The following is a transcript from my podcast interview with Nathan Blair, founder of a coach training school, body-oriented coach and coach supervisor.
What if that trait you’ve been told is a flaw is actually your greatest SuperPower? Learn how Nathan Blair uses his unique giftings as strengths in his career, and how you can use mindfulness to experience your world in a more powerful way.
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Jenni
Hey friends, welcome to Ashes to Wings. Today we'll be talking with Nathan Blair, who is the founder of The Somatic School, helping practitioners develop the skills they need to work with the body's intelligence, online and in person. He is mad about the body and the embodied wisdom available to us at all times when we take time to listen. So Nathan thank you for joining us today.
Nathan
Thank you for having me, Jenni, it's a pleasure to be here.
Jenni
So Nathan, most of our listeners have no idea what a Somatic school is. Explain Somatics for us.
Nathan
A lot of people are familiar with that concept of Mind Body Spirit. So you could say it's the idea of that unity of body-mind. I talk a lot about the body-mind as one word, and that's the sort of attitude that somatic psychologists would come with. Soma is actually ancient Greek word that means the body in its full aliveness, not just the skin and bones but an inspirited body. And the opposite of that would be necros. So, a body without spirit. So it's not just our physical being, but what it is to be an embodied being... alive and living as a body.
Jenni
So seeing ourselves as more of a whole person instead of in fragments, so to speak?
Nathan
That's right, an integrated whole. Exactly.
Jenni
So what kind of changes have you seen Somatics make in people's lives?
Nathan
Hmm, so I always say that somatics is a beautiful intersection between science and spirituality, it sort of sits right at the heart of that. We live in a world that in many ways is disconnected from self, from others, from the environment. So Somatics offers, I suppose, a journey of reconnection. Like I said, that sort of intersection of the two. It also introduces a sort of connecting up of two worlds that might otherwise be siloed or separated schools of thought as well. So there's a kind of coming together and East meets West as well. Somatics offers a reconnecting in all ways. I haven't really answered your question exactly...
Jenni
[laughs] I was going to say I like that you say that East meets West... they're not mutually exclusive, but you actually work with both together, Eastern and Western mindsets.
Nathan
Absolutely yes. So Somatics, in practice, the application, in a sense, is sort of the practical application of what the wisdom traditions of the East have been talking about for thousands of years. Nothing new in that sense. But it's also supported by the latest research in sciences such as embodied cognition or interpersonal neurobiology, that one's a bit of a mouthful, really revealing just how central, our bodies are to our intelligence. So yeah, East meets West, old and new.
Jenni
Can you break down interpersonal neurobi... Yeah, I can't even say it [laughs] neurobiology for us?
Nathan
For sure. So interpersonal neurobiology is a fascinating emerging field of scientific research and study. It's an interdisciplinary field that actually brings together over 40 different disciplines, ranging from anthropology, sociology, biology, psychology, and the likes. And so there's so many different (what would formerly be quite separate in their own sort of studies and research) coming together looking at where the findings... the word they use is coalesce. In other words, where does what they're discovering show patterns or meet or complement one another? And what that's giving us is a more integrated picture. I'm using that word again - integration - which we're probably going to talk about a lot... I imagine that will come up a lot. But it's like a more integrated picture of the human being. You know, one of the fascinating things I think that it includes as well, is the importance of relationship. So we are social animals, and how our relationships shape our brains, our whole way of being,our body-mind as well.
Jenni
So I'd imagine this last year, with everybody in quarantine and having limited social interactions, except for online like we are now, I'd imagine that that really affects social interactions and the way that we're behaving... the way that we're interacting with each other?
Nathan
Yeah, absolutely. This is an extraordinary time, right? What's interesting about a global pandemic is it sort of reveals, in a kind of quite an incredible and controversial but incredible metaphor for the interconnected nature of our species, a whole planet, become infected by this virus. And that's passed on, you know, through interaction and through us coming into contact with one another. And then, as a result we then become distanced from whatever but isolated. So it's interesting... on the one hand it's sort of revealed how interconnected we are, and at the same time it's sort of resulted in a lot of disconnection.
Jenni
Fascinating. So how did you get into Somatics? What led you to it?
Nathan
It's interesting, as a child I was very sensitive... often be described as sensitive. As a young child I actually saw that as not a good thing. It didn't feel like something to aspire to... it didn't feel like something that, you know...
That sensitivity felt like it was explained a little bit when I got a diagnosis of having ADHD. For me, I was actually taking... I took medication for ADHD... Ritalin is the most commonly known. And up until my early to mid 20s. But around that time I began to look for more natural treatments, you could say, for like the ADHD symptoms. And one of those natural methods was mindfulness and connecting to the environment through my senses. It was sort of... was a bit of a game changer. We can talk more about this later if it comes up, but it actually is supported a lot by our most, sort of, recent understandings of the way the nervous system operates, and they call it orientation, for example, ina lot of methodologies. So I began to, I guess, self-regulate. The symptoms began to subside, I was empowered through natural means to manage the symptoms. Fast forward... when I discovered the field of Somatics, it just spoke to what I intuitively felt to be interesting to me about how we are, and how we could be. So Somatics was like opening Pandora's box in the best way, the breadth and depth for this field is staggering. But within that is just a real goodie bag, of things to explore for those who are interested in the body.
Jenni
So what difference did mindfulness make in your personal health?
Nathan
You know, I had a very busy mind... who doesn't, you might say? But it was a bit like Trafalgar Square or Times Square in my mind. Even when I was out and about, it's like, there'd be no hierarchy of sensory input. It just all kind of came at once, or so it seemed at the time. So one of the things I remember vividly being actually on a surf trip with some friends in Morocco, and just sitting in the water, sitting on a surfboard. And I'd just been reading a book called The Mindfulness Prescription for ADHD, and it was talking all about connecting through our senses to the environment... to the here and now... the present moment. And I remember I was worried about something and it was going around in my mind in a bit of like an obsessive loop. And I was sat out in the middle of the ocean on a surfboard, but just in that moment I remembered, you know, what I'd been reading. And I brought my awareness, very mindfully, to my experience in that present moment through my senses. I felt the water kind of lapping against my fingers, as I trailed it through the ocean. And I listened to the bird songs, felt the breeze on my face, like watch the sun kind of going down. And it just settle me and centered me and just completely... I was just there in that moment. And I was still quite young at that point and it was a bit of a paradigm shift for me, I think. Because I didn't have to do a lot to manage... improve my situation. I actually did a lot less. And the results were great. So...
Jenni
More being, less doing...
Nathan
More being, less doing. Yeah, absolutely.
Jenni
So, I know you mentioned that you were called sensitive or considered sensitive as a child. And there's such a stigma against men being sensitive (which is ridiculous in my mind). But what was the hardest part about being a man who's sensitive?
Nathan
That's a great question. Ironically, I think the hardest part about being a man who's sensitive is not so much how people respond to my sensitivity, but all of the ideas I had about that, and how much of myself I hid as a result... or would stifle, or limit, or suppress. You know? And you can't numb selectively. When I withdraw, when I hold back, when I hesitate, and when I don't speak out, it's sort of like cutting off part of myself and my whole self isn't showing up. So I'd say that was probably the hardest part is just never really feeling seen. You know?
