EP#007 | Ajahn Sucitto | The Wisdom of the Body: A Buddhist Perspective

Hello Everyone, It has been a while since we have been in your ears, and it’ll be while yet until we return with a second season of the podcast. However we have this extra conversation we want to share with you, and it’s with us. We were interviewed on the "Be On Air" podcast from The Podcast Farm and we enjoyed it so much that we thought we would share it ourselves. It seems like the perfect mid-season break as it dives into both Mat and Marcela’s origin stories and how we began collaborating on mind-body healing, and on The Body Knows podcast together. In doing so we explore topics like understanding our mind-body connection and why it's important, as well as ways to ground yourself, the influence of western cultural systems, patriarchy, masculinity, self-love, as well as a couple of tips for successful podcasting and so much more. We’ve had a busy summer while the podcast has been on hold, running Temazcalli sweat lodges at the Good Vibrations festival together with the help of our dear friend Eddie from MangoMovement - https://www.instagram.com/mangomanmovement/ , for Marcela the Still Flowing Yoga and Somatics Teacher Training is taking place at the Yoga Garden in West Sussex. Her Cacao Spirit Initation with Maru Bibian Albor is underway and she’s cooking up new ancestral, somatic offerings with her dear friend Gemma Mallol. Mat has been building a mentoring program for men, helping to guide them towards a state of wholeness and divine masculine sexuality while continuing his bodywork training with Michelle Roberton. If you want to check any of what we are up to out the links to our personal socials are in the Instagram and Facebook bios for The Body Knows. Host of the "Be On Air" podcast, K-Lee Marks, brings his listeners on multidisciplinary conversations with extraordinary coaches, speakers, authors, and entrepreneurs that astonish, educate, and it was an honour to be guest on the show, which is all about using the power of your voice to amplify what you love. CONVERSATION OVERVIEW Introduction Mat and Marcela’s origins? Collaboration and beginning a journey together Why get into your body? How to ground with your body Western cultural system of patriarchy Ancestral trauma in our DNA The Body Knows Podcast Tips for other podcasters Group podcast coaching Podcast shoutouts Final messages As ever please like, comment and review on your favourite podcast channels and tag us on socials if you share there. Follow @thepodcastfarm on Instagram for updates about the podcast! Follow @embodiedpractices on Instagram and Facebook to learn more about Marcela’s courses and retreats! Want to talk about your podcast? Connect with K.Lee and The Podcast Farm Book a free strategy session to talk about your podcast: https://podcast-farm.com/apply/ Join the podcast farmers FB group and grow your show! https://www.facebook.com/groups/podcastfarmers/?ref=share

Welcome to another bonus episode of The Body Knows Podcasts. These feature in-depth discussions with some wonderful individuals Marcela is working in partnership with to provide some upcoming somatic offerings. We’d like to think that no matter if you participate in the offerings or not there will be insights and wisdom in these conversation nonetheless. This bonus episode is very special for Marcela. She is speaking with Maru Albor Bibian, her ceremonial cacao teacher, about one of her core embodiment practices; the art of cacao ceremonies. Maru facilitates ancestral medicine ceremonies with Cacao and Rapé. She also provides both group and one-to-one healing sessions, as well as leading women’s circles with medicine songs and prayers, and is an energetic therapist, working with Reiki and chakra balancing too. Cacao ceremonies are one of the most beautiful ways to enter into deep inquiry of what is to have a body, and what is to have a soul and connect with the Great Spirit. It was actually through tapping into the wisdom of her body that Marcela awakened this ancient memory, this ancient medicine, coming from her indigenous background. Once this seed was awakened and begun to bloom she entered into a quest to find her initiation. In every indigenous tradition you must be initiated or have the sacred wisdom of the ancestors transmitted orally, encoded in the language. And this is how she found Maru. She gave Marcela the honour of transmitting to her the essence and life of the Tabasco Jungle where her teacher lives and tends his cacaotal. Both Maru and Marcela we were born and raised in the great city of Mexico Tenochtitlan. They are going to join forces to run an online initiation and transmission of the Cacao Spirit. This CACAO SPIRIT INITIATION will be four online ceremonies running – 17:00 - 21:00 GMT, Week One 10-11/07/21 and Week Two 17-18/07/21. We hope you enjoy this bonus episode about the art of cacao ceremonies. If you are interested in this initiation please follow this link - https://embodiedpractices.com/cacaoexperience/ Or you can always DM our socials; https://www.instagram.com/thebodyknows_podcast/ and https://www.facebook.com/thebodyknowspodcast/ or Marcela directly; https://www.instagram.com/embodied_practices/ and https://www.facebook.com/embodiedpractices/ This is the final bonus episode Marcela has recorded about her upcoming offerings, and it's been good to use the platform as sponshorship for something near and dear to us but now it's time to rest and reflect on what's next for the podcast. We are sure our bodies will guide us in this.  However we’ll be releasing on more special episode soon too in collaboration with a podcasting partner, so please keep an eye on our socials for news about that. In the meantime, as ever, please share this episode with anyone you think it may be of benefit to and rate and review on Apple Podcast if it speaks to your heart. Thanks for you time listening and your on-going support of The Body Knows Podcast.

