Higher Love with Megan – Details, episodes & analysis

Up on the Higher Love with Megan podcast this week, we have Jacqueline Kelly. Jacqueline is a life coach for mums who feel like they've lost sight of themselves in motherhood. She helps them get very clear and confident about who they are now at this stage of their motherhood journey. Jacqueline has spent years challenging the unrealistic standards of motherhood that we are encouraged to aspire to and in doing this has redefined what's possible not just for her but for the mothers that she works with.

Episode Highlights:

04:09 Discovering Matrescence

11:29 The Pathologization of Motherhood

14:19 Challenging Societal Narratives

18:48 Shame and Silence in Motherhood

34:50 Motherhood and Activism

Mentioned in the episode:

• Alexandra Sacks TED talk on matrescence

• Dr Aurelie Athan

• Dana Raphael

Connect with me on ⁠Instagram⁠ and find out more about me ⁠this way⁠. I'd love to hear what you think.

Podcast Music:

Good For You by THBD https://soundcloud.com/thbdsultan
Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported— CC BY 3.0
Free Download / Stream: http://bit.ly/2PgU6Mu
Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/-K_YSjqKgvQ

In this episode I welcome Leah Kim, host of the excellent podcast Voices on the Side which centers stories of marginalised identities as an antidote to white supremacy.

Her guests have a variety of backgrounds. Some are thought leaders actively focused on the fight for collective liberation, whilst others share stories rooted in their personal history.

As people of the global majority, Leah's podcast contributes to resisting oppression through an insistence to live, create, be seen and heard, exploring narratives that remind us of our shared humanity. I came across Leah's podcast Voices on the Side through her episode with Paris Abbas entitled Beyond Colonial Spirituality, and immediately I felt like this was someone that I needed to connect and converse with.

Enjoy.

Listen to Voices on The Side on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you usually listen to podcasts.

Episode Highlights:

02:26 Addressing Racism and Systemic Oppression

04:57 Impact of October 7th and Shift in Focus

06:33 Centering Marginalised Identities

10:20 White Supremacy and Its Effects

14:22 Collective Liberation and Personal Reflections

19:49 Decolonizing Yoga and Wellness

Connect with me on ⁠Instagram⁠ and find out more about me ⁠this way⁠. I'd love to hear what you think.

Podcast Music:

Good For You by THBD https://soundcloud.com/thbdsultan
Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported— CC BY 3.0
Free Download / Stream: http://bit.ly/2PgU6Mu
Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/-K_YSjqKgvQ

Up on the podcast this week we have Chris Geisler. Chris is Host of the Chris Geisler Podcast, a podcast to explore our nature and nurture a meaningful life. He is the Founder of Men of Earth, a space for men to connect, learn, re-wild, be accountable and gain clarity on their mission. He runs a private online men’s community dedicated to interwork and self-leadership. And in this exact moment in time he might be in the cold plunge, since he is leading a 21 Day Cold Water challenge which started on 1 November.
I connected with Chris recently and what came through most was his commitment to nurturing a meaningful life, both for himself and facilitating that in others. Bringing that alive in this conversation, Chris draws attention to what this really means, including connection and community, purpose and mission and creating the life we really want. His personal mission centres around creating more spaces where we can access more parts of ourselves that we have forgotten about and let go of and using attention and intention to bring these parts back, whether that is through a podcast conversation, retreats and group spaces and challenges or on the dance floor.

In this episode:

- the essence of creating a nurturing, meaningful life and what this means - the importance of mission and purpose - creating community: cultivating connection plus making sacrifices and embracing loneliness to open up into deeper friendships and relationships - building trust in ourselves and our lives - shifting suppressed emotion and pent up anger into healthy emotional fluidity - opening our hearts where they might have been previously shut down and connecting back to feeling - creating space for grief within our own emotional experience and wider collective spaces - getting closer to our roots and rekindling our separation from natural environments
- stretching our limitations on what we’ve made possible for ourselves
- building and joining collective spaces to discover long-lost parts of ourselves
- the healing and transformational power of cold water therapy in expanding our tolerance, resilience and comfort zones
All this and more!

