Mind Full of Everything

Samantha Mackay on living paradoxes and breaking free from trap cycles

In what ways can the Enneagram reveal the inherent paradoxes and contradictions within each personality type? How can this open up pathways to exit trap cycles and opportunities for our deepest developments as individuals and as part of the wider community, whilst also challenging tendencies to oversimplify paradox work?

We welcome back the lovely Samantha Mackay to the podcast to build on  the previous episode on the Enneagram and personality mapping, focusing on a very complex but integral part of the tool - paradoxes. In this deeply inspiring and wonderfully detailed episode, Samantha guides us through the process of identifying and breaking down contradictions for each of the nine Enneagram types by giving practical examples of trap cycles for each and some of ways we can begin to transform our internalised patterns by allowing ourselves permission to change.

Samantha is a personal development coach at Individuo, incorporating the Enneagram into her integrative approach to inner work. She came to this work through a journey of recovering from chronic pain, illness and anxiety and discovering that in order to shift her pain she needed to master a range of skills that strengthened her inner resilience.  On her multi-year journey of recovery, Samantha has learnt that some treatments act like a short term bandaids and others provided more permanent healing. She incorporates the Enneagram into her work for this very reason; it helps us invest our time, energy and resources into inner work that provides true relief. 

For a more comprehensive insight into the Enneagram, listen to the previous episode before tuning into this one.

Connect to Samantha at individuo.life.

Connect to the podcast on Instagram (@mindfullofeverything_pod) and Facebook (@mindfullofeverything).

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Samantha Mackay on mapping our trauma and chronic illness histories as a pathway to embodied healing

How can we begin to make connections between somatic ailments and deeper ruptures in our mind, spiritual and emotional bodies as a way of tending to inter-body dissonance when dominant healthcare spaces struggle to connect the dots for us? In what ways can alternative healthcare professionals and psychotherapists help us map out our illness and trauma histories to provide specialised treatment that serves to our individual needs rather than following one-size-fits-all treatment frameworks?

Today we are joined by Samantha Mackay. Samantha is a personal development coach at Individuo, incorporating the Enneagram into her integrative approach to inner work. She came to this work through a journey of recovering from chronic pain, illness and anxiety and discovering that in order to shift her pain she needed to master a range of skills that strengthened her inner resilience. With that, she could move inwards, to find the stillness needed to stay with, and release, her most painful imprints. On her multi-year journey of recovery, Samantha has learnt that some treatments act like a short term bandaids and others provided more permanent healing. She incorporates the Enneagram into her work for this very reason; it helps us invest our time, energy and resources into inner work that provides true relief.  

In this episode, Samantha and Agrita explore the problematic internalisation of productivity culture in dominant healthcare and the ways that we as individuals can resist this cultural paradigm through allowing themselves permission to attend to signs of deeper emotional and spiritual ruptures which are emerging on their physical bodies. We do this by examining the Enneagram as a tool for adults to begin to map out their trauma and illness histories with a certified Enneagram practitioner as an alternative approach to convention psychotherapy which often requires patients to work from their traumas up to internalised patterns/behaviours. By working from measurable behavioural patterns that can be categorised into types, the Enneagram breaks away from expectations of patients knowing how to use language to describe their difficulties to working to break open cycles of internalised behaviours in order get to the root of their problems, at a pace which feels comfortable for them.

Find out more about Samantha's work at individuo.life.

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Connect to the podcast on Instagram (@mindfullofeverything_pod) and Facebook (@mindfullofeverything).

Laura Formentini on regenerative healing, grieving cycles and Love in Action

In what ways can creative catharsis metamorphose the energy of grief into love which expands beyond our kin and beyond the material? How can we seek inspiration and guidance from nature’s abilities to heal and regenerate in order to recapacitate ourselves as we move through grieving cycles and put love in action?

