Groundless Ground Podcast artwork

Groundless Ground Podcast

62 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 1 year ago - ★★★★★ - 26 ratings

Join clinician and author Lisa Dale Miller at the leading edge of integrative mental health! We deliver thoughtful dialogues with innovative clinicians, researchers and contemplatives that unite health science research and profound wisdom traditions, inform about somatic psychotherapies and Buddhist psychology, and we do it all with big dose of intelligence, clarity, curiosity and openheartedness.

Mental Health Health & Fitness Alternative Health buddhism compassion healing health holistic meditation mind mindfulness psychology psychotherapy
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Episodes

Basic Human Goodness

March 28, 2023 13:27 - 36 minutes - 33.7 MB

This is a recording of a dharma talk Lisa Dale Miller gave March 19, 2003 at Marin Sangha.  Recently neuroscientist Richard Davidson reiterated a long-held tenet of Tibetan Buddhism that all human beings share the same wish to be happy and free of suffering, and that this wish emerges from innate basic goodness. This goodness is often viewed in Mahāyāna and Vajrayana Buddhism as an expression of Buddhanature, the fundamental awakened mind of all beings. There is not much in the Pāli Canon to...

Mental Health Renaissance

February 13, 2023 16:00 - 42 minutes - 39 MB

Psychologist, researcher, and executive Cassandra Vieten and I dialogue about a wide range of interventions that can shift the mental health crisis into a mental health renaissance. Cassie’s many years of offering patients empirically-based, mind-body tools for sustainable transformation, has taken place at several renowned academic medical institutions and greatly contributed to psychology’s integration of embodied, spiritually-oriented interventions for human flourishing such as: meditatio...

Meditation Beyond Optimization

December 04, 2022 17:13 - 52 minutes - 48.3 MB

This is a very special and quite different kind of episode to finish out the Groundless Ground’s 5th season. I have a frank discussion about the pitfalls of packaging and delivering meditation as a performative act in health contexts with Donna Sherman—clinical social worker and teacher of practical wisdom from yoga sciences, mindfulness meditation and behavioral sciences. Since Donna has studied extensively in the Tantric yoga tradition and I have expertise in Buddhist psychology, we interv...

Turn on Love and Intimacy

October 24, 2022 15:13 - 1 hour - 58.8 MB

Alison Ash PhD is a sex and intimacy coach, educator, and creator of many sex positive workshops including her upcoming, very popular Sexual and Emotional Intimacy Skills Mastercourse. This dialogue was stunningly rich and informative for both of us. We freely converse about sex positivity and how consent skills make it possible to skillfully and joyfully give and receive pleasure, flirt and seduce, have more intimacy, and better understand monogamous and non-monogamous relationships. We als...

Embodying Emotions

September 06, 2022 14:00 - 49 minutes - 45.1 MB

Psychologist Raja Selvam, discusses his new book, The Practice of Embodying Emotions: A Guide for Improving Cognitive, Emotional, and Behavioral Outcomes.  Raja is the creator of Integral Somatic Psychology™ (ISP™), an effective somatic therapy that encourages optimal mental health by fully embodying emotions. Raja and I explore how clinicians can facilitate patient resolution of difficult emotions by allowing increased recognition of emotion and then expanding that emotion to more of the bo...

Science of Psychotherapy

July 25, 2022 15:00 - 44 minutes - 40.9 MB

Richard Hill and Matthew Dahlitz have written a comprehensive, definitively modern psychotherapy textbook titled, "Practitioners Guide to the Science of Psychotherapy". Their book covers basic neuroscience, body-brain systems, genetic processes and the application of integrative psychotherapy modalities for mental health disorders. This is the textbook I wished for many years ago when I attended graduate school. I was so excited to dialogue with these two brilliant men about the current sad ...

