Summary
May 5, 2021
On Jenni O'Conner's Ashes to Wings podcast Nathan speaks about how that "Flaw" of sensitivity may be your superpower. Nathan explains interpersonal neurobiology, mirror neurons and the felt sense, amongst other terms of the field, which are all aspects of the training at The Somatic School.
Nathan's bumper sticker for the episode: "Discovering our sensory potential feels out of this world when it's been so long since we've been connected in this way. But it's as natural as it gets!"
"A passage from the Dao teacher written by Latsu says 'nature does not hurry yet everything is accomplished'. It's this idea of going with the natural flow, our cycles and rhythms. It's a bit of a complicated thing because to our modern Western world the idea of doing nothing doesn't make any sense, but it doesn't mean nothing at all. It's a little bit different to that. And it's very aligned with somatic work, which has this trust in this organic intelligent unfolding of things." Nathan Blair
Transcript
0:00 [Applause] welcome to the ashes to wings podcast where we tell storiesof overcomers and
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give you tips and tricks to living a fuller more embodied life here'syour host
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jenny o'connor
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hey friends welcome to ashes to wings today we'll be talking with nathanblair who is the founder of the somatic school
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helping practitioners develop the skills they need to work with thebody's intelligence online and in person he is mad
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about the body and the embodied wisdom available to us at all times whenwe take time to listen
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so nathan thank you for joining us today thank you for having me jennyit's a pleasure to be here so nathan most of our
What issomatics
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listeners have no idea what a somatic school is explain somatics for us
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right so the best way to describe somatics is probably
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a lot of people are familiar with that concept of body mind body spiritso you could say
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it's the idea of that unity of body and mind i talk a lot about the bodymind as one word and
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that's the sort of attitude that somatic psychologists would come withum somo is actually an
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ancient greek word that means the body in its full aliveness not justthe skin and bones but
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and then spirited body and the opposite of that would be necros so abody without spirit so it's not
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just our physical being but what it is to be
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an embodied being alive and living as a body so seeing ourselves as
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more of a whole person instead of in fragments so to speak that's rightan integrated whole exactly
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good so what kind of changes have you seen somatics make in people'slives hmm so i always say that science is
Changes inpeoples lives
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this beautiful intersection between uh science and spirituality it sortof sits
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right at the heart of that and um
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we live in a world that in many ways is sort of disconnected um and
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uh from self from others from the environment so um somatics offers isuppose a
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journey of reconnection and i said like i said that sort of intersectionof the two it also
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introduces a sort of connecting up of two worlds that might otherwise beyou
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know siloed or separated in schools of thought as well so there's a kindof coming together and
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east meets west as well so this sort of it's semantics offers areconnecting in all in all ways
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and and uh so i haven't really answered your question exactly
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the changes yeah but go in yeah i was isai i like that you say that eastmeets west it's not um they're not
East meetsWest
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mutually exclusive but you actually work with both together eastern westeastern medicine and western messer mindsets eastern western
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mindsets absolutely yeah so um what's somatics um so somatics inpractice and the
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application in a sense um is is sort of the practical application of
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what the wisdom traditions of the east have been talking about forthousands of years nothing new in that sense but it's all
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support to support it it's also supported by the sort of latest researchin sciences such as in body
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cognition or interpersonal neurobiology that one's a bit of a mouthfulum really revealing just how central our
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bodies are to our intelligence and so so yeah east meets west old and
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new you know and um can you can you break down interpersonal neural
Interpersonalneurobiology
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yeah i can even say it neurobiology for us yeah for sure sointerpersonal
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neurobiology is a is a fascinating uh emerging field of of scientificresearch and study uh it's
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an interdisciplinary field that actually brings together over 40different disciplines ranging
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from anthropology sociology biology psychology um and the