Jenni
Hmm. That breaks my heart, a little bit. I'm glad that you feel comfortable to be your true self now, and that the society as a whole, there's so much less stigma around that now than there was even when we were younger. I think in this last year or two, there's been more awareness around our need for self-care, sensitivity, mindfulness, I mean, it's a heck of a way to have to earn it, but... [laughs] I'm glad that there's more focus on that in this last year.
Nathan
Yeah. Yeah, totally. I remember being in a coaching session once actually... a neighbor of mine learned to coach. Funny enough, it's sort of what inspired me to get into coaching in some ways. But I was receiving some coaching sessions with him, and I began to cry in one of the sessions. And I don't know what I said, but his response... (he was an actor as well). And his response was like, "being a man, connecting with your emotions is essentially your greatest strength." Again, like it was another sort of paradigm shift. Saying, "What? Strength?" I couldn't... I think I had to mature a bit, grow up a bit to realize how that was the case, perhaps. But the same was true for the sensitivity, particularly in somatic work. If you're somebody who's highly sensitive (notice that phrase highly sensitive people), if you identify as someone who's sensitive, or you feel particularly sensitive... you're somebody who picks up on facial expressions, or tone of voice, or a deep breath, or things like that in others, particularly, you have deep empathy. That in somatic work is... you know, you've got a good head start to being a competent practitioner in that work. That flipped it on its head. Finding this work, not only did I get to embrace the sensitivity but actually I got to lead with that. And yeah, we live in a world that's definitely more accepting of that now. Although it's still the case that men don't really know exactly what it means to be a man right now. How to behave, post "me too" and that sort of thing. It is still an interesting time for guys.
Jenni
Definitely. I love what you said there... something that you've been told, maybe your whole life as a flaw is now your greatest superpower as a somatic coach. That's what makes you good at what you do. And I think that's such a beautiful message for people that maybe have been struggling with something that they see as a flaw. or they've been told their whole life this is a flaw... this is something wrong with you, this is something you need to fix. That might be the key to what makes you truly great.
Nathan
Yeah, totally. One thing I haven't told you're listeners, I guess, is that the other side of my working life is, I'm a coach. I work with Somatics, I work with coaching, together that's somatic coaching or body-oriented coaching. And so, when I first began coaching, I had this little slogan that said, "You're all right." As in not alright a-l-r-i-g-h-t but all right, like, a-l-l right. And there's something I think in that, that, that's actually implicit in a lot of somatic work. Which says, everything that we are, everything that we do, has an inherent intelligence. For example, some coaches will often ask the question, "How do I work with resistance in my clients? How do I work with resistance?" And it becomes oppositional, you know? It's, it's the coach versus resistance, or coach and client versus their resistance. How do we bust through, you know? And in somatic work something... a theme such as resistance would actually be viewed (in some schools of Somatics) as an intelligent adaptation. At some point in that person's life that particular behavior, that way of being... it served them. It kept them safe, maybe even kept them alive, you know? So how might we welcome and approach each of these emerging ways of being, or whatever, with the kind of respect and acknowledgement and appreciation that personally I think it deserves? But the school of semantics would kind of perceive it that way so you're all right. None of you is wrong, you know.
Jenni
Yeah. Again such an important message especially for younger people, I think. To know that everything is there for a reason. And if we treat it as something that may be teaching us a lesson or protecting us from something, instead of trying to purge it/get it ou/fix it... Yeah.
Nathan
Yeah. Carl Rogers said something along the lines of, "The ironic thing is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change." So I guess it's in line with that thinking as well.
Jenni
So, how are our bodies connected with our intelligence?
Nathan
That's a BIG question.
Jenni
You can do it! I believe in you! [both laugh]
Nathan
A practitioner called Lisa Feldman Barrett recently wrote an article that says your brain is not thinking... quite controversially. But it describes how the brain... its sort of main function is to kind of run the balances on our energy use in the body. So that's kind of an idea of the brain being there to manage the balance and homeostasis, within the system. There's plenty of other ways. So like for example, in the psychology of embodied cognition, there's lots of talk about the way that information loops within the body. The way that sometimes that we respond to situations quite often actually from an embodied place... so the body responds before we consciously are aware of what we're doing.
You could look at it from the perspective as well of Deb Dana, one of the thinkers of the (becoming more widely) known polyvagal theory, she says the term, you know, story follows state. And so from that perspective, you could argue that everything that we do emerges out of the autonomic state that we're currently in. Are we in our "safe and social... everything's cool, I'm okay, all good here" space? Or are we in fight or flight, or freeze? I'm using the terms that are more familiar... but the sympathetic activation dorsal vagal, the kind of technical terms... that these, these will influence our thinking, our actions, our behavior. In other ways, you know, the mirror neurons or the resonance circuitry is how it's described by Daniel Siegel, who's the person who created or kind of founded Interpersonal Neurobiology. Talks about how things like mirror neurons and other parts of the brain and the biology are kind of our basis for empathy. So things like emotional intelligence, which are known to be better predictors of business success, things like that.
Jenni
Explain, just real quickly a brief overview of mirror neurons for people.
Nathan
Yeah, totally. So, there's a bit of controversy around mirror neurons. But nonetheless the kind of current thinking around it is that... just in a nutshell, if we perceive an action or a behavior in another, the same areas of our brain and body actually kind of activate or light up as if we were performing that action ourselves. So, it enables us when we're with others and when we're observing nonverbal communication (which makes up a huge part of our communication with one another), we're able to know: is somebody trustworthy or not? Can we make a guess at their intention? What they're doing or what they're going to do? It's how we begin to develop bonds, but it's also how we learn, you know, it's how infants learn behavior. Through observing witnessing primary caregivers doing those behaviors and actions, and things like that. So that's mirror neurons. Empathy, emotional intelligence.
The last thing I'll talk about in terms of the body's intelligence is this phenomenon called the felt sense, which is what a lot of people would describe as intuition. So it might be that intuitive pulling in the gut, or a kind of feeling of your heart opening in any given instance. And that that can kind of direct and guide us. It's based on a lifetime of experience, and it's a meaningful bodily felt experience. Really when we can listen to that, it can become an incredible guide in our lives and it can become an incredible source of wisdom. And in my mind that's another source of knowing. It's another intelligence beside the intellect.
Jenni
So sort of that "trust your gut" feeling?
Nathan
Yeah you know that phrase "trust your gut" is totally... that's speaking directly to this notion of the felt sense. Which is a term that was coined by someone called Eugene Gendlin Eugene Gendlin was a philosopher, and a therapist. He coined this term to describe this phenomenon that we all have, but some are more... perhaps a bit more practiced, a bit more sensitive, or a bit more connected to it than others. But we can all develop that capacity within ourselves. So in other words, you could say that we all have the potential or the ability to become more in touch with our intuition, or more intuitive, or more embodied. You know, in that sense, it's available to all of us. Or most of us... most of us... taking into consideration neuro-diversity and things like that.
