Bryn Edwards at The WA Real

#199 Western Australian Indigenous Interior Design – Leah Bennet

When considering interior design, many of us will be aware of different styles whether it's in our home or the spaces we move through. We may be familiar with overseas styles such as the Hampton style, European.

But ask yourself, what does an Australian style of interior design actually look like?

Or let’s go deeper - what would the style of design that's influenced by the land and the deep culture here in Western Australia looked like?

It’s actually a difficult question to answer because very few designers are following this path, that is with the exception of this week's guest Leah Bennett of Leah Paige Design.

Leah talks through the nuances and intricacies of interior design, so that we can understand it in more clarity and more depth. She then adds the layer of culture and land so you can really begin to get a feel of how she's designing spaces that we can really connect to.

Leah also talks about the challenges of putting forwards this new approach to the interior design world and how often many people want to get involved but are just a bit too worried about where to start and getting ‘things wrong’.

Leah is a fantastic and articulate lady with a real drive and passion that shines through in this conversation and which is sure to underpin her impact in the future.

Website: leahpaigedesigns.com

#198 Australian Boarding School Trauma – Christine Jack

Following on from the highly acclaimed episode #164 with Nick Duffell about the reality and dynamics of Boarding School Syndrome, this week I traced the impact in Australia with Christine Jack.

Christine has spent 35 years in teacher education and educational history, authoring the book ‘Recovering Boarding School Trauma Narratives’.

In this conversation Christine tracks how the concept of boarding school came from England to Australia, as a colony of the British Empire, and then the ensuing impact within our education system and beyond.

Again, it was another great conversation about how difficult it is to put privilege and trauma in the same sentence.

Links

- Recovering Boarding School Trauma Narratives’ – https://www.routledge.com/Recovering-Boarding-School-Trauma-Narratives-Christopher-Robin-Milne-as/Jack/p/book/9780367819521

- Episode #164 with Nick Duffell - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPHxGYAqbuU

#197 Grief: Understanding The Natural Process We All Experience – Victoria Volk

This week I explored grief - the very natural but overlooked process that affects all of us - with Victoria Volk who specialises in coaching and supporting people who are struggling with loss.

As Victoria puts forward, grief is so often narrowly associated with death, however it is much much wider than that as it is the result of any loss and so we incur grief more widely than we realise.

Victoria shares the six common myths relating to grief and how they have been perpetuated intergenerationally, becoming part of our current culture resulting in a collective  lack of emotional discernment and literacy.

Victoria is really good at breaking down the dynamics of grief and walks us through the process to release its grip. This conversation covers a lot of ground, there's a lot of interesting emerging questions that come up, which really provides a full picture in this area that affects you, me and everyone.

Find out more about Victoria and her podcast at www.theunleashedheart.com

#196: The Importance of Heart Rate Variability in Your Life – Joel Jamieson

Measuring your heart rate variability, or HRV, may be one of the most important measures that is easily accessible to you in terms of our health, fitness, and overall life longevity, but what exactly is heart rate variability? and how can you measure it?

That's exactly what I explored this week with Coach Joel Jamieson who has over 20 years of working with heart rate variability while training Olympic athletes, MMA fighters, Navy Seals, NBA and NFL stars.

Joel explains exactly what HRV is – a measurement of recovery - while also breaking down the basic principles of exercise. He explains how under recovery is at the heart of most injuries.

We then discuss how you can measure HRV and what are key features to look for in selecting a measurement device. Joel then explains how HRV is scored and how to interpret the score and what to do with it.

The conversation then broadened out to explore the impact of stress on our HRV and how a high base level of HRV places us in good stead to face the stresses and uncertainty of the world we operate it.

This is a super important measure, because as Joel puts forward – it is non-invasive and easy to track over a long period of time giving you a real indicator of life longevity.

Joel is super clear and concise throughout this whole conversation dispelling many myths along the way.

Whatever level of exercise or focus of well-being you are at, by the end of this conversation you'll have a clear idea of what the heart rate variability is, and how important it is to you and how you can go measure, track it and make some significant changes in your life.

Joel: www.8weeksout.com/

Morpheus: www.trainwithmorpheus.com/

#195: Reconciling your Impact on Environment – Shona Hunter, WA Forest Alliance

We are all aware of the negative impacts that are happening to our surrounding environment and nature.

But how do we begin to acknowledge that within ourselves?

