwork.Megan shares her deeply personal journey from addiction, disordered eating, and years of searching for healing modalities to discovering breathwork and experiencing a profound shift in her relationship with herself. We explore what actually happens during a conscious connected breathwork session, including emotional releases, altered states of consciousness, physical sensations, insights, and experiences of deep peace and clarity.A major focus of the conversation is trauma-informed breathwork. Megan explains why agency, empowerment, nervous-system awareness, preparation, grounding, and integration are essential when working with people in highly vulnerable states. We discuss why facilitators should create space for catharsis without chasing it, how to recognize the edges of someone’s window of tolerance, and why the facilitator’s own nervous system matters.We also dive into the role of touch, group dynamics, music, intuition, and even elements of IFS in breathwork—and question how much direction a facilitator should provide when the body’s own wisdom may know what is needed.Timestamps00:00 – Grounding with Conscious Breathing03:56 – Megan’s Journey: Addiction, Disordered Eating & Searching for Healing06:18 – Discovering Conscious Connected Breathwork08:47 – What Is Conscious Connected Breathwork?09:57 – Conscious Connected Breathwork vs. Wim Hof11:46 – Why the First 15 Minutes Can Feel Difficult13:31 – What Happens During a Breathwork Session?15:38 – Emotional Release, Visions, Insights & Non-Ordinary States17:14 – Why Repetition Matters for Nervous System Change18:26 – The “Stress Bucket” & Processing Trauma Through the Body21:14 – Do You Need to Relive Trauma to Heal It?22:58 – Catharsis: Holding Space Without Chasing It24:03 – Microdose vs. Macrodose Breathwork25:23 – The Window of Tolerance & Avoiding Overwhelm25:45 – What Actually Makes an Experience Traumatizing?26:59 – Agency, Empowerment & Safety in Breathwork27:33 – What Does Trauma-Informed Breathwork Look Like?28:02 – Preparing People for Tetany & Intense Experiences29:45 – The Importance of Grounding & Integration30:18 – The Facilitator’s Nervous System & Creating a Safe Container31:19 – Is Bluetooth Affected by Breathwork?32:14 – Music, Touch, IFS & Other Breathwork Approaches33:14 – Why Megan Prefers Live, Intuitive Facilitation35:16 – The Power of the Group Container36:45 – Touch, Safety & Co-Regulation38:06 – Relational Trauma & the Role of the Facilitator39:14 – Two Points of Consent & Reading the Body41:13 – Why Trauma-Informed Training Matters42:44 – Adverse Experiences in Breathwork43:10 – Seizures, Hypoxic Blackouts & Breath-Holding45:32 – The Risk of Combining Wim Hof Techniques with Long Breathwork Sessions48:01 – The Bohr Effect & What Happens During Prolonged Breathwork48:50 – Why Safety Conversations Matter49:44 – Megan’s 450-Hour Breathwork Facilitator Training51:07 – Professional Standards & the Wild West of Breathwork51:51 – Red Flags When Choosing a Breathwork Facilitator53:23 – Final Thoughts: The Power and Responsibility of Breathwork

You can do years of inner work, but if your nervous system is still organized around threat, the body keeps paying the price through stress, inflammation, and chronic pain. In this episode, trauma therapist Shari B. Kaplan (LCSW) joins Nikolas and Michael to explore how trauma lives in the body, why the nervous system holds the key to lasting healing, and what it really takes to move from surviving to thriving.With over 30 years of clinical experience, Shari weaves together somatic awareness, Internal Family Systems, Jungian depth work, and integrative approaches to mental health. We get into the link between trauma, chronic pain, and inflammation, how to work with the nervous system instead of against it, practical tools for regulation and breathwork, and why raising the bar on what we accept as good mental health treatment matters more than ever.Guest: Shari B. Kaplan, LCSW, Founder of Cannectd WellnessChapters:0:00 Intro0:45 Welcome & Shari's Work5:22 Personal Journey and the Influence of Family9:58 Plant Medicine & Integrative Healing14:31 Integrating Cannabis and Ketamine in Treatment19:02 Therapeutic Techniques and the Client Relationship25:38 Empowering Clients Through Breathwork28:20 Techniques for Calming the Nervous System31:29 Navigating Resistance to Emotional Expression34:58 Understanding Anger and Its Release39:17 Holistic Approaches to Therapy42:44 Reorganizing Identity and Beliefs48:31 Integrating Therapy and Coaching