Jenni
When we spoke before you mentioned that we've lost touch with what makes being human magical. Tell me more about that.
Nathan
Yeah! I'm so glad you asked me that, because this is something I guess that I'm passionate about. I read a gorgeous book called Original Wisdom by someone called Robert Wolff, and they were describing the Sng'oi tribe in Malaysia, who are far from modern civilization, technology, etc. These are one of the few remaining untouched tribal communities. The people of this community were the Malay. They have a certain kind of connection with themselves, with each other, with the environment... that when we look at that, we might perceive as supernatural. You know, it's like a way of knowing when somebody's going to arrive at the village without being told that they were on their way. Or in some way of being able to sense, out in the forest, where they might find a source of water. And for some people this might be like, "Oh, this is a bit of a stretch." But Robert Wolff is quite an interesting person... character... because he actually speaks fluent Malay and was able to live with this community, and actually communicate, and learn from them. And so actually really embedded in there, to doing some real kind of empirical study there.
And while we in the western, modern, kind of, you know, in our modern cultures might not be able to fully know, that kind of connection with self, other than environment... I do believe that we can begin to sort of touch it or begin to get closer to it. And that I truly think is available to all of us. I'm not too keen on the phrase, but it is our birthright in the sense that we have all the gear, we have all the kit, all the equipment we need for this. And when we connect with our full sensory potential, it can feel out of this world, but it's as natural as it gets. There's something in the simplicity of it, that just, that gives us the ability to sense and feel, and become aware of what we might otherwise dismiss or miss, etc. And that can be an incredible source of insight, intuition, you know, direction, knowledge etc. So... and that's the experience of my clients who work in this way, or our clients, people who work in this way, like yourself. And those who participate in somatic practices, deepening into that... the roots of our humanity.
Jenni
I remember reading, there was someone who decided to live as if they were in the 1800s for a while, you know, and no technology. And everything just cut back and weeded back. And she was talking about how she almost felt like she developed extra senses, because she had tuned out all of the... the noise so to speak, the digital noise. And even just her long skirts she could kind of use it like cat whiskers, you know, she was just kind of feeling where things were. And she was saying it was really interesting how when you tuned out the modern society that you were so much more tuned into your body and tuned into what was going on in nature around you. So along those lines, talk to me about how modern society teaches us to interact with ourselves.
Nathan
That's another great one. These are great questions, Jenni! Personally... and this is just an opinion. As with anything I say, take what you like and leave the rest. But I personally believe... or I feel... that modern society trains us to escape ourselves more than it trains us to be with ourselves in any meaningful way. And there's nothing inherently wrong with these things. But you could argue that through mass consumerism, through a highly-stimulated environment... people in Silicon Valley being paid the big bucks to literally get us addicted to our phones and software, you know smartphones and software and things like that. It's well known, these days, right? And these experiences... there's a sort of, "If you buy this, you'll feel better," you know? Or, "Why sit there feeling the kind of... the agony of inertia... you've been locked down for months now, you know? Why sit there, feeling that when you could be on Tik Tok?"
Jenni
So you're not on Tik Tok?
Nathan
Like I said there's nothing wrong with it. It's like I occasionally jump on. I think oftentimes when we've been on Tik Tok, for example, for like more than an hour, something in us says, I think we've crossed a certain threshold, here.
Jenni
You go down the rabbit hole. [laughs]
Nathan
Down the rabbit hole... yeah exactly, right? [laughs] Same on YouTube, same on Instagram. But you know, that's an example of disconnection from what our sensing self knows, and will tell us when we listen. "You're tired. You're kind of beginning to fade out here. There's a need that needs to be met, whether that be eating, sleeping..." And when we're not listening, we can bypass or kind of like bulldoze over that, and increasingly, the more we do that, we're beginning to hardwire (or practice let's say) a habit of "impulse arises from the body, and lack of response." And through somatic work we're beginning to develop a meaningful way of being with ourselves. One example of that might be "impulse: hunger... responding and resonance: feed myself." "Impulse: fatigue... rest." And we don't live in a culture that supports that much, either. "Impulse: my back hurts; I'd actually be more comfortable lying on the floor. I'm in a business meeting. It's inappropriate." Right?
Jenni
Yes. And that's something that I truly love about Somatics in general and your school in specific, is you respect the authority of the body. And so this is something that I've adopted in my classes and my coaching. If you need to get up and move around, get up and move around. If you need to go get a drink of water... listen to your body and follow through. Because we're taught to kind of tune that out and neglect that. And you know, "I've got an eight-hour conference and no I can't possibly leave to go to the bathroom!" [laughs] It's not normal. So, a small good that's come out of this last year is society is more accepting of humanity. Your kid just ran on the room... and sitting there in pajama pants and a top... I feel like there's been so much more welcoming of, "you're a human being, and you don't have to be ON all the time."
Nathan
Yeah. Don't have to be on all the time. Yeah. That's so... that feels so appropriate, so many layers. Because on all the time in one sense, is like wearing the mask, you know, the facade. Or like suiting up and showing up. But also our nervous systems in our overstimulated environment are just stuck on "on." We're just overworked, under-rested. And that's not anyone's fault, necessarily, it's just a systemic thing. You know, I'm obsessed with Taoism. Absolutely obsessed. It's problematic.
Jenni
I mean, it's a good addiction to have... [both laugh]
Nathan
I agree. There's a lovely concept called wu wei. It sort of translates to not doing or doing nothing, or it's the whole idea of, you know, also effortless action. But there's something that, that we're becoming more accepting of each other's humanity. And then part of that is that our needs for rest, and when we reach that threshold is a lot lower than a lot of us might believe when we're in this kind of production based industrial kind of world, that's all about creating, making, achieving. There's a new kind of narrative, I think, emerging which is like... sleep. [laughs] And take care of yourself, listen to your body and slow down. Then that's just lovely see because actually the irony, a lot of the time is that we can actually accomplish a lot.
There's this passage from the Tao De Ching, written by Lao Tzu, that says nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished. It's this kind of idea of going with the natural flow of our cycles, the rhythms, and can we kind of tune into that. It's a, it's a bit of a complicated thing because it's a little bit to our (in modern Western world), the idea of doing nothing doesn't make any sense. But it doesn't mean nothing at all. So a little bit different to that. But it's very aligned with somatic work, which has this trust in this organic, intelligent unfolding of things.
Jenni
Absolutely, that's basically the premise of my Lunai class, we use the moon cycles to kind of cycle through your different energy levels. And it's taking time to work hard and to plan and to have that Yang energy, and that masculine, you know, forward-moving. And then to take time to rest and release and, and sort of that Yin energy where we're just going with the flow. And it's following that cycle because you need the rest time to be productive. If you're constantly in that aggressive energy, you'll burnout. And as somebody who's an overachiever, trying to do all the things, I have to schedule my rest time or, yeah.. I will just go go go. [laughs]
Nathan
Totally yeah... guilty... me too. [both laugh] Totally, you know, card-carrying member of that club. Yeah, you know, and there's this understanding of this human as an integrated system. There's this concept called the default mode network in the brain. And research shows that it's where we kind of do our most creative, innovative thinking and problem solving, you know. Which are qualities that NASA and Google... places like that... really want in spades, you know they want that sort of thing in their employees in abundance, right? That tends to come online in the rest period.