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likes and so there's so many different uh uh what would formally be kindof quite
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separate in their own sort of studies and research coming together andlooking at where the findings
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the word they use is coalesce in other words where does what they'rediscovering show patterns or meet or complement one
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another and what that's giving us is a more integrated picture i'm usingthat word again integration
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which we're probably going to talk about a lot i imagine it will come upa lot but it's like a more integrated picture of what
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of the human being and um and uh you know one of the fascinating
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things i think that it includes as well is the importance ofrelationship
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and uh so we are social animals and how our relationships shape our
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brains um or our whole way of being a body mind as well so imagine thislast year with everybody
Globalpandemic
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in quarantine and having limited social interactions except for onlinelike we are now um i'd imagine that that really affects
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social interactions and that the way that we're behaving the way thatwe're interacting with each other
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yeah absolutely this is an extraordinary time right um you know what'sinteresting about a
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global pandemic is it sort of reveals in a kind of quite an incredibleand
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you know um controversial but incredible metaphor for the interconnectednature of our species
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you know and a whole a whole planet you know become infected by thisvirus and and so and
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and that's passed on you know through interaction and through us cominginto contact with one another
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and then as a result we then become sort of distanced from one of themisolated um so it's
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interesting on the one hand it sort of revealed how interconnected weare and at the same time it sort of resulted in a lot of
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disconnection certainly yeah fascinating so how did you get intosomatics what led you to it so
Somatics
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um it's interesting uh so i i've always been as a child i was verysensitive
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you know um i i'd often be described as sensitive and as a young child iactually saw that
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as a as not a good thing it didn't feel like something to aspire to itdidn't feel like something that you know um and um
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that sensitivity sort of felt like it was explained a little bit when igot
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diagnosis uh having adhd and uh
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for me i was actually taking i took medication for adhd ritalin uh ithink it's the most
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commonly known and up until my early 20 mid 20s um but it
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around that time i began to look for more natural um
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sort of natural kind of treatments you could say for like the adhdsymptoms and i say adhd because
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with air codes whatever that is it's it's a sort of uh yeah i like theway gabriel marty speaks
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about it if any of your listeners are interested in this kind ofcombination of different things um but
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um but one of those natural methods was mindfulness and connecting tothe
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environment through my senses sort of was a bit of a game changer we
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can talk more about this later if it comes up but it actually issupported a lot by our most sort of
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recent understandings of the way the nervous system operates and theycall it orientation for example and
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a lot of methodology so i i began to i guess self-regulate the symptomsbegan
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began to subside i was able i was empowered through natural means to
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to manage the symptoms yeah and um and you know fast forward
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um when i discovered the field of somatics it just spoke to you knowwhat i'd intuitively
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felt to be in you know interesting to me about how we are
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and how we could be so somatics was like opening pandora's box in thebest way
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just it's a very vast it's the breadth and depth of this field isstaggering but within that is just a
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just a real goody bag of things to explore for those who are interestedin the body
Mindfulness
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so what difference did mindfulness make in your personal health
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yeah i remember vividly so one of the things that i used to experiencewas uh
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was uh you know i had a very busy mind you know who doesn't you mightsay but
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you know for me it felt like i was it was like a it was a bit like atrafalgar square or time square or you
