Holistic Life Navigation

In this episode, Luis continues the short series on male puberty by exploring parallel co-regulation, which is similar to parallel play -- meaning they're playing near or next to each other -- and how important it is for teenage boys.  During puberty, many boys lose access to their feelings while stuck in a body overwhelmed by testosterone and transformation at every level. An increase in sen...

In this episode, Luis dives into the developmental trauma of boys -- a continuation of Episode 279: This Is Why I Think P*rnography Is Traumatizing For Developing Boys -- and how they are generally unsupported through puberty. There's a lot of discourse around "toxic males" and problematic men in our society, but not a lot of somatic discussion around how to support young boys in a...

Join Luis as he riffs about gender-affirming surgery, hormone therapy, and puberty blockers for minors. He looks to Marci Bowers, the first transgender female gynecologist and surgeon, who makes the case for not giving minors puberty blockers and hormone therapy.   Children can safely explore who they are through temporary means, such as: make-up, fashion, roles, gender and stereotypes. The teenag...

On today's episode, Luis begins a conversation about male puberty that will continue into another two videos to explore what they face when testosterone begins to transform their bodies, minds, and chemistry.  Because of this sudden biological change, p*rnography can be a developmental traumatizing experience for boys that leaves them further isolated from their bodies and emotions. For paren...

On today's episode, Luis discusses how our skin health is affected by our hormones, and by our liver health. Everything from acne, rashes, eczema, and psoriasis can be caused by impurities coming out through your skin when your liver is overtaxed. The focus is usually on sex hormones, but stress hormones can also tax your liver, which then can trigger flare ups. We can work with chronic stres...

On today's episode, Luis discusses the connection between movement and glucose. Movement and modern, industrialized food now lack a reciprocity. Movement is required for gathering and processing food; movement that many of us no longer need to perform in order to access calorically dense food. Refined foods can often cause a glucose spike, which is followed by an insulin response, and then an...

On today's episode, Luis discusses protein: how it affects mood, the nervous system, and the brain, and why it's so important to understand. Proteins are a combination of amino acids, and dopamine and serotonin rely on them. Refined foods can temporarily fill the dopamine need caused by low amino acid intake, but ensuring you have enough protein is necessary for sustained balance. And so...

On today's episode, Luis teaches how our processed food cravings can be a compass towards whole food options. Luis gives clear step-by-step conversion choices which can help support our unmet nutrition needs, and discusses how to relate to our unmet relational and emotional needs that may arise when we stop repressing them with food. You can get instant access to all of the HLN webinars and v...

On today's episode, Luis and Camille welcome back Grey Doolin to discuss marginalization and victim mentality. Join them for an open-hearted conversation, with a bit of throwing shade. They explore:  · seeking safety from outside · the way counterculture and mainstream culture interact · honoring the knowledge of community elders · separating others' judgements from internal self-worth ·...

On today's episode, Luis teaches one of his favorite practices, called "Interrupting Your Cravings." Cravings aren't about having impulse issues: they're deep unmet needs in the body that we seek to get met through eating. One of those needs is nutritional, and the other is emotional. Luis guides us through a practice to help put a pause in our cravings to help uncover wha...

On today's episode, Luis explores the way that the body stores fat, rather than the identity that can arise from it. Even though there are negative health impacts from too much fat being stored, the process is a natural, biological, animal instinct for survival, is a healthy response to the ingestion of refined carbs and sugars. Learning which foods affect insulin can help to shift the body f...

Hello sunshine! How do you enter a new day? Do you slowly stretch into it, or do you immediately plug in to dopamine via technology and screens? Join Camille and Luis as they discuss how living seasonally and cyclically can be supportive and resourcing to our bodies.  At one time everyone lived in tandem with the seasons.  Caffeine and electricity allowed our ancestors to break their own boundarie...

On today's episode Luis teaches 3 simple, free things that can help your body better manage stress and trauma recovery. Watch to learn the suggestions, and how they can support you. You can also watch the video he mentions here: https://youtu.be/7xglDqF52mg You can get instant access to all of the HLN webinars and video courses here: https://hln.thinkific.com/collections You can order the boo...

