Shows
Spirit LevelsGrief is the Price of LoveHow 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 fine and varied ways in which you can send off your person. Memoirist Elly Varrenti shares the difficulty in forever being the ‘other woman’ when in a relati...2024-04-2239 min
Spirit LevelsFacing FearsWhat 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.LINKSLola Broomhall: breathwork, physio, freediving workshops, professional mermaiding!Hey, if you like the tune that’s playing near the beginning, when Jenny and Frank are talking about fear...2024-04-1436 min
Spirit LevelsOptimal Morning RoutinesWe’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. LINKSAmong our contributors this episode were Mena from Human Thriving (who spoke about glucose)...And Katie from Therapeutic Eating (who spoke about objectivity).Spiri...2024-04-0811 min
Spirit LevelsWhat Would the Stoics Do?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 to do when you have FOMO in your career.What to do with feeling of failure.What to...2024-04-0130 min
Spirit LevelsLife Coach CultsIf 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 your life.This episode, Frank and Jenny revisit their favourite topic, piggybacking off the Netflix UK documentary Psychopath Life Coach.We...2024-03-251h 06
Spirit LevelsNudity and NaturismThe 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 same as nudity (yeah, Frank).03.56 Lucian Freud: Oh my god.04.20 Are all nudists = perverts or is that just an English equation?0...2024-03-1832 min
Spirit LevelsWhat Can a Performance Coach Teach Us All?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 circuit for over 20 years (including full-time for Pete Sampras in the last 5 years of the tennis legend’s career), also working with surfers, golfers and other athletes. He’s a larger-than-life character on the Mornington Penins...2024-03-1131 min
Spirit LevelsBONUS! Performance Coach Moose on the Tennis Greats of the 1990sIf 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.”LINKSMoose as motivational speakerLeave us a voice message for a future episode on Spe...2024-03-1111 min
Spirit LevelsSaunas, Sweat Lodges and Snow MonkeysThis 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 as annoying as people banging on about ice baths (hey – we’ve got an episode on that, too!), but when integrative wellness professor Marc Cohen told u...2024-03-0437 min
Spirit LevelsEnergy Healing, Manifesting and the Placebo EffectIs 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 and manifesting abundance. (Actually don’t say ‘probe’, that will bring up buried memories of the alien implant the Zeta Reticulans put in her pelvic bowl.) They’re...2024-02-2635 min
Spirit LevelsIs Vipassana Dangerous or an Antidote to Tech?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. Frank and Jenny talk to three people who completed a 10-day retreat and had very different experiences. Our lead interviewee is neuroscientist, AI engineer and 'extremophile' Dr Jack Allocca, who has found himself completely re...2024-02-1947 min
Spirit LevelsThe Fetish of Muscle WorshipHave 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 – in fact, a motherfucking CEO – and a bodybuilder who’s smashed watermelons between her thighs on television shows such as Jimmy Kimmel Live. That she hasn’t yet become President of the Un...2024-02-1236 min
Spirit LevelsRole Play: A Priest and a Navy Captain Walk Into a BarAre 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 happily married for 50 years – to dress them in character for their latest date and then record the outcome, and you’ll meet a cast of their...2024-02-0533 min
Spirit LevelsAre you a Grey Area Drinker?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 to labels like ‘alcoholic’. For mums, in particular, it’s almost become a new women’s lib. Similarly, ‘quit lit’ has really become a popular genre of memoir in recent years.In this episode of Spir...2024-01-2945 min
Spirit LevelsASMR for ever and everASMR. 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 tingles’ will tell you they’ve experienced triggers their whole life – most commonly through whispering, clicking noises, hair brushing and quiet personal attention. Our beautiful interviewee Rea Moon is one such pe...2024-01-2238 min
Spirit LevelsThe Fast, the Juice Cleanse, the Colonics and His LoverWhether 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 sexual incentive if Frank can stay the course. As for the colonics? Frank hasn’t been beaten by a pipe like t...2024-01-1535 min
Spirit LevelsWalk the Talk: Motivational SpeechesJust 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. Nobody knows how much you’ve suffered. Nobody cares either. So now you need to dominate. Absent fathers are a common theme, and so the narrator takes the form of Dad; sometimes Encouraging Dad, but m...2024-01-0833 min
Spirit LevelsComing up on Spirit Levels in 2024Since 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 more, back with episodes on sober coaching, role play, muscle fetish, peptides, hypnotism, DMT, saunas, the cult of motivational workout speeches, colonics, fasting, naturism (turns out we play table tennis even better without clothes), ASMR, sensory de...2024-01-0102 min
Spirit LevelsWhat Just Happened?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.2023-12-2510 min
Spirit LevelsEcstatic Dance Like Nobody's WatchingWhat’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 ecstatic dance DJ Jazzy O, explain how dance can provide therapy, connection, community, free us from judgmental behaviour and – if the stars align – give us an orgasm on the dance floo...2023-12-1823 min
Spirit LevelsThe First Rule of Cuddle Club...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 the bar scene of Fitzroy, he has a thousand yard stare. But is it possible he could be profoundly changed? And will Jenny have to go ba...2023-12-1119 min