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know in my mind and actually sort of like uh even when i was out andabout it's like
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sounds wouldn't be i wouldn't there would be no hierarchy of sensoryinput it just all kind of came
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at once or it's so it seemed at the time and um so one of the things iremember vividly like being
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actually on a like a surf trip with some friends in morocco and uh andjust sitting in there in the
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water sitting on a surfboard and i've just been reading a book calledthe mindfulness prescription for adhd
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and it was talking all about connecting two senses through our senses tothe environment to the here and now the present moment and
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i remember i was worried about something and it was going around in mymind in a bit of like
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an obsessive loop and i was sat out in the middle of the ocean
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and i i mean just in that moment i remembered you know what i've beenreading and i i brought my awareness you know very
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mindfully to my experience in that present moment
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through my senses i felt the water kind of lapping against my fingersyou know as i trailed it
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through the through the ocean and and listened to the bird songs feltthe breeze on my face like watch
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the sun kind of going down and um and he just settled me and centered meand just completely
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i was just there in that moment and it you know i i was still quiteyoung at that point and it was a bit of a paradigm shift for
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me i think because because it there was a i didn't have to
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do a lot to manage you know or get get or to improve my situation iactually did a
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lot less and the outcome the results were
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yeah great so we're being less doing we're being less doing yeahabsolutely
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yeah so i know you mentioned that you were called sensitive orconsidered sensitive as a child and there's such a stigma
The HardestPart
11:03
against men being sensitive which is ridiculous in my mind um but whatwas the hardest part about being a
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man who's sensitive that's a great question
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i think ironically i i think the hide the hardest part
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be about being a man who's sensitive is
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is is not so much how people respond to my sensitivity
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but like all of the ideas i had about that and how much of myself i hid
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as a result or would stifle or limit or suppress um
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you know and you can't numb selectively so so you know if you if you
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if you kind of if i when i withdraw when i hold back when i hesitate
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and when i don't speak out you know it's a it's sort of like cutting offpart of
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myself and my whole self isn't showing up so you know yeah i would saythat that was probably
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the hardest part is just feeling never really feeling seen
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you know that breaks my heart a little bit and i'm glad that i'm gladthat you feel
SelfCareMindfulness
12:29
comfortable to be your true self now and that there's as a whole associety as a whole
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there's so much less stigma around that now than there was even when wewere younger um yeah i feel i feel like people
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are in it i think in this last year too there's been more awarenessaround our
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need for self-care sensitivity mindfulness um which i mean it's a heckof a way to
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have to earn it but i'm glad that there's been more more focus on thatin this last year
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yeah yeah totally i remember being in a coaching session once actually a
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neighbor of mine learned coach funnily enough it's sort of what inspiredme to get into coaching in some ways
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and i was receiving some coaching sessions with him and i began to cryin one of these sessions
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and i i don't know what i said but his response he was an actor as welland his response was like
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you know like being a man connected with your emotions that's actuallyyour greatest strength
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again like it was another sort of paradigm just like what great strengthi can it took a long later you know i think i
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had to mature a bit grow up a bit to realize how that was the caseperhaps but the same was true for the sensitivity
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particularly in somatic work if you or somebody who's highly sensitiveyou know that phrase highly sensitive people
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you know but if you identify as someone who's sensitive or you feelparticularly sensitive or somebody who
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picks up on um facial expressions or tone of voice
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or you know or um you know a deep breath but things like