Beyond Distraction

June 10, 2022 20:27 - 56 minutes - 51.3 MB

This episode features a rich, in-depth dialogue with Buddhist teacher and author Shaila Catherine on her new book, Beyond Distraction: Five Practical Ways to Focus the Mind. Using a Theravada Buddhist approach for cultivating focus, clarity, and wise action, Shaila offers an effective five-step method for changing distorted, habitual thoughts: 1) replace unwanted thoughts; 2) examine the dangers of distracting thoughts; 3) avert distraction; 4) investigate the causes of distraction; and 5) e...

MORE Research Update

May 02, 2022 16:12 - 58 minutes - 79.8 MB

Eric Garland, PhD, LCSW, and I discuss exciting new research on the effectiveness of Mindfulness Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE)—his unique mindfulness intervention—for alleviating the cognitive-affective distress associated with chronic pain and co-occurring opioid misuse. We also focus on the value of meditation, expanding consciousness, and experiencing bliss in decreasing reliance on opioids and increasing capacity for ordinary pleasures. Lots of neuroscience and we cover research o...

Being Wise in a Time of War

March 21, 2022 14:00 - 56 minutes - 51.9 MB

It’s been a very disturbing few weeks since Russia invaded Ukraine. Coincident with the initiation of war, clinician, author and dharma teacher Lisa Dale Miller taught two weeks in a row at Marin Sangha. These two dharma talks explore, from a Buddhist point of view, what it means to be wise, compassionate, and even awakened in the midst of difficult circumstances. The second talk, which starts at 27:00, dives deeper into what the Buddha called, the rod of violence, as well as its causes and ...

Mark Solms on Consciousness

February 14, 2022 15:47 - 1 hour - 59.2 MB

Consciousness remains a scientific puzzle: what it is, what creates it, and though all known conscious systems are alive, not all living systems are conscious. These days cortical-based theories of consciousness are all the rage. However, renown neuropsychologist and psychoanalyst Mark Solms has put forth, in his book “The Hidden Spring”, a radically convincing theory for the subcortical, homeostatic origins of consciousness rooted primarily in feeling or what is known as affect. Dr. Solms e...

Somatic Horsemanship

January 10, 2022 18:00 - 53 minutes - 49 MB

This is a very special episode with Beverley Kane, MD, discussing her book Equine-imity: Stress Reduction and Emotional Self-Regulation in the Company of Horses, which introduces us to somatic horsemanship—a therapeutic practice for exploring the physical relationship between humans and horses, on the ground and on the horse, to promote body-mind-spirit well-being in both species. Dr. Kane portrays horses as consummate teachers of healthy embodiment and emotional resilience and describes int...

Rescuing Virtue

December 12, 2021 22:03 - 53 minutes - 48.6 MB

Stuart Shanker, MD and I address the loss of virtue as a fundamental part of societal and individual conduct and how to reinvigorate it. He notes with sadness the quaint overtones and ironic sarcasm that has infected discussion of virtuous conduct; particularly in politics, journalism, academia, and psychology. We name the war between reason and emotion, rationality and irrationality, and discuss its role in widespread sense of unsafety, outright lying and ‘truthiness’ in media, and the cont...

Neurobiology of Trauma and MDMA for PTSD

November 01, 2021 15:22 - 1 hour - 68.9 MB

Psychologist Jim Hopper and I discuss the neurobiology of trauma, MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD, the critical role embodied treatment modalities play in trauma healing, and use of Buddhist psychology and Internal Family Systems (IFS) for trauma resolution. He fully explicates the process used in the FDA-approved and MAPS-sponsored MDMA phase 3 trials, discusses the results, and clarifies for whom MDMA, Ketamine or psilocybin sessions could be adjunctive trauma treatment. We also discuss a h...

Kindness vs Niceness

September 30, 2021 15:03 - 1 hour - 64 MB

Two recent dharma talks given by Lisa Dale Miller at Marin Sangha explicate what kindness is from Buddhist psychological perspective and how it radically differs from niceness. To lay the groundwork of what kindness is, the first talk employs a very challenging sutta, “The Simile of the Saw”, where the Buddha proscribes wholesome conduct in all manner of difficult relational engagements.  The second talk investigates kindness and niceness and clarifies their differences. Niceness though plea...