Spirit LevelsDo First Crushes Shape Our Patterns?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. Jenny would choose inscrutable men she could project qualities on to, before finding out inscrutable usually means ‘has nothing to say’.This being Frank’s episode, h...2023-12-0445 min
Spirit LevelsSurvive the Christmas Party: Game Plans for IntrovertsWelcome 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?People clapping on planes when the plane lands – heartwarming?Did you wear your fringe at least two inches past your eyebrows in high...2023-11-2734 min
Spirit LevelsBreathwork and Altered StatesBreathwork 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 personal journey is quite incredible – from a ‘Heart of Darkness’ moment in a jungle in Thailand, to spending eight years in an ashram, and then becoming a whistleblower, which saw him ex...2023-11-2024 min
Spirit LevelsGetting ShreddedBodybuilders 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 shoots, athletes who need to drop a weight class, actors who need to look buff, or just because.Jenny recounts her lead up to competing in bodybuilding (a once-only venture), when she transfo...2023-11-1332 min
Spirit LevelsTaking the Plunge: Cold Water ImmersionCold water immersion has many different faces. There’s the cold blast in the shower; ice baths; wild swimming… Which one are you prepared to look in the eye? Frank is building an ice bath at Jenny’s house – so that he can use it when he’s there. That means he needs to convince his girlfriend of this painful practice’s benefits. Where better to start than on their holiday to the UK, where he can usher her into the North Sea, followed by a dunk in a glacier lagoon in Iceland?Since the M...2023-11-0622 min
Spirit LevelsAre ADHD Obsessions Bad?ADHD coach Meghann Birks joins Jenny and Frank on the show to nut this one out. Being 'obsessive' doesn't have the most positive connotations, but our hyperfixations can also connect us to community, propel us towards goals and benefit our working life.Some people have one lifelong obsession, while for others a special interest could last an intensive few months or years before being replaced by the next shiny thing. And then what do you do with all your unicycles/grappling hooks/cosplay outfits? (Meghann's got an answer for that.)What does the...2023-10-3029 min
Spirit LevelsMDMA Couples Therapy (and Other Intimacy Ideas)Australia looks set to be the first country to run an MDMA-assisted couples therapy trial. What is it about ecstasy that researchers and couples therapists found promising back in the 70s and 80s, before it was made illegal? Frank and Jenny talk to ‘late-bloomer Boomer’ Charley Wininger about his regular use of ecstasy in his marriage (he’s now 74 and they’ve “rolled” around 80 times, which he likens to 80 honeymoons), and how as a couples psychotherapist he views ecstasy as “emotional superglue”.Jenny and Frank recall their own Pammy Anderson/Tommy Lee-style first date that w...2023-10-2322 min
Spirit LevelsRun Before You Can WalkIs throwing yourself full tilt into a physical activity a noble leap or a nosedive? It's marathon season in Australia, inspiring many of us to leap from 5k to much grander feats of endurance. And runners aren't the only culprits! In the recent past, Jenny has hurtled headfirst into Muay Thai fighting and competitive bodybuilding like the world is about to end, while Frank has found himself in seriously gnarly surfing and rockclimbing situations, but believes who dares wins.This episode, we look at Strava show-offs, the gospel of David Goggins and the influence of figures...2023-10-1625 min
Spirit LevelsMake Me a Life CoachAs of 2023, the life coaching industry is worth $1.5 billion, with almost 23,000 coaches in the US alone. In Bali that figure is unknown, but if you've been to Ubud or Canggu lately you'll know it's quite possible that life coaches outnumber bottles of Bintang. This episode is not about any coach who has actually conscientiously trained themselves to provide a specific, solid service. It’s not about coaches who are mindful about duty of care, or who will refer people on to medical or mental health professionals when faced with issues outside of their skillset. Nope. It's t...2023-10-1018 min
Spirit LevelsGo to Sleep NOW!If we're going to get you throwing yourself into inspiring new pursuits every week, first we need to improve your sleep. This week's guest, Mike Toner, runs EDM/dance touring agency Thick as Thieves, so he ought to know something about hectic slumber patterns. He spent $10k fixing his wrecked sleep but he's going to give you everything he knows for free. Frank and Jenny turn Frank's insomniac daughter Stella into a human guinea pig to test some of it out.In this episode, Mike references health podcaster Siim Land and the Quantified Scientist. The wearable tec...2023-10-0226 min
Spirit LevelsComing up on Spirit Levels, starting October 3, 2023"The room was like a zoo. People were jumping up, animating tigers and elephants like they were on some sort of psychedelic drug." "When you haven't slept for two days, they'll be in your face, barking: 'Come on, mate. Just give it up. Go and have a hot shower'." "Orgasm and ejaculation happens in two different parts of the brain.""We put intention into this drink, and then the property starts to work through the body..."In this weekly show, journalist Jenny Valentish and actor/filmmaker Frank Ma...2023-09-2102 minSpirit LevelsSpirit Levels trailerIn this weekly Acast show, launching October 3, 2023, journalist Jenny Valentish and actor/filmmaker Frank Magree pressure test the wellness industry, from the weird to the wonderful to the WTF. Jenny is a former amateur bodybuilder and amateur Muay Thai fighter (a professional amateur, if you will), with a tendency to treat her body mean to keep it keen. Her book Everything Harder Than Everyone Else delves into what drives athletes who push their bodies to extremes, while her Walkley-nominated memoir Woman of Substances examined addictive behaviour and gender.She has the perfect foil in Frank, a cold...2023-09-1801 min