Befriend your body Podcast
by Wanda Brothers
Welcome to the Befriend your Body podcast! I share what I have learned from 18 years as a trauma therapist and 13 years of studying the body, physiology, Attachment theory and Neuroscience. Here are a series of podcasts about the human body, the mind and our physiology. When you understand how to listen to your body's messages, and figure out how your body works, living out your full potential, and living without anxiety and debilitating stress is possible and attainable. Listen for tools, exercises and practical knowledge that will improve your well-being and teach you to become a body whisperer!
Episodes
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Mindfulness tames Tigers!
Taoist Story In today’s podcast we use a classic story from Taoism to illustrate the content from the previous 3 podcasts. They say a picture is worth a 1000 words, so I use this story picture in hopes it will help my listeners feel more ease and comfort with shifting their own physiology Fear of...
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Flipping the Coin: How to get our of threat mode!
FLIP THE COIN To pick up where we left off in the last podcast, ‘what must we do to get out of threat/stress physiology?’ Here are some tools that tune our bodies back into the other side of the “coin,” out of threat physiology, back to calm sense of safety. The podcast will share four tools…
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The SCARY side of the coin!
Does life sometimes feel too heavy and overwhelming? Can you relate to the feeling that there is just so much going on you are about to combust with stress? Have you been there, recently? Threat Physiology In today’s podcast we talk about Stress and Threat physiology, a somatic state our bodies…
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The Felt Sense & Anxiety!
THE "FELT SENSE PRAYER" I am flying solo in today’s podcast as my interviewer and dear Friend Giovana is out of town sailing in the Caribbean! I bet her felt sense is more enjoyable than mine right now. What is the Felt Sense? Today’s podcast is about the Felt Sense, a term coined by Eugene…
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Love Leaves Tracks!
Sand of my heart Yesterday at the beach, I saw imprinted in the sand many different bird tracks. Just by looking at the unique shape of each track, I could tell what species of bird left them behind. This visual stimulated some thoughts about how things other than birds can leave tracks in the...
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Self Love vs. Anxiety!
Do you LOVE yourself? Last podcast we talked about feeling gratitude for our humanness. Being grateful that we are not perfect, but messy and beautiful all at once. Today’s podcast ups the ante! We suggest taking a BIG step forward from just plain gratitude into Self Love. Today we talk about...
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Grateful to be Human?
GRATITUDE FOR OUR HUMANNESS Are you grateful to be a human being? That may sound like an odd question since it seems to be our only option. But what I am really referring to is gratitude for our human messiness and imperfections. Some of us would perhaps prefer to be a perfect, limitless, robot....
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Contentment at Christmas?
Christmas is a time for happiness and joy, or is it? It should be but sometimes we are not joyful, we are not even content with our lives, much less this holiday season. Contentment vs. mindfulness There is much talks bout mindfulness but very little about contentment. Are we a contented culture?…
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Art & Poetry: Or, the poetess princess!
Poetry What is the first thought you have when you hear the word poetry? What do you think about poetry? Do you read it, write it, enjoy it? What does it do? Some people think poetry is so "last century", while others deeply appreciate it. My perspective is that Poetry is a gift and a wonderful...
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The Scuba Diving Princess
Today's podcast is an example of how the principles we have been sharing, stress management, anxiety reduction and listening to your body, actually work in the real world. Gio and I have been podcasting about these and other subjects for a while now and last month brave Gio overcame her fears and...
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Me vs. We- Which is better?
In Today’s podcast we will talk about the values of community vs individualism. Which is better, to focus our energy on the collective (we) like the Japanese culture? Or, to focus on the individual (me) like our US popular culture seems to suggest? Balance is key As with anything, balance is...
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Oh that good sensation
What are sensations in our body and why are they important? That is the topic of today’s podcast. And, the answer is simple, our body sensations are the physiological shifts that underly our emotions. Listening to sensations as they occur will help us better deal with our emotions, especially the...
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Part 2: To Feel or not to Feel- And, how to deal
Today we finally drop Part 2 of this podcast. We continue our exploration of the human body with respect to Feelings/Sensations and Emotions. Living Embodied To really be able to feel our emotions and deal healthily with the challenges in our lives, we need to experience embodied living. That is,...
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To feel or not to feel-That is the question.
Feeling is an aspect of humanness Today is part 1 of To feel or not to feel, and we will talk about the body’s language, sensation and why it matters for your life. In my title, I am borrowing a bit from the famous old Bard here. But to feel or not to feel is almost as important of a question as…
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In Praise of Uni-tasking!
Multi-tasking, not all it’s cracked up to be In Today’s podcast we debunk the myth that Multi-tasking makes people automatically more effective and efficient. When we do more than one thing at a time, our focus is necessarily diluted and often diverted away from what is most important. One is...
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The Peaceful Tortoise vs. the Harried Hare
Pacing vs. Racing Do you remember the fable, “the Tortoise and the Hare”? What does that have to do with our lives? Quite a bit actually. Are you chronically racing about in your daily life or do you have a specific pace that works well for you and helps you feel happy and productive? Many of us...
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Participation instead of Perfection!
Perfectionism Today’s podcast is about the evils of perfectionism! Ok maybe trying to be perfect is not evil but when I used to struggle with this habit it made me perfectly miserable about 100% of the time. Perfectionism causes us to miss the good in our lives, focus on what we didn’t do…
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Love & Anxiety:The See Saw we ride!
Do you remember the old See Saw’s or Tetter Totter’s from childhood playground days? Well if you are under 35 you may not even know what they are. They used to be a fixture on school playgrounds. Today’s podcast uses the analogy of a See Saw in relationship to the states of Love and Anxiety. Love...