Today we are joined by Laura Formentini, an author, nonprofit photographer and activist who has worked all over the world with NGOs and resilient people, and who has personally healed from the traumatic loss of her son’s suicide which began from a small act of kindness and human responsibility by a complete stranger and has now evolved into the conceptualisation of getting “unstuck” from grieving cycles as Love in Action. In this episode, Laura and Agrita explore the different pathways for healthy cathartic expression within the context of maternal grief, and how conceptualising the transformation of grief to love as Love in Action can help map out pathways to embodied healing which meet the specific needs of mothers (and others within grief cycles) but also regenerate their capacities to love, nurture and care.

Connect to Laura at lauraformentini.com.

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Ximena Garcia on rainforest medicine, land ceremony and more-than-human kinship

In what ways can we nurture more loving and reciprocal relationships with our more-than-human kin to outgrow capitalist and colonial conditions of extraction and human domination? How can engaging in rainforest medicinal ceremonies provide personalised pathways to embodied care which honour the needs of humans, the more-than-human and the land? 

Today we are joined by Ximena Garcia, the Center Director of Peru’s Rainforest Healing Center, soon to be named Shamanflora. She has lived around the world and experienced life in many different cultures which ultimately led her into the world of Kambo, Ayahuasca and other animal and plant forest medicines. Through practicing rainforest medicine and sharing plant wisdom with her clients, Ximena follows the path of service and healing, for her loved ones, herself and now the world.

Visit mindfullofeverything.com to access full episode resources.

Connect to Ximena via Instagram @an3mix and the Rainforest Healing Centre @rainforesthealingcenter.

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Damini Gallagher on embodying cultural identities as women of the diaspora

How can we overcome the false dichotomy of biculturalism as people of the diaspora so that we can reclaim the wholeness of our cultural identities and outgrow ‘either/or’ thinking? In what ways can self-expression and embodied creativity help us to become more comfortable in our bodies whilst settling on land, and living within cultures, that are so different to our homelands?

Today we are in conversation with Damini Gallagher, an intuitive coach, trained Vedic counsellor, professional Kathak dancer and mother. By working with the fundamental level of vibration to guide her clients, particularly women, Damini offers pathways in honouring creativity, individuality and material and spiritual abundance by awakening to our inner, experiential wisdom and being aligned to our multicultural identities which shape our being and the ways in which we share our gifts to the world.

Visit saudamini.life to connect with Damini.

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Sarah Poet on the sacred masculine-feminine synergy and going beyond the gender binary

In what ways can conceptualising the masculine and feminine as foundational archetypes for cultures and life help us to outgrow power-over binary systems and move towards cultures of unity and connection once again? How can the sacred act of remembering the divine feminine and masculine tend to cultural, religious and generational traumas, inflicted by systems of domination, and re-activate the energy balance of the planet?

Today we are joined by Sarah Poet, a truth seeker, thought leader, former school creator turned feminine/masculine integration expert, and, as it turns out, a medicine woman for modern times. It is Sarah’s mission to serve the true evolution of human consciousness, to integrate feminine & masculine on all levels, and to bridge us collectively from separation to connection, unity & wholeness. Sarah helps couples, individuals, and organisations heal the separation traumas inflicted by patriarchal culture and come into deeper connection via integrity, embodied intimacy, resiliency, authenticity, & love.

Sarah will go with you to the depths, responding exactly to your unique path or query, to uncover your deepest and most empowering truths. Watch her TEDx and schedule private work with her at www.sarahpoet.com. 

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David Lewis-Peart on restorative circles and bridging community divides

In what ways have reactive activist efforts at restorative community work furthered divide between ‘marginalised’ communities and groups characterised as ‘oppressors’? How can we reimagine reparative work in community so that it holds space for reflection and pause, both integral for long-term systemic change but also acceptance of the multiplicities and complexities that make up our individual and collective bodies?

Today we are joined by David Lewis-Peart, a Toronto-based writer, educator and former TedX speaker whose work looks at identity, race, masculinity, mental health and the concept of the GRACE Principle.

He holds a diploma in Human Services Counselling - mental health and addictions, with certification in Life Skills Coaching, and additional training in Facilitating Restorative Circles, and Family Group Conferencing. He has previously been a member of faculty in both Child and Youth Care and Social Service Work programs in Toronto, Brampton and Oakville.