Jenni
Yes! I was just reading a book on this, you know, they're talking about how... that's why, right before you fall asleep, or when you're in the shower not doing anything, that's when you get your most creative ideas. Because your brain is kind of taking a break,
Nathan
Totally right. Yeah, well, that's what the research suggests, anyway.
Jenni
Yeah, well, Nathan our podcast is called Ashes to Wings, referring to the story of the Phoenix transforming and rising from the ashes. I like to ask all of our guests this question: "What does rise above mean in your life?"
Nathan
Weirdly enough... bit of a like a backwards answer to this. But it's like rise above in my life: just allow everything to be just as it is. And for me, that's how I kind of come out of the suffering, or chaos or whatever, you know."
Jenni
Yeah. So I'm almost picturing you in the jet stream, you know, over.... where most airplanes fly? And you get into that jet stream and you just flow so much faster because you're kind of above where you're having to put in all that effort.
Nathan
Yeah!
Jenni
And just flow... flow state.
Nathan
Nice!
Jenni
Love that. So Nathan, I always like to leave our Ashes to Wings listeners with a bumper sticker statement. A summary of what you've just talked about that would fit on a bumper sticker. So what would your bumper sticker be?
Nathan
Hmm. I would say... and I said it a little earlier, but I'll say it again. Discovering our sensory potential feels out of this world, when it's been so long since we've been connected in this way. But it's as natural as it gets.
Jenni
Good! And then I have a few rapid-fire, fun questions for you if you're game for it. If you had to delete all but three apps from your cell phone, which ones would you keep?
Nathan
Sadly, my emails. But it's true. If I hadn't just got a new phone-free meditation, alarm clock thing (it's super cool), I would keep insight timer, and a third one... it's gonna be WhatsApp. But that's just because during this time, it's really kept, particularly my family, especially with my sister living across the other side of the world in Australia connected. And that's quite a miraculous thing so, yeah.
Jenni
Absolutely. Nice. What is what is your superpower,
Nathan
[laughs] Sensitivity!
Jenni
Like a cape and... "Sensitivity Man!" [both laugh] What are your favorite pizza toppings?
Nathan
You know, doesn't matter what happens, I sometimes get creative, but if somebody's ordered just pepperoni and mozzarella based, I get jealous. So I'm gonna say, just a normal pepperoni pizza.
Jenni
So not Hawaiian? Do you guys have Hawaiian pizza in Britain?
Nathan
Ha! No. Let's get serious. [both laugh]
Jenni
There's two camps, I feel like... there's the "it's good" and the "it's an abomination." Yeah.
Nathan
Totally.
Jenni
Yes. What is your guilty pleasure song?
Nathan
Oh, it's so easy. Taylor Swift. Any of them. [both laugh] I'm such a Swifty. It's my guilty pleasure, hardcore.
Jenni
I mean, how can you not?
Nathan
Cat's out of the bag.
Jenni
Yes. What is left on your bucket list?
Nathan
Wow. So I'm going to give you the cheesy one first. Ok?
Jenni
Yeah
Nathan
Grandma, she was an artist, you know. I don't know if she was a professional but she was an artist. And one of the things on my bucket list is to exhibit her artwork, before it's too late.
Jenni
Oh wow.
Nathan
So we wanna.... She's getting on, so we'll be doing that soon, The less cheesy one is I want to be snowboarding every winter, scuba diving every summer.
Jenni
Yes! That sounds amazing. I live in Chicago but I hate the cold so I have not been snowboarding. I haven't been scuba diving either, but I want to.
Nathan
Do it!
Jenni
Sometime in the near future. When we can travel again. What book belongs on everyone's bookshelf? So I picked this one specifically for you because I know your book nerd like me.
Nathan
Oh, how do I choose? How do I choose? I mentioned the Original Wisdom earlier. I'm just... I'm gonna go with that one. Yeah, I'm going to go with that one. Or the Tao Tse Ching. I just snuck that in there, but [laughs] the Tao Tse Ching is a little bit for some people... it might not completely resonate. Original Wisdom is just gorgeous.
Jenni
And who wrote Original Wisdom?
Nathan
Robert Wolf... W-O-L-F-F. I'm looking over here.... [both laughing] That's where my bookshelf is.
Jenni
I have like a list of titles recommended by Nathan that I need to start working my way through. Well, Nathan I know you mentioned you have a special offer for our Ashes to Wings listeners...
Nathan
Yeah well two... two things. So the first is we've got a free introduction to body-oriented coaching, it's online. It's at a good time for most time zones, so that they happen regularly. And I think Jenni, you've got the link for that, so I think you'll be sharing that. You know that's an introduction to... so the events entirely free to attend, and the whole event covers: what is body-oriented coaching, and the field of Somatics broadly speaking, where it came from, why it matters, and what it might look like to work with that in practice. One of the ways that you might do that is a training that we run at The Somatic School which is called the Cccredited Certificate in Body-Oriented Coaching. Now if you were to enroll in that course there's another offer for Ashes to Wings listeners, which is we'll include in their course a bonus, Organic Intelligence for Coaches course. Which if you haven't heard of organic intelligence, check it out. It's pretty cool. And then an ICF mentoring program which is anyone who, who wants to actually become a ICF-credentialed coach, which is some further credibility you can go on and get those ICF mentoring hours. So we'll bundle that in, either one of those two, for your listeners, Jenni.
Jenni
Thank you so much! And you guys can find that deal, along with Nathan's social media links on his guest page on our website. So that's ashestowings.net/nathan-blair. And thank you for those, Nathan, that's amazing. And do they need to be coaches to enroll in these things?
Nathan
I'm glad you asked because I mentioned coaching a few times there. Typically most people who are on the training have some existing practice or career that has a relational dimension to it. That includes quite a few careers. All you really need is a desire to work with people one-to-one typically, or in groups. And work at somatic depth, or work with the body's intelligence, in that context.
Jenni
Perfect. Well, Nathan, thank you so much for joining us today. This was amazing.
Nathan
Yeah, it was my absolute pleasure, and it's an honor. Thank you so much for asking me to come.
Jenni
Absolutely. So just a quick recap of our episode with Nathan Blair today, we talked about Somatics and how science is revealing just how essential our bodies are to our intelligence. And supporting what the wisdom traditions of the East have been teaching for thousands of years. We talked about how we've lost touch with what makes being human magical. And we talked about how modern society teaches us to escape ourselves more than it teaches us how to be with ourselves in a meaningful way, which is just such a powerful statement. These all tie into our values at Ashes to Wings, where we're all about connecting the body, mind, and emotions. And I love the idea that what you've been told is strange, is probably your greatest superpower. Don't forget to check out Nathan's guest page. Again that's ashestowings.net/nathan-blair. Friends, thank you for listening. Don't forget to follow the show, rate and review, and we'll see you next time.
