 Hi, Joe, it's great to have you here. I'm really looking forward to our conversation. I just want to let you say hi, and then I'll share your background here. Yeah, hi, Joe, just thanks. I'm really looking forward to it too. I'm noticing I'm just experiencing a warmth of being in your presence and just, you know, those kind of nice fields of excitement. Oh, thank you. This conversation, my girl. So yeah, thank you for having me. So let me just share a bit of your background. I think this conversation will be very meaningful and maybe even transformational for those who are watching and listening. So Joe helps big-hearted, creative over-thinkers to connect to deeper levels of intimacy, creativity, and embodied freedom. And Joe, you do this through work with people's trauma, shadow, shame, shame work, using embodied healing, somatic therapy, somatic movement, sound and voice work. Joe is part of the leadership team of the Focalizing Institute, which I'll have you explain later, whose mission is to apply body awareness for trauma healing and personal transformation on an individual and global scale. Amazing stuff, really deep work, and there's so much we can talk about, but in the sort of our pre-conversation, I wanted to bring forward a couple of issues to discuss. One of them is how there's an overarching subconscious feeling of not enough-ness in much of our society. And I would say especially among those who are in my audience, not just in my audience, lots of people, but just the people who are especially, I guess, caring, conscientious, heart-based people, I find we tend to carry that sense. But tell us more about what you mean by not enough-ness, how you've seen it manifest in your clients and maybe in your own life, whatever you could share. Yeah. I think where to start with that is there's often an individual story running of that, which to some degree, story is always protectors. They're there for a reason until they're no longer helpful, right? The piece that I'm talking about in terms of this kind of overarching, not enough-ness is something that I see, and just have really been questioning in my work over the last few years. And this is this more like contextual piece that we have in Western society of always chasing for the next thing. And I think this is kind of, that in itself is interesting actually. So if we even just part where we were going with that and sit right with that, there's in trauma healing, in any kind of healing or in any endeavor to be intimate with life, we have to become in relationship to it. And what gets in the way is the kind of mind or the conditioning that wants to either distract or detach from it or become deeply immersed and lost in it. And that can be a lot of people's kind of experience, certainly in the early days of healing. And actually the sweet spot is somewhere in between where we just kind of bring things that might be challenging just enough close so that we can kind of metabolize and move through and learn and be with and be in relationship with it in a different way. And the reason why I just pause there is because I think that sort of, that lends itself to understand why maybe we want to detach or distract. Now, to some degree, that's like really human. It can be difficult to be with stuff. But at some point, I think as a trauma therapist, I think most people will start to question, well, if the body, somatic therapy works on the basis that the body's, the answer is always within the body. We are innate medicine cabinets, right? So at some point you've got to ask, if we're innate medicine cabinets, what is getting in the way of the conditions that need to be met in order to heal? And part of that is this really hyper-capitalist kind of culture of not enoughness. So there's this sort of distraction about kind of what next or you've got to release those feelings. They're no longer serving you release or go on to this shiny new thing. And this kind of for me fits in this space of kind of distraction or detachment. And we definitely have that, we have it in so many different strands, so many, and even to some degree, I think it's like really beholden on us to, speaking to your audience that may be in similar realms of healing. Just to be kind of really curious about the language that we use. And I know you touch on this within your marketing and actually this is one of the reasons why I was really keen to work with you. Apart from we'd sort of touch base and I just understood your presence. I remember the video that you did about, I think you call it lizard brain marketing. And I think it's really beholden on us to understand the shadow that we cast when we are sharing information and kind of not, there's this fine balance of wanting to support people to live in an embodied freedom way, or to kind of heal or whatever it is that you do, but not either become immersed in it. Like that's the only way of living. If you haven't done this then, you're not healed, you're not whole because that's not true. Like life's tough enough without sending those messages out. And that can kind of lead us into this full immersion in it so that we're too immersed, we're not sort of living. You know, and I can certainly say I've sort of been in that, in the past and can recognize that. And then there's this other space which is, yeah, this kind of distraction on maybe the sort of shiny, the shiny way out or detachment. And yeah, so I think I'll pause there actually and just, I'm curious, you know, how that sort of landed with. It's brilliant. And there's so much there to unpack. Yeah, as a, as a, as a marketer, as a business person, you know, this question is very important to consider. It's like how, how can, how can I share content and offers and ways of thinking and behaving, which I believe are helpful for people without sort of expanding that feeling of not enoughness, you know, and, and there's, so it's like I'm always seeing, well, how can like just the way that I market myself itself, hopefully is a healing, healing journey for people. It's like a healing influence for people and help helping them feel more whole. And I love what you said about how it's like, it's not true that you need yet another modality or method or, you know, school of thought, because you're not whole