The Way We Connect

Why is our connection to nature so important? How can coaching and therapy in nature be more powerful than sitting inside a room? And if we know nature is so beneficial for us, how can we begin to deal with the grief of losing it?

Fi Garrard is an outdoor counsellor, youth worker, gardener and dreamer based in Cornwall, UK. Her work is primarily outside and all about helping people connect to and be healed through the natural world. "Whether this is expressing grief about the climate crisis in a group or learning about growing vegetables", Fi says, "every encounter brings us closer to our true nature and healing in our inner world creating, I believe real change in the outer world".

As one of my topics closest to my heart, Nature Connection will provide the backbone to the next few episodes. In this episode, Fi and I discuss her work as an outdoor therapist and the transformational power that being in nature can have on her clients, before we delve into the wider issues of dealing with climate grief, trusting in Gaia, and how we might explain our exploitative relationship with the earth.

What is conflict management and mediation? What is the role of emotions in managing conflict? And how can we deal with conflict in quarantine - when we are forced to spend more time than usual with the people we live with?

My guest, Mirella Kreder, is an organisational consultant and mediator, specialised in communication, business psychology and development. She offers business consulting and mediation to all kinds of organisations and individuals seeking such expertise, in the Czech Republic and abroad.

Join us as we discuss the field of mediation - from international conflicts to conflicts in the living room, emotional intelligence, and the stresses of living under quarantine. We recorded this episode under the COVID-19 lockdown.

What is Emotional Intelligence? How can it help us to connect to ourselves and each other - especially during unprecedented times like these, where we are more physically disconnected than ever before? And how can we face the painful and difficult realities facing us and the planet right now?

My guest, Joshua Freedman, is one of the world’s leading specialists on developing and applying emotional intelligence to improve performance. He is the CEO of Six Seconds, the the world’s preeminent emotional intelligence organization, and works all over the world delivering trainer certification programs and keynotes, and supporting practitioners in their life-changing work in business, education, and communities.

Join us for a moving conversation on the collective consciousness of this moment, where we discuss the need to turn towards the pain of climate change and to grieve, the vital lessons we are learning during lockdown, and how EQ might be part of helping us to create a better world.

How can somebody go from being cheated on, to being non-monogamous? What is Relationship Anarchy? And what do you do when you realise that society's ideas and expectations surrounding relationships don't make sense to you?

Kira Williams (they/them) is a genderqueer trans woman, a critical human geographer and a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Waterloo in Canada. Their research focuses on international migration, political geography and analytical methodology. 

In this episode, we explore ideas of relationship norms, what it's like when you don't subscribe to society's ideas about romantic relationships, and how Kira's relationship with a woman who cheated on them led them to realise they were non-monogamous. This episode originally intended to look into why people cheat, but instead took me down a completely different road - why don't some people cheat? What keeps people monogamous? And what about those who don't conform to those expectations?