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that and others particularly you know deep empathy and that in somaticwork is you you that's that's uh
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you know you got a good head start to being you know a competentpractitioner in that work um
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so i mean it's it's it just that that's like flipped it on its head youknow finding this work means not only did i
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get to embrace the sensitivity but actually i got to you know lead withthat and yeah we live
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in a world that's definitely more accepting of that now increasingly isuppose although it still is that men don't
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really know exactly what it means to be a man right now how to behaveyou know post me too and that sort of
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thing so it's it is still an interesting time for guys definitely yeahand i
Your WholeLife is a Flaw
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i love what you said there it's you know something that you've been toldmaybe your whole life is a flaw is
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now your your greatest superpower as a somatic coach um that's that'swhat makes you good at
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what you do and i think that's such a beautiful message for people thatum maybe have been struggling with
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something that they see as a flower they've been told their whole lifethis is a flaw this is something wrong with you this is something you need tofix
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um that might be the key to what makes you truly great yeah totally iused to have this like
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little slogan so one thing i haven't told your listeners i guess is thatand that the
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other side of my working life is i'm a coach uh work with somatics
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what we're coaching together that's somatic coaching or body orientedcoaching and so um when i first began coaching one of i
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had this little slogan that said you're all right as in not all right al r i'm ghd but all right like a-l-l
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right and there's something i think in that that you know that'sactually implicit in a
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lot of somatic work which says that everything that we are everythingthat we do
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you know um is has an inherent intelligence
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for example some coaches will often ask the question how do i work withresistance in my clients how do i work with
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resistance and it becomes oppositional you know it's it's the coachversus resistance
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or coach and client versus their resistance how do we bust through youknow and in somatic work something a theme
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such as resistance would actually be viewed in some schools of somaticsas
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an intelligent adaptation at some point in that person's life thatparticular behavior that way of being
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okay you know it was it served them maybe it kept them safe maybe evenkept them alive
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you know so we can't how how might we welcome and approach each of theseyou
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know emerging ways of being or whatever with the kind of respect andacknowledgement and appreciation
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that personally i think it deserves but that the school of semanticswould kind of
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perceive it that way so yeah you're all right none of you is wrong you know yeah okay
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again such an important message especially for younger people i think you know to know that everything is
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there for a reason and if we treat it as something that may be teachingus a lesson or protecting us for something or
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um instead of trying to purge it get it out fix it yeah
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yeah yeah yeah yeah carl rogers said something along the lines of theiron
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the ironic thing is that when i accept myself just as i am then i canchange
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so i guess it's in line with with that thinking as well so how are our bodies connected with our
Your Brain is Not Thinking
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intelligence that's a big question you can do it i
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believe in you a practitioner called lisa feldman barrett recently wrotean article
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that says your brain is not thinking quite controversially but itdescribes how the brain
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its sort of main function is to um is to kind of run the balances on ouron
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our energy use in the body yeah um
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so that's one kind of so it's actually you know that's kind of an ideaof the brain being there to sort
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of manage the balance you know and uh
18:34
kind of homeostasis within the system but and there's some there'splenty of other ways so like for example um
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in the science psychology of embody cognition there's lots of talk aboutthe way that
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information loops within the body the way that sometimes that we respondto situations quite often actually from
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an embodied place so the body responds before we consciously are awareof what we're
