Healing Connections

In this short (10 min) guided practice Apostol leads a meditation on Joy inspired from the social meditation practices that he has been facilitating for the past 18 months in the Buddhist Geeks network and beyond.While this guided meditation is focused on the simple cultivation of Joyful mind states, in a broader context Joy is connected to the concept of Mudita in Buddhism, which is one of the Four Immeasurables.Instructions start at the beginning and guided practice starts at around the 4:40 mark.

Apostol & Max talk about the different aspects of South American Ayahuasca shamanism. Ayahuasca is a tea which is prepared by the mixture of the Ayahuasca vine (Banisteriopsis Caapi) and the Chacruna plant (Psychotria viridis) which together enable a multi-hour DMT journey. In the amazon jungle, various tribes have used  it for many generations for shamanism and healing. In the past years ayahuasca has gained popularity in the west for it's potential for healing chronic illness, trauma and various health  issues that western medicine does not have good solutions for. The conversations focuses on the tradition of the Shipibo Tribe for dieting and healing through the connection with various plant teachers.Resources mentioned:Graham Hancock "The War on Consciousness" banned TED talkDMT The Spirit Molecule Movie and Book

Apostol and Max talk about the Huachma which is also called San Pedro and is referred to the grandfather medicine (compared to Ayahuasca being the grandmother). Max shares his recent experience of a 2-week Huachuma retreat in Peru and Apostol shares his one-time initiatiory experience involving Huachuma and a Temazcal (swedge lodge). They extensively talk about ancestoral trauma and how to work with it using plant medicine. At the end Max shares his comparison between MDMA and Huachuma as two hear-opening medicines.Notes:The social meditation practice at the beginning is inspired by similar practices created by Vince Fakhoury Horn from Buddhist Geeks.ResourcesHuachuma WasiThe Forgotten Psychedelic (documentary)

In this episode Max and Apostol talk about the healing effect and power of MDMA. Max shares his personal experience of discovering MDMA and subsequently having a very profound and powerful healing experience on it. He shares how he felt afterwards and also his experience with two other journeys. Apostol also shares his own single healing journey with MDMA that happened recently. They talk briefly about safety and dosage.Resources:MAPS Treatment Manual MDMA Assisted Psychotherapy for PTSD The Secret Chief Revelead - by  Myron J. Stolaroff

Max and Apostol talk about the Secular and Shamanic approach to journeying with psychedelics and sacred plant medicines for the benefit of psychospiritual healing and growth. They go into their personal experience and recommendations on how to approach these medicines. They discuss reasons and intent for working with them, research and preparation, sourcing, preparation of the mind, body and physical space and some tips on integration and working with 'bad trips'. All of this with the strong emphasis on safety and best practices.This episode is meant as a precursor for some future elements deep-diving into different forms of psychedelics and sacred plants. We highly recommend listening to this first before listening to any of the future episodes :).

This episode is an invitation to practice together with Liana and Max.  Liana introduces and explains the social mediation practice they chose to share. Together they will demonstrate a Multidimensional Meditation on Inner Adulthood as an extension of the previous episode.   This is an invitation for a social inquiry and an opportunity for attunement to mature curiosity.  

Liana and Max are candidly discussing what inner adulthood means for each of them.   They talk about strong resistance to adulting, challenges with finding a healthy balance between maturity and carefree energy that is typically associated with childhood,  self-agency and relating to self from different perspectives, and how 13 specific qualities of Self from IFS ( Internal Family System) model gives an inspiring list of traits for an aspiring well-functioning adult.  Join them in inquiring how it is different from the inner parent and its relationship with the numerous inner children.   There are fascinating insights that arise spontaneously from the joint field of engaged curiosity and kind awareness.  To give you a taste, the infinite intelligence, worthiness, and interconnectedness all make a brief appearance before the sudden realization turns the burden of adulthood on its head.  Finally, they leave you with some food for thought and even Peter Pan and Captain Hook are thrown into the mix as a parting favor. 

Max continues to explore the topic of worthiness and how to find a physical manifestation of it in the body. He shares how feelings of not-good-enough and guilt showed up in his body. At the end he offers a guided meditation aimed to rediscover a physical sensation of worthiness in your body.

Max continues his exploration of worthiness. He shares his views on how we loose our sense of worthiness and what the mechanisms are that teach us that worthiness is not welcomed. The second half again offers a social meditaiton practice to the listeners.