Stuart Shanker on Reframing for a Just Society

August 31, 2021 16:02 - 50 minutes - 46.1 MB

Stuart Shanker, PhD is a world-renown author, researcher and scholar on self-regulation science and creator of the groundbreaking Self-Reg method for cultivating mental and physical well-being. His life’s work has focused on the beneficial role that positive stress plays in children’s development and learning, and the harmful effects of excessive negative stress on parents, educators, and children. His new book, REFRAMED: Self-Reg for a just society, explores self-regulation in wider, social...

Rodney Dietert on Microbiome-First Medicine

August 02, 2021 20:50 - 55 minutes - 51 MB

Get ready for a microbiome geek-fest with Cornell Professor Emeritus, health scientist, and author Rodney Dietert, as we celebrate the 10th anniversary of his pioneering book, The Human Super-organism. Rodney shares the fascinating history of microbiome research and recounts his own life-changing, career-shifting revelations about microbiome-first medicine in reversing the modern epidemic of non-communicable chronic diseases (NCDs) and immune system disorders. We discuss the difference betwe...

Jeremy Lent on The Web of Meaning

June 29, 2021 15:35 - 1 hour - 59.5 MB

Jeremy Lent’s new book, The Web of Meaning: Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find Our Place in the Universe offers a coherent worldview of deep interconnectedness by integrating ancient Taoist and Buddhist views of humanness and awakening, with a modern scientific, conceptually-oriented view of human capacity. Jeremy makes the case for reigniting lost ethical values that can shift the disconnection that has led humanity to the brink of ecological and societal destruction. We dis...

Tibetan Buddhist Foundational Practices

May 31, 2021 14:14 - 56 minutes - 52 MB

This is a very special episode featuring Anne C. Klein, PhD, aka Lama Rigzin Drolma; Professor of Religious Studies at Rice University, Buddhist Studies scholar and Tibetan translator, author, and Tibetan Buddhist teacher. It was such an honor to discuss Dr. Klein’s groundbreaking book, Heart Essence of the Vast Expanse Foundational Practices and the Transmission of the Longchen Nyingthig. We speak frankly and deeply about Nundro; its practice and relevance for Western Tibetan Buddhist pract...

Jud Brewer: Unwind Your Anxiety Habit

April 26, 2021 13:49 - 48 minutes - 44.3 MB

Psychiatrist, renown mindfulness and habit change researcher, Jud Brewer, MD, PhD once again disrupts conventional framing of mental health disorders and their treatment. This time the target is anxiety. Jud says you cannot think your way out of anxiety.  Because anxiety is actually a habit loop—an unrewarding reward that experientially and neurobiologically mirrors addiction. Jud unpacks this brilliant and effective revisioning of anxiety and a radically beautiful treatment model, which is ...

Kathy Kain On Somatic Interventions

March 14, 2021 16:28 - 1 hour - 70.5 MB

Kathy L. Kain, PhD returns to share her unparalleled expertise on effective use of somatic interventions in in-person and online psychotherapy. She gets very specific about what interventions work and don’t work, and the kind of patients that may benefit or be underserved when the medium of contact is screen-only. And Kathy gives in-depth analysis of the interplay of awareness and points of contact in somatic interventions; regardless of whether the clinician has physical contact with a pati...

Bill Plotkin on the Journey of the Soul

February 06, 2021 16:06 - 1 hour - 63.4 MB

Soul initiation is an essential and hazardous spiritual adventure that most modern cultures have forgotten. Eco-psychologist Bill Plotkin discusses this mythopoetic, life-altering journey which he beautifully explicates in his new book, Journey of Soul Initiation. I chose to commence GG Season Four with this riveting, deep and edgy dialogue on the transformative and profound path of forging a true adult. Bill’s wisdom, humility and radical honesty shine through as he describes his own soul j...

