Spirit Levels

How do we confront the mortality of someone we love? In the final episode of this season of Spirit Levels , our guests help Jenny through her existential fear of Frank’s death (it’s okay, he’s fine).   Lo Carmen, host of the podcast Death Is Not the End, talks romantic death pop, funeral song choices and turning ashes into records. Kimba Griffith, of The Last Hurrah Funerals, discusses the fi...

What are you afraid of, reasonably or unreasonably? And what can help combat that? Hypnosis? Exposure therapy? Flooding? Guidance? In episode 27 of Spirit Levels we use Jenny’s fear of sharks as a case study, meeting with Will Salter, a man who came eye to eye with a great white shark when surfing; Lola Broomhall, a freediver and breathwork practitioner, and hypnotist Jeremy Walker. LINKS Lola Bro...

We’re going to be in Bali by the time you hear this, gathering some more weird wellness intel, so this ep we handed the mic over to our listeners to find out how they start the day the right way. From oil pulling, to 5 Tibetan rites to doing naked squats in the elements… we really feel like we know them very well now.   LINKS Among our contributors this episode were Mena from Human Thriving (...

Who the hell would want to be a Stoic? That was journalist Brigid Delaney’s thought when she was commissioned to write a book on Stoic philosophy. Brigid felt she was more Epicurean by nature if anything, but having now written the book Reasons Not to Worry: How to be Stoic in Chaotic Times , she's happy to admit Marcus Aurelius and co. rule her life. In this episode, Brigid walks us through: What...

If your life coach is a psychopath, is that necessarily a bad thing? Coaching is marketed to wannabes as a luxury, business-class lifestyle that grants you total freedom and easy money. (And oh yeah, you might have to deal with some clients in crisis, too.) You’ve just got to learn how to hustle , which means paying a whoop-load of cash to other coaches to get 'the codes'. Possibly for the rest of...

The English and the Australians – of which we here at Spirit Levels represent both – are notoriously prudish when it comes to nudity, so Frank and Jenny want to know if they can break their conditioning. This episode takes us from tischtennis halls of Berlin to the secret beaches of Australia. Listen along: 01.16 Frank slept in his mum and dad’s bed till he was six. 02.33 Titillation is not the sa...

Sport psychology is psychology on steroids. Athletes experience success failure, goal-setting and pressure at a heightened level, so delving into their mindsets has so much to teach us mere mortals about optimising our everyday lives. Our guest is mental fitness coach Brett Stephens, aka Moose. He’s a former professional footballer who then became a performance coach on the professional tennis cir...

If you enjoyed our episode ‘What Can a Top Performance Coach Teach Us All’, or if you’re just a huge tennis fan, maybe you want to go a little deeper. In this bonus episode, performance coach Brett Stephens, aka, Moose, satisfies our curiosity about what the tennis greats of the nineties were really like. “Sort of name dropping a bit here, but that's what podcasts are about, right?” “Absolutely.”...

This episode, we invite you to let it all hang out. Frank and Jenny visit the Finnish Church in London to take a pew in the basement sauna that brings everyone together, not just the congregation. There, rector Marjaana Härkönen talks about the connection between spirit and the sauna – ‘löyly’ – and what to drink while you’re busy connecting. Now look, we know people banging on about saunas can be...

Is calling yourself 'Mother God' a legit way to promote healing around the world or a chronic case of spiritual narcissism? Is reading The Secret a neat way of visualising your goals or as entitled as Veruca Salt demanding a Oompa Loompa? Do energy healers really have special powers or is it the power of the placebo effect? This episode, Frank and Jenny probe Jenny’s scepticism of energy healing a...

Vipassana is an intensive, 10-day form of meditation often likened to taking a heroic dose of a psychedelic trip, in terms of the profound realisations an individual can reach. And just like with hallucinogenic drugs, those with a predisposition to mental health issues, or who are at a vulnerable point in their life, can experience adverse effects – as the podcast Untold: The Retreat has found. Fr...

Have you ever had your head scissored? Have you been piggybacked, by a muscular woman in a bikini? Fireman-carried across a five-star hotel room? Choked gently to sleep? If not, you can. Muscle worship sites are full of bodybuilding, tough-as-fuck women who are ready to arm-wrestle you into humiliation for a price.   Kortney Olson is larger-than-life in every way. A hoot, a scream, a boss – i...