To contact Chris:
W: thechrisgeisler.com
IG: @the.chris.geisler
The Chris Geisler Podcast available on Spotify or Apple Podcasts

Up on the podcast this week we have Kelly Wilde Miller. Kelly is a Creative Embodiment and Cyclical Creativity Coach, artist and speaker who helps creative individuals step into their full expression by honouring they creative dreams, designing sustainable and cyclical workflows and fully embodying their genius.
Creativity, inspiration and entrepreneurship has been in Kelly’s field for a long time but as Kelly explains in this episode, she found herself often stuck in the initial phases projects but struggling to bring them to full fruition. Kelly’s exploration into cyclical living transformed her relationship with creativity and entrepreneurship, finding herself able to bring things full cycle and maintain balance and avoid burnout in the process. 

Cyclical living is really the essence of who we are as a human race; everything within the natural world ebbs and flows and when we can remember and reclaim this cyclical nature for ourselves we can learn to capitalise on each stage of the cycle with its unique energetic offering and get to know and love different facets of ourselves.

In this episode:

- the essence of cyclical living and embodying the different energetic chapters to ebb and flow in our lives

- redefining our relationship with time and energy to avoid burnout and maintain balance

- the in-built cyclicality of a woman's body echoing the seasons of nature and how to harness these seasons

- how to apply a cyclical approach to ideas and projects within your creativity, career or entreprenurship

- the importance of "the void" and rest within the creative process

- managing and creating space for our inner critic within the cycle

- bringing cyclicality into dating and relationships

- beginnings and endings within the sacredness of the cycle

- cyclicality as a permission slip for boundaries and living according to our values

- the process of unlearning and de-conditioning within this process and applying these principles into our lives

Books referenced:

Sacred Rest by Saundra Dalton-Smith M.D.

Women who Run with Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés

To contact Kelly:

Websites: www.kellywildemiller.com and www.wildonpurpose.co (podcast + newsletter) 

Social: Twitter & Instagram

Up on the podcast this week we have Phil Kreutzer. In this conversation we discuss healing through homeostasis, bringing about the right conditions in the body's nervous and energy system in order for the body to rebalance, for healing to occur and for us to experience our infinite potential within our wellbeing and our lives in general.

Phil is an intuitive guide, nervous system specialist, and energy integration coach with a passion for supporting people in awakening to their infinite potential. He has developed an original approach which draws on somatic experiencing, mindfulness, breathwork, and other practices to help clients heal trauma, integrate energetic blocks, access their intuition, and connect with higher intelligence. Phil is the founder of Awaken Through Anxiety, a cohort based program that guides people in learning to work with anxiety as an ally and a portal of awakening to the true self, intuition and spiritual connection.

In this conversation:

- the significance of the body's energy and nervous system in regards to healing

- trusting the fundamental intelligence of the body

- coming back to simplicity over complexity through acceptance for the present moment and shifting our frequency to unconditional love

- anxiety, pain, triggers all as signposts back into healing

- distortions and traumas as blocks in the body's energy system to be cleared

- shifting from victimhood and separation consciousness

into unity consciousness for integration and healing to occur

- reframing anxiety in the context of a desire for healing and reconnection, an intelligent function of homeostasis wanting to come back online, as a portal for awakening to the true self

- tangible tips for healing the body's energy system

To contact Phil & program links:

Awaken to Anxiety:

https://www.philkreutzer.com/awaken-through-anxiety

Awaken to Anxiety Facebook Group:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/awakenthroughanxiety/

Delivering Divinity:

https://www.philkreutzer.com/delivering-divinity

IG: @philkreutzer

Up on the podcast this week we have Carelle Rose of Fire Fly Formula. Carelle is a reflexologist, a face yoga instructor and a Gua Sha Therapist. Carelle supports people embarking on a facial fitness journey via her online facial fitness membership, encouraging members to consider natural alternatives to injectables by training their facial muscles via Face Yoga, Facial Massage and Gua Sha.