Opening To Grief

December 20, 2020 23:00 - 42 minutes - 39 MB

In this year of radical loss, Opening to Grief: Finding your way from loss to peace is an essential guidebook for anyone navigating grief and loss. Claire B. Willis, author, clinical social worker, ordained lay Buddhist chaplain and yoga teacher talks about her journey writing this book and shares expert counsel about the many ways to honor any form of loss you might be experiencing as 2020 comes to a close. This is an invaluable episode for closing a horrifically strange year, and doing wha...

Evan Thompson On Why He Is Not A Buddhist

November 27, 2020 16:07 - 59 minutes - 54.1 MB

My second dialogue with Evan Thompson covers his latest and most controversial book, Why I Am Not A Buddhist, which spotlights conceptual and functional problems with Buddhist modernism, Buddhist exceptionalism, Buddhist Empiricism, and neural Buddhism. With philosophical adeptness, Evan argues a cosmopolitan view of not-self and enlightenment, and skillfully slays popular one-dimensional co-options of the Buddhist teachings by Robert Wright and Sam Harris. This episode is dedicated to Evan’...

VOTE! Be On Fire Without Being Aflame

October 06, 2020 02:24 - 30 minutes - 27.9 MB

This episode is a dharma talk I gave online at Marin Sangha on 9/13, when we were experiencing insane wildfires burning throughout our area. The talk uses the Fire Sutta to explore collective conduct and personal responsibility in the midst of extreme life circumstances such as 2020 continues to bring many of us. My intention in releasing it now is to incline every eligible American to vote with the preservation of our democracy foremost in mind. Our President and Senate leaders have failed ...

Lama Rod Owens: Liberation through anger

September 01, 2020 03:52 - 47 minutes - 43.5 MB

Lama Rod Owens, African-American author and Tibetan Buddhist teacher, describes himself as, “black, queer, cisgender, and male-identified, fat, mixed class, Buddhist teacher and minister, yoga teacher, and shit-talking Southerner.” When I contacted Lama Rod more than a year ago to have him on the show, his assistant told me he was deep into writing his newly published book, Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation Through Anger, and to check back in the Spring of 2020. Well, America has been th...

Teja Bell on Chinese Internal Arts

July 13, 2020 19:23 - 54 minutes - 50.1 MB

This episode is a celebration of Teja Bell, a lifelong practitioner and teacher of Aikido, Taijiquan, Qigong, Neigong, Buddhism and Taoism. I have studied qigong with Teja for many years and delighted in QigongDharma and Radiant Heart Qigong, his unique integration of Buddhist meditation and qigong. He is an Aikido master (6th degree black belt) and a roshi in the Rinzai Zen Buddhist lineage. Teja shares his remarkable introduction to martial arts as a young teen in Iowa, and long history of...

Eric Garland: Mindfulness and Addiction Recovery

June 16, 2020 16:36 - 49 minutes - 45 MB

Eric Garland, PhD, LCSW, is a rare combination of rigorous researcher and compassionate clinician. His unique integration of CBT and mindfulness led him to create Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE), an integrative group intervention for treating chronic pain, stress, and opioid misuse. His attention to detail and methodology has made him a trusted researcher. In 2019 he was appointed to the NIH HEAL Multi-Disciplinary Working Group to help guide the HEAL initiative on pain and ...

Kristin Andrews on Animal Minds

May 19, 2020 13:11 - 1 hour - 62.2 MB

Are non-human animals conscious? Do non-human animal minds have concepts, intelligence, memory, intentionality, ethics, and social behavior? Kristin Andrews, professor of philosophy, author, and pioneering researcher in moral cognition, discusses non-human animal consciousness and the ethical problems of using non-human animals, like rats, as research subjects. To celebrate the newly released Second Edition of Kristin’s seminal textbook, The Animal Mind, we dive deep into philosophical inqui...

