In this episode, Kimberly switches roles to be in the interviewee seat herself while Elisa asks and reflects about Kimberly’s Mothering the Bones retreats. They just finished one retreat in Wales and reflect on how moving and transformative it was for the gathering to be holding one another. They also discuss the origins of Mothering the Bones–how Kimberly came to this work and why she feels it is the apex of all of her expertise, knowledge, and purpose.

Bio

Elisa Mary Haggarty is an Executive and Conscious Leadership Coach, host of The Soul Podcast, and fellow jaguar. She coaches leaders to become more aware of how they are operating and the impact of how they relate to those around them through Conscious Leadership. She also has a diverse background in somatics and holistics and nutritional wellness. She is based in NYC but serves globally.

What She Shares:

–Mothering the Bones origins

–Nuances of session work in community

–Non-traditional approaches to gathering

–Making space for spontaneous emergence

What You’ll Hear:

–One week out from Mothering the Bones retreat

–Level of intimacy and vulnerability in Kimberly’s work

–Why Kimberly does Mothering the Bones

–Kimberly’s background in body work and nervous systems

–Session work in group

–Elise’s experience at Ghost Ranch

–Lay practitioner defined

–Taking care of people, people of place, and the land

–Range of grief and joy

–Meta-level analysis not needed when sessions occur

–Tactile practice has emerged

–Next step beyond ROLFing and body-work

–Holding the pelvis and witnessing

–Decentralizing role of practitioner

–Importance of witness space as recipient

–Conscientiousness about care and support

–Not all trauma work is intense

–Allow the body to be in blue

–Distributing weight of session with multiple people

–Pairing experts with novices

–Witnessing a freeze

–Repairing with other women’s presence

–Resourced to receive, give, and listen

–Burnout and unsustainability in community work

–Impossibility of birth work and community care in these times

–Value of midwives and second-generation births

–Upcoming book for Mothering the Bones work

–Touch, touching the pelvis non-sexually, sitting, consent

–Bringing whole self to bodywork

–Radical touch

–Listening, presence, story

–Value of artistry in trauma-work

–Non-traditional ways of learning

–Giving space for emerging creativity to come out

–Sexuality and birth require emergence and spontaneity

–Being responsive to group’s needs

–Loosening control in community gatherings

–Art of embodiment

–Opportunities to be spontaneous and surprised

–Tending to place and land of retreats

–Depth and saturation of place

–Different approaches to in-person versus online

–Bodies that need held the most

–Bone holding practice for presence and healing

Resources

Website: https://www.elisamaryhaggarty.com/

IG: @elisamaryhaggarty

In this episode, Kimberly and Alex discuss his extensive background in working with children on the Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). He spent much of those years taking a non-traditional approach from just behavioral to prioritizing fun and community. This work led him to keenly understanding the importance of local agriculture, nutrition, and the gut-brain connection, and eventually he began working as an animal butcher and supporting his wife’s work, The Wild Nutritionist. Aspects of their discussion are connected through the thread of the importance of holistic care for ASD individuals as well as local farming, nutrition, and the gut-brain connection.

Bio

Alex Johnson is a father, butcher, former autism specialist, husband of Kate Pope, The Wild Nutritionist, and long-term friend of Kimberly’s. His background in theater studies, and then psychology, led him to working with children on the Autism Spectrum Disorder for over a decade. Understanding the needs of this population then helped him transition to regenerative agriculture and animal butchery.

What He Shares:

–Working with children on the Autism Spectrum Disorder

–How and why ASD has changed in recent years

–Harms and limitations of diagnoses and labels

–Transitioning to regenerative agriculture and butchery

–Prioritizing community through local farming

What You’ll Hear:

–How Alex began working with kids

–Studied theater and psychology

–Role play and autism in 2010

–How insurance changed autism

–In home and in community teaching to kids with ASD

–Bringing families together with potlucks

–DSM-5 refining definition of ASD

–Disproportionately diagnosed in boys versus girls

–Severity ratings (1, 2, 3) of ASD

–Issues with self-diagnoses

–Performative vulnerability

–Challenges in diagnosing ASD

–Social, Communication, and Behavior

–Familial approaches to ASD and community

–Neurodivergence and ASD labels

–Limitations of checklists of diagnoses

–Gut issues and ASD

–Behavioral versus holistic and community care

–Regenerative agriculture, nutrition, and ASD

–Transitioning to animal butchery

–Small-scale, mobile harvest operation

–Mobile Harvest Truck

–Art of animal butchery and carrying traditions

–Politics and farming

–Community care in farming and rural areas

–Nutritional needs for families

–Getting kids involved in family nutrition

–Importance of local farmers markets

–Talking to local farmers

–Buying seasonal produce

–Harms of individual priorities versus community

–Returning to community care

Resources

Website: https://regenerativecookingschool.com/

IG: @wildnutrionist

In this episode, Kimberly and Kathryn discuss Kathryn’s work in Jungian psychology, psychotherapy, embodiment, and body image. Kathryn walks us through her workbook which is designed to help women understand how much body image issues are distractions from feelings of anxiety and ambivalence about their lives. Instead, she describes how to create the capacity to unearth more deeply rooted thoughts, feelings, and sensations in our psyches and our bodies.

Bio

Kathryn Holt, PhD, LCSW, is a depth psychologist and writer. She completed her PhD in Jungian/Archetypal Studies at Pacifica Graduate Institute and has an extensive background in long-term psychotherapy, feminist psychoanalytic group therapy, community ritual, dance and movement practices, intentional psychedelic work, and more. Her latest workbook “Overcoming Body Hatred: A Woman’s Guide to Healing Negative Body Image & Nurturing Self-Worth Using CBT & Depth Psychology” helps women identify their purpose, manage stress, change cultural messaging, and cultivate embodied presence.

What She Shares:

–Body preoccupation as a defense

–Cultural obsession with young and beauty

–Building capacity for ambivalence

–Fostering emotional intelligence for ourselves and others

–Approaches to our childrens’ body image issues

What You’ll Hear:

–Writing dissertation a baby during pandemic

–Publishing workbook from dissertation

–Why Kimberly avoided body image discussions

–Body preoccupation functioning as a defense

–Issue of projection onto women’s bodies and suffering

–Locating conditioning as inherited

–Self-sensing our own bodies

–Self-objectification and projection

–What is under the fantasy of our ideal body image?

–Body image work puts us into reality

–Culture’s obsession with youth

–Preparing for bodies changing and age

–Fantasy that bodies are fixed means problems are fixed

–Living with body dissatisfaction and preoccupation

–Parenting girls and young women around body image

–Listening, inhabiting, and growing with body changes

–Defensiveness of body image decreasing intimacy with self

–Distinguishing between thought versus physical sensation

–Foundational psychological work with body image

–Dialectical behavioral therapy and psycho-spiritual therapy

–Jungian and spiritual psychology

–Internal versus cultural

–Ending our delusions to be our full selves

–Increasing tolerance for anxiety to get underneath it

–Body ambivalence as inevitable

–Accepting ambivalence in all areas of life

–Inundated with images

–Defenses keep us from the solutions

–Fostering emotional intelligence for us and our children

Resources

Website: https://www.kathryncholt.com/

IG: @dr.kathryncholt