Survival of the Kindest

57: Lisa Keefauver - Holding Space and Bearing Witness "I think we are craving in our pain a way to feel less alone. And sometimes that can't come from the people closest to us because they're in pain too." CW Rape Our guest this week, Lisa Keefauver, is a grief and empathy expert. In this extraordinarily tender and moving podcast Lisa talks to Julian about her career and her life which have led h...

56: Sue Merriman - We Need to do Something "It was getting hard on everybody. We were getting calls from around the country, from Skegness calling us and saying my mum lives in Brereton and she hasn't answered the phone. We're really worried. Can you go and check? " Often when we think of communities coming together we talk in grand terms about organising, and being motivated by compassion, and it...

55: Nobuko Miyamoto - Evolutionary Processes "When I grew up, there was no such thing as Asian-American studies, no such thing as black studies in the schools, no such thing as Latino or American studies. So we did not really know our own story. " This week Julian talks to Nobuko Miyamoto about her art which spans all media and practices, and in which community plays a large role. In this episode...

54: MINI SERIES - Ep 3 of 3: How and Why Social Health Impacts Disease "A gift is not a gift until it is given." In the final part of our mini-series which has been focusing on how and why our social health has impacts on our physical health Julian talks to Cormac Russell. Having described the how and why social relationships are so important to human health and wellness, in so many different ways...

53: MINI SERIES - Ep 2 of 3: How and Why Social Health Impacts Disease ''How the world we live in, the things around us, the things in our head, the people around us, how all of that kind of stuff gets into our bodies and changes the way the genome functions'' In part two of our mini series focusing on how and why social health impacts disease Julian talks to Prof Steve Cole about how stress, isol...

52: MINI SERIES - Ep 1 of 3: How and Why Social Health Impacts Disease "We all can think of times where we've been alone but not felt lonely, maybe enjoyed our solitude, and can think of times where we weren't isolated, maybe surrounded by others, but felt profoundly lonely" As part of a three part series we are rebroadcasting three episodes that make up the how and why social health impacts disea...

51: Jane Harris and Jimmy Edmonds - The Grief Journey "The best and bravest thing that you can do is deal with your own discomfort. And don't ask questions that you don't want to really answer to. If you really want to know, then ask the question. But the most helpful thing for me is people who can tolerate their own discomfort." After losing their son Joshua in a road accident in Vietnam, Jane an...

49: Dr Panagis Galiatstatos - Knowledge of the Community Panagis was brought up in the warm hearted and closely knit Greek community in Baltimore. He found that he was naturally good at studying. This was no big deal to either him or his friends. His ability in studying was the same as his friend's athletic ability. Panagis decided that he would become a doctor. After all, no one from his communit...

48: Ben May and Jack Baxter - The New Normal ''There are men, women, and whatever your gender identification, literally changing the world by talking, and that's something so powerful that has always been the case for us. We've always been lads that talk, so that's our mission. We want everyone to speak.'' For both Jack and Ben the loss of their fathers in their teens and early twenties was the wo...

47: Dr Saul Ebema - An Agent of Light ''I longed for a sense of community, for people you can talk to, for people you can dream with and try to figure out this thing called life.'' Dr Saul Ebema is someone who stays with you long after you have heard him talk. The work that he does now is enough of an accolade to make him an inspirational person; as a hospital chaplain completing his PhD in meanin...

46: Professor Steve Cole - How Does This All Work? Human Social Genomics ''How the world we live in, the things around us, the things in our head, the people around us, how all of that kind of stuff gets into our bodies changes the way the genome functions'' This week Julian talks to Dr Steve Cole, Professor of Medicine and Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences who has a fantastic understanding of...

45: Matt Hawkins - Compassion in Politics "If you could design a system (of government) to try and block compassion and empathy, you would come up with what we've got in Britain. " In 2017 Matt Hawkins and Jennifer Nadal started a campaign that sought to push compassion as a functional and useful political tool, and since then they have been fighting on all fronts, from training, to lobbying, fund...

43: Professor Dacher Keltner - Compassion and Power "Compassion is the natural state of the human mind." Professor Dacher Keltner's work focuses on how compassion enriches our life, and how much its absence effects our lives and how the ability to not be compassionate is learned and created. His work is reshaping what we know and understand about kindness, and what seems to be its antithesis, powe...