What if that trait you’ve been told is a flaw is actually your greatest SuperPower? Learn how Nathan Blair uses his unique giftings as strengths in his career, and how you can use mindfulness to experience your world in a more powerful way.
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Jenni
Hey friends, welcome to Ashes to Wings. Today we'll be talking with Nathan Blair, who is the founder of The Somatic School, helping practitioners develop the skills they need to work with the body's intelligence, online and in person. He is mad about the body and the embodied wisdom available to us at all times when we take time to listen. So Nathan thank you for joining us today.
Nathan
Thank you for having me, Jenni, it's a pleasure to be here.
Jenni
So Nathan, most of our listeners have no idea what a Somatic school is. Explain Somatics for us.
Nathan
A lot of people are familiar with that concept of Mind Body Spirit. So you could say it's the idea of that unity of body-mind. I talk a lot about the body-mind as one word, and that's the sort of attitude that somatic psychologists would come with. Soma is actually ancient Greek word that means the body in its full aliveness, not just the skin and bones but an inspirited body. And the opposite of that would be necros. So, a body without spirit. So it's not just our physical being, but what it is to be an embodied being... alive and living as a body.
Jenni
So seeing ourselves as more of a whole person instead of in fragments, so to speak?
Nathan
That's right, an integrated whole. Exactly.
Jenni
So what kind of changes have you seen Somatics make in people's lives?
Nathan
Hmm, so I always say that somatics is a beautiful intersection between science and spirituality, it sort of sits right at the heart of that. We live in a world that in many ways is disconnected from self, from others, from the environment. So Somatics offers, I suppose, a journey of reconnection. Like I said, that sort of intersection of the two. It also introduces a sort of connecting up of two worlds that might otherwise be siloed or separated schools of thought as well. So there's a kind of coming together and East meets West as well. Somatics offers a reconnecting in all ways. I haven't really answered your question exactly...
Jenni
[laughs] I was going to say I like that you say that East meets West... they're not mutually exclusive, but you actually work with both together, Eastern and Western mindsets.
Nathan
Absolutely yes. So Somatics, in practice, the application, in a sense, is sort of the practical application of what the wisdom traditions of the East have been talking about for thousands of years. Nothing new in that sense. But it's also supported by the latest research in sciences such as embodied cognition or interpersonal neurobiology, that one's a bit of a mouthful, really revealing just how central, our bodies are to our intelligence. So yeah, East meets West, old and new.
Jenni
Can you break down interpersonal neurobi... Yeah, I can't even say it [laughs] neurobiology for us?
Nathan
For sure. So interpersonal neurobiology is a fascinating emerging field of scientific research and study. It's an interdisciplinary field that actually brings together over 40 different disciplines, ranging from anthropology, sociology, biology, psychology, and the likes. And so there's so many different (what would formerly be quite separate in their own sort of studies and research) coming together looking at where the findings... the word they use is coalesce. In other words, where does what they're discovering show patterns or meet or complement one another? And what that's giving us is a more integrated picture. I'm using that word again - integration - which we're probably going to talk about a lot... I imagine that will come up a lot. But it's like a more integrated picture of the human being. You know, one of the fascinating things I think that it includes as well, is the importance of relationship. So we are social animals, and how our relationships shape our brains, our whole way of being,our body-mind as well.
Jenni
So I'd imagine this last year, with everybody in quarantine and having limited social interactions, except for online like we are now, I'd imagine that that really affects social interactions and the way that we're behaving... the way that we're interacting with each other?
Nathan
Yeah, absolutely. This is an extraordinary time, right? What's interesting about a global pandemic is it sort of reveals, in a kind of quite an incredible and controversial but incredible metaphor for the interconnected nature of our species, a whole planet, become infected by this virus. And that's passed on, you know, through interaction and through us coming into contact with one another. And then, as a result we then become distanced from whatever but isolated. So it's interesting... on the one hand it's sort of revealed how interconnected we are, and at the same time it's sort of resulted in a lot of disconnection.
Jenni
Fascinating. So how did you get into Somatics? What led you to it?
Nathan
It's interesting, as a child I was very sensitive... often be described as sensitive. As a young child I actually saw that as not a good thing. It didn't feel like something to aspire to... it didn't feel like something that, you know...
That sensitivity felt like it was explained a little bit when I got a diagnosis of having ADHD. For me, I was actually taking... I took medication for ADHD... Ritalin is the most commonly known. And up until my early to mid 20s. But around that time I began to look for more natural treatments, you could say, for like the ADHD symptoms. And one of those natural methods was mindfulness and connecting to the environment through my senses. It was sort of... was a bit of a game changer. We can talk more about this later if it comes up, but it actually is supported a lot by our most, sort of, recent understandings of the way the nervous system operates, and they call it orientation, for example, ina lot of methodologies. So I began to, I guess, self-regulate. The symptoms began to subside, I was empowered through natural means to manage the symptoms. Fast forward... when I discovered the field of Somatics, it just spoke to what I intuitively felt to be interesting to me about how we are, and how we could be. So Somatics was like opening Pandora's box in the best way, the breadth and depth for this field is staggering. But within that is just a real goodie bag, of things to explore for those who are interested in the body.
Jenni
So what difference did mindfulness make in your personal health?
Nathan
You know, I had a very busy mind... who doesn't, you might say? But it was a bit like Trafalgar Square or Times Square in my mind. Even when I was out and about, it's like, there'd be no hierarchy of sensory input. It just all kind of came at once, or so it seemed at the time. So one of the things I remember vividly being actually on a surf trip with some friends in Morocco, and just sitting in the water, sitting on a surfboard. And I'd just been reading a book called The Mindfulness Prescription for ADHD, and it was talking all about connecting through our senses to the environment... to the here and now... the present moment. And I remember I was worried about something and it was going around in my mind in a bit of like an obsessive loop. And I was sat out in the middle of the ocean on a surfboard, but just in that moment I remembered, you know, what I'd been reading. And I brought my awareness, very mindfully, to my experience in that present moment through my senses. I felt the water kind of lapping against my fingers, as I trailed it through the ocean. And I listened to the bird songs, felt the breeze on my face, like watch the sun kind of going down. And it just settle me and centered me and just completely... I was just there in that moment. And I was still quite young at that point and it was a bit of a paradigm shift for me, I think. Because I didn't have to do a lot to manage... improve my situation. I actually did a lot less. And the results were great. So...
Jenni
More being, less doing...
Nathan
More being, less doing. Yeah, absolutely.
Jenni
So, I know you mentioned that you were called sensitive or considered sensitive as a child. And there's such a stigma against men being sensitive (which is ridiculous in my mind). But what was the hardest part about being a man who's sensitive?
Nathan
That's a great question. Ironically, I think the hardest part about being a man who's sensitive is not so much how people respond to my sensitivity, but all of the ideas I had about that, and how much of myself I hid as a result... or would stifle, or limit, or suppress. You know? And you can't numb selectively. When I withdraw, when I hold back, when I hesitate, and when I don't speak out, it's sort of like cutting off part of myself and my whole self isn't showing up. So I'd say that was probably the hardest part is just never really feeling seen. You know?
