Learning Conversation

12 min.   Maureen and Pierre bring forward Alan Watts as a classical mind body resource.  An icon of the 1960's, Alan Watts was an Episcopalian priest who is known for bringing Buddhism to the west.   The double entendre of the interview is:  Being in the Way.  So often we spend our time trying to be somebody - the athlete, the business success, the well-liked person.  Sometimes we forget to spend time being ourselves, or even finding out who we are.   Join us for a brief conversation considering Being in the Way, a conversation between Ram Dass and Alan Watts.  

17 mins. Learning about simple and personal applied strategies for grounded living after having spent decades looking for answers in the self-help aisles of bookstores.   The quickest way to meditate is by focusing on one of the five senses.  By focusing on the sense of touch, we elevate the body's signals of feelings over the mind's processing, and we ground to the present moment.  When we are in the present moment, worries of the future mist over, regrets and burdens of the past fade.  We can be grateful for the here and now.  The Landscape for Learning is in you - Workout Within with Maureen!  :-)  Maureen and Pierre are talking about resources and explore the premise of this podcast, which is illuminating resources to help others. Very quickly, they discover the word "irony."  Self-help is within, and they dive into the irony of self-help advice, books, resources.  Is that the right path to go down?  Pierre relates his hack: get out of your head and into your ass.  Tim Ferris’ advice per Maureen is:  get out of your head and get into your body - a little more understandable.  Hehe   Pierre’s daily prayer includes the expression: May I come to my senses.   Maureen and Pierre discuss life hacks - short cuts or crutches to help us combat our cultural imbalance to brain and rational thoughts.  Our culture practices disembodiment, so says Maureen.   Explore with us the deeper meaning of our body’s wisdom and presence. Especially, the body’s wisdom to be happy.  Landscapes for Learning    

25 min.  Maureen and Pierre discuss Elizabeth Stanley's book, Widen the Window:  Training Your Brain and Body to Thrive During Stress and Recover from Trauma.   Long title and long book, about 450 pages.  Bessel van der Kolk writes the forward and pays Elizabeth Stanley an astounding tribute saying:  "I don't think I've ever read a book that paints as complex and accurate a landscape of what it's like to live with the legacy of trauma as this book does, while offering a comprehensive approach to healing."  WOW.  Maureen and Pierre take a deep dive into this important resource for mind body health, after previously discussing Bessel van der Kolk's ground breaking book:  The Body Keeps the Score.  A bit of compare and contrast discussion, in addition to bringing up other resources on the topic.  These resources include:  John Bowlby, a British psychologist who developed 'attachment theory.' And Amir Levine, who has updated that theory with insights into adult attachment styles. Amir Levine's book:  The New Science of Adult Attachments and How It Can Help You Find - and Keep - Love, is an accessible book with a simple, but powerful mathematical theory around partnering and co-regulating through relationships.  Amir Levine is an MD, psychiatrist and neuroscientist associated with Columbia University in NYC. Widen the Window refers to widening the window of tolerance for stress in order to cope and heal.   https://elizabeth-stanley.com https://www.columbiapsychiatry.org/profile/amir-levine-md https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bowlby    

22 min.  Maureen and Pierre introduce Bessel van der Kolk's book: The Body Keeps the Score:  Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma.    A watershed book in establishing a diagnosis around trauma and its healing.  Scientific yet accessible, it was on the NYTimes bestseller list for 141 weeks - almost 3 years.   Maureen relates how the book is useful as a parent, teacher and clinician / therapist.   It's relevant in understanding humanity, not just traumatized individuals, but understanding how the body copes with stress - positively and negatively.   Maureen and Pierre unpack a quote relating to agency and interoception, their roles in healing.  The podcast highlights the changing and exploding nexus of information coming out on mind body systems.  