Max explores the topic of worthiness in this first solo episode. He explains what worthiness means to him and how it was his antidote of feelings of insufficiency, not feeling good enough, not feeling loveable.  Common variations of insufficiency are explored and how worthiness is something unconditional and inherent for all of us.The second half of the episode offers a social meditation practice for the listeners to join in to explore the topic of worthiness for themselves.

In this episode, Liana and Max dive into the critical role joy played in their healing journeys.  Liana talks about discovering "ordinary" joy after being inspired by Rick Hanson's work on rewiring the "survival" brain.  She talks about making conscious choices in shifting from a heavily dominant negative focus to including and growing positive and pleasant experiences.  She talks about untangling joy from shame and some of the burdens of that pairing.  Max talks about the importance of giving yourself permission to be joyful and how his own limiting beliefs about joy were an initial obstacle to him having more of it in his life.  Together they talk about the positive communal qualities of joy, its ability to grow when shared, and even shared a short social meditation practice where they noted out loud how they were experiencing the present moment through the eyes of joy as a mind state.  They wrap it up with sharing of the alchemy of the supportive healing community as a place where joy grows when shared while sorrow lessens. Notes:The social meditation practice demonstrated in this episode was originally created by Vince Fakhoury Horn from Buddhist Geeks and is called Zen noting.  Resources:Hardwiring Happiness: The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm, and Confidence by Rick Hanson PhD

Max and Liana really dive deep into attachment trauma and the ways we can heal it with awareness.  Max goes right into it by giving a great overview of the different attachment styles and their effects on our relationships.  He ties his learnings and personal experience and shares how he was able to bring a repair to his system.  Liana talks about burdened and unburdened attachments and makes a pretty good case for the role society has in the way we form and maintain our important relationships.  She brings to the table her perspective as a parent as well as gives an account of the harmful birthing practices.  Max brings fascinating Ideal Parent Figure therapy and outlines conditions necessary for forming a healthy secure attachment.  They conclude this episode by sharing several resources they found helpful on their journeys in healing their attachment wounds.Resources:Attached: Are you Anxious, Avoidant, or Secure? How the Science of Adult Attachment Can Help You Find - and Keep - Love  by Dr. Amir Levine and Rachel S. F. Heller, M.A. Attachment Disturbances in Adults: Treatment for Comprehensive Repair by Daniel P. Brown and David S. ElliottTrauma Through a Child’s Eyes: Awakening the Ordinary Miracle of Healing by Peter A Levine and Maddie KlineHow to Do the Work: Recognize Your Patterns, Heal from Your Past, and Create Your Self by Dr. Nicole LePeraDiscovering the Inner Mother: A Guide to Healing the Mother Wound and Claiming Your Personal Power by Bethany Webster Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents.: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson 

In this episode, Max and Liana dive into fear as an evolutionary tool for survival, talk about the connection between increased fearful response and trauma, discuss the dangers of suppressing fear, and share ways of working with it in a healing way.  Liana talks about her experience of changing her relationship with fear,  gives several real-life accounts of overcoming challenges such as reoccurring nightmares and fear of in-flight turbulence.  Max shares his experiences of working with the fear of dying through controlled close encounter therapy work.  He also brings up the magnetic nature of fear and its frequency and some of the ways of working with it.  They even make a case for why the fear of public speaking is a concealed fear of dying.  Resources:Meditation for Beginners by  Jack Kornfield Hardwiring Happiness: The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm, and Confidence by  Rick Hanson PhDBuddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love and Wisdom by Rick Hanson PhD The Wisdom of Anxiety: How Worry and Intrusive Thoughts Are Gifts to Help You Heal  by Sheryl Pau, Leslie Howard The End of Your World: Uncensored Straight Talk on the Nature of Enlightenment by Adyashanti 

