Embodiment Videos and Podcasts
Welcome to my Embodiment Resources Page where you can access a list of podcast and videos that will be helpful for you on your journey. I add to these resources on a regular basis, so feel free to visit frequently for the latest updates.
Bruce Lipton: Why Your Consciousness Creates Your Biology
Bruce Lipton — July 23, 2020
Why are you the way that you are? Were you born this way or have you conditioned yourself to be this way? Bruce H. Lipton, Ph.D is here to answer this pressing question.
Dr. Lipton is a stem cell biologist, author of The Biology of Belief, and an internationally recognized leader in bridging science and spirit. H has spent decades examining the mechanisms by which cells receive and process information and his findings have radically changed our understanding of life–showing that genes and DNA do not control our biology.
What does control our biology?
In this episode of the Align Podcast, Dr. Lipton explains how our consciousness, not our DNA, ultimately determines our biology and how our bodies can be changed by retraining our conscious thoughts.
The Biofield: The Missing Link Between Healing and Consciousness
Shamini Jain — September 21, 2021
Dr. Shamini Jain is a clinical psychologist, researcher, public speaker, and the founder of the nonprofit Consciousness and Healing Initiative. With Sounds True, she’s released the new book Healing Ourselves: Biofield Science and the Future of Health. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon has a conversation with Shamini about the interconnections between human consciousness, the biological world, and our ability to heal. Shamini explains “the biofield” and how it relates to both our physical and spiritual selves. She and Tami discuss already existing healing modalities that work with the biofield (such as Reiki and qigong), as well as recent scientific discoveries that support and expand those fields. Finally, Tami and Shamini talk about the essential step of surrendering to the healing process, the mystery and potential of the placebo effect, and our fundamental connection to all of life.
Becoming an Active Operator of Your Nervous System
Deborah Dana — November 9, 2021
Deb Dana, LCSW, is a clinician and consultant specializing in using the lens of Polyvagal Theory to understand and resolve the impact of trauma and create ways of working that honor the role of the autonomic nervous system. Her clinical publications include The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy: Engaging the Rhythm of Regulation and The Polyvagal Flip Chart: Understanding the Science of Safety, and her Sounds True publications include the audio program, Befriending Your Nervous System: Looking Through the Lens of Polyvagal Theory, and her new book Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory.
In this podcast, Tami Simon converses with Deb Dana to offer listeners a practical understanding of Polyvagal Theory and how we can begin to decode the language of our body for better health and better relationships. Tami and Deb also discuss the dorsal, sympathetic, and ventral states of our nervous system; the gifts of becoming “anchored in ventral”; neuroception, your nervous system’s way of taking in information to assess your safety; curiosity and the capacity for self-reflection; the importance of self-care; co-regulation as a biological imperative; why self-regulation is especially critical for therapists and other helping professionals; music and nature as healing resources; the practice of self-compassion as a means of “getting our anchor back”; and more.
Deb Dana: Befriending Your Nervous System
Deborah Dana — June 16, 2020
How well do you know your nervous system? Deb Dana is a clinician and consultant specializing in complex trauma, and is the coordinator of the Kinsey Institute Traumatic Stress Research Consortium. Her work at the Kinsey Institute is focused on using the lens of Polyvagal Theory to understand and resolve the impact of trauma, and create approaches that honor the role of the autonomic nervous system. With Sounds True, Deb has created a new audio program called Befriending Your Nervous System: Looking Through the Lens of Polyvagal Theory. In this podcast, Deb offers an introduction to the human nervous system, how Polyvagal Theory informs our understanding of the nervous system, how to manage the state known as “dysregulation,” and more.