yet. So, but the reality is that, well, there's data to experience where people don't feel whole, where people don't feel enough. And when, when you have clients or students, you know, experiencing that, how do you guide them towards more wholeness? It's, yeah, let me just sit with that because I just want to speak to that in that there, your wholeness is present as, as, as, as part of you regardless of where you are on that journey. It's simply always present, but the lived experience of wholeness and maybe the, the, maybe less judgmental mind that you, that one isn't whole, that relationship shifts. So it becomes more in focus, that sense of wholeness, but it is absolutely present. In fact, it's one of the key agents in the healing journey is that in some, on some level, the wholeness is always there. It's a bit of a philosophical couch kind of view of it, but. No, it's great. I love that. I love that because there is a sense of security when, when something is always there, you know, and that, that deep feeling of security. Well, it holds, holds me and allows me to return again and again. So I really love the way that you put that. You know, the reality of it versus the lived experience, I guess. Yeah. The current focus. Yeah. And, you know, in answer to the sort of direct question about how, how, how do we bring that kind of into focus? And my practice is kind of multifaceted, as you said, you know, but predominantly I work somatically within the body because there's, there's tools to do that, but interest. What, what fascinates me is more less about the tools, which are somatic therapy tools, which are kind of like working with the nervous system, working with different types of energies, working with movement, working with visualization is all these different embodied tools. What fascinates me about it though and what, what I think really true is, it's not necessarily the tools. It's how we set the conditions and I'm like such a geek about this. So it's the kind of the conditions that we set. How do we really meet somebody where they're at? How do we enable, you know, a true no shame, no blame environment. And, you know, to that, to that end in answer, just sort of answering your question through that lens, you know, absolutely meet somebody where they're at. You know, we don't, this ideal picture of, you know, this philosophical couch thing that I've said about the homeless being present all the time. You know, do I know that in every working moment in my lived experience, even as someone who's this practitioner, no, there are moments when that doesn't feel as in focus for sure. And, but I know it's there. And, and, and that guides me to be able to have the security to meet somebody where they're at when it doesn't feel like it's there. And actually explore that. So before like even trying to kind of go, you know, well, you know, you're your whole you're this, you know, we need to really meet someone why there's that. And part of, part of trauma healing is also healing from shame, you know, they're really interlinked that they have this very interlinked kind of relationship. So being able to set a space where in, you know, your own embodied presence has an impact in the co-regulation and where just as a human, you can meet another human and explore, okay, you don't feel whole. So, so, so let's explore that without any right or wrong. What is that experience for you? And kind of move through that exploration in a in a body centred way. And generally speaking, when we move through that in the body centred way, the mind goes whole, not whole, not whole, you know, it's kind of like a binary thinker. But when we move into the body or in kind of heart energy, it's much more nuanced. And the majority of times once there's been enough exploration of that and there's been enough of the different somatic explorations, all this like landscape of kind of information which is ultimately connected to Earth body and to to everything else. This kind of, this gives rise to not just the one thing that's been present, this feeling of not whole. We start to sense other things like maybe just the mustard seed size of, oh, that feels like wholeness. Or something else. And that's one way that I'd speak to it. And then also I would speak to it in that there's a lot of somatic therapy for me is really similar to shamanistic work in this kind of soul reclamation, you know, this kind of shame piece where, you know, we've been maybe rejected. By different groups or whatever that relational trauma might be, relational trauma often kind of cuts us off from a part of ourselves because we might be ashamed then and afraid that we'll be rejected again. And by when we metabolize what hasn't been metabolized in that, when we're dealing with something specific in that sense, there's space and space in that sense. There's space and safety for this element to come back in. It's beautiful. Thank you for that. One of the things, you know, you work with the focalizing institute, right? And I want to just give you a chance to, I mean, I know it's related, but what is what is focalizing or what does that mean? Yeah, thanks for asking. I love them. I love my work with the institute. I've worked, it's, focalizing is one of the somatic therapy tools that I use. And it's a, it's just a really beautiful healing modality that tends to unresolved trauma, conditioned thinking and intimacy barriers, which are often one in the same, you know, they're all kind of very interlinked. And the work that I do is training other therapists, coaches, facilitators, creatives in adding this body-based modality to their toolkit. And often it's kind of people sort of walk towards a course because they're like, oh, you know, there's a lot of experience and, you know, everyone has this deep yearning to be, you know, as much support as possible. And just kind of senses that maybe something, just something's a bit missing. And that piece is generally kind of just bringing in more working with the body. So, yeah, so that's the work that I do. We train, the institute's been established since like, like around the eighties or something. Dr. Michael Bikicchi, who was a humanist psychologist, master addictions, counsellor, master sexologist, one of Peter Levine's early colleagues, you