On today's episode Luis takes us through a brief self-inquiry practice to help us get in touch with the ways we use food to modulate our emotions and sensations. He reviews the way he organizes kinds of foods, and the way these food categories affect our nervous system and adrenals. Take moment to notice what foods you consume and crave, and you may find what your underlying state is. You can...

On today's podcast, Luis discusses his personal journey with trauma and nutrition, and how the two together have an impeccable ability to help people recover from stress and trauma. Luis shares his full personal story of childhood abuse, and how food was the only thing that could suppress and repress his pain. His personal experiences drew him towards a psychology degree, which he abandoned b...

Food helps us tolerate the intolerable. Processed foods can provoke a state change within us (such as joy, comfort, energized, numbed out), which produces an adrenaline response. If we eliminate processed foods, and experience food sobriety, we no longer have food manipulating our body chemistry. We become more awake to life. ⁠ ⁠ In our 6 month nutrition group we teach you how to titrate food chan...

 Snack time at Holistic Life Navigation. Drop in for a quick podcast bite full of info and tasty treats.  Do you ever experience anxiety or panic attacks? In these moments glucose fluctuates and the blood stream is flooded with adrenaline, resulting in an internal crisis. Once flooded with adrenaline we can experience hyper vigilance, muscle tension, increased heart rate, and anxiety. Balance happ...

How does it feel to express yourself in front of others? Are you at ease? Excited? Tense? Frozen?  Is stress keeping you from having a voice and expressing yourself because being seen feels dangerous? Luis uncoupled his own performing from a traumatic experience in childhood. This shift allowed him to move from burning out after performing to loving the gooeyness of performing, which he now feels...

Do you think of yourself as an empath? Do you feel a flower blooming as deeply as you feel a war-torn country's pain?  Empathy itself is a bridge of understanding, non-binary and fluid. This is flexible empathy that can pendulate between embodying others joy and their suffering.  Often when someone is referred to as an empath it is someone who reflexively seeks and feels painful stories becau...

Remember when toll booths were replaced by EzPass? Did you wonder how you would find your way to the closest restaurant or gas station without the interpersonal connection of the toll booth worker? Likewise are you skeptical about A.I.? Join Luis and Holly as they chat about how A.I. can support your creativity, allowing you to do more of what you love.  With the help of A.I. Holly Howard does pri...

Two fringe misfits walk into a Zoom room and.....  Join Grey Doolin and Luis for a joyful, lit up conversation about the spirituality of sex dysphoria. Grey shares how their trans identity is a gift not a destination, and how it's not about shutting parts of yourself off, it's about bringing all of yourself along for the ride. An important part of this realization dawned when their thera...

Maddie Durbin joins Luis for a tender exploration of her experience becoming Max, and de-transitioning back to Maddie. At 19 Maddie was looking for freedom from the pain of the human condition, she turned to transitioning as an escape. She went by Max for 6 years and took testosterone for 5 of those years, growing a full beard and undergoing a double mastectomy along the way. However, she was stil...

Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin, is a farmer, systems developer, agronomist, and business manager who runs an ecosystem. He joins Luis for a fascinating conversation ranging from the Indigenous intellect to hazelnuts.  We are a reflection of the earth, all yearning for connection. To understand the earth we need to look within and ask, do we dominate, or relate? Reginaldo tells the story of his chicke...

Our favorite biochemist, Karen Hurd, joins us again to discuss the difference between adrenaline and cortisol.  Adrenaline gives us strength to fight or run, while cortisol reduces inflammation. These hormones are released simultaneously. We are meant to experience short bursts of adrenaline and cortisol in emergency situations, not prolonged baths in them all day every day while we sit at a desk,...

Luis and his friend Steve Rasovsky have an openhearted chat about Steve's recent trip to Ghana. The Ghanaian people shared their dance, joy, community and presence with Steve. In that environment he was able to melt into presence alongside them. Being referred to with familial pronouns, with all the physical contact, and living next door to the people who were part of the towns commerce, all...