Stephen Porges: Polyvagal Theory
Stephen Porges
Stephen W. Porges, Ph.D. is Distinguished University Scientist at Indiana University where he is the founding director of the Traumatic Stress Research Consortium. He is Professor of Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina. Dr Porges developed the Polyvagal Theory, a theory that links the evolution of the mammalian autonomic nervous system to social behavior and emphasizes the importance of physiological state in the expression of behavioral problems and psychiatric disorders. The theory is leading to innovative treatments based on insights into the mechanisms mediating symptoms observed in several behavioral, psychiatric, and physical disorders. Dr Porges can be found at www.stephenporges.com and integratedlistening.com/ssp-safe-sound-protocol
Dr Stephen Porges served as president of the Society for Psychophysiological Research and the Federation of Associations in Behavioral & Brain Sciences and is a former recipient of a National Institute of Mental Health Research Scientist Development Award. He has published more than 300 peer-reviewed papers across several disciplines including anesthesiology, biomedical engineering, critical care medicine, ergonomics, exercise physiology, gerontology, neurology, neuroscience, obstetrics, pediatrics, psychiatry, psychology, psychometrics, space medicine, and substance abuse.
The polyvagal theory is leading to innovative treatments based on insights into the mechanisms mediating symptoms observed in several behavioral, psychiatric, and physical disorders. He is the author of The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-regulation (Norton, 2011), The Pocket Guide to the Polyvagal Theory: The Transformative Power of Feeling Safe, (Norton, 2017) and co-editor of Clinical Applications of the Polyvagal Theory: The Emergence of Polyvagal-Informed Therapies (Norton, 2018). He is the creator of a music-based intervention, the Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP) , which currently is used by more than 4,000 therapists to improve spontaneous social engagement, to reduce hearing sensitivities, and to improve language processing, state regulation, and spontaneous social engagement.
Episode 40: https://www.theartandsoulofhealing.com/episodes/stephen-porges-1
Episode 41: https://www.theartandsoulofhealing.com/episodes/stephen-porges-2
Porges Discusses Safe and Sound Protocol
Episode 76: https://www.theartandsoulofhealing.com/episodes/stephen-porges-1-2
Episode 77: https://www.theartandsoulofhealing.com/episodes/stephen-porges-2-2
Peter Levine: Trauma and the Body
Dr. Peter Levine
Peter Levine, PhD, is a psychologist, researcher, and former stress consultant with NASA. He specializes in working with trauma and stress-related disorders. Dr. Levine developed Somatic Experiencing, a body-oriented approach to treating trauma which focuses on processing traumatic memory, calming the nervous system, and releasing traumatic shock from the body. The approach was inspired by his observation of trauma recovery behaviors in nature.
In addition to working in the field of stress and trauma for over 40 years, Dr. Levine is also the author of the best-selling, classic book on trauma Waking the Tiger. He’s authored and co-authored several other fantastic books including Healing Trauma, In an Unspoken Voice, and Trauma and Memory.
Thomas Hübl: Healing Collective Trauma
Thomas Hübl — December 2, 2020
Thomas Hübl is an Austrian-born contemporary spiritual teacher and the founder of the Academy of Inner Science. With Sounds True, he has recorded the audio training The Power of We: Awakening in the Relational Field and written a book titled Healing Collective Trauma: A Process for Integrating Our Intergenerational and Cultural Wounds. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon speaks with Thomas about healing collective trauma as the work of our time. They discuss how we can feel and are affected by major traumas of the past, even if we didn’t directly experience them, and the ways in which this contributes to our collective separation. Thomas also explains the concept of “retrocausality,” or the potential for the healing we undertake in our lifetimes to benefit our entire family lines. At a time when so much ancestral trauma, multigenerational trauma, and cultural trauma is in our midst, Thomas invites us to turn toward it and join together to heal and integrate the pain of the past as we create a different future.
Thomas Hübl is a renowned teacher, author, and international facilitator whose lifelong work integrates the core insights of the great wisdom traditions and mysticism with the discoveries of science. Since the early 2000s, he has been leading large-scale events and courses that focus on the healing and integration of trauma, with a special focus on the shared history of Israelis and Germans. Over the last decade, he has facilitated dialogue with thousands of people around healing the collective traumas of racism, oppression, colonialism, and genocides, in the US, Israel, Germany, Spain, and Argentina. He has been teaching workshops and presenting trainings for Harvard Medical School since 2019.