Welcome to this bonus episode to the Body Knows Podcast, which Marcela has recorded by herself between seasons. This bonus episode is about the upcoming Still Flowing Yoga Teacher Training, and in conversation we have a former guest of the show; Gemma Mallol, founder of SFYTT, a Somatic Experiencing practitioner, Senior Yoga Teacher and Mindfulness teacher. Also Blanche Mullholand, Somatic Movement Educator, Body Worker and Somatic Experiencing Practitioner. And, Marcela Wakeham, Senior Yoga Teacher, Movement Therapist, and Experiential Anatomist. The three together are the principle teaching staff of the training, along with Neville Cregan, who delivers the history and philosophy of yoga The conversation touches into the core of Marcela's own somatic practice, as it is the journey of contemporary yoga teacher training in the field of somatics. And what is somatics? Well somatics is the body, the ability of the mind to be aware of the host. It is as well a guidance to follow natural patterns imprinted in cells and movement initiation from different tissues or body systems. Somatics is a returning to the natural intelligence which is vast and enriched ancestral knowledge. Like Emilie Conrad, one of the pioneers of somatic movement in the 60s, says: “The body can be seen as a resonation chamber in which the player of breath becomes a kind of music. The versatility of breath invites ranges of new sensations, responses – new awareness develop, new relationships are formed. The versatility of breath allows our organism to become more diverse, increasing our options to interact in new ways. Breath enlivens our internal functioning, allowing more to exist.” In the new ways we find ourselves living in our technological world it is so important to establish a direct contact with sensations, and to have a practice which encourages free expression, harnessing the natural development of inner wisdom. Yoga & somatics is a new trend that has been rapidly taking shape, and gaining popularity, but like most new trends it can have its pitfalls, and it is important find a truly qualified somatic practitioner, one who is not teaching form the head, and for that it takes years of experience, practicing the art of going in, as well as years of practice to make sense of how to teach it, paired with continuous self-actualization. Still flowing yoga Teacher Training was established in 2008, offering trainings internationally, a highly regarded as a pioneering program in integrating contemporary somatic insights and mindfulness with yoga. It is a 200 hour training accredited by UK Yoga Alliance and is delivered by us as experienced teachers, who are all highly respected in our field of expertise. The training will take place at The Yoga Garden in West Sussex in the U.K. A beautiful natural Centre, it is found within the 3,500 acre rewilding project that is the Knepp Estate. The training takes place in a handcraft yurt set within a wild flower meadow, accompanied by the chorus of uplifting birdsongs. For registration and enquiries contact [email protected] For more details about the course tutors please see our websites. Gemma Mallol http://www.stillflowingyogateachertraining.com. Blanche Mulholland https://somatic-alchemy.co.uk. Ana Marcela Wakeham https://embodiedpractices.com.  We hope you enjoy this bonus episode about the journey and integration of somatics into yoga teacher trainings, which goes hand by hand with the story and journey of us as teachers. We'll be doing another bonus episode next month too and as ever please share this episode with anyone you think it may be of benefit to and rate and review on Apple Podcast if it speaks to your heart.

