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Soul Portals: Exploring Psychospiritual HorizonsHealing the Collective MindsetIn our last Soul Portals episode, we investigated how individual therapy gains a much broader scope when the existential and philosophical issues we all grapple with are included in the process. This month we welcome a guest whose healing practices actively link our inner wisdom and intuition with the needs of collective consciousness and global evolution. We will find out how Kate, as a multi-modal intuitive guide, tends to the soul retrieval of ancestral lineages, while aligning personal therapeutic growth with what’s essential for the soul work of the world at large.This Podcast is sponsored by...2025-05-1457 minSoul Portals: Exploring Psychospiritual HorizonsUniversal Predicaments in Personal TherapyIn this episode of Soul Portals, we are honoured to have a guest steeped in existential psychology who understands that the walls of the therapy room cannot just contain case histoires and ‘evidence based’ clinical interventions. Emmy van Deurzen has helped expand the scope of individual practice by reuniting the therapeutic quest with perennial concerns of humankind. Our current global crises obviously need ‘treatment’ as much as any individual might. Social, political, moral, and spiritual issues are embedded if not embodied in the client’s personhood. Emmy being no exception, shares how she has not kept her personal history and emotio...2025-04-1056 minSoul Portals: Exploring Psychospiritual HorizonsEnergetic Centering with Qigong PracticeOur March ’25 Soul Portals guest views Qigong energy practices and his musical vocation as intertwined spiritual paths. In this episode we will explore how Qigong can inform the healing arts, specifically in the context of Hua Gong (the style of Qigong that Loz Speyer practices, as a proponent of that school and lineage). Part of the podcast interaction will be experiential – a short participatory exercise for attendees.Hua Gong is an artistic style of Qigong focusing on health and spiritual development. The practiceawakens and cultivates the vital subtle energy or Qi (Chi), which opens a flow of Qi t...2025-03-1355 minSoul Portals: Exploring Psychospiritual HorizonsRelationships as a Spiritual PathWith Valentine’s Day (and all the mixed feelings it may bring) following our February episode of Soul Portals by a couple of days, we welcome Malcolm Stern, the author of Falling in Love, Staying in Love: How to Build a Strong, Lasting Relationship. When relationship is viewed as a vehicle for soul growth individually and spiritual evolution collectively, it changes the way we approach the complex dynamics of intimate partnerships.A spiritual relationship moves through stages of togetherness, yet at the same time it is an ongoing process of individuation. It also requires a shared vision or...2025-02-141h 01Soul Portals: Exploring Psychospiritual HorizonsHand Drumming as a Wellness PracticeOur New Year guest, Casey Muze, adds another element to wellness practices such as meditation, mindful movement, prayer, or immersion in nature. Hand drumming is a creative practice promoting resilience, emotional balance, and personal growth. It also offers a multitude of social and psychospiritual benefits, especially when viewed through the lens of bilateral theory. Casey uses drumming for early childhood education, neurodivergent clients, elderly individuals with dementia, and those with social or developmental hindrances. In this episode of Soul Portals, we will explore how incorporating bilateral stimulation supports social, emotional, and holistic health needs. Hand drumming has been a...2025-01-0957 minSoul Portals: Exploring Psychospiritual HorizonsFacing Our Fears as Privileged People: A Social Justice ChallengeGood people of privilege are increasingly aware of racial injustice but are often unsure how to venture into challenging dialogues and spaces, and even afraid to ‘go there’. In this episode of Soul Portals, we explore how to value risk-taking in this domain as the path toward a more equitable and just world. The experiences of our guest Rev. Teri McDowell Ott – including learning, teaching, leading, following, going, and staying – have informed her work with diverse populations as the chaplain of a liberal arts college and as a volunteer in a men's state prison. The vocational challenge, including mistakes in often...2024-12-1256 minSoul Portals: Exploring Psychospiritual HorizonsIntegral Health A New Context For Cancer CareIn this episode of Soul Portals, we expand the standard view of cancer care to include new approaches derived from integral psychology models. Our guest, Georgia Efremova, is a pioneer in the field of holistically informed cancer care, bringing psychospiritual support and consciousness skills to the discipline of psycho-oncology. She also works with communities nurturing social cohesion and belonging as essential aspects of global healing as well as personal restorative paths. Based on her own lived experience and research, Georgia believes deep intentional healing requires broader support and conditions than current clinical modalities provide. Her practice is grounded in...2024-11-1457 minSoul Portals: Exploring Psychospiritual HorizonsBeyond the Confines of the Cerebral MindOur October guest, Gary Lachman, has extensively researched the (secret) history of consciousness – what we take for granted when facing psychotherapy clients – that most of us have a self-referenced inner life to explore in relation to outer circumstances. Yet our present state of self-awareness has fascinating pre-rational antecedents and post-rational potential coming into view on the evolutionary horizon. The inner world of persons is unfathomable based solely on psychobiology and a strictly clinical or scientific point of view. There are radically different modes of being