Jenni
Hmm. That breaks my heart, a little bit. I'm glad that you feel comfortable to be your true self now, and that the society as a whole, there's so much less stigma around that now than there was even when we were younger. I think in this last year or two, there's been more awareness around our need for self-care, sensitivity, mindfulness, I mean, it's a heck of a way to have to earn it, but... [laughs] I'm glad that there's more focus on that in this last year.
Nathan
Yeah. Yeah, totally. I remember being in a coaching session once actually... a neighbor of mine learned to coach. Funny enough, it's sort of what inspired me to get into coaching in some ways. But I was receiving some coaching sessions with him, and I began to cry in one of the sessions. And I don't know what I said, but his response... (he was an actor as well). And his response was like, "being a man, connecting with your emotions is essentially your greatest strength." Again, like it was another sort of paradigm shift. Saying, "What? Strength?" I couldn't... I think I had to mature a bit, grow up a bit to realize how that was the case, perhaps. But the same was true for the sensitivity, particularly in somatic work. If you're somebody who's highly sensitive (notice that phrase highly sensitive people), if you identify as someone who's sensitive, or you feel particularly sensitive... you're somebody who picks up on facial expressions, or tone of voice, or a deep breath, or things like that in others, particularly, you have deep empathy. That in somatic work is... you know, you've got a good head start to being a competent practitioner in that work. That flipped it on its head. Finding this work, not only did I get to embrace the sensitivity but actually I got to lead with that. And yeah, we live in a world that's definitely more accepting of that now. Although it's still the case that men don't really know exactly what it means to be a man right now. How to behave, post "me too" and that sort of thing. It is still an interesting time for guys.
Jenni
Definitely. I love what you said there... something that you've been told, maybe your whole life as a flaw is now your greatest superpower as a somatic coach. That's what makes you good at what you do. And I think that's such a beautiful message for people that maybe have been struggling with something that they see as a flaw. or they've been told their whole life this is a flaw... this is something wrong with you, this is something you need to fix. That might be the key to what makes you truly great.
Nathan
Yeah, totally. One thing I haven't told you're listeners, I guess, is that the other side of my working life is, I'm a coach. I work with Somatics, I work with coaching, together that's somatic coaching or body-oriented coaching. And so, when I first began coaching, I had this little slogan that said, "You're all right." As in not alright a-l-r-i-g-h-t but all right, like, a-l-l right. And there's something I think in that, that, that's actually implicit in a lot of somatic work. Which says, everything that we are, everything that we do, has an inherent intelligence. For example, some coaches will often ask the question, "How do I work with resistance in my clients? How do I work with resistance?" And it becomes oppositional, you know? It's, it's the coach versus resistance, or coach and client versus their resistance. How do we bust through, you know? And in somatic work something... a theme such as resistance would actually be viewed (in some schools of Somatics) as an intelligent adaptation. At some point in that person's life that particular behavior, that way of being... it served them. It kept them safe, maybe even kept them alive, you know? So how might we welcome and approach each of these emerging ways of being, or whatever, with the kind of respect and acknowledgement and appreciation that personally I think it deserves? But the school of semantics would kind of perceive it that way so you're all right. None of you is wrong, you know.
Jenni
Yeah. Again such an important message especially for younger people, I think. To know that everything is there for a reason. And if we treat it as something that may be teaching us a lesson or protecting us from something, instead of trying to purge it/get it ou/fix it... Yeah.
Nathan
Yeah. Carl Rogers said something along the lines of, "The ironic thing is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change." So I guess it's in line with that thinking as well.
Jenni
So, how are our bodies connected with our intelligence?
Nathan
That's a BIG question.
Jenni
You can do it! I believe in you! [both laugh]
Nathan
A practitioner called Lisa Feldman Barrett recently wrote an article that says your brain is not thinking... quite controversially. But it describes how the brain... its sort of main function is to kind of run the balances on our energy use in the body. So that's kind of an idea of the brain being there to manage the balance and homeostasis, within the system. There's plenty of other ways. So like for example, in the psychology of embodied cognition, there's lots of talk about the way that information loops within the body. The way that sometimes that we respond to situations quite often actually from an embodied place... so the body responds before we consciously are aware of what we're doing.
You could look at it from the perspective as well of Deb Dana, one of the thinkers of the (becoming more widely) known polyvagal theory, she says the term, you know, story follows state. And so from that perspective, you could argue that everything that we do emerges out of the autonomic state that we're currently in. Are we in our "safe and social... everything's cool, I'm okay, all good here" space? Or are we in fight or flight, or freeze? I'm using the terms that are more familiar... but the sympathetic activation dorsal vagal, the kind of technical terms... that these, these will influence our thinking, our actions, our behavior. In other ways, you know, the mirror neurons or the resonance circuitry is how it's described by Daniel Siegel, who's the person who created or kind of founded Interpersonal Neurobiology. Talks about how things like mirror neurons and other parts of the brain and the biology are kind of our basis for empathy. So things like emotional intelligence, which are known to be better predictors of business success, things like that.
Jenni
Explain, just real quickly a brief overview of mirror neurons for people.
Nathan
Yeah, totally. So, there's a bit of controversy around mirror neurons. But nonetheless the kind of current thinking around it is that... just in a nutshell, if we perceive an action or a behavior in another, the same areas of our brain and body actually kind of activate or light up as if we were performing that action ourselves. So, it enables us when we're with others and when we're observing nonverbal communication (which makes up a huge part of our communication with one another), we're able to know: is somebody trustworthy or not? Can we make a guess at their intention? What they're doing or what they're going to do? It's how we begin to develop bonds, but it's also how we learn, you know, it's how infants learn behavior. Through observing witnessing primary caregivers doing those behaviors and actions, and things like that. So that's mirror neurons. Empathy, emotional intelligence.
The last thing I'll talk about in terms of the body's intelligence is this phenomenon called the felt sense, which is what a lot of people would describe as intuition. So it might be that intuitive pulling in the gut, or a kind of feeling of your heart opening in any given instance. And that that can kind of direct and guide us. It's based on a lifetime of experience, and it's a meaningful bodily felt experience. Really when we can listen to that, it can become an incredible guide in our lives and it can become an incredible source of wisdom. And in my mind that's another source of knowing. It's another intelligence beside the intellect.
Jenni
So sort of that "trust your gut" feeling?
Nathan
Yeah you know that phrase "trust your gut" is totally... that's speaking directly to this notion of the felt sense. Which is a term that was coined by someone called Eugene Gendlin Eugene Gendlin was a philosopher, and a therapist. He coined this term to describe this phenomenon that we all have, but some are more... perhaps a bit more practiced, a bit more sensitive, or a bit more connected to it than others. But we can all develop that capacity within ourselves. So in other words, you could say that we all have the potential or the ability to become more in touch with our intuition, or more intuitive, or more embodied. You know, in that sense, it's available to all of us. Or most of us... most of us... taking into consideration neuro-diversity and things like that.