His nonprofit organization, the Pocket Project, works to support the healing of collective trauma throughout the world. He is the author of the book Healing Collective Trauma: A Process for Integrating Our Intergenerational and Cultural Wounds, which outlines his methodology called the Collective Trauma Integration Process as a safe framework for guiding groups through collective trauma. Learn more at thomashuebl.com
Resmaa Menakem: Somatic Abolitionism
Resmaa Menakem — January 5, 2021
Resmaa Menakem is an author, artist, and psychotherapist specializing in the effects of trauma on the human body, as well as relationships within Black families and Black society. He’s the author of the beautiful and inspiring book, My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon and Resmaa Menakem discuss racism from the perspectives of trauma and body-centered psychology. Resmaa unpacks some of the language he’s introduced into our vocabulary around racism—including “white-body supremacy” and “somatic abolitionism”—helping listeners to deepen their understanding of the structural and philosophical underpinnings of racism in the Western world. They also discuss the ways our bodies metabolize our experiences around racism, and the importance of finding healing in community. This interview originally appeared in Sounds True’s Walking Together, a collection of free resources for healing racism.
Episode 24: Qigong and Embryology: An Interview with Qigong Practitioner Bob Lehnberger
Bob Lehnberg
In 1990, Bob Lehnberg received his certification as Practitioner of Body-Mind Centering® (BMCsm) and in 2002 Teacher of Body-Mind Centering. Since then Bob has received teacher certifications for BMC Yoga, Integral Yoga and Supreme Science of Qigong. He has been teaching in schools of massage therapy and programs of somatic training since 1990 and has had the good fortune to teach BMC and somatic practices throughout the US and internationally in Europe, Canada, China, and Taiwan.
Bob is a co-founder of Kinesthetic Learning Center in Durham, NC and has been on faculty teaching and coordinating the BMC Somatic Movement Educator (SME) and Practitioner certification programs since 2007. He is coordinator of SME courses for Esprit en Mouvement in Montreal, Canada and is Co-director of the SME program in Taitung, Taiwan.
He is offering courses that bring together qigong and embryology, a time in healing earliest experiences that can be very fruitful. I wrote about this saying, Sometimes You Gotta Go Back To Go Forward, a saying that Bob shared with me from his teacher, Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen. The embryological movement sequences he teaches allow us to go back before the trauma and fully embody our whole selves.
Gabor Maté: The Roots of Healing
Gabor Maté — March 21, 2017
Dr. Gabor Maté is an author, speaker, and physician who specializes in addiction, stress, and childhood development. His many books include In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts and When the Body Says No. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon speaks with Dr. Maté about his views on modern mental health evaluation—specifically the widespread diagnoses of ADHD and depression. They discuss the connection between emotional expression and immune response, as well as how the body can be an effective teacher. Finally, Dr. Maté comments on how mental health issues can often be rooted in compensating behaviors from childhood and how healing can be approached from a bio-psycho-social perspective. (68 minutes)
Dr. Bruce Perry: Oprah Super Soul
Dr. Bruce Perry — April 27, 2021
Oprah and Dr. Bruce Perry discuss their new book What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing. Dr. Perry explains how childhood trauma impacts our adult lives, health and behavior. He also offers a path toward healing.
Trusting the Gold
Tara Brach — November 30, 2021
Tara Brach has been practicing and teaching meditation since 1975, as well as leading workshops and meditation retreats throughout North America and Europe. She has a PhD in clinical psychology, is the founder of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington (IMCW), and is the author of Radical Acceptance, True Refuge, Radical Compassion, and most recently, Trusting the Gold.
In this podcast, Tara Brach speaks with Sounds True founder Tami Simon about rediscovering the inner “gold” of our intrinsic goodness, love, and purity. In addition, they discuss Tara’s teachings on the “trance of unworthiness” and how we can break free from it; recognizing the secret beauty in others and mirroring it back; relaxation for the go-getters; working with difficult emotions; how shame can become a portal to freedom; the RAIN practice for self-compassion; the power of the phrase “this belongs”; the practice of “softening” in response to contractions of fear or anger; and seeing the sacredness in all things.
Tara Brach has been practicing and teaching meditation since 1975, as well as leading workshops and meditation retreats at centers throughout North America and Europe. She has a PhD in clinical psychology, is the founder of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington (IMCW), and is the author of Radical Acceptance, True Refuge, Radical Compassion, and Trusting the Gold. Tara’s weekly podcasts of talks and meditations are downloaded more than three million times each month. For more, visit tarabrach.com