know, they were kind of doing similar work at similar times. And yeah, it's the course that we are running for the rest of the year is a practitioner course, which is really super accessible. So one of the reasons I trained in this, and then I kind of started at the start of the pandemic, I started knocking on the door because Michael passed away. So the whole organization kind of just took a bit of a pause. And then I started to knock on the door of Nick, who's now my co-trainer, who's one of the directors and said, this is like fundamental everything that, this is fundamental, you know, where collectively in a kind of freeze mode, this is going to have massive impact on echoes of unresolved trauma. Things are going to start kind of coming up. And I really see this modality as something that is completely accessible. You know, a lot of the courses are kind of, you know, three, five years, you know, very expensive. I don't want to use the word expensive. It's just, it takes a lot of commitment, both time and different types of resources. And whereas this actually is a really comprehensive course, we're not kind of teaching you what you get taught in trauma books, because there's enough of those out there. Right. You know, we were very practitioner first. It's how to be. It's the soul. It's like, okay, so you know that the nervous system is in place. And we tend to that we have a whole class of nervous system, but really what we want to tend to is this community of folk that can do great work, knowing how to really creatively. And gently navigate, you know, and gently navigate working with unresolved trauma. Wow. Thank you. And you have an upcoming training. Well, you know, some people might be watching this months later. So we'll certainly, I'll certainly put the link below for, for more information. Yeah. When after you, maybe we can end on this one topic that's quite interesting. And I can also link to your blog post on it, but trauma informed manifestation. You know, I hadn't heard of it before you started talking about it. So can you give us a taste of what that means? And like I said, I can link to more info below. Yeah. No problems. So first of all, I would say, I really want to be really clear that. I view nothing wrong with manifestation. It's not for me to say if manifestation is, is good or bad. You know, the mind wants to do it. It's not for me to say it's good or bad. And what I do want to offer is a perspective. On the way that. Manifestation could be at odds. With a healing journey. And the way that I look at this is some manifestation. Comes from a place, that place of lack. That place of not enoughness and scarcity. And I'm not good enough on less, which kind of falls into this. Let me distract from what's really going on here. You know, so it falls into that bracket that I spoke about before. If that feels right, you know, and, and again, to some people, it can be really resourcing. So I have mixed views on it. And, and it can only be. People can take from this what feels right for them. So it can come sometimes fall into that place of lack. Done well or done well in a trauma-informed way. It can support. So one of the ways that we work is when, when trauma healing is resourcing first or finding out what's nourishing. So we start from this, like. So it can come sometimes fall into that place of lack. And then we start looking at what's nourishing. So we start from this, like, we're not rolling up sleeves and looking at everything that the mind says is wrong. We're like, Oh, what's good. What's good here? You know, so we kind of start with that. And in some ways, you know, manifestation and that belief that something can change or that belief that we have that sense of empowerment. Can be really supportive. So I think the thing to watch out for is, you know, is this coming from place of lack? And maybe if it is, maybe instead of kind of this sort of, um, like, I need to leave the experience that I'm in because my finances are bad. I'm going to manifest a million pounds, that kind of energy. Instead of that, maybe kind of settle into. I'm going to build a healthy relationship with my money. Ah, I'm speaking your language actually, aren't I? Something that you do. So instead of that is kind of, yeah, like, and that in itself is manifestation because you become aligned and there's a sense of embodiment with that. So it's just a slight nuance on manifestation. And yeah, maybe it might kind of just add some food for thought. You know, it's absolutely. Even though it's subtle, it's so important because the perspective and the embodiment is there throughout the action taking, which creates different relationship to our business, to other people, to our offers, to how we announce our offers, et cetera. And so no, it's, I think it's absolutely important to think think about. Well, certainly, I think it's an interesting topic and I'll certainly link below for more info on this and people can connect with you as well if they like to talk more about it. And I would just add actually that kind of, you know, I, it's one of the decisions to sort of work with you because I kind of felt that a little bit in my business and I could feel that kind of like, you know, just that sort of pull to somehow and a word that I use for being in your group is like, I feel like I'm really inhabiting my business now. And that's, that's manifestation in a way because I'm aligned now, you know, there's a very different quality. So you've a kind of, you know, helping me embody some of that. Absolutely. Well, you've already done a lot of the work. And now you're kind of making that even more apparent, you know, in your in your business. So thank you, Joe, for the work that you do and the way that you do it. And so I look forward to seeing if folks have any comments about this and yeah, there will be links below to connect with you. Anything else you want to say as we as we complete any kind of reporting encouragement or advice for. Yeah, just that now. There's a lot like now, you know, and I think, I think we need to go to the map meditation map for three hours and just kind of just that sometimes like, I'm there with you. Thank you. Thank you. Well, awesome. Thank you, Joe. And appreciate the work that you do. Appreciate it. Thank you.