15 min.  Maureen and Pierre open up the podcast with a discussion about 'love.'  Somewhere in this podcast Barry White, Eddie Murphy, the Little Rascals, Alfred E. Newman, and Forrest Gump make appearances.  More to point:  Amir Levine and Rachel Heller's book:  The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find - and Keep - Love is discussed.  Popular self-help title, but real research from a Columbia University professor, Amir Levine, and co-author, Rachel Heller.  Basically, great science behind a goofy title.  Very accessible book propounding powerful math around adult dating probabilities given personality types around adult attachment theory.  If you are looking for love as an older adult, even someone moving towards the 30 year mark, consult this book and consider its thesis.   This was recorded around Valentine's Day.  Maureen and Pierre consider all the rituals that our society has around loving another, and how few rituals our society has around going within to learn, honor and love oneself.  Something to think about next time you are in See's chocolates.  Just sayin.    Amir Levine: https://childadolescentpsych.cumc.columbia.edu/faculty/amir-levine Rachel Heller: https://crediblemind.com/people/rachel-heller    

17 min.  Maureen & Pierre discuss the paradox of having resources and not availing ourselves of these aides.  Why?  Self-esteem?  Fear?  Comfort in the known?   Pierre suggests care of children necessitates taking care of oneself.  Maureen suggests the importance of learning how to be a person before learning how to be a 'personality.'  A general discussion of raising and educating healthy children ensues.   Later in the podcast, Maureen and Pierre touch on PTSD, trauma and rehabilitating the nervous system, and how that is different from rehabbing our skeletal muscle system.  

12 min. Maureen and Pierre create content discussing resources in mind body and spiritual health.  They introduce and discuss Andrew Huberman's podcast, called The Huberman Lab.  Huberman is a Stamford PhD and not your average podcaster.  He goes deep into scientific information with the goal of making sense of it, and making it available to average people - for free.  Free is good. Learning Conversation highlights resources, including books, podcasts, practices, that assist in learning journeys towards self-realization, a practice of working out within.   Find Huberman's newsletter and podcasts on his website, YouTube, Spotify, or ApplePodcasts. https://hubermanlab.com  

Learning Practice features a 3-minute conversation about a single word.  Unrehearsed, without forethought of the word to be discussed, we practice the art of Learning Conversation.   If you want to practice with us by supplying a word and joining us:   contact us through our websites. Today's word is:  Forgiveness.  Ok, 3 minutes.  GO! Forgive yourself your trespasses. Be free to love and accept yourself.  Ask for forgiveness in the measure you forgive others is in the Lord's Prayer. "AS" says Pierre, is a BIG little word! "If you need to forgive, you are starting in the wrong place." Landscapes for Learning YogaHEALS    

Learning Practice features a 3-minute conversation about a single word.  Unrehearsed, without forethought of the word to be discussed, we practice the art of Learning Conversation.   If you want to practice with us by supplying a word and joining us:   contact us through our websites: Landscapes for Learning YogaHEALS    

54 mins. Conversation with Grace Tempany about learning via unlearning, her journey through the the yin and yang of yoga, a career in education, her new career in psychotherapy - which parallels Maureen's journey from high school teacher to therapist, and Grace's new podcast about leaning into "reluctant conversations." Grace's podcast of Spotify: Fallen From Grace  Grace's Website: GraceTempany.com    

56 mins. Learning about "going to the edge by going within." A discussion around life's challenges, mindfulness meditation, gratitude, acceptance, possibility / opportunity mindsets, and embracing obstacles without victim mentality. A learning conversation with Xerxes Whitney - meditation leader, physical education teacher, motivational speaker and coach.  Check out Xerxes' TedTalk and share with friends! "Going to the Edge by Going Within" Xerxes' TEDTalk   

20 min.  Maureen and Pierre further discuss how the Learning Conversation podcast started.  Beginning with yoga training in the jungles of Thailand; why that yoga training was different and stuck with so many graduates; and how yoga training inspired further curiosity in mind body health.  From the yoga training, Landscapes for Learning - Maureen's website was birthed, and YogaHEALS - Pierre's website was birthed.  Now Learning Conversation brings those endeavors together in a series of podcasts exploring mind body connections. Please Share & Visit: Landscapes For Learning YogaHEALS  

7 min. The landscapes of our lives are for learning where experience is our teacher. When we gather together and share our resources, we are destined to love and thrive! That's Maureen's intro to the podcast:  Learning Conversation.  We see it as a guide to resources in mind body health; Zagat's guide or Yelp or to navigate the mind-body information explosion.  Listen to Maureen and Pierre hilariously try to figure out how to end the podcast.   Please share and visit:  Landscapes for Learning 

A podcast exploring Landscapes for Learning where Maureen Bakis and Pierre Ratte share resources through conversation and interviews. We discuss the union of mind, body, spirit.  We discuss Classic Wisdom for Modern Humans:  Know Thyself.  These are unedited conversations, interviews and reviews.  This is our first podcast.  We pressed record. Whoa, Wait, What?  We did that?  Unprepared?  Unrehearsed?  You can hear what happens - it's a little bit ____?   - well, you decide   We're committed to real time "real" conversation.  Join us in Learning Conversation - follow our journey interviewing regular people, and discussing resources for piecing together an exploding landscape of information on mind - body connections leading towards updated views on health, disease, and dis-ease.  Join us in our journey.  PS:  The first podcast is mercifully short.  