How do we begin to navigate our emotions to avoid overwhelm, so that we can get to a place where we can actually do something about it?

And just what can we do?

This is exactly what I explored with Shona Hunter, Community Organiser for the WA Forest Alliance.

Shona brings a wealth of experience of working in this area to open up a space to journey through this tricky journey from a real personal point of view.

#194 – A yarn with Tyson Yunkaporta

This week I enjoyed a far-ranging yarn with Tyson Yunkaporta – member of the Apalech Clan, Senior Lecturer in Indigenous Knowledge at Deakin University and author of the book Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World (which he’s suggests you shouldn’t buy but borrow from a friend).

In this conversation we cover a lot of ground including the impact of an extraction economy, the rise and fall of civilisations and where we are in the that cycle, a deeper history of Britain, ask where the grown-ups have gone, our trajectory from the printing press, systems, the 1000 year clean up and much more.

I also learnt a huge amount about Western Australia, seeing it from a different perspective.

Tyson mixes his wealth and depth of knowledge together with his great sense of humour and openness to share to make for a great yarn that will take you on a journey.

#193 – Sense Making and Media – David Fuller

How can you make sense of the problems that face us when our capacity to make sense of the problem is the problem itself?

This week I explored sense making and the media with David Fuller, founder of the Rebel Wisdom Channel who is also a former BBC and Channel4 journalist.

David talks about how sense making is the fundamental issue that faces all of us - our inner capacity, both individually and collective, to make sense and meaning of the outside world and then to agree on what is truth and what are the key problems we need to focus on.

This issue is further exacerbated by the incentive structures, drivers and failures of both legacy media and alternative media, which is then accelerated by technologies that are purposefully designed to mine and capture our attention and concentration.

These factors and their impacts, which are being left unchecked, are causing a mounting existential crisis of disconnection that potentially sit at the heart of many of the recognised mental and emotions health issues we now encounter.

With financially incentivised decentralised flows of information straight to the individual now a feature of life, it is time for each of us to do our individual work in terms of ‘cleaning house’ and developing our relationship with the truth and how we make sense of the outer world so we can live a meaningful life.

#192 – (Un)shakeable Resilience – Mike House

This week, survival expert and instructor Mike House returns back to the podcast to talk about resilience.

Spurred to investigate resilience by the recent impacts of COVID and specific requests of clients, Mike carried out an extensive research study into resilience through interviewing a range of leaders which he’s collated in his book (Un)Shakeable.

In this conversation, we dive into just how the differing personal definitions of what resilience means to different people plays out in in their lives; we have a particularly interesting exploration into the delineation between adaptability and resilience.

Mike puts forward that a key part is acknowledging that we as humans are resilient and we are impacted by events. And this, in and of itself, then starts to build an amount of trust not just in ourselves, but in the collective among us.

As always, chatting to Mike is a real treat. He has a unique perspective and depth of thought that he brings from his experience as a survival expert that makes this a great conversation.

#191 – Regeneration: Coming Home – Anthony James

 This week I had the great pleasure of speaking with Anthony James, who is the host of the Regen Narration Podcast which focuses on the regeneration of life on this planet. This conversation was the meeting of two ‘meta-nodes’ discussing much from across the range of people that we have both talked to on our respective podcasts.

The topic of systems came up - those that are serving and those that are not serving us. Anthony spoke about how development involves a period of unravelling and the gentle stripping of old frameworks to reveal dissolutions as well as the need to be solid in the wilderness within.

He also shared a beautiful story from Archie Rose about the elders that are sitting around the campfire waiting for us to come home – a theme that has significant meaning throughout this conversation.

This was a fantastically delicate but powerful and strong conversation with a lot of humour - particularly listen out for Anthony talking about lasting change.

#190 - Research into Psychological/Spiritual Emergency Presentation

If you regularly attend or participate in an ‘alternative healing modalities’ or are drawn to searching further ‘within’ then the content of this episode is important for you to take on board.

This week, we go further into the world of spiritual and psychological emergencies with a presentation of the findings from a recent qualitative research project that explored the experiences of people here in Western Australia that have been through such an experience.

The research was conducted by Bryn with help from a number of ‘like-concerned’ friends.

The presentation shares some of the emerging patterns from the research and sheds some light into naturally occurring human growth experience.

Following the presentation there is a Q&A in which the exploration continues from the ensuing discussion.

If you wish to get in touch as a result of listening to this please feel free to email me at warealbryn@gmail.com