This is the last episode of SE#01 of The Body Knows Podcast. Thanks to all who have listened throughout the series, to those we have met and spoken with, and who have reached out, inspired by what you have heard. This was our purpose in creating the show and makes our work worthwhile. Our final guest is Bruce Parry; English documentarian; indigenous rights advocate, author, explorer, and former Royal Marines commando officer. His documentary series for the BBC: Tribe, Amazon, and Arctic have shown Bruce exploring extreme environments, living with remote indigenous peoples and highlighting many of the issues on the environmental frontline. What started out as a simple desire for adventure for him developed into a profound love for humanity and nature that comes with having experienced first-hand what our way of life is doing in the world. He is best known for his time spent living with Indigenous Peoples, and for bringing awareness of the shamanic use of psychedelic plant medicine to the mainstream, as well as his investigations into globalisation and climate change. Bruce's latest film; “TAWAI – A Voice from the Forest, is about how humankind has shifted its connection to nature with devastating results and suggests how we might return to the egalitarian structures we lived in for 95% of our time on the planet before the agricultural revolution. This is a deep and wide ranging conversation taking in; awareness practices, psychedelics and shadow work, the nature of spirit and consciousness via the lenses of felt sense, indigenous wisdom, meditative awareness and scientific study and the possiblity for evolution through egalitarian revolution. We dive too into this vision for life informed by ancestral wisdom, through an innate, heart lead connection to the natural order, the peoples he has met who embody this and the importance of this in order to find something bigger than ourselves. Bruce outlines what the new cultural narratives and tools and could be in order for us to live truly grounded, and egalitarian lives beyond our Western, individualistic patriarchal power structures so that we might discover what it truly means to be fully ourselves. As ever if this last episode speaks to you we ask that you leave a review on Apple Podcasts, and to subscribe and share to your socials. If there’s one person you believe would benefit from the show please forward it to them. Supporting us in this way will help spread our message of the body’s innate wisdom and ability to heal. Please continue to do so in our absence and until we return later in the year. You can find Bruce online at https://www.bruceparry.com/ where there's more about his filmmaking, his talks and writing on pyschedelics, ecology, and power and reveloution as well as links to further interviews. There’s also an extensive, dedicated site for TAWAI with further resources, study materials and outtakes at https://www.tawai.earth/ Bruce’s social links are https://www.instagram.com/bruceparrytribe/ on Instagram, and on Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXvXgseDKknhTknuuzlCtLA where, among a number of other extracts from his extensive travels is the full length TAWAI documentary. There is no somatic Body Knows Practice at the end of this conversation, but we have some special related materials to share on our socials later in the month. . Please follow us there if you don’t already do so Instagram https://www.instagram.com/thebodyknows_podcast/ and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/thebodyknowspodcast/ Thanks once again to you all. See you for SE#02 later in the year, and in the meantime remember to listen to the body because The Body Knows.

This episode of The Body Knows Podcast comes with a * TRIGGER WARNING! * |  Our guest this month is Michelle Roberton; Tantric therapist supporting women, men and couples through releasing fears and limiting boundaries around intimacy, sensuality and exploring the true sense of being a sexual being. She is a licensed Councillor, specialised trauma therapist and body worker, certified by The Association of Somatic and Integrated Sexologists. Drawing on her own experience of extreme sexual abuse as a child, Michelle identifies and focuses on the disconnection and dissociation experiences of childhood sexual abuse and the developmental trauma created within the body. Michelle has shared with her work with many over the years, specialising in sexual trauma & intimacy as a tantric educator, bodyworker, trauma yoga teacher, and counsellor for adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse. In 2013 she was diagnosed with Grade 3 breast cancer, and both breasts were removed and later on reconstructed. Her passion stems from her own journey of discovering the healing medicine in the poison of her own experiences as she set it upon herself to reclaim her body, her breath, her sexuality and sensuality and express them in new, life enriching ways. Michelle very much believes that our mind can only take us so far into any release of body trauma and healing of our sexuality. The discovery of who we authentically are is not hidden in our thoughts but in the sensuality and home of our body. Her touch has been described by many as her gift to others, and her gentle, authentically honest & calming approach, a comforting breath of fresh air.  