Are you related to either Jenny or Frank? If so, back away now – this one is NOT for you. Nor is it suitable for under-18s. Okay. In A Priest and a Navy Officer Walk Into a Bar , Jenny and Frank work out ways to role play that aren’t cringe-inducing, with the notion that starting a scenario in public – a bit like high-risk improv – is key. They recruit their friends Jan and Steve – who’ve been hap...

Have you just finished Dry January? Thinking about Feb Fast? Can’t face either just yet? Maybe you’re a ‘grey area drinker’. This term was coined in 2018 by Jolene Park, who has trained many grey area drinking coaches. Since then, a whole world of alcohol-free, sober-pride people has populated social media, talking openly about their drinking, moderating and quitting, without the stigma attached t...

ASMR. Never before have four letters divided people into two camps so soundly: The “What’s that?” camp and the “Yes, I watch girls in Ohio pretend to give me a cranial nerve exam all the time” camp.   Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response videos are commonly credited with helping people sleep and helping with anxiety. ASMR was only coined as a phrase in 2009, but those who get the ‘brain tingl...

Whether or not our bodies need help detoxifying is a hotly debated topic. Feeling sluggish after a bumper holiday season, Frank decides to try a 16:8 fast, then ups the ante to a five-day juice cleanse with a course of colonics. That’s all very well when you’re paying for the privilege in a luxury resort, but how hard is it to commit under your own steam, on home turf? Jenny chips in by offering a...

Just started up at the gym again? What's more likely to turbo-charge your session than a big scoop of pre-workout? Motivational speeches! This genre was first adopted by weightlifters who wanted Arnold Schwarzenegger screaming encouragement over rousing strings as they bench pressed, but it has since infiltrated the mainstream. Boiled down to its essence, the premise is: You’re the underdog. Nobod...

Since the launch of Spirit Levels in October, we've road-tested a Melbourne cuddle club, MDMA couples therapy, extreme weight cutting, insomnia fixes, biometric tests, ADHD coaching, facilitated breath repatterning, cold water therapy and ecstatic dancing, not to mention we tried to turn Frank into a spiritual life-coach guru.    Next week, on January 9th, we'll be human guinea pigs once...

We're 12 episodes into Spirit Levels podcast, so as 2023 draws to a close, we recap our first three months of wellness adventures, from the pseudo to the sensible. NB: We should add that we recorded this while in the throes of Covid (thanks, Berlin!). We would definitely sound more pumped otherwise. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What’s the difference between 5 Rhythms, Ecstatic Dance and Contact Dance? We crack open a cacao in Melbourne and Bali to find out. Over the melancholic cry of sound bowls, Frank wistfully recalls a few near-orgies he’s attended in Ubud and Canggu, but Jenny finds her experience pleasingly more like an old ravers’ home without the drugs. Our guests this week, 5 Rhythms teacher Chloe Stuart and ecs...

When confirmed sociophobe Jenny tells Frank about the Japanese trend of cuddle cafes, and how cuddle therapists and snuggle parties are now popping up in Australia, it looks like she’ll be leading this episode. Until she bottles it. And so it’s up to our resident extrovert Frank to visit the Life Spirals Cuddle Gathering in Melbourne and report back.   When Frank finally emerges blinking into...

Think back to you, aged 10. If your way of demonstrating romantic interest entailed throwing a tennis ball at someone’s head in recess, has anything really changed in your passage to adulthood, other than the method of delivery? This episode, we investigate whether our first romantic experiences dictate our patterns for life. Frank’s early pattern was to befriend someone and play the long game. Je...

Welcome to episode nine, where Jenny outlines her top 10 game plans for introverts, sociophobes, awkwards, stuck-ups and wary Marys who can’t avoid the Christmas party season. Let’s check if this episode is for you. Answer these questions with a yes or no. Should people be allowed to talk when you’re eating? Does one person trying to sleep outweigh the needs of two or more people wanting to party?...

Breathwork is increasingly infiltrating our daily routines, thanks to the popularity of James Nestor’s book Breath and the Wim Hof Method. As Nestor says, it’s the new science of a lost art. This episode, Frank levels up from his usual box breathing (which he uses before surfing and voiceover gigs alike) to altered states. He goes under the guidance of breathwork practitioner Alex Buxton, whose pe...

Bodybuilders are perfectionists. They’re fastidious on internet forums, economical in their IRL conversations, and at the gym they wear ‘No excuses’ singlets. As kids they may have been the ones insisting on only eating orange food, or completing a Rubik’s Cube in 15 seconds. This episode, we're looking at shredding, the art of getting jacked – be that for bodybuilding, gymfluencer photo shoo...