In this episode, Max and Liana talk about the significance of practicing self-compassion in their healing journeys.  Max shares about finding an ever-expanding capacity for compassion, overcoming challenges he had with receiving compassion, relating to heartful practices as “the missing salt in the childhood soup” and coming out on the other side.  Liana talks about the road of mindfulness and self-acceptance that she took in going from self-aversion and zero capacity for self-compassion to learning how to lovingly support herself in moments of suffering.  Together they do an impromptu social meditation practice in a form of Zen Noting where they take turns and note out loud what comes up from the lens of embodied Self-Compassion.  The episode wraps it up with resource sharing, some of which got cut off so we put the complete list in the show notes below.  Building on Liana 's sharing of her favorite well-wishing phrasing by her beloved retreat teacher La Sarmiento, we are extending them to you as our heartfelt wish on your journey:May you accept yourself just as you are.May you be kind and gentle with yourself when you are suffering.May you trust that you are doing the best you can at the moment.Resources: Info on Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) work developed by Christopher K. Germer, PhD. and Kristin Neff, PhD. can be found at https://self-compassion.org/ and https://centerformsc.org/Dr. Kristin Neff Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to YourselfTara Brach Radical Compassion: Learning to Love Yourself and Your World with the Practice of RAINTara Brach Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a BuddhaDiane Musho Hamilton, Gabriel Menegale Wilson, and Kimberly Myosai Loh Compassionate Conversations: How to Speak and Listen from the Heart

Max and Liana continue their conversation about the body and the special role it plays in healing.  They touch on the body and its capacities to remember and store trauma as well as can serve as a means to release it.  Max explains the gravestones metaphor in relation to the body.  The topic of a trauma-sensitive approach is briefly discussed as well as several practical tools on how to deal with strong or overwhelming emotions or a freaked-out mind.  Liana shares what led her to change the way she related to her body, her addiction to stress, being alerted to a traumatic experience preserved in the body and the ways she worked with it.   Resources:Bessel van der Kolk M.D. The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma Gabor Mate M.D. When the Body Says No: Understanding the Stress-Disease ConnectionDavid A. Treleaven Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness: Practices for Safe and Transformative Healing

In this episode Max and Liana talk about befriending our body as an essential step in the healing process, taking us on a journey from relating to a body as a head taxi to it being a portal to wellness.  Together they explore the difference between controlled breath and body breathing itself as examples of conscious and unconscious co-existing in the same process.   Spreading the love far and wide, they share some of their favorite techniques of embodiment and some resources that were helpful in learning about the body-centered healing work.  Resources:Stephen W. Porges: The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of EMtions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-regulationJustin Sunseri’s podcast “Stuck not Broken” is dedicated entirely to polyvagal theory and its application in trauma recovery https://www.justinlmft.com/podcastPeter A. Levine: In an Unspoken Voice : How Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness  More information about his method of treating trauma can be found here https://www.somaticexperiencing.com/Info about Jon Kabat Zinn and his Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction method (MBSR) can be found here https://jonkabat-zinn.comInfo about Wim Hof method at www.wimhofmethod.com

Max and Liana continue their conversation and further exploration of what healing means to them. Max shares about creating conditions and circumstances to safely experience emotions, seeing himself for who he is, and accepting it all, especially the dark parts, appreciating beauty in the scars.  They touch on individual and collective healing, the benefits and challenges, and how we can best help each other in the process. Finally,  a topic of authenticity and bravery wraps it up nicely.Keywords: Shift from not knowing emotions to experiencing them safely, Removing cloud of mystery about self, Scars can be beautiful, no good or bad in the healing process, Self-acceptance and inclusion of dark in whole, Healing self is healing each other, Vulnerability and authenticity

After a short inquiry mediation, Max and Liana reflect on what healing means to them.  Liana talks about her understanding of the trauma, the repair work, and shares some learnings from her experience with it such as giving up victimhood, finding the lost true self, importance of practicing kind attention and self-compassion, building self-trust and inner parent.  Max shares about attention economy and surprises on the way of his recovery. Resources: Gabor Mate: The Myth of Normal - Trauma and Recovery in a Toxic CultureFabolous AppKeywords: Inquiry practice, Unification of mind body and spirit, Finding the lost True Self, Importance of kind attention and self-compassion, Baby steps, Intention matters

In this episode, you get a front seat to a mini-life review as Liana puts it herself.  She starts by introducing her eclectic "WE" identity, opens up about some of the challenges that she faced in her life, including rock bottom which started her conscious healing journey, and gives us a snapshot of where she is today.  You get to meet Liana’s vibrant inner child and learn about her genius survival strategy.  She wraps it up with her take on the “Who am I?” question as a practice of open-ended self-exploration. 

In this episode, you will learn more about Max as he shares details about his healing journey.  In this intimate close up he opens up about what life was like before the journey started, the specific circumstances of his dramatic discovery of the childhood trauma, his approach to healing, and the changes that occurred because of this work.  Max also shares his inspiration behind this podcast project and how his quest for self-love led to it.