MICHELLE'S LINKS |  You can find Michelle online via her website; https://michelleroberton.com/ where she has many services and offerings available, both in person and online including courses, workshops and meditations. She’s also on YouTube as Michelle Roberton - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgK6XLb00lxIO22FWFR9WkQ/featured and Instagram as Michelle K Roberton - https://www.instagram.com/michellekroberton/ and has her own podcast, entitled Brighton Talks Sex - https://brightontalkssex.com/podcasts-blog/ . All full of clear, resonant, somatic teachings on how we might live an orgasmic life. Her book ‘Stepping Stones to You; A Journey of Body Love’, is available on Amazon also - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stepping-Stones-You-Journey-Body-ebook/dp/B07HVXSRL2  LISTENER SHOUT-OUT |  Our listener shout-out is a bit different this month as we’d like to show our gratitude to two special people, Ashley Whiting - http://ashwhiting.com/ and Orlando Cubbit - http://www.orlandocubitt.com/ , who respectively have both generously supported with audio mastering and video editing out of the goodness of their own hearts. We are both so grateful for your kindness and for the work, and above all for your friendship.  SUPPORT US |  As ever if this episode speaks to you we ask that you leave a review on Apple Podcasts, and subscribe and share to your socials. If there’s one person you believe would benefit from the show please forward it to them. Supporting us in this way will help spread our message of the body’s innate wisdom and ability to heal.  THE BODY KNOWS PRACTICE | This month’s somatic Body Knows Practice is at the end of the conversation, and is offered so that if time and circumstance permit you sit with it to orient yourselves to the felt- sense of the conversation and integrate it into your body-mind-system.

This month we’re speaking with, Gemma Mallol the originating founder and creator of Still Flowing Yoga Teacher Training. She is a senior yoga and mindfulness teacher, a somatic experiencing practitioner, and body orientated trauma therapist. What she offers in her teaching is in-depth somatic therapeutic experiences and process through Buddhist insight meditation, embodied journeying and movement practice in and with nature that cultivate resource and regulation in the mind-body-system. This conversation takes place at turning point, which its self is one of many, in the history of the teacher training - on which Marcela teaches Embodied anatomy & Physiology of movement - and we took this as an opportunity to tell Gemma’s story, and that of Still Flowing, as they map much of the evolution of yoga in the West from the late 90s onwards. Her teaching has many influences, Somatic and Scaravelli Inspired Yoga, Buddhist Mindfulness & Eco Dharma, and body oriented somatic therapy, movement and creative process, yet the roots of her own practice go back further; through the rise to mainstream popularity of Ashtanga in the 90s, mindfulness and Vinyasa-Flow in the 00s, and the trauma informed somatic methods of today, being there amid the birth of each of these emerging waves of health and wellbeing. Throughout them all, Gemma’s core interest has been understanding and connecting with existence, and this has been the focus of her 20 plus years of practice and teaching, and that is an enquiry has taken place through her body. We cover much of this in the conversation - and more too - taking in these personal, cultural and also hereditary factors and traditions that have informed Gemma, and Still Flowing, but which have never defined or held her in. You can find Gemma on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/stillflowing/and her website address is http://www.stillflowingyogateachertraining.com/ where there are links to Gemma’s Zoom classes, courses and one to ones. If you want to know more about Still Flowing Teacher Training at its new home at The Yoga Garden in West Sussex, on the Knepp rewilidng Estate you can also go https://www.the-yoga-garden.co.uk/200hr-teacher-training where there’s information about the taster workshop taking place in March and the training is scheduled from June 30th 2021 to April 11th 2022. As with last month’s show we begin with a somatic practice, so we recommend that if time and circumstance permit that you sit with the practice to orient yourselves to the felt- sense ahead of listening. This month’s listener shout-out goes to Phil Greenfield. Phil is a body-worker of 20+ years, and educator, athlete and author of the amazing book ‘Unraveling - Letting Go, Getting In.’ We connected with Phil on a Buddhist meditation group - where we had shared EP007 of the podcast with Ajahn Sucitto - and where we had both commented with mindful embodiment tools for anxiety in response to a post. It speaks volumes to Phil that he was there sharing his wisdom freely and openly. You can find him on Instagram as https://www.instagram.com/philgreenfield/ and on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/phil.greenfield.3 for his personal account, and https://www.facebook.com/CoreAlignmentBodywork where he has links to his book and his contact details. The book website is https://www.theunravellingbook.com/ too. As ever if this episode speaks to you we ask that you leave a review on Apple Podcasts, and subscribe and share to your socials. If there’s one person you believe would benefit from the show please forward it to them. Supporting us in this way will help spread our message of the body’s innate wisdom and ability to heal.