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doing um you know and and you could look at it from
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the perspective as well of you know deb dana one of the thinkers in uhof the more kind of becoming more
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widely known polyvagal theory uses she says the term you know storyfollows state
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and so from that perspective you could you could argue that everythingthat we do emerges out of the
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autonomic state that we're currently in are we in our safe and socialeverything's cool
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i'm okay all good here space or are we in you know fight fight or flightor freeze
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so the i'm using the terms that are more familiar but they're the thesympathetic activation dorsal vagal um the kind of technical
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terms but these these will these will influence our thinking our actionsour behavior you know um
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in other ways you know the the you mirror neurons or the resonantcircuitry
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is how it's described by daniel siegel who's the person who created orkind of founded interpersonal neurobiology talks about how
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you know things like mirror neurons and other parts of the of the brainand the biology are kind of
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our basis for empathy so things like emotional intelligence which areyou know known to be better predictors
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of um you know business success things like that and explain just real quickly like brief
Mirror Neurons
20:27
overview of mirror neurons for people easy for me to
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say yeah yeah totally so uh mirror neurons are
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there's a bit of controversy around mirror neurons and uh so butnonetheless the kind of current
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thinking around it is that um just in a nutshell if we perceive
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um an action or an inter or a behavior um in another um
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the same areas of our brain and body actually kind of activate or lightup as if we were
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performing that action ourselves um so uh it enables us when we're withothers
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and when we're when we're observing non-verbal communication which makesup a huge part of our communication with one another
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um we are able to know is somebody trustworthy or not you
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know can we can we get make a guess at the their intention what theirwhat they
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what they're doing what they're going to do it's how we begin to developbonds but it's also how we learn you know it's how
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infants learn behavior through observing and witnessing primarycaregivers doing
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those behaviors and actions and things like that so that's mirrorneurons so um
21:48
empathy emotional intelligence um and then there's this and then the
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last thing i'll talk about in terms of the body's uh intelligence isthis phenomenon called the felt sense
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um which is this this what a lot of people would describe as intuitionso it might be that intuitive pulling in
22:07
the gut or kind of a feeling of your heart opening in in any giveninstance and that that can
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kind of direct and guide us it's based on a lifetime of experience andit's a meaningful oddly felt experience
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but really when we can listen to that he can become an incredible guidein our lives and it can become an incredible
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source of wisdom and you know in my mind that's a that's another sourceof knowing it's a
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it's another intelligence aside the intellect yeah so so sort of thattrust your gut
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feeling yeah that's that's you know that phrase trust your gut istotally that's speaking directly to this notion
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of the felt sense which is a term that was coined by someone calledeugene genelin eugene genlin was
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a philosopher and a therapist um and uh he coined this term to describethis
22:58
phenomenon you know but we all have but some are more perhaps a bit morepractice bit more sensitive or a bit
23:04
more connected to it than others but we can all develop that capacitywithin ourselves so in other words you could say that we all have the
23:11
potential or the ability to become more in touch with our intuition ormore intuitive
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or more embodied you know in that sense it's available to all of us
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or most of us most of us depending on you know taking into consideration neurodiversity and things like that
Human Magic
23:30
when we spoke before you mentioned that we've lost touch with what makes being human magical tell me more about that yeah i'm so glad
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you asked me that because this is something i guess that i'm passionateabout i read a gorgeous book called original
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wisdom by someone called robert wolff and um they were describing thesingular
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tribe in malaysia who are far from you know modern civilizationtechnology
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etc these are one of the one of the you know few remaining uh untouched
24:05