I started following Carelle on instagram when she was on a deep journey to treat her psoriasis, taking a multi-pronged.. well, ALL the prongs, approach to healing. I was very inspired and over the past year I’ve resonated with so much of her story and her shares as they reflect my own experience healing my hormones and reversing my PCOS. Our approaches really align in terms of radical ownership, radical responsibility and radical prioritisation when it comes to our health, doing the “hard things” in order to get the results you want, connecting to the why behind why you’re doing it, getting to the root cause over endlessly treating symptoms and all in all taking this sense of new-found empowerment in our health into all aspects of our lives.

In this episode: - the importance of educating yourself and doing your own research when it comes to your health - taking radical responsibility for all aspects of your healing - the impact stress has on the body even after the mind has moved on - bringing the mind and body back into alignment to support health and healing - making conscious choices in all aspects of your life to support your wellbeing and connecting to the why behind your choices - practising patience for long-term gain over quick-fixes for immediate results - creating new habits which over time become the new norm - discovering radical empowerment through radical prioritisation and ownership
Find Carelle on instagram @fireflyformula where you can enquire about her 1:1 consultations and Fire Fly Face Fit memberships, her podcast "The Bits In Between" and discover more about her journey of holistic wellbeing.

Up on the podcast this week we have Eddie Sullivan (@mangomanmovement) Eddie is a movement and wellness coach, a husband and father of two. He has studied and trained in multiple movement disciplines and spiritual philosophies offering a unique perspective and experience for his clients. He is passionate about helping people to create meaningful long lasting change using methods that are thoughtful, consistent and manageable.

When I first spoke to Eddie, I was struck by what an incredible story he had, starting his life in an environment of drugs, violence and crime, hitting rock-bottom which was the catalyst for changing his world, struggling with addiction and committing to finding another way. Comparing where he was, to where he is now appears to be a huge quantum leap into a different reality, which it is. Yet, what Eddie draws attention to in this conversation is that it is a journey of a thousand steps, ten thousand steps, mirroring as he says the journey of not only the tortoise but of the snail. It being a marathon, not a sprint. And I feel this is so vital to recognise for anyone wanting to create meaningful, long-lasting change. We all too easily set the massive goals and give up long before getting there, because we don’t break it down into daily, weekly, monthly, yearly actions. And we look at other people who’ve achieved that and assume they’ve got some secret sauce we don’t have access to rather than understanding they too took thousands of steps to get there. I love talking to people like Eddie with incredibly powerful stories of personal transformation because it truly models what is possible and available.

In this episode:

- how rock-bottom moments can catalyse change

-shifting your environment to shift your perspective

& behaviours

- tools to help you create new habits

- following through on the small things to build self trust for the big things

- developing new connections and friendships

- small steps that compound into giant quantum leaps

- handling resistance and getting out of our heads

- common roadblocks to long lasting change

- disrupting our patterns by coming out of autopilot

- "doing the do-able" and letting go of our own limiting beliefs

Up on the podcast this week we have my beautiful friend and soul sister, ceremonialist, breath work practitioner and women’s guide, Betty Lewis Griffiths. Betty joined me for Episode 8. Love and Loss: reclaiming joy, peace and meaning in times of grief, which we recorded together six months after the passing of Betty’s mum back in 2021. 18 months on, I wanted to circle back to speak to Betty about how life has shifted for her in the past couple of years, with her mum’s death acting as a huge catalyst for deepening her work and her own relationship with love, life and death. Devotion, both to self and to life itself has become central to the way she lives her life, infusing the way she holds ceremony, the presence she cultivates with her clients, finding hidden pockets of joy all around and the way she prioritises herself and her needs, something that a lot of people struggle with amongst demanding lives and a busy culture. In this episode we discuss what she sees as living a devotional life, not just lighting candles and incense, but actually going back to basics so that we eat, sleep, breathe and connect better to keep falling more and more in love with this sacred life we have.