This first episode of The Body Knows Podcast of 2021 is with senior, Western Buddhist monk Ajahn Succito, and we could not be happier to be sharing his deep, compassionate, somatic wisdom as we set forth into the New Year together. Ajahn Sucitto entered monastic life in 1975 in Thailand, but been based in Britain since 1978. He spent fourteen years training under Ajahn Sumedho, the senior Western disciple of the Thai Forest Buddhist master Luang Por Chah, and so is part of that direct lineage of Theravadan monastic practice. Beginning in 1979 with the founding of Chittaviveka monastery in Chithurst, West Sussex, under the guidance of Ajahn Chah, and later Amaravati in Hertfordshire with Ajahn Sumedo, he is one of those who is instrumental in establishing Theravadan Buddhism in the West. He was also then abbot of Cittaviveka between 1992 & 2014, when he resigned the post, although he continues teaching. The title of Ajahn denotes an expert spiritual teacher in the Thai language, and for both of us has been just that; directly on silent retreat, practicing mediation and Chi Gong, as well as through talks on the Buddha’s teachings, and in his many written works also. This first season of the podcast has been all about us speaking with those who have been direct influences, teachers and companions to us and when drawing up our wish list of guests Ajahn was always one we both dearly wanted to interview, such has the impact of his teaching been upon us. The Thai Forest tradition has a very direct style and approach to practice, the Buddha's teachings and to daily life. There are spiritual traditions that ignore, deny, abuse or try to transcend the body, and we wanted to gain Ajahn's spiritual perspective on the importance of reclaiming our feelings, sensations, and instincts and the value of listening to wisdom the of the body. Some of the Buddha’s instructions on mindfulness emphasize that we should ‘Directly know the body in the body’, and that ‘Mindfulness of body encompasses all states that give rise to wisdom’. We knew Ajahn would provide clear, loving, joyful, first-hand personal experience upon this, and we  were not disappointed by what he had to share. Ajahn’s books are available for free distribution and are free to download via https://forestsangha.org/ His talks, essays and reflections are also available on his own site https://ajahnsucitto.org/ where you can sign up for his newsletter, to get updates about all his teaching engagements, both live and virtual, as well as links to recorded teachings. You can also find him on the Insight Timer app https://insighttimer.com/ajahnsucitto The interview took place over Zoom between the 2nd and 3rd lockdown in the UK. Marcela was in Devon teaching the final module on The Still Flowing Yoga Teacher training, Mat was at home in West Sussex and Ajahn was at Chitaviveka. The recording of Mat’s voice is not great for some reason, however we have done our best to maximize playback quality. This episode was edited by https://www.fiverr.com/bijoyahmed21094 who deserves the biggest Enriquez Wakeham family shout-out for saving Christmas when our edit crashed and corrupted and left us out of time. His services are highly recommended. Our listener shout-out this month goes to Jessie Rose. Jessie is life coach, who is also a near death experience survivor. Jessie reached out to us via Instagram to share her story after we posted a reflection upon the ineffable awareness and support the body gives us even when facing death, in response to our last conversation with counseling psychotherapist Mark Craven. You can discover more of Jessie’s story of self healing, harmony, love and alignment for yourself at https://www.instagram.com/jessierosecoach/ where she also has a link to her site and services. Finally please like, subscibe, download and share. Find as at https://www.instagram.com/thebodyknows_podcast/

This episode of the Body Knows Podcast is with Mark Craven. Mark is a Senior Counselling Psychotherapist for the Royal Trinity Hospice in London, giving support around grief and loss. Our conversation delves into his path, his training and his practice to support the trauma and bereavement of his clients, and their coming to terms with terminal illness, and the end of life. His own early physical trauma lead him on lifelong journey of enquiry to make sense of the human experience. From his first steps in the fitness industry, to studies in hypnotherapy and NLP - in part to manage his own negative relationship with the body - and on to his therapeutic training. We discuss how a desire at first to mend and transcend the body eventually transformed into a deeper, embodied comprehension Mark has learnt to integrate the body into his therapeutic practice, which he contests, can be missing in some modalities and training of cognitive, talk based practice. He is an eloquent proponent of aligning with our animal nature to release pain and understand life, and of movement as both a therapy in its self, and a pre-therapeutic aid. There’s talk too of his sabbatical year that he undertook to manage work based stress, where Mark studied meditation and mindfulness in South East Asia, long before it was a common place practice and tool used to do so. For him the body has always been an ally amid his therapeutic career, and over time he has integrated its ‘loving presence’ into his work. Mark is a husband and a father of three children and he shares his own strategies to find wellbeing, and make friends with our bodies in connection with one-another and our-selves in the midst of daily life.  