community tribal communities and um you know the the people of uh
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the the people of this this community within melee are um they have acertain kind of
24:21
uh connection with themselves with each other with the environment thatwe that when we look at that we
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might perceive as supernatural you know it's like a way of knowing when
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somebody's going to arrive at the village you know without being toldthat they were cut on
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their way or it's a way of being able to sense out in the forest wherethey might find
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a source of water and you know for some people this might be like ohit's a bit of a stretch but
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the robert wolf is quite an interesting person because character becausehe actually speaks fluent malay and was able to live
24:57
with this with this community and actually um communicate and learn fromthem and so actually
25:02
really embedded in in there to doing some real kind of empirical studythere and and um
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you know while we in the western modern kind of you know in our moderncultures
25:15
might not be able to fully know that kind of connection with self other
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than the environment i do believe that we can begin to sort of touch itor begin to get closer to it
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and that i truly think is available to all of us you know it's it'salmost i'm a bit sort
25:34
of i'm not too keen on the phrase but it is our birthright in the sensethat we have all the gear we have all the kit
25:42
all the equipment we could we need for this and you know when we connectwith our
25:48
full sensory potential it can feel out of this world but it's as naturalas it gets
25:54
um there's there's something so it's something in
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the simplicity of it that just that just connected that gives us theability
26:05
to sense and feel and become aware of what we might otherwise dismiss or
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miss etc and that can be an incredible source of insight intuition you know direction knowledge
26:19
etc so um yeah and now that's the experience of my clients who work in this way or our
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clients you know people who work in this way like yourself um and those who participate in semantic
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practices deepening into that you know the the the roots of our humanity yes i remember
Modern Society
26:41
reading uh an article or a blog poster uh there was someone who decided to live as if they
26:47
were in the 1800s for a while you know and no technology and andeverything just just cut back and made it back and um
26:55
she was talking about how she almost felt like she developed extrasenses
27:00
because she had tuned out all of the the noise so to speak the digitalnoise and even just um her long skirts she could
27:07
kind of use it like cat whiskers you know she's kind of feeling wherethings were and and she was saying it's really
27:13
interesting how when you tuned out kind of the modern society that
27:18
you were so much more tuned into your body and tuned into what was goingon in nature around you
27:24
um so along those lines talk to me about how modern society teaches usto interact with ourselves
27:32
yeah that's a that's another great one these are great questions
27:38
like um personally and this is just an opinion as with anything i saytake what you
27:44
like and leave the rest but you know um i personally believe or i feel that modern society trains us to escape
27:53
ourselves more than it trains us to be with ourselves in any meaningful way you know we see that through and there's
27:59
nothing inherently wrong with these things um but you could argue thatthrough
28:05
you know mass consumerism um through a highly stimuli stimulatedenvironment
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you know people in silicon valley being paid the big bucks to literallyyou know make get us
28:17
addicted to our phones and software you know smartphones and softwareand things like that that's it's well known these days right
28:24
and so um these experiences of design you know that there's a sort of umyou know if you buy
28:32
this you'll feel better you know or you know why why sit there feeling the
28:40
the the kind of the agony of inertia you've been locked in lockdown for months now you know
28:46
why sit there feeling that when you could be on tick tock you know and yeah so you're not on
28:52
tic-tac you know like i said there's nothing wrong with this like occasionally i jump on i think there's
28:58
the thing about these things is it's all about you know um i once saidand this is it's like
29:04
controversial language but it's like you know god is the part of you that knows you know and and another way of putting that might be
29:10
like um you know i think oftentimes when we've been on tick tock for example for like more than an hour
29:16
something in us says i think we've crossed a certain threshold here
29:22
you go down the rabbit hole yeah exactly right same on youtube same on instagram
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but you know and and but that's an example of a disconnection from what our sensing selves knows
29:36
and will tell us when we listen you're tired your eyes you know you'rekind of
29:42
beginning to fade out here you know um there's a need that needs to bemet
29:47
never whether that be eating sleeping you know um
29:52
and when we're not listening we can bypass or or kind of like bulldozeover that and
30:00
increasingly the more we do that the more we kind of send this we well we we're kind of beginning to
30:06
create these neural pathways we're beginning to hardwire or practice let's say
30:12
um a habit of of impulse arises from the body
30:19
and lack of response you know and and through somatic work you're beginning to develop you know
30:26
a meaningful way of being with ourselves one example of that might be might be you know impulse hunger you
30:32
know responding and resonance feed myself yeah impulse fatigue
30:38
rest and we don't live in a culture that supports that much yeah either