David has been a founding lead on a number of community service and arts-based initiatives supporting Black and other groups. A former minister, David was co-founder and former coordinator of the spiritual-arts community Sunset Service Toronto Fellowship, honoured by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation in 2014, and again in 2016. In 2015 NOW Magazine Readers Choice Awards recognized Sunset Service as Best Activist Religious Group - Runner-up, with David later being appointed by the Chicago-based Parliament of the World's Religions as Co-Chair of the Next Generation Task Force in 2017.

David has been the recipient of several awards for his work in community-building including the TD Canada LGBT Youthline Award for Achievement in Social Services, the Toronto Community Foundation – Vital People Award, and the inaugural Walden New Thought Awards recognizing socially conscious leaders globally in 2019.

He has regularly contributed to national publications such as Canadian Broadcast Company (CBC), Huffington Post Canada, and Global News, engaging as a thought leader on issues of race, identity, restorative practice and working across difference.

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REFLECT | Agrita Dandriyal on deep nostalgia medicine and reimagining modern human identities

In what ways can deep nostalgia help us reimagine the modern human being to being more integrated in the systems of inter-relatedness of both the Earth, as a whole, and the individual human body? How can past lived, and shared, experiences offer us deeper insights into where ruptures lie in our collective sense of belonging as a human species and how we identify (in our dominant culture) as separate from the more-than-human world? 

In this REFLECT episode, Agrita Dandriyal brings to us the lens of nostalgia for reimagining the modern human being in ways that are reminiscent of ancient ways of being, but also serve the needs of our current time as we shift the foundations of power-over systems to one of inter-connectedness, love and stewardship. Agrita is guided by her own spiritual/Hindu standpoint and ancestral wisdom as she explores the medicine of nostalgia for inner child/trauma work and healing fractured human identities as a result of living within systems of creative suppression and restrictive living. 

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Andrew Lang on redesigning sacred, communal spaces

What can redesigning space in community look like after inheriting generations worth of dogmatised, static belief systems on what it means to hold and create space that preserves the inherent dignity of its people, and other spaces? Today we are joined by Andrew Lang, an educator in the Pacific Northwest and an alumnus of the Living School for Action and Contemplation, led by Richard Rohr, Cynthia Bourgeault, James Finley, Barbara Holmes, and Brian McLaren. He is the author of the forthcoming book, Unmasking the Inner Critic: Lessons for Living an Unconstricted Life. Along with blogging regularly, he facilitates workshops helping people to navigate their inner lives and explore their sense of identity and spirituality. 

In this conversation, we explore pathways for redesigning communal spaces to restore their fluidity and sacredness, how abstract spaces are grounded in embodiment practices and hold you as you are, the interweaving layers of shadow work and how shadow work can bring down walls of defensiveness towards radical change in community.

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Access Andrew’s writings, offerings and information on his upcoming book at AndrewGLang.com.

Laura Hyppolite on reclaiming identity as immigrants through poetic storytelling

In what ways can art forms such as poetry, which allow for total expression in their purest form, guide immigrants through their journey of reclaiming identity as they navigate foreign lands oftentimes culturally different to their homelands? How can people of the diaspora use storytelling to overcome cultural dichotomies, reinforced by colonial systems, and manage healthy co-existence of both worlds (life as an immigrant and life as a member of their own community) in order to live more connected, wholesome lives?

Mind Full of Everything returns after a 2-month hiatus with this inspiring conversation on reclaiming identity as immigrants through the lens of poetic storytelling with Laura Hyppolite. Laura is is a Haitian immigrant learning to navigate life in the United States. She has a true passion for the power of poetry, and she wants her voice to empower her readers to dive deeper within themselves. Her work transcends the personal and draws on connections with history and society. She poetically weaves tales that travels from the beaches and colours of Haiti to the slate and rough edges of city life in the United States. 

To Laura, in poetry there are no imposters, only personal truths which sing throughout one’s work. Through Hyppolite’s view of herself, we learn more about the beauty within each of us. Her first book Ordinary explores the intersections of culture, immigration, and identity.

Visit mindfullofeverything.com to access this episode's shownotes, resources and Laura's website.

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