42: Amber Jeffrey - Life After Loss "A good life to me is a life well laughed ." Elevate Compassion Summit Series 17/18 June, FREE registration, online lectures Amber Jeffrey had her life interrupted at the age of 19 after the sudden death of her mother. Nearly five years on Amber is now at the front of an incredible movement which has brought conversations around grief to areas that it had been p...

40: Michael Turner QC - Justice Allan Kellehear Lecture Series Elevate Compassion Summit Series 17/18 June, FREE registration, online lectures This week Julian talks to Michael Turner QC about how he came to be a lawyer, head of the Criminal Bar Association, and what has motivated him throughout his career to keep defending people we see as criminals. Michael gives not only a comprehensive overvie...

39: Paul Wright - Good Life Conversations " What we are looking for is ways for people to show up in community life. How do you bring that thing that you're passionate about, the thing that you love and what you value? How do you then make that present for the rest of us in our neighbourhood? " This week Julian talks to Paul Wright who was suggested by previous guest Angela Fell. A lot of Paul's w...

38: BJ Miller - Showing Up Because You Care "In palliative care the issues of suffering, of love, of meaning making, resolution of tension, they're not inherently medical issues. Medicine may have something to offer them, but otherwise, medicine, it's a bit-player in some ways." This week Julian talks to BJ Miller. Having started his academic career in the arts, it took a few key events and some t...

37: Naheed Dosani - Homelessness, Palliative Medicine, and Trauma Informed Care "We're there, we did it, palliative care exists. Now how are we going to keep it relevant to the hearts and minds of the people?"   This week on the podcast Julian talks to Palliative Care Doctor, and health visionary Naheed Dosani. Having experienced the death of one of his patient's who was homeless early on in his m...

36: Christopher Kelly - Quadrants of Health " Nourish Balance Thrive isn't just a diet or motivational coaching. It's the perfect blend of a lab-based supplement plan, expert dietary advice and consultative performance planning uniquely tailored to your lifestyle. " This week Julian talks to Christopher Kelly, the founder of Nourish Balance Thrive, which uses functional medicine, and started as a...

35: James Maskell - Keeping People Well "Community is the delivery system for behaviour change ." This week Julian talks to medical entrepreneur and health community builder James Maskell. There are many amazing things to dig into from James' career and life which started in intentional Communities all over the world and has led him through health economics to now running a number of things includ...

34: Angela Fell - The Function of a Neighbourhood "I think if we can grow and combine and come together with each other, then we can give each other that mutual support and give it to citizens everywhere. If you're intentional, and you're open and you can host and you can build ." This week Julian talks to Angela Fell, who has been at the centre of a huge transformation in her area in Wigan, which...

33: Frederick J. Riley - Our Responsibility to Help Others " You can find another path towards life. No matter where you are, I think folks think that you have to do this big grandiose thing to give back. But ultimately, it can be the most simplest form of giving back as long as you're content with what that is ." This week on the podcast Julian talks to Frederick J. Riley, from Weave: The Social...

32: Dipankar Mukherjee & Meena Natarajan - Minneapolis & The Pangea World Theatre "Be open to questioning everything. We have to look at our own conditioning, we have to look at how we relate to things, whether it's religion, whether it's a belief system, we have to be able to break all of that open, in order to truly be compassionate." In the week where Derek Chauvin is to stand trial for the mur...

31: Fritzi Horstman - Forgive Yourself "Acts of kindness are more important than anything we can imagine ." CW: Abuse, Adverse Childhood Experiences, Trauma Fritzi Hortsman's life turned around when she started to learn about trauma, and adverse childhood experiences. The insight into something which had flavoured her entire life, and the ability to now address this that that had laid dormant and...

30: Stephanie Hunter - The Thrill of Someone Caring "We can't expect children to recover from mental health or trauma unless we keep them safe . " 'We can't expect children to recover from mental health or trauma unless we keep them safe' Our guest this week is Stephanie Hunter, who has develop award winning mental health and trauma services for children in care, and who has just made a film with...