30:44
you know and uh impulse my back hurts i'd actually be more comfortable
30:49
lying on the floor i'm in a business meeting it's in appropriate right yes so you know
30:57
and that's something that i i truly love about somatics in general and your school in specific
Respect the Authority of the Body
31:03
is you respect the authority of the body and so you know and i this is something that
31:09
i've adopted in my classes and my coaching you know that if you if you need to get up and move around get up and move
31:15
around if you need to go get a drink of water you know listen to yourbody and follow through because we're we're taught to kind of
31:21
tune that out and neglect that and now i've got an eight-hour conferenceand now i can't possibly leave to go to the
31:27
bathroom you know that's not normal so i love that word and i i thinktoo
31:33
this is another thing that i feel like a small good that's come out ofthis last year is society is
31:39
more accepting of humanity and you know your kid just ran in the
31:45
room and you know you're sitting there in pajama pants and a top youknow i feel like there's been so much more
31:51
welcoming of your human being and you don't have to be on all the time
31:57
yeah don't have to be on all the time yeah that's so that feels soappropriate in so many
32:04
layers because on all the time in one sense it's like wearing the maskyou know the facade or
32:10
like putting on the shooting up and showing up you know but also
32:16
you know our nervous systems in an overstimulated environment are juststuck on on we're just you know overworked
32:24
unarrested you know and that's not anyone's fault necessarily it's justa systemic thing
32:31
you know i'm obsessed with taoism absolutely obsessed it's a
32:36
it's problematic i mean it's a good addiction to have
32:42
i agree there's a lovely concept called and uh and it it's it sort of translates
32:48
to not doing or doing nothing or it's the whole idea of you know also effortless action but you
32:55
know something there that we we're becoming more accepting of
33:01
each other's humanity and then part of that is is that you know our needs you know
33:09
for rest uh and when we reach that threshold is a lot lower
33:15
than a lot of us might believe when we're in this kind of you know production-based
33:20
post-industrial kind of you know you know world that's all about you know
33:27
creating making achieving um so there's a new kind of narrative i
33:35
think emerging which is like sleep and and
33:40
take care of yourself listen to your body and slow down then that's just lovely to see
33:47
because actually the irony a lot of the time is that we can actually accomplish a lot
33:52
yeah and uh there's this uh passage from the dao tech uh written by
33:58
latsu that says nature does not hurry yet everything is accomplished
34:04
uh it's it's that this kind of idea of going with the natural flow ourcycles the rhythms um
34:11
and can we kind of tune into that it's a it's a it's a bit of acomplicated thing because it's a little
34:16
bit to our in modern western world the idea of doing nothing doesn'tmake any sense but it doesn't mean
34:22
nothing at all it's a little bit different to that but it's very alignedwith somatic work which has this this trust in this
34:29
organic intelligent unfolding of things absolutely that's that's
34:34
basically the premise of my lunai class we we use the moon cycles tokind of cycle through your different energy
34:40
levels and and it's taking time to work hard and to plan and to to behave that yang energy and
34:46
that masculine you know forward moving um and then to take time to restand release
34:52
and and sort of that yin energy where we're just going with the flow andit's it's
34:58
following that cycle because you need the rest time to be productive youknow you can't if you're constantly in that aggressive
35:05
energy you burn out um and somebody who's an overachiever trying to doall the things i have to
35:12
schedule my rest time or yeah i will just go go holy totally yeah
35:18
guilt me too yes i'm totally you know card-carrying member of
35:23
that club yeah you know and and uh there's this
35:28
idea there's a you know this you know increasingly with this kind ofunderstanding of this human as an integrated system there's a
35:36
this concept of the it's called the default mode network in the brainand it's actually research shows that it's
35:43
where we kind of do our most creative innovative thinking and problemsolving
35:48
um you know which are qualities that you know nasa and google placeslike that really
35:54
one in spades you know they want that sort of thing in their employeesin abundance right it tends to come online
36:00
in the in the rest period yes i was just reading a book on this and umyou know they're talking about how
Rise Above
36:06
that's why right before you fall asleep or when you're in the shower notdoing anything that's when you get your most creative ideas because your brainis
36:13
kind of taking a break totally right yeah well that's what the research
36:18
suggests anyway yeah absolutely well nathan our podcast is called ashesto wings referring to the
36:24
story of the phoenix transforming and rising from the ashes i like toask all of our guests this question
36:30
what does rise above mean in your life you know weirdly enough it's abit of
36:38
like a backwards answer to this but it's like rise above in my life justme this is
36:44
like just allow everything to be just as it is
36:50
and yeah for me that's how i kind of come out of the
36:58
yeah suffering or chaos or whatever you know
37:03
yeah so i'm almost picturing you in the in the jet stream you know over where most airplanes fly
Bumper Sticker
37:09
and you get into that jet stream and you just flow so much faster because you're kind of above where you're having to put in all that effort
37:15
and just kind of flow flow state nice of that so nathan i always like toleave
37:21
our ashes to wings listeners with a bumper sticker statement a summaryof what you've just talked about that would
37:27
fit on a bumper sticker so what would your bumper sticker be
37:32
[Music] i would say and i said it a little earlier but i'll say it again
37:38
it's discovering our sensory potential feels out of this world when it'sbeen
37:43
so long since we've been connected in this way but it's as natural as itgets
37:49
good and then i have a few rapid fire fun questions for you if you'regame for it if you had to