in the world which came before us and will come afterwards. We will delve into...2024-10-1058 minSoul Portals: Exploring Psychospiritual HorizonsThe Transformative Path of ShamanismIn a culture that has marginalized its indigenous origins, we are seeing the return of the ‘medicine man’ (and woman). Our September guest is one of these, experienced with plant medicine as a catalyst for the psychospiritual journey. His own journey serves as a model for recovering the meaning of our personal lives, as collectively rooted in ancestral wisdom. “In the West, you may feel successful if you are famous, rich, or good-looking. But aboriginal people do not feel completely successful until their relationships are in order, until their community is well.” – Arnold Mindell (The Shaman’s Body). Michael is dedicated...2024-09-121h 00Soul Portals: Exploring Psychospiritual HorizonsPrognosis and Personhood: A Family Doctor’s ViewOur July guest is a family doctor with a special interest in counselling. A person-centred approach in his own practice formed the foundation for teaching medical students and supervising counsellors. He views patients as persons first and listens closely for the often-inspiring life stories embedded in clinical case histories. By valuing the many elements of what is life-giving for a person, physicians and other helping professionals are not limited to seeing patients through the lens of diagnosis or chronic medical conditions.Case histories are reframed as life stories having re-motivational value. In John’s own words from th...2024-07-1258 minSoul Portals: Exploring Psychospiritual HorizonsEmbodied Wellness: Advances in Holistic Mental HealthOur June guest brings a wide array of holistic practices to the realm of mental health. She is on a mission is to inspire the complete empowerment of persons in body-mind-spirit. To do so, Laura guides clients through all phases of core-level, soul-aligned healing, allowing their full potential to be achieved, both personally and professionally. Her personal journey and vocational path have led to a comprehensive book series covering holistic, alternative approaches to mental health, truly enriching the collective.As a leader in the holistic field, Laura rounded up healers of all kinds for Volume 2 of the...2024-06-1358 minSoul Portals: Exploring Psychospiritual HorizonsSound of the Soul: Music Therapy and the Practice of AttunementThis month we welcome Ruth Saphir as our guest, who as a professional musician, songwriter, and seasoned music therapist, has delved deeply into the healing qualities of her art form. We all know what a favourite song can evoke, the way it resonates in our hearts and touches our souls. Like the tradition of the Aboriginal songlines, which provide inherited guidance for travellers to reach their destinations, Ruth helps clients hear the harmonies within and then attune to outer circumstances accordingly. We will explore how her own psychospiritual sensitivity to music is transmitted for the therapeutic benefit of others.2024-05-1154 minSoul Portals: Exploring Psychospiritual HorizonsExodus From Ego Enslavement: Passover and Personal TransformationWith the Jewish holiday of Passover pending, we welcome Arthur Kurzweil as our guest, who as an author, educator, mentor, and publisher has inspired many to explore the profound moral roots and numinous mystical truths of Jewish tradition. In this episode of Soul Portals, we explore the story of Passover as analogous to the personal transformational journey from inordinate ego attachments to the summons of true interior freedom. What does the ancient story of a people’s liberation and destiny say about our own story of expansive soul growth?In Hebrew, Egypt is called Mitzrayim. According to th...2024-04-2156 minSoul Portals: Exploring Psychospiritual HorizonsWriting as a Spiritual PracticeWriting coach and spiritual guide Gay Edelman helps clients ‘compose themselves’ in writing. When imaginative touchstones are elicited and shared, it is a wonderful opportunity to move from dry clinical ground to the fertile soil of soul work. In this episode Gay describes how she is a midwife for the soul, by fostering the cross-fertilization of writing and spiritual self-awareness. Therapeutic insight will always have its place in coaching, counselling, and spiritual guidance. However, elements usually associated with literary creativity can make the difference between a clinical case history and a vibrant life story. It is often idiom...2024-03-1555 minSoul Portals: Exploring Psychospiritual HorizonsPracticing Conscious CompanionshipWith February’s episode of Soul Portals taking place on Valentine’s Day, we look closely at what makes love a psychospiritual practice.Our guests Nico Canon, relationship coach and best-selling author of Grace (2023), with his wife Anastasiia Tumanova, share how their deeply intentional intimate relating is a catalyst for personal transformation.If romance is about being recognized in our essence, the new paradigm of evolutionary love is about the soul work and skillful means it takes to be portals of full presence for each other (both as window and mirror). As someone once quipped, that...2024-02-1556 minSoul Portals: Exploring Psychospiritual HorizonsStories of Individual and Collective EvolutionIn this inaugural episode of Soul Portals, we are in round table conversation with guests Michelo Delmonte and Maeve Halpin, authors of Evolution and Consciousness: From a Barren Rocky Earth to Artists, Philosophers, Meditators and Psychotherapists. As the title suggests, Delmonte and Halpin’s book has a wide scope, encompassing both humankind’s evolutionary journey and its parallel in the layered stages of individual development. We approach that big picture theme by inviting Michelo and Maeve to share how it’s been ‘a path with heart’ for themselves, dovetailing with their professiona...2024-01-1348 min