Coming from opposite directions — Nikolas from a hard-science skepticism of anything "woo," Michael from a spiritual high horse that looked down on psychology — the two meet in the middle to ask a deceptively simple question: are spirituality and psychology compatible, complementary, or fundamentally at odds?The conversation moves from spiritual bypassing and hitting plateaus on the meditation cushion, to how psychology's "third wave" (mindfulness, DBT, ACT) quietly absorbed Eastern practice, to the existential terrain — death, meaning, and the fear of the void — where they argue psychology alone may run out of road. From there they get into the harder questions: the risks of untrained spiritual and psychedelic facilitation, safety and trauma-informed containers, the clinicalization of plant medicine, and a genuinely contested back-and-forth on cultural appropriation, decolonization, and what (if anything) gets lost when an indigenous practice becomes a Western framework.A wide-ranging, exploratory dialogue for anyone interested in the meeting point of inner work, psychedelics, mental health, and the existential questions that neither science nor spirituality answers cleanly on its own.Timestamps00:00 Intro00:41 Are spirituality and psychology compatible?01:40 Two opposite starting points & plant medicine opening the lid02:57 From engineering to spirituality and back to psychology04:10 Carl Rogers, unconditional positive regard & Ram Dass05:08 The third wave: CBT, mindfulness, DBT & Eastern roots07:05 12-step programs, surrender & shedding the ego08:25 Where psychology hits its limits: existential questions09:49 Death through a Western lens vs. a spiritual lens13:21 Is death just the end? Consciousness, matter & the void14:45 "Die before you die" & the West's troubled relationship with death16:57 Plant medicine, joy, and the patterns it revealed18:50 What psychology brings: precision, containment & safety21:42 Safety in spiritual ceremony & the trauma-informed gap24:47 Liberty vs. risk: psychosis, cannabis & applying caution27:11 Clinicalization of plant medicine — losing the sacred?28:41 Appropriation, decolonization & "letting it change you"31:19 Strains, spirits, the entourage effect & synthesized compounds33:47 Does context make it the same experience? Set, setting & safety36:22 Clinical rooms vs. cozy containers & the MAPS tension40:46 Mindfulness, John Kabat-Zinn & where appropriation begins42:54 You can't monopolize spirituality44:29 Suffering as the doorway to both paths45:48 Michael Singer's "Wisdom Untethered" & closing thoughts

In this episode, Nikolas and Michael unpack Focusing, the therapeutic method developed by philosopher and psychologist Eugene Gendlin out of his research with Carl Rogers' client-centered therapy. What began as an attempt to isolate why some therapy sessions succeed and others fail became a powerful practice that has sold half a million copies and helped bridge the gap between the talk-therapy era and today's somatic approaches.At the heart of the conversation is the "felt sense" — that nebulous, hard-to-pin-down space between sensation and emotion where we actually make meaning. The two explore how to get in touch with it, why we resist uncomfortable experiences and store them in the body, and how meaning follows experience rather than leading it. Along the way they walk through the six steps of Focusing, compare it to EMDR and Somatic Experiencing, and dig into a bigger question: what does it actually mean to be wounded, and what does it mean to heal?A thoughtful, exploratory conversation for anyone interested in somatic psychology, trauma processing, and the body's natural capacity to unwind itself — no re-traumatization required.Peter Levine clip mentioned in the episode:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdUnCj05RMsTimestamps00:00 Introduction00:41 What is Focusing & its origins with Carl Rogers03:05 The felt sense explained — between sensation and emotion06:35 Walking through an example of the felt sense08:23 The felt shift & why you don't compartmentalize the experience10:58 Meaning follows experience (not the other way around)13:12 Body awareness, somatic unfolding & the body's wisdom15:53 How experiences get stored: overwhelm, dissociation & programming17:49 Why we reject experiences & store them in the body20:20 Overload, childhood & falling back to primitive responses21:48 Re-experiencing the "residue" without reliving the story23:38 Why resistance exists: aversion to discomfort & habit25:29 The six steps of Focusing (creating space, felt sense, handle, resonate, ask)30:48 Comparing Focusing to EMDR & Peter Levine's Somatic Experiencing34:43 Is trauma processing the same across modalities?36:16 What does it mean to be wounded and to heal?40:37 Updating a 1970s framework for modern somatic psychology42:44 Habits as identity & the disorientation of change45:02 Attitude, intrinsic motivation & creating your own suffering47:31 Closing thoughts