Deleted Apps
37:56
delete all but three apps from your cell phone which ones would you keep
38:02
sadly my emails um but it's true um
38:07
[Music] if i hadn't just got a new like
38:12
like phone free meditation uh alarm clock thing it's super cool i
38:17
would have keep insight timer and um third one
38:23
it's gonna be whatsapp but that's just because during this time whenwe're so you know
38:29
it's really kept particularly my family especially with my sister livingacross the other side of australia connected and that's quite a
38:36
miraculous thing so absolutely nice what is your superpower
Superpowers
38:45
sensitivity like a cape and a sensitivity man
38:52
love that what are your favorite pizza toppings you know i'm doesn'tmatter
39:00
what happens i can i sometimes get creative but if somebody's orderedjust uh pepperoni and mozzarella base i get
39:07
jealous so i'm gonna say just a normal pepperoni
39:13
nice pizza not hawaiian do you guys have hawaiian pizzas in britain yeahlet's get serious
39:20
[Laughter]
39:25
there's two camps i feel like there's the it's good and the it's anabomination from yeah yes
39:33
um what is your guilty pleasure song oh it's so easy taylor swift
39:40
any of them i'm such a swifty it's my guilty
39:46
pleasure hardcore i mean how can you not that's out of the bag yes ilove it
39:54
um what is left on your bucket list well um so i'm going to give you the
40:02
cheesy one first yeah okay grandma is not she did she was an artist youknow like i don't know she's a
40:08
professional i should be an artist and one of the things in my bucketlist is to exhibit her outlook before so
40:15
um we wanna she's getting on so we'll be doing that soon the the lesscheesy one is um
40:22
i i i want to be snowboarding every winter scuba diving
40:28
every summer that sounds amazing nice
40:34
yeah i i don't i live in chicago but i hate the cold so i have not beensnowboarding but
Book Recommendations
40:40
um i haven't been scuba diving scuba diving either but i want to
40:45
sometime in the near future when we can travel again what book belongson everyone's
40:51
bookshelf and this i picked this one specifically for you because i knowyou're a book nerd like me
40:57
oh how do i choose how do i choose
41:04
i i mentioned the original wisdom earlier i'm just i'm gonna go withthat one
41:13
yeah i'm gonna go with that one all the data ching and i just snuck thatin there but the definitely a little bit for some people
41:20
it might not completely resonate original wisdom just gorgeous love thatand who wrote original wisdom
41:25
um robert wolf okay w-o-l-f-f i'm looking over here
41:35
uh that's where my bookshelf is i have like a list of titles recommended
41:40
by nathan that i need to start working my way through
41:48
love it well nathan i know you mentioned you have a special offer forour ashes to wings listeners
Special Offer
41:54
yeah yeah well two two things so the uh the first is we got a free um afree introduction to body coaching
42:01
it's online um and is that a good time for most time zones
42:07
um so that they happen regularly and i think jenny you've got the linkfor that so i think
42:12
i think you'll be sharing that and um and you know that's anintroduction
42:18
to so the events entirely free to attend um and the whole event covers
42:24
what is body-oriented coaching and the field of semantics broadlyspeaking where it came from why it matters and
42:31
what it might look like to work with that in practice one of the waysthat you might do that is a training that we run at the
42:38
semantic school which is called the accredited certificate and body intocoaching now if you were to enroll in that course
42:43
there's another offer for ashes to wings listeners which is
42:48
will include in that course a bonus uh organic intelligence for coachescourse
42:54
which if you haven't heard of organic intelligence check it out it'spretty cool and then um
43:00
an icf uh mentoring program which is for those anyone who who wants totrain
43:06
who wants to actually become a icf credentialed coach which is somefurther credibility you
43:12
can go on and get those icf mentoring hours so we're gonna bundle thatin either one of those two
43:18
and um for your listeners jenny thank you so much and you guys can findthat deal
Wrap Up
43:23
along with nathan's social media links on his guest page on our websiteso that's ashes2wings.net
43:31
slash nathan dash blair b-l-a-i-r um and thank you for those nathanthat's
43:37
that's amazing and do they need to be currently do they need to becoaches to enroll in these things
43:43
i'm glad you asked because i mentioned coaching a few times there andthe answer typically most people who enroll in
43:49
training have some existing practice or career that has a relationaldimension to it
43:55
that includes quite a few careers all you really need is a desire towork with
44:02
people one-to-one typically or in groups and work at somatic depth orwork with the
44:08
with the body's intelligence in that context so perfect well nathanthank you so much
44:14
for joining us today this was amazing yeah it was an absolute pleasureand it's an honor thank you so much for
44:20
asking me to come absolutely so just a quick recap of our episode withnathan blair today we
44:26
talked about somatics and how science is revealing just how central ourbodies are to our intelligence
44:31
and supporting the what the wisdom traditions of the east have beenteaching for thousands of years we talked about how
44:37
we've lost touch with what makes being human magical and we talked abouthow modern society teaches us to escape ourselves
44:44
more than it teaches us how to be with ourselves in a meaningful waywhich is just such a powerful statement
44:50
these all tie into our values at ashes to wings where we're all aboutconnecting the body mind and emotions and i love the idea
44:58
that what you've been told is strange is probably your greatestsuperpower don't forget to check out nathan's guest
45:05
page again that's www.ashes2wings.net
45:10
nathan dash blair friends thank you for listening don't forget to followthe show
45:15
rate and review and we'll see you next time thanks for listening thebest way to learn is to teach someone else so take one thing you
45:22
learned today and share it with a friend find jenny on instagram at theunderscore jenny underscore o'connor and
45:28
online at jennyoconner.com subscribe for new episodes until next timerise above