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Love & Anxiety: Fixity vs. Flow!
Today’s podcast is about the States of Fixity and Flow. Fixity and Flow in life and in our bodies, and how they engage in life. These states are highly correlated with feelings and sensations of Love and Anxiety. This podcast will explore these states as well as define the meaings of the terms...
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Love, Anxiety & Spirituality!
What is the nature of the Universe? Einstein said, “The most important question a person can ask is, Is the Universe a Friendly place?” Using the material from our last podcast, we will talk about how Love, Anxiety, and Spirituality interact. How does the early treatment you receive from your...
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Early Experiences Set our Template for Love
Attachment Theory How do our first experiences of nurture and family encounters shape the way we view Love as adults? How do we understand relationships and our place within them? Attachment theory, around since the 1940’s brings us answers to these questions. Love templates The human mind learns...
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If you are happy, tell your face!
How does your facial expression impact feelings of love or anxiety? What is Flat Affect and how does it impact your relationships? We will answer these questions in today’s podcast. When we feel an emotion, it is normal to show that emotion on our face. And, showing that emotion allows those…
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Love & Anxiety: Stranger Danger!
Today in our podcast we will continue sharing how Love and Anxiety can war for dominance in our body and brain. One day I came across a family walking at the beach and overheard the 2 younger boys frantically whispering about Stranger Danger. This made me curious about how we determine whether a...
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Love & Anxiety wrestling; Winner takes all!
So how do Love & Anxiety counteract each other? What allows love to win over anxiety? It helps to understand the way the Brain works to answer that question. So today we will talk more about Paul D. MacLean’s model of the Triune brain. By explaining what the differing parts of the brain do, I…
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Trusting vs. Tightening!
How do you live your life? Open and trusting, expecting good and doing good? Or, do you live tight and braced in your bodies muscles, tense, scared and closed off to anything new? Or anything you are unsure of and don’t want to try. Life can be stressful and frightening. The News only seems to...
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A Racing Mind is not your Friend!
One of the challenges of our fast paced busy lives is that we have so much stress we have trouble calming and settling down. When we move too quickly our bodies go into stress mode and too much adrenaline and cortisol are released into our nervous systems. (I.e. think of a car with the gas pedal...
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I HATE CONFLICT!
What you you think about conflict? Do you feel it is important for a healthy relationship? Do you think of it as a necessary evil, or do you avoid it like the plague? Conflict is a normal part of the human existence and fearing conflict just adds an unneeded amount of stress to our minds and...
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ABCDE -A means to conquer worrying!
No, I am not reciting a portion of the alphabet but sharing a CBT helpful exercise from a famous 20th century psychologist. Today’s podcast is about the anxious, racing mind. And, about our tendency as humans to fret, obsess and worry. While I talked about worry in the last podcast, I did not…
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Love & Anxiety, Part 3
Many people struggle against worrying and being stuck in negative, fearful thoughts. This is a big problem, and a time-wasting habit. The bad habit of negative “future-izing” or worrying, can ruin our happiness and over the years, our physical health. As we continue our series on Love & Anxiety…
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Love & Anxiety -Part 2
Today we are continuing the new series; Love & Anxiety. Where we focus our attention is the second critical factor in how much anxiety we experience in our daily life. And, if love calms or causes anxiety. Many people struggle with looping negative thoughts or worrying. On a regular basis the…
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Love & Anxiety Part 1
If you have listened to the previous podcasts you will hopefully understand better how your body and your physiology work hand in hand. Either to calm and relax you, or to stimulate, motivate or stress you out. To build on those concepts we are starting a new series of podcasts about Love &...
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Simple breathing tool for evicting Anxiety!
In this podcast we will take a break from the more academic and didatic material and share a very simple but very effective tool for reducing Stress levels and the amount of anxiety we often experience in our bodies. This tool can be utilized when we find ourselves feeling anxious or it can be…
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How Not to Panic Part 2: Why Stress Causes Digestive Issues
This podcast is a continuation of the series on your body, your physiology, and your autonomic nervous system and how they impact you minute to minute in your everyday life. Today's podcast is part 2 of How not to panic! If you have not listened to part 1, I encourage you to do so. This one will...
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Physiology 102: How not to Panic Part 1
This podcast continues to build on the content of the previous podcast. Learn more about your Autonomic Nervous System and how it impacts your daily life and sense of safely and well-being. When you know how to care for yourself and how to respond in challenging circumstances, your confidence…
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A page from our Bodies owner's manual: Physiology 101
This episode discusses how the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) and high anxiety are interrelated. Understanding your own body and especially your ANS is key to living a relaxed and joyful life. Many of us get caught up in doing, acocmplishing, and busyness and don't realize the cost of this way of...
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Of towels & Timing: Being present to life makes all the difference
Are you waiting for something imporant in your life? Sometimes patience seems impossible. Being present and listening to our bodies allows us to experience life with more openess and to catch the goodness that is all around us that we miss when we take our minds for a walk and forget that we have…
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How I became a body Whisperer!
Welcome to this podcast! This is the beginning of a series about your body, your mind and your phsyiology. When you understand how to listen to your body's messages, and figure out how your body works, living up to your full potential, and living without anxiety and debilitating stress is…
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About this show
Welcome to the Befriend your Body podcast! I share what I have learned from 18 years as a trauma therapist and 13 years of studying the body, physiology, Attachment theory and Neuroscience. Here are a series of podcasts about the human body, the mind and our physiology. When you understand how to listen to your body's messages, and figure out how your body works, living out your full potential, and living without anxiety and debilitating stress is possible and attainable. Listen for tools, exercises and practical knowledge that will improve your well-being and teach you to become a body whisperer!
Hosted by
Wanda Brothers
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