Jenni
When we spoke before you mentioned that we've lost touch with what makes being human magical. Tell me more about that.
Nathan
Yeah! I'm so glad you asked me that, because this is something I guess that I'm passionate about. I read a gorgeous book called Original Wisdom by someone called Robert Wolff, and they were describing the Sng'oi tribe in Malaysia, who are far from modern civilization, technology, etc. These are one of the few remaining untouched tribal communities. The people of this community were the Malay. They have a certain kind of connection with themselves, with each other, with the environment... that when we look at that, we might perceive as supernatural. You know, it's like a way of knowing when somebody's going to arrive at the village without being told that they were on their way. Or in some way of being able to sense, out in the forest, where they might find a source of water. And for some people this might be like, "Oh, this is a bit of a stretch." But Robert Wolff is quite an interesting person... character... because he actually speaks fluent Malay and was able to live with this community, and actually communicate, and learn from them. And so actually really embedded in there, to doing some real kind of empirical study there.
And while we in the western, modern, kind of, you know, in our modern cultures might not be able to fully know, that kind of connection with self, other than environment... I do believe that we can begin to sort of touch it or begin to get closer to it. And that I truly think is available to all of us. I'm not too keen on the phrase, but it is our birthright in the sense that we have all the gear, we have all the kit, all the equipment we need for this. And when we connect with our full sensory potential, it can feel out of this world, but it's as natural as it gets. There's something in the simplicity of it, that just, that gives us the ability to sense and feel, and become aware of what we might otherwise dismiss or miss, etc. And that can be an incredible source of insight, intuition, you know, direction, knowledge etc. So... and that's the experience of my clients who work in this way, or our clients, people who work in this way, like yourself. And those who participate in somatic practices, deepening into that... the roots of our humanity.
Jenni
I remember reading, there was someone who decided to live as if they were in the 1800s for a while, you know, and no technology. And everything just cut back and weeded back. And she was talking about how she almost felt like she developed extra senses, because she had tuned out all of the... the noise so to speak, the digital noise. And even just her long skirts she could kind of use it like cat whiskers, you know, she was just kind of feeling where things were. And she was saying it was really interesting how when you tuned out the modern society that you were so much more tuned into your body and tuned into what was going on in nature around you. So along those lines, talk to me about how modern society teaches us to interact with ourselves.
Nathan
That's another great one. These are great questions, Jenni! Personally... and this is just an opinion. As with anything I say, take what you like and leave the rest. But I personally believe... or I feel... that modern society trains us to escape ourselves more than it trains us to be with ourselves in any meaningful way. And there's nothing inherently wrong with these things. But you could argue that through mass consumerism, through a highly-stimulated environment... people in Silicon Valley being paid the big bucks to literally get us addicted to our phones and software, you know smartphones and software and things like that. It's well known, these days, right? And these experiences... there's a sort of, "If you buy this, you'll feel better," you know? Or, "Why sit there feeling the kind of... the agony of inertia... you've been locked down for months now, you know? Why sit there, feeling that when you could be on Tik Tok?"
Jenni
So you're not on Tik Tok?
Nathan
Like I said there's nothing wrong with it. It's like I occasionally jump on. I think oftentimes when we've been on Tik Tok, for example, for like more than an hour, something in us says, I think we've crossed a certain threshold, here.
Jenni
You go down the rabbit hole. [laughs]
Nathan
Down the rabbit hole... yeah exactly, right? [laughs] Same on YouTube, same on Instagram. But you know, that's an example of disconnection from what our sensing self knows, and will tell us when we listen. "You're tired. You're kind of beginning to fade out here. There's a need that needs to be met, whether that be eating, sleeping..." And when we're not listening, we can bypass or kind of like bulldoze over that, and increasingly, the more we do that, we're beginning to hardwire (or practice let's say) a habit of "impulse arises from the body, and lack of response." And through somatic work we're beginning to develop a meaningful way of being with ourselves. One example of that might be "impulse: hunger... responding and resonance: feed myself." "Impulse: fatigue... rest." And we don't live in a culture that supports that much, either. "Impulse: my back hurts; I'd actually be more comfortable lying on the floor. I'm in a business meeting. It's inappropriate." Right?
Jenni
Yes. And that's something that I truly love about Somatics in general and your school in specific, is you respect the authority of the body. And so this is something that I've adopted in my classes and my coaching. If you need to get up and move around, get up and move around. If you need to go get a drink of water... listen to your body and follow through. Because we're taught to kind of tune that out and neglect that. And you know, "I've got an eight-hour conference and no I can't possibly leave to go to the bathroom!" [laughs] It's not normal. So, a small good that's come out of this last year is society is more accepting of humanity. Your kid just ran on the room... and sitting there in pajama pants and a top... I feel like there's been so much more welcoming of, "you're a human being, and you don't have to be ON all the time."
Nathan
Yeah. Don't have to be on all the time. Yeah. That's so... that feels so appropriate, so many layers. Because on all the time in one sense, is like wearing the mask, you know, the facade. Or like suiting up and showing up. But also our nervous systems in our overstimulated environment are just stuck on "on." We're just overworked, under-rested. And that's not anyone's fault, necessarily, it's just a systemic thing. You know, I'm obsessed with Taoism. Absolutely obsessed. It's problematic.
Jenni
I mean, it's a good addiction to have... [both laugh]
Nathan
I agree. There's a lovely concept called wu wei. It sort of translates to not doing or doing nothing, or it's the whole idea of, you know, also effortless action. But there's something that, that we're becoming more accepting of each other's humanity. And then part of that is that our needs for rest, and when we reach that threshold is a lot lower than a lot of us might believe when we're in this kind of production based industrial kind of world, that's all about creating, making, achieving. There's a new kind of narrative, I think, emerging which is like... sleep. [laughs] And take care of yourself, listen to your body and slow down. Then that's just lovely see because actually the irony, a lot of the time is that we can actually accomplish a lot.
There's this passage from the Tao De Ching, written by Lao Tzu, that says nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished. It's this kind of idea of going with the natural flow of our cycles, the rhythms, and can we kind of tune into that. It's a, it's a bit of a complicated thing because it's a little bit to our (in modern Western world), the idea of doing nothing doesn't make any sense. But it doesn't mean nothing at all. So a little bit different to that. But it's very aligned with somatic work, which has this trust in this organic, intelligent unfolding of things.
Jenni
Absolutely, that's basically the premise of my Lunai class, we use the moon cycles to kind of cycle through your different energy levels. And it's taking time to work hard and to plan and to have that Yang energy, and that masculine, you know, forward-moving. And then to take time to rest and release and, and sort of that Yin energy where we're just going with the flow. And it's following that cycle because you need the rest time to be productive. If you're constantly in that aggressive energy, you'll burnout. And as somebody who's an overachiever, trying to do all the things, I have to schedule my rest time or, yeah.. I will just go go go. [laughs]
Nathan
Totally yeah... guilty... me too. [both laugh] Totally, you know, card-carrying member of that club. Yeah, you know, and there's this understanding of this human as an integrated system. There's this concept called the default mode network in the brain. And research shows that it's where we kind of do our most creative, innovative thinking and problem solving, you know. Which are qualities that NASA and Google... places like that... really want in spades, you know they want that sort of thing in their employees in abundance, right? That tends to come online in the rest period.