Ultimately this conversation carries a message of hope and communicates our ability to adapt and cope as shaky humans, even as he helps people face some of the core fundamental wounds of life. This was the first interview we held, and we are so excited to be finally sharing it with you all. Mark isn’t a person who promotes himself on social media, instead focussing on his clients, his personal enquiry and his family. This is a profound and illuminating conversation and we’re honoured to bring his compassion and understanding. We have a favour to ask you; if there’s one person you know who would benefit from this conversation then please pass it along to them. This act would help us so much in sharing our mssage and our mission.  Someone we would love to thank for doing this in the last month is Dr Heather Abernethy, who’s loving support for our show on social media is greatly appreciated. We see you Heather, and you can find her at - https://www.instagram.com/drheatherabernethy/ - all one word, where she also has links to her wonderful YouTube recourses. Finally, we’ll be transitioning to a monthly release schedule from this episode onwards. This podcast is a on-going learning experience for us both, and a work of passion, and we’re finding the bi monthly release schedule a bit too much for our lives as parents, partners and people and we can hardly not talk the talk, and not listen to our bodies! Thanks all for now. Have a wonderful holiday season and we will be back with you all in 2021.

Thanks for joining us again for EP#005, and if this is your first time listening we hope you enjoy it, and invite you to stick around and listen to some of our previous episodes too. For this conversation we spent an afternoon at Whiteheart Crossfit, in the heart of West Sussex, sharing cacao, ceremony, connection, conversation and cold immersion with James Shaw & Chris Baker of weMove. weMove is a podcast at the forefront of documenting the ‘movement revolution’, hosted by these two former over-worked, and over-trained music and fashion industry professionals who felt there was another way. James & Chris believe wholeheartedly in the transformative power of movement, and shared experience, and their lives and podcast are testament to that embodied philosophy.  We covered their journey from their early days, dealing with the mental, emotional and physical price of material success… Moving on to the lessons learnt on the road together, connecting the dots as documentarians of contemporary movement culture. We spoke too about how this path has completely transformed them, and their movement practices, and how it continues to do so, through the experience of their bodies in motion, their connection with their guests and their audience, and their felt sense of the natural world. Their own conversation style on their show is long form, free flowing riffs, and inspired by that we threw much of our prepared questions out of the window, and followed the flow of what was presenting itself, and what wanted to be spoken and heard at the time. It felt like we barely got started telling their story, as their experience through their four-year journey and 140+ conversations is so in-depth, and full of truth and somatic experience. Yet still we covered so much ground too, and listening back it unfolds like an origins story, as they cross the threshold from the ordinary world into connecting with lives led by purpose and meaning, integrating and living everything they have learnt from their conversations, driven by curiosity and passion for all that life can offer. We’re sure this won’t be the last conversation, or time we share with these two free spirited adventurers of movement, human connection, meaning and potential. The guys are easy to find on socials and the web, where you can follow their on-going, unfolding story – wemove.world is their site - https://wemove.world/ @wemove.world is their Instagram account - https://www.instagram.com/wemove.world/ And you can find them on YouTube under wemove world - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuoE_D6_VNPuZ4RrgLcqPUQ You can also find Whiteheart Cross Fit, where James and Chris keep the weMove cold immersion freezer here - https://www.whitehartfitness.com/ SPONSORED GIVEAWAY This is the last two weeks of our sponsored giveaway, ending November 30th 2020. To win Made by Coopers products and be part of an online Cacao ceremony held by Marcela just subscribe, download, rate and review on Apple Podcasts and send us a screen grab of your review to [email protected] Doing this will also help us to share our message, and we’d like to ask you to do the same; if there’s one person you know who would benefit from this conversation, or any of our others, please pass it along to them. Please tag us too in any post and stories you share about our show on instagram - https://www.instagram.com/thebodyknows_podcast/ - and we’ll be sure to reshare to our socials, and also we’ll feature one of you on our next show. Thanks, once again, for listening, we hope you enjoy the conversation as much as we did. We'll be back again in another two weeks with another show, but in the meantime remember to listen to your body, because your body knows. 

