Polly's Vague Theories

Always wanted to meet a furturist? Here's your moment. The final episode in this exploration of leadership and neurodiversity features Katy Cooper, futurist, strategist, leadership unicorn and all round compassionate being who I am now very happy (with the magic of linear time since recording this episode) to also call my business partner and Co-CEO. As we turn to what's now and what's next in Lea...

In the penultimate episode of All Brains Welcome we chat with Dr Sam Perkins, an AuADHDer, Buddhist and petrol head who's career has spanned aeronautical engineering to cellular agriculture. I asked him how being neurodivergent impacted his leadership journey through life, and what organisations are missing out on when they ignore the power and productivity of cognitive diversity. Wanna know more...

On Episode 8 of All Brains Welcome, meet my friend, colleague and LGBTIQA+ leader Reed Everingham. Like many of the people who have appeared on this series, his diagnosis came late in life, and the evolution of self happened because of, and in spite of, the experience of neurodivergence and how it shaped his navigation of the world. This is a beautiful episode as Reed thoughtfully and eloquently d...

On Ep7 of the poddy, meet Jeremy Nagel, a neurospicy software developer turned startup founder who is slightly obsessed with habits. He likes to start each day with a 2hr morning routine and sometimes surprises colleagues by riding his elliptical trainer during meetings to keep the energy high. When he's not working on startups, he enjoys cross-country skiing, trail running and cycling with hi...

On this episode of All Brains Welcome the incredible Bianca Welsh - read her bio below to see what I mean. Bianca has a multifaceted insight into neurodiversity as an employer of many young people in her restaurants, as a partner and through her mental health business From Experience. I love Bianca's capacity for action and contemplation as she navigates through life, and am very glad she made...

The education system is the entry point for many people where their neurodivergence is noticed and begins to come up against some of the hard baked neurotypical barriers that continue into the systems of work. On this episode we meet Jocelyn Brewer, a Sydney-based psychologist with a special interest in the psychology of technology and staying human in a digitally-saturated age. She created Digita...

Season Three of Polly's Vague Theories explores neurodiversity, leadership and inclusion through the stories of lived experience. How do people with neurodivergent brains navigate the complexity of contemporary leadership? How can cultures better accommodate people to lead from authenticity, connection and creativity rather than survival? Does a diagnosis matter and why.  Episode 4 we meet Cre...

Season Three of Polly's Vague Theories explores neurodiversity, leadership and inclusion through the stories of lived experience. How do people with neurodivergent brains navigate the complexity of  contemporary leadership? How can cultures better accommodate people to lead from authenticity, connection and creativity rather than survival? Does a diagnosis matter and why.  On Episode Two , mee...

Season Three of Polly's Vague Theories explores neurodiversity, leadership and inclusion through the stories of lived experience. How do people with neurodivergent brains navigate the complexity of  contemporary leadership? How can cultures better accommodate people to lead from authenticity, connection and creativity rather than survival? Does a diagnosis matter and why.  On Ep3 meet Bree Gor...

Season Three of Polly's Vague Theories explores neurodiversity, leadership, and inclusion through the stories of lived experience. How do people with neurodivergent brains navigate the complexity of contemporary leadership? How can cultures better accommodate people to lead from authenticity, connection and creativity rather than survival? Does a diagnosis matter and why.  On Episode One , I a...

Attachment theory sits at the beating heart of how we can best understand interpersonal trauma. The t word still puts people off, but when you understand how you developed the parts of your brain and nervous system that register safety and danger, and what that looks like pre-natally to newborn to later life, you have the keys to the car of your own responses. This gives you the chance to modify o...

On this episode of the podcast i'm joined by Simon Gates. I recently was featured on the Law Society of Tasmania's podcast where we talked about trauma and wellbeing of lawyers, and it really peaked my interest in how do lawyers and the sector more broadly deal with the vicarious and frontline trauma that happens in their professions - especially when some of the systems of the law are set...

Sometimes in all my IFS therapy work, I forget just how powerful a breathwork journey can be. That is until I hold space for a group and watch everyone go through their process. After a journey, there is always an integration to share stories and make sense of what happens, this is my favorite time, as you never know what is going on in the subterranean world of the human condition, sometimes you...

Dean Yates was head of mental health and wellbeing strategy at Reuters, the world's largest news provider, for nearly three years until January 2020. Before that he was a journalist, bureau chief and senior editor at Reuters for more than 22 years. Dean was the ideal war zone correspondent: courageous, compassionate, dedicated. After years of facing the worst, though, including the Bali bombin...

Tucked up on the top right-hand side of my website is a little button that I always ask listeners to hit me up through with any questions they might want answered on the podcast. This episode is dedicated to responding to those anonymous correspondents with a mix of thoughts, feels, opinions and of course some IFS and parts thrown in!

Teachers are at the coalface of classroom co-regulation, but who is regulating them, and how are they staying in their grounded confidence and Self energy when managing a collective of nervous systems? This episiode is DEDICATED to teachers, and we explore some of the challenges and strategies for creating psychologically safe classrooms where everyone can learn and thrive.

Zoë Coyle's second novel, The Dangers of Female Provocation , is first and foremost a story that is compelling, shocking, saucy, wild and compelling as a study of people, relationships, female rage and how very good people can do some very questionable things in the name of love and revenge. On this episode, Zoë and I explore the idea of healthy anger as a gendered affect, as a place where tra...

The fabulous Bjarne Kragh from Southside Physio in Canberra and I made a podcast last year about all things pain, polyvagal theory, breathwork and more. He's kindly shared the audio with me so we can both hook our people into our superfun rap. Bjarne is such a cool man, enjoy my classic ramblings and his Viking responses. Gorg!

Is intuition some special sauce of psychics and charletons or is it our very own ANS GPS? I think we all know what my answer is going to be - lets explore!

In this episode we have a look at Internal Family Systems, how does it work, what is parts work, and have a little exercise at the end to meet a part. Hello there!

It's time to go in to bat for perfect - and shine a light on some of the linguistic issues with the binaries inherent in our language. Perfection and imperfection are not our only two choices, especially when we bring in the superhero that is the big S Self, pay attention to our needs, and stay in the centre. 

Imagine you are on a street corner, trying to work out where you are, no language, no clue, and no one to help. Been there? If so, you might have had an embodied experience of what it is to be literally without the capacity to communicate your needs. Scary? Sure. Frustrating. Absolutely. The link between trauma and language, and the acquisition of language is fascinating, and closely tied to our n...

Zoë Coyle's debut novel ' Where the Light Gets In ' is a beautiful narrative of love, death, grief, loss, heartbreak and recovery - basically a story about the nervous system. In this episode of the podcast, Zoe joins me to talk about what it is to be a sensitive creative and experience the real and vicarious trauma of expression in all its forms; how writing is catharsis and gives us the chance t...

What to do when a webinar has so many juicy questions you can't get to them all? Turn them into a podcast episode of course! This one is chock a block with all the tea on vulnerability, trauma, leadership, values and how to stay grounded and real no matter what is coming at you. 

Would you record an episode of your podcast when you were fasting that was all about food? Yes GAWD. Well it seemed like a good idea at the time, to explore the relationship between the ancient medicine of ayurveda, trauma and the rungs of the polyvagal theory ladder. Did it get a little messy, were any soapboxes clambered upon, were the glimmers of genius amongst the hanger...y'all better order a...