Jenni
Yes! I was just reading a book on this, you know, they're talking about how... that's why, right before you fall asleep, or when you're in the shower not doing anything, that's when you get your most creative ideas. Because your brain is kind of taking a break,
Nathan
Totally right. Yeah, well, that's what the research suggests, anyway.
Jenni
Yeah, well, Nathan our podcast is called Ashes to Wings, referring to the story of the Phoenix transforming and rising from the ashes. I like to ask all of our guests this question: "What does rise above mean in your life?"
Nathan
Weirdly enough... bit of a like a backwards answer to this. But it's like rise above in my life: just allow everything to be just as it is. And for me, that's how I kind of come out of the suffering, or chaos or whatever, you know."
Jenni
Yeah. So I'm almost picturing you in the jet stream, you know, over.... where most airplanes fly? And you get into that jet stream and you just flow so much faster because you're kind of above where you're having to put in all that effort.
Nathan
Yeah!
Jenni
And just flow... flow state.
Nathan
Nice!
Jenni
Love that. So Nathan, I always like to leave our Ashes to Wings listeners with a bumper sticker statement. A summary of what you've just talked about that would fit on a bumper sticker. So what would your bumper sticker be?
Nathan
Hmm. I would say... and I said it a little earlier, but I'll say it again. Discovering our sensory potential feels out of this world, when it's been so long since we've been connected in this way. But it's as natural as it gets.
Jenni
Good! And then I have a few rapid-fire, fun questions for you if you're game for it. If you had to delete all but three apps from your cell phone, which ones would you keep?
Nathan
Sadly, my emails. But it's true. If I hadn't just got a new phone-free meditation, alarm clock thing (it's super cool), I would keep insight timer, and a third one... it's gonna be WhatsApp. But that's just because during this time, it's really kept, particularly my family, especially with my sister living across the other side of the world in Australia connected. And that's quite a miraculous thing so, yeah.
Jenni
Absolutely. Nice. What is what is your superpower,
Nathan
[laughs] Sensitivity!
Jenni
Like a cape and... "Sensitivity Man!" [both laugh] What are your favorite pizza toppings?
Nathan
You know, doesn't matter what happens, I sometimes get creative, but if somebody's ordered just pepperoni and mozzarella based, I get jealous. So I'm gonna say, just a normal pepperoni pizza.
Jenni
So not Hawaiian? Do you guys have Hawaiian pizza in Britain?
Nathan
Ha! No. Let's get serious. [both laugh]
Jenni
There's two camps, I feel like... there's the "it's good" and the "it's an abomination." Yeah.
Nathan
Totally.
Jenni
Yes. What is your guilty pleasure song?
Nathan
Oh, it's so easy. Taylor Swift. Any of them. [both laugh] I'm such a Swifty. It's my guilty pleasure, hardcore.
Jenni
I mean, how can you not?
Nathan
Cat's out of the bag.
Jenni
Yes. What is left on your bucket list?
Nathan
Wow. So I'm going to give you the cheesy one first. Ok?
Jenni
Yeah
Nathan
Grandma, she was an artist, you know. I don't know if she was a professional but she was an artist. And one of the things on my bucket list is to exhibit her artwork, before it's too late.
Jenni
Oh wow.
Nathan
So we wanna.... She's getting on, so we'll be doing that soon, The less cheesy one is I want to be snowboarding every winter, scuba diving every summer.
Jenni
Yes! That sounds amazing. I live in Chicago but I hate the cold so I have not been snowboarding. I haven't been scuba diving either, but I want to.
Nathan
Do it!
Jenni
Sometime in the near future. When we can travel again. What book belongs on everyone's bookshelf? So I picked this one specifically for you because I know your book nerd like me.
Nathan
Oh, how do I choose? How do I choose? I mentioned the Original Wisdom earlier. I'm just... I'm gonna go with that one. Yeah, I'm going to go with that one. Or the Tao Tse Ching. I just snuck that in there, but [laughs] the Tao Tse Ching is a little bit for some people... it might not completely resonate. Original Wisdom is just gorgeous.
Jenni
And who wrote Original Wisdom?
Nathan
Robert Wolf... W-O-L-F-F. I'm looking over here.... [both laughing] That's where my bookshelf is.
Jenni
I have like a list of titles recommended by Nathan that I need to start working my way through. Well, Nathan I know you mentioned you have a special offer for our Ashes to Wings listeners...
Nathan
Yeah well two... two things. So the first is we've got a free introduction to body-oriented coaching, it's online. It's at a good time for most time zones, so that they happen regularly. And I think Jenni, you've got the link for that, so I think you'll be sharing that. You know that's an introduction to... so the events entirely free to attend, and the whole event covers: what is body-oriented coaching, and the field of Somatics broadly speaking, where it came from, why it matters, and what it might look like to work with that in practice. One of the ways that you might do that is a training that we run at The Somatic School which is called the Cccredited Certificate in Body-Oriented Coaching. Now if you were to enroll in that course there's another offer for Ashes to Wings listeners, which is we'll include in their course a bonus, Organic Intelligence for Coaches course. Which if you haven't heard of organic intelligence, check it out. It's pretty cool. And then an ICF mentoring program which is anyone who, who wants to actually become a ICF-credentialed coach, which is some further credibility you can go on and get those ICF mentoring hours. So we'll bundle that in, either one of those two, for your listeners, Jenni.
Jenni
Thank you so much! And you guys can find that deal, along with Nathan's social media links on his guest page on our website. So that's ashestowings.net/nathan-blair. And thank you for those, Nathan, that's amazing. And do they need to be coaches to enroll in these things?
Nathan
I'm glad you asked because I mentioned coaching a few times there. Typically most people who are on the training have some existing practice or career that has a relational dimension to it. That includes quite a few careers. All you really need is a desire to work with people one-to-one typically, or in groups. And work at somatic depth, or work with the body's intelligence, in that context.
Jenni
Perfect. Well, Nathan, thank you so much for joining us today. This was amazing.
Nathan
Yeah, it was my absolute pleasure, and it's an honor. Thank you so much for asking me to come.
Jenni
Absolutely. So just a quick recap of our episode with Nathan Blair today, we talked about Somatics and how science is revealing just how essential our bodies are to our intelligence. And supporting what the wisdom traditions of the East have been teaching for thousands of years. We talked about how we've lost touch with what makes being human magical. And we talked about how modern society teaches us to escape ourselves more than it teaches us how to be with ourselves in a meaningful way, which is just such a powerful statement. These all tie into our values at Ashes to Wings, where we're all about connecting the body, mind, and emotions. And I love the idea that what you've been told is strange, is probably your greatest superpower. Don't forget to check out Nathan's guest page. Again that's ashestowings.net/nathan-blair. Friends, thank you for listening. Don't forget to follow the show, rate and review, and we'll see you next time.
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