This episode of The Body Knows Podcast is with Michelle Baker Jones. We met and spoke at her private practice in Kingston Upon Thames, London, where she works as an integrative psycho-therapeutic counsellor.  Michelle is also a member of Imperial College’s Psychedelic research team where she is a lead guide on their trials comparing psilocybin to anti-depressants for the treatment for depression. She also offers individual psychedelic integration for people struggling to process psychedelic experiences, and co–facilitates a monthly Psychedelic Integration group in London. This in-depth interview with Michelle explores her experiences on the clinical trials for psychedelic-assisted therapy, as well her personal experiences with psychedelics and her work in the integration groups. As one of the lead therapists on the trials she outlines their design and context in which the psilocybin sessions occur. We spoke too about the history of the trials, the qualifications for a psychotherapist to use psychedelics and how this transpersonal, and ancient and medicine, with its mystic, shamanic tradition of communion with nature, fits in to a Western scientific, positivist model. We also discuss methods used by the program for integration of the psychedelic experience. The subjects of state chasing and spiritual bypassing are also addressed, as is the need for an authentic, Western cultural container for the experience, equivalent to those found in indigenous communities. Psilocybin mushrooms have been part of religious rituals for thousands of years. The Aztecs of Mexico referred to the mushroom as teonanácatl, or “God’s flesh”, in homage to its believed sacred power yet Psilocybin remains in the most restricted category today, which David Nutt, professor of neuropsychoparmacology at Imperial, and who is overseeing the current trials, calls “one of the most atrocious examples of the censorship of science and medicine in the history of the world”.  The work Michelle and the Imperial team are doing is set to revolutionise the treatment of depression, if not the Western medical model its self, by placing the individual, and our innate propensity to heal ourselves, at the centre of treatment. LINKS Find out more about Imperial’s ground-breaking work on Psilocybin for major depression at - https://www.imperial.ac.uk/psychedelic-research-centre/ | For more information on psychedelic integration go to – https://integration.maps.org/ | Michelle’s private counselling practice can be found at - http://mbjcounselling.co.uk/ OTHER RESOURCES – Michelle & Greg Donaldson at Breaking Convention - https://youtu.be/HKZywjeXKQc | Breaking Convention https://www.breakingconvention.co.uk/ OUR SPONSORS  We're sponsored by Made by Coopers, a modern Apothecary, crafting products for your skin and soul. Head to their shop at https://madebycoopers.com/ and use BODY20 at checkout for a discount.  We’re running a competition to win Made by Cooper products, as well as ceremonial grade cacao for an online cacao ceremony run by Marcela to celebrate our launch. To enter subscribe on Apple Podcasts, download, rate, review and send a screenshot to [email protected]. Closing date Nov 30, 2020. THANK YOU Please share this conversation with someone who you think it would benefit. If you share on socials, please tag and follow us too on Instagram or Facebook @thebodyknowspodcast. Thanks for listening, we hope you enjoyed it, we’ll be back every two weeks with more, and in the meantime remember, listen to your body because your body knows.