In this episode:

- Betty's passage of grief following the death of her mother in 2021

- how devotion emerged as a way of life and continues to evolve

- what it means for Betty to 'live a devotional life'

- the symptoms - individual and collective - of us living outside of devotion

- a devotional approach to eating, resting, movement and taking it back to basics

- living in accordance with the cycles of nature and using nature as the blueprint

About Betty: (Reclaim Your Wild)

www.reclaimyourwild.co.uk

CEREMONIALIST, BREATHWORK PRACTITIONER AND WOMEN’S GUIDE. 

Betty works with wild-hearted humans, guiding them back to their wisdom within so they can access their full pleasure portal and live a life that welcomes all that they are.

Living every day full of presence and pleasure, Betty teaches others to do the same, through women’s circles, powerful breathwork ceremonies, rewilding programmes, sacred ending ceremonies and working with nature and the elements. 

She uses breath, sound, movement, meditation, mantra and self-inquiry to facilitate transformation and enable us to reconnect with our wild essence and live a life that welcomes our fullest expression. 

She sees life (and death) as a ceremony, making everyday life sacred, with the smallest touches to bring us into presence, gratitude and joy.

 As a free tool we all have access to, Betty believes changing your breath can change your life. She guides others to feel safe in their body and reconnect with themselves to live an empowered and embodied life.

Working one to one and delivering group workshops and programmes, Betty uses breath, sound and self-inquiry to facilitate transformation and enable others to connect with their true essence.

This theme has been popping up with clients all over the place recently so I felt to share some reflections and insights to act as inspiration and a catalyst for deeper healing, releasing and transformation. We are all consciously or subconsciously pertaining to certain rules we've created around what we can and can't do and often when we want to create change or grow, we need to give ourselves full permission to do so. Sometimes we might be unconsciously waiting for someone else to give us permission, often our parents or care-givers, from our peers or remnants of memories from growing up. Perhaps we'll receive that, perhaps we won't, and ultimately as we continue to forge our own path in life and move into greater truth and authenticity with ourselves, we must become adept at granting OURSELVES permission. Over and over. And on a bigger and bigger scale until we are fully free. Enjoy!

Up on the podcast this week we have Jonny Miller. Jonny is an emotional resilience researcher, host of the Curious Humans podcast and Founder of 'Nervous System Mastery' — a cohort based course for cultivating calm & agency over your internal state. This course seeks to rewire your neurobiology with evidence-backed protocols and equip you with a personal toolkit to increase calm, upgrade resilience and increase aliveness. 

I met Jonny many years ago whilst we were both living in Canggu, Bali and have since followed his journey with intrigue, partaking too in his September 2022 cohort of Nervous System Mastery. My partner and I benefitted so significantly from the course individually and also as a couple in partnership. Understanding the language of our nervous system is immensely powerful and necessary for our optimal wellbeing and to give us greater agency in our lives, so I've been so looking forward to recording and sharing this conversation with Jonny.

In this episode:

- Jonny's experience with other modalities and how this led him into the nervous system
- what exactly is the nervous system and why should we care about it
- using the nervous system to avoid burn-out
- an overview of polyvagal theory and how this informs us on our nervous system states
- tools and practices that have helped Jonny and his clients, including longer term approaches to benefit our system over time, things to implement immediately whilst experiencing disregulation and techniques to keep working on our triggers when we are regulated and safe
- approaching our triggers as teachers and gifts to build our emotional resilience
- Jonny's observations of the correlation between nervous system state and our mental landscape
- nervous system in relationship: understanding the language of our partner's nervous system so we can form betterconnection and hold better space for our partners
- co-regulation, both the impact of being in positive community or a positive therapeutic dynamic upon our nervous system and also the negative impact of toxic environments

To contact Jonny:
Nervous System Mastery: https://nsmastery.com/
Twitter and IG: @jonnym1ller

References:

Dr Stephen Porges "Polyvagal Theory"

Peter Levine "Waking the Tiger"