The 5 C's:https://instituteofspiritualhealing.com/5c/Sufism Foundations Course:https://instituteofspiritualhealing.com/foundations-sh/Salima Adelstein is a Sufi spiritual guide and emotional healer with 35 years of experience accessing the deeper layers of the heart. After 25 years on a different spiritual path that included meditation and time in India, an unexpected encounter with a Sufi master in New Mexico shifted everything for her. In this conversation she walks us through the core of Sufism: the heart-mind connection, the three inner voices (the ego/nafs, the negative outside voice, and the voice of the divine), the practice of remembrance (dhikr), forgiveness and mercy, ego annihilation, and surrender. We talk about how Sufism strips away the hidden "pictures in the heart" we carry from childhood and ancestry, why peace has to start in your own heart before it can radiate outward, and what a daily practice actually looks like. A grounded conversation for anyone curious about how a heart-centered tradition meets ordinary life.0:00 Intro0:41 Introduction to Sufism and Salima's Journey8:12 The Heart-Mind Connection in Sufism13:43 Navigating Inner Voices and Discernment18:55 The Role of Forgiveness and Mercy26:24 Annihilation of the Ego and Surrender34:22 Living from an Open Heart37:29 Practical Steps in Sufism

What if your biggest struggles weren’t random—but rooted deep in your subconscious… or even beyond this lifetime?In this episode, we sit down with hypnotherapist Peter McLaughlin, who shares his powerful journey from firefighter and EMT to helping people resolve anxiety, emotional blocks, and deeply ingrained patterns through hypnosis.We explore what hypnosis really is (hint: you already experience it daily), how trauma gets stored in the subconscious, and how accessing these states can lead to rapid transformation—sometimes in just minutes. Peter explains how emotional patterns, beliefs, and even guilt or shame can shape our lives without us realizing it—and how they can be rewritten.We also dive into more unconventional territory, including past life regression, spiritual perspectives on healing, and why confronting inner pain (rather than avoiding it) can be the key to lasting change.This episode is a deep and thought-provoking exploration of the mind, healing, and what it really means to transform from the inside out.Timestamps00:00 Introduction & Peter’s background01:10 From firefighter to life-threatening diagnosis02:26 Discovering hypnosis & subconscious healing04:58 What is hypnosis really?08:56 How hypnotherapy rewires patterns09:49 How to enter a hypnotic state14:44 Processing trauma in hypnosis15:19 Creating safety in therapy18:35 Confronting pain vs avoiding it19:14 Making the unconscious conscious23:05 Past life vs current life trauma28:22 Why guilt & shame are so powerful31:46 Why we carry trauma across lifetimes36:18 How long does transformation take?37:55 Are we ever “done” with the work?41:55 Skepticism: is it just imagination?45:44 Spiritual implications of healing50:11 Do clients know what they’re getting into?53:44 Who is drawn to this work?54:24 Stanislav Grof 55:44 Birth trauma vs past life regression58:01 Psyched**ics vs hypnosis01:00:43 Spiritual attachments explained01:02:51 How entity attachment healing works

In this episode, we talk with evidential medium Barbara Banner, who shares her personal journey into mediumship and how she began delivering detailed, verifiable messages from people in spirit.We explore what mediumship actually feels like from the inside, how messages come through, and whether this ability is something only a few people have — or something anyone can learn to access. Barbara explains how grief affects the connection to the other side, why signs from loved ones often appear in everyday life, and what spirits supposedly experience after death.The conversation also dives into deeper questions about reincarnation, life reviews, spirit guides, and whether those on the other side can influence what happens here on Earth. Toward the end, Barbara even attempts a live reading during the podcast, showing how unexpected and symbolic these messages can be.Topics include:How Barbara discovered her abilitiesWhat happens during a medium readingSigns from loved ones after deathLife after death & reincarnationSpirit guides and intuitionCan anyone learn mediumship?A live reading during the episodeTimestamps0:00 Intro1:22 Barbara’s story – how mediumship started2:46 Crisis work, grief support, and early experiences5:02 Paranormal events that changed everything6:41 First readings and learning mediumship8:35 Mediumship and grief – why timing matters11:08 What messages from spirits are usually about14:02 Validations, signs, and surprising details18:33 How spirits communicate with a medium20:52 Can anyone learn intuition and connection?24:30 Teaching clients to connect themselves26:35 When messages don’t make sense at first27:59 Who shows up in a reading?30:52 Burnout and self-care as a medium32:44 Negative spirits, protection, and safety35:00 Life after death and the life review38:57 Reincarnation and why souls come back42:06 Can spirits influence life on Earth?45:06 Live reading during the podcast52:55 When messages make sense later54:46 Where to find Barbara Banner online55:38 Outro