Sylver Quevedo: Psychedelic-assisted Therapies

April 21, 2020 14:39 - 1 hour - 58.6 MB

Psychedelic-assisted interventions appear to be all the rage these days. Though there are many psychedelic evangelists I wanted to find a credible medical resource to discuss these treatments. Deep gratitude to my friend Ron Purser who introduced me to my esteemed guest, Sylver Quevedo, MD, a pioneer in integrative family and internal medicine, assistant professor of medicine at Stanford and UCSF, co-Founder of Polaris Insight Center for Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy, and Principle Investi...

Staying Sane While Staying At Home

March 28, 2020 21:57 - 17 minutes - 16 MB

Lisa Dale Miller, psychotherapist and dharma teacher, shares three invaluable daily practices for maintaining sanity in our “new normal” of staying at home all the time.  1) Three Gratitudes Practice 2) Awareness Breaks for when you feel agitated or anxious 3) Diligence and Renunciation Practice as helpmates to get good sleep, exercise everyday, and eat healthy food. Lisa's website: https://lisadalemiller.com

COVID-19: Advice For Awakening

March 15, 2020 14:40 - 8 minutes - 8.17 MB

The COVID-19 outbreak is the very time for meditative practice because chaos and uncertainty are the rich soil of awakening! Of great help is to shift your mindset into a compassionate stance with respect to social distancing and spending more time at home. Lisa Dale Miller, psychotherapist and dharma teacher, shares advice and easy practices for doing this right now, in your life, in the midst of suffering. Learn how to be kind, patient, generous, wise and consider those who are less fortun...

James Gordon: Heal Trauma and Transform Now!

March 06, 2020 04:37 - 43 minutes - 40.1 MB

Psychiatrist James S. Gordon pioneered a mind-body methodology widely used around the world for healing psychological trauma. His latest book, The Transformation: Discovering Wholeness and Healing After Trauma, offers a comprehensive evidence-based program anyone can use to reverse the psychological and biological damage caused by traumatic experience. Dr. Gordon interweaves the latest scientific research, inspiring recovery stories, timeless wisdom and 50 years of clinical experience to hel...

Stuart Eisendrath: Healing Depression When Antidepressants Aren't Enough

February 07, 2020 17:47 - 50 minutes - 46.2 MB

Depression is a relapsing disease and preventing future depressive episodes is critical for lifelong mental health. Psychiatrist and UCSF Professor Emeritus Stuart Eisendrath’s new book, When Antidepressants Aren’t Enough: Harnessing mindfulness to alleviate depression, is a layperson’s guide for depression relapse prevention. His book offers detailed psycho-education on depression and anxiety (something most patients rarely receive) and features an easy-to-follow program of targeted breath ...

2020: See Clearly and Act Wisely

January 13, 2020 23:40 - 37 minutes - 34.3 MB

Last week a patient greeted me with these words, “2020. Clear vision.” That declaration of clear knowing, exemplifies every wish I have for our world as we step into a new decade. See clearly, care deeply, act wisely. Though I infrequently feature two dharma talks in a row on this podcast, this one epitomizes the power of imparting wisdom at a time when our world is in such disarray. As part of a series of talks on the Four Noble Truths, I was tasked to teach on the First Noble Truth: the Bu...

Buddhist Psychology of Climate Denial

December 16, 2019 16:33 - 41 minutes - 37.8 MB

Welcome to the end of the year, the end of the decade, and the last episode in GG Season Two. From the creator’s side, GG Season 3 looks like the best is yet to come. It’s been a challenging year globally in so many ways. And certainly climate disruption tops the list of 2019’s human failures: We utterly fail to comprehend the consequences of our continued denials, delayals and complacency. America is truly the worst offender and I suspect this is because temperature rise is always describe...

Anthony Aguirre: Cosmological Koans

November 21, 2019 22:00 - 1 hour - 55.7 MB

If it is not by now fully apparent how much I love science, this conversation, well more accurately this rare chance to sit at the feet of a science master, is proof that there is nothing more surprising and profound than the physics of space, time, information, and quantum reality. Cosmologist, UCSC physics professor, science activist, and author Anthony Aguirre, generously discusses the intricacies of deep reality he shares in his astonishingly creative new book titled, Cosmological Koans:...