It may seem foolish and overly-simplistic to encourage people to know who they are and why this process of self-study matters so much, but I would argue that we don't know ourselves nearly as well as we think nor nearly as much as we should!  In this episode, originally published in 2019,  I outline the five directions that make up the "Self-Study Wheel" found in my Classic Wisdom for the Modern Human: A Self Study Guide for Wellness, (2019, Amazon). It turns out to be a nice description of the elements in the book. Once you hear the overview, you'll want to get the tools and practices in the book and start observing yourself in more ways to self-actualize! I believe everyone, but especially high school and college students, could use this wisdom sooner rather than later, as I only recently learned about this map and directions to know myself for wellness and fulfillment, and wish I had gotten it much earlier in my life. Having worked with teenagers as a high school teacher and athletic coach and raising four of my own, the self-study curriculum I created is the soft-skills and wisdom we neglect or is found wanting in modern parenting and schooling which is overly-focused on outcomes and results rather than process and deep engagement; grades instead of personal growth and character development; and comparison and competition rather than cooperation and competence. We need more human literacies training for more connection, love, personal responsibility, and self-care. I hope this podcast and my book helps. Have a listen to get inspired to get honest and get healthy through me-search!

Our cultural values and conditioning are making us sick. Grappling with our unique forms of suffering and problems, whatever that entails or however it manifests uniquely within each person, directly opposes our modern cultural values that are about promoting happiness, getting people to literally buy into the story that they need comfort and pleasure (permanently) and encouraging a dependence on everything outside of themselves rather than within. Guess what? You are enough and you can "fill" your life by getting to know who you REALLY are through facing your fears and challenges. It requires honesty as well as building courage and personal discipline, and that's exactly why most people take pills, develop unhealthy dependencies on others, retreat to or stay forever in their comfort zones, and live lives of "quiet desperation" in the words of HD Thoreau.  Our sources of pain are diverse, but we are all flawed and we all suffer-- in our own ways, great and small-- because we are human. It's scary and challenging to face our insecurities and vulnerabilities, but doing so is exactly the path to freedom. You can learn tools and practices to get better at suffering and to suffer less and live with more joy in this very struggle. This podcast is a reading of a couple of excerpts from Part III of the Classic Wisdom for the Modern Human: A Self-Study Guide for Wellness (2019, Amazon) called "Challenge." To know oneself deeply, to express oneself authentically, to be fully present for yourself, even in your pain, is a difficult path, but it is the way to a meaning-filled life of wisdom and wellness. Please Visit & Support https://landscapesforlearning.com/

017: Learning as Opportunity Mindset: Undoing Schooling for more Wisdom and Wellness Parents, students, and teachers of all kinds will appreciate this podcast which is a reading of Part V: Learning from the Classic Wisdom for the Modern Human: A Self-Study Guide for Wellness (2019, Amazon) After 14 years as a Humanities educator, I quit teaching in public high school because the American education system is built in a way that discourages authentic learning for wisdom and wellness, demonizes failure, and values competitive achievement to the detriment of personal wellness rooted in balance and wholeness. The system is dying rapidly because it is too slow to update itself to suit modern life. (This doesn't mean it isn't necessary, that it doesn't do a lot of good, or that it cannot transform!) My current goal as a student of mental health and yoga teacher is to bring a wisdom curriculum to students-- which is not only young people and their parents-- but ALL people because humans are built for continual learning, as learning IS vitality. We could do with a bit less schooling in its current form and a lot more wisdom.   Part of the Landscapes for Learning mission is to promote a way of being in the world that is rooted in life-long learning not necessarily for personal gain or social power but for personal wisdom and wellness. It's learning that emphasizes cooperation and competence, encourages people to "go vertical"* with their learning (i.e to travel their inner landscape through self study for self-realization) not only horizontal, and to reconnect with their "unconditioned"* true nature! Learn more about learning, vulnerability, and proper parenting (of self and your children) for wisdom and wellness! Visit LandscapesforLearning.com for more podcasts and blog posts about schooling, learning, education, wisdom, wellness, yoga, and more! References *I mentioned in this podcast another podcast of Eckard Tolle by SoundsTrue where he explains this "horizontal" part of life and the "unconditioned" self.   Bakis, M. (2019) Classic Wisdom for the Modern Human: A Self-Study Guide for Wellness Amazon, Amazon Kindle     