Loch Kelly: The Way of Effortless Mindfulness

October 21, 2019 15:42 - 57 minutes - 52.5 MB

Loch Kelly’s new book, The Way of Effortless Mindfulness, is a practice manual for living a fully embodied, open-hearted life. Loch insists the goal of effortless mindfulness is not to escape or transcend, but to recognize and embody wakeful pure awareness, which is ever-present in the midst of the full range of human experience. To help listeners directly know effortless mindfulness, Loch offers a few mindful glimpse practices along with in-depth structural descriptions of what differentiat...

Andrew Holecek: Dream and Sleep Yogas and the Bardos

September 16, 2019 03:25 - 46 minutes - 42.4 MB

This episode is a dive deep into the extraordinary Tibetan Buddhist teachings on Dream Yoga, Sleep Yoga, and the Bardos, with Andrew Holecek; a longtime Tibetan Buddhist practitioner and expert in offering these teachings via contemporary language and authentic practices. Andrew’s methodology goes way beyond lucid dreaming. He believes that shamatha and vipashyana meditation are foundational to all the advanced practices he teaches, and his purpose for sharing this knowledge is facilitating ...

How Buddhism Regards Those Who Harm Others

August 19, 2019 04:32 - 41 minutes - 38.3 MB

This episode features a dharma talk given by Lisa Dale Miller at Marin Sangha in March 2019. The talk begins with a discussion of teachers and their fallibilities, and the ethical standards the Buddhist teachings require teachers to uphold. The second part of the talk focuses on human beings who spend their lives engaged in wrongdoing, realize their misconduct, endeavor to transform internal suffering, and consequently end further wrongdoing. How do we hold such individuals accountable for t...

The Buddha in Jail: Cuong Lu on Interbeing

July 18, 2019 17:18 - 42 minutes - 38.8 MB

My dialogue with Cuong Lu, Buddhist teacher and prison chaplain in the Netherlands, was by far the most moving experience of my podcasting life. Cuong’s wisdom and limitless compassion brought me to tears several times during our time together. He was born in Vietnam and grew up in the midst of war, only knowing fighting until his mother moved them to the Netherlands when he was twelve years old and he experienced friendliness for the first time. He spent many years as a monk with Thich Nhat...

Ron Purser: McMindfulness And Its Discontents

June 23, 2019 01:34 - 44 minutes - 41.3 MB

It seems the more mindfulness is mainstreamed, the more its claims are being questioned. Ron Purser, Professor of Management at SFSU and author of the new groundbreaking book, McMindfulness: How Mindfulness Became the New Capitalist Spirituality, has been a longtime critic of the widespread mainstreaming and overselling of mindfulness practices. He views mainstream mindfulness as an amplifier of Western consumerist individualism and a banal form of capitalist spirituality; one he claims utte...

Anna Lembke: Chronic Pain, Dual-Diagnosis and Addiction Treatment

May 20, 2019 17:46 - 58 minutes - 53.5 MB

This episode features Anna Lembke, MD, Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University Medical School and author of the massively influential book Drug Dealer, MD. Dr. Lembke shares her immeasurable expertise in psychiatry, dual-diagnosis and chronic pain treatment, with a heavy dose of unmitigated truth-telling. Our dialogue is a thoughtful, no holds barred look at: The toyotaization of medicine; the devastating effects of opiate over-prescribing coupled wit...

Gabrielle Hartley: How to divorce wisely

April 20, 2019 22:11 - 42 minutes - 38.5 MB

Divorce is almost as much a part of life as marriage. Yet most couples are in the dark about pro-social, non-toxic approaches to divorce. Enter Gabrielle Hartley, attorney, mediator and co-author of Better Apart, a practical guide for skillfully executing a divorce and emerging a wiser, more compassionate and resilient human being. The uniqueness of this approach comes from expert integration of sound legal wisdom and teachings on skillful means from yogic and Buddhist philosophies. You will...