I read from the Classic Wisdom for the Modern Human: A Self-Study Guide for Wellness (2019, Amazon), sharing a bit about attention and its difference from critical judgment; I also explain Bikram Yoga and attention and why the BY Dialogue and mirrors are integral to practitioners' self-study for self-realization. See also the wellness benefits and impacts on stress management and stress reduction that comes from strengthening focused attention (as well as breathing) as part of hatha yoga practice in "The Science of Yoga" video. Namaste!

This episode is about my own learning about kids, yoga, and self-knowledge over my years teaching high school and raising my own kids. I talk about the future of constant change and how we need to radically alter education to help kids find and live their unique truth. I talk about interpreting images in a text, soft skills, values, the grading system, rescuing and preserving our humanity, and the differences between the usual business of traditional schooling and authentic learning, and much more. The Landscapes for Learning Mission is to help people thrive and flourish using tools they already own within them to navigate a future that will require them to surf the waves of change on novel landscapes.  I hope to help dismantle traditional schooling and its unhelpful, outdated, and damaging values and persuade teachers, schools, and students to focus their attention on better, more important ways of learning.  My goal is to support all parties in this transformation (and especially by loving and caring for our most valuable asset---our teachers) with their humanity and love for shared humanity in tact.  Help the Landscapes for Learning Mission catch fire! Please share! Please "Like" on Itunes. Follow Landscapes for Learning: @ LandscapesforLearning.com Twitter @Landscps4learn Facebook  https://www.facebook.com/landscapesforlearning/ Instagram: LandscapesforLearning27   SHOW NOTES/References: Lenore Skenazy's Free Range Kids LetGrow.org (BLOG) Podcast Music: Creative Commons License for "Political Lunatics" by Earthling (intro and outro music) "Political Lunatics" by Earthling

"Every student deserves a good teacher, every teacher deserves the opportunity to be a great teacher"  -Teri Almquist     Building an inner connection with yourself isn't easy. This union, or yoga, is hard work. It's about  trust--first in a teacher when you don't yet know how to trust yourself or you are overwhelmed by pain, fear, or self-doubt. But then, little by little, you begin to believe in yourself; then you begin to trust yourself; then you have genuine faith in yourself. You become stronger and more flexible, more balanced through this process. Your teacher is your trusted and loving witness on your unique journey into your inner landscape.  This enormously important teacher-student relationship built on trust is transformative, life-changing. Teri's first teacher, Diane Duscharme believed in her and supported her from the very first moment she entered the yoga studio with a badly injured neck and a pack a day smoking habit, and since then Teri has been paying her transformation forward-- first by becoming a Bikram Yoga Teacher, then opening her own studio, and now providing continuing education for Bikram yoga teachers around the world. A Bikram yoga class is an opportunity to focus in the mirror and concentrate on oneself-- to travel one's inner landscape. It's practicing over and over again, consistently, in order to learn more about oneself.  It's a chance to find that quiet space within us where our truest, most loving self lives--- that place from which we can learn how to mindfully respond to life and all its challenges. It's a landscape for learning.   The Toolbox: Tools for Teaching Bikram Yoga by Teri Almquist available HERE (Amazon) Visit Teri's Studio at Wellness Hot Yoga in Haverhill, Massachusetts  For more information about teaching seminars, webinars, and professional development visit: https://www.teachfromlove.yoga/ Webinars for teaching yoga at http://webinars.teachfromlove.yoga/ Visit http://www.LandscapesforLearning.com Podcast Music: Creative Commons License for "Political Lunatics" by Earthling (intro and outro music) "Political Lunatics" by Earthling