Judson Brewer On Mastering the Addictive Mind

March 17, 2019 22:36 - 44 minutes - 40.6 MB

This is a very special episode featuring Judson Brewer, MD, PhD, addiction psychiatrist, author, app developer, and associate professor of psychiatry at Brown University School of Medicine. Jud is a seasoned researcher of mindfulness interventions for addiction and developer of novel habit-change apps for abating anxiety and craving. A longtime Buddhist meditation practitioner Jud is a relentless data hound not an evangelist. He was among the first to use real-time neurofeedback and fMRI to ...

More Than You Think It Is: John Astin on nondual reality

February 20, 2019 17:07 - 49 minutes - 45 MB

Describing what is ultimately indescribable, that which transcends language, is really challenging. Yet psychologist John Astin accomplishes this daunting task so beautifully in his new book, This Extraordinary Moment. And John and I try our best in this rich dialogue to entice you into a process of profound inquiry into nondual reality and its usefulness in psychotherapeutic contexts for going beyond suffering, enlivening inner freedom and generating systemic well-being. I could not think o...

Healing Collective Trauma: The Key to Sustainable Peacemaking

January 27, 2019 18:30 - 42 minutes - 39 MB

This dialogue with visionary psychotherapist Gina Ross—a pioneer in understanding and healing collective trauma—is both informative and deeply moving. A Syrian Jew with empathy for both Israeli and Arabic cultures, and founder of the International Trauma Healing Institutes, Gina has devoted her life’s work to resolving the societal and individual dysregulation that underlies trauma and ultimately feeds all forms of violence and hatred.  Gina discusses the role of trauma in conflict zones s...

Alaine Duncan on the Tao of Trauma and Trauma-Informed Acupuncture

December 30, 2018 22:57 - 51 minutes - 46.9 MB

Happy New Year! I am very excited to launch GG Season Two by dialoging with Alaine Duncan, Doctor of Chinese Medicine. Alaine has invented a truly unique approach to trauma-informed acupuncture which integrates the neurobiology of traumatic stress, Somatic Experiencing skills and Daoist Five Element theory. Her new book, The Tao of Trauma, co-authored with Kathy Kain, views trauma through this ancient-modern integrative lens and lays out practical strategies for treating common co-morbiditie...

Deconstructing The Five Aggregates And Their Deathless Nature

December 09, 2018 23:29 - 55 minutes - 51.2 MB

This last episode of the Groundless Ground Season One features two consecutive dharma talks recently given by Lisa Dale Miller on the five aggregates—the main agent of mental and emotional suffering in the Buddha’s teachings on the Four Noble Truths. Lisa's first talk deconstructs the illusory ‘heap’ nature of the five aggregates and explicates their pivotal role in both creating and/or liberating us from suffering. The second talk dives deeply into the relationship of the five aggregates ...

Jeremy Lent on Systems Theory, Wisdom Traditions and a Path to Sustainability

November 11, 2018 02:35 - 53 minutes - 49.5 MB

This dialogue with Jeremy Lent is chockfull of insights and guidance on how individuals can make lasting, positive impacts and change the collective current disastrous course humanity appears to be on. Jeremy is a modern-day renaissance man. Educated at Cambridge University and University of Chicago, he founded and IPOed an early internet company, and then due to distressful life circumstances, left the business world to engage in deep inquiry into the confluences of meaning and truth pervad...

Embodied Recovery for Eating Disorders: A dialogue with Paula Scatoloni, LCSW

October 18, 2018 23:28 - 43 minutes - 41.5 MB

Paula Scatoloni, a somatic psychotherapist and Certified Eating Disorders Specialist, explicates the insufficiency of standardized cognitive and behavioral eating disorder treatment, and introduces Embodied Recovery, a cutting-edge somatically-oriented, trauma-informed approach, which considers the body and embodiment the missing link for effective treatment of disordered eating. Paula provides an overview of the Embodied Recovery training program she co-created with Rachel Lewis-Marlow, an...