The primal approach is about doing less, better.

This podcast is the epitome of an example of organic self-discovery.

Adam shares how it was one foot in front of the other for him. Listening to the big nudges and following the subtle pulls of what felt right for him and of course, moving towards what was both confronting but liberating.

The adjective primal describes something that’s essential or basic, like the primal urge to protect yourself and your family from harm. The Latin root of primal is primus, which means first. If your friend talks about his primal self, he means the most basic, important part of who he is.

Adam is a living breathing experiment of what it looks and feels like when we strip everything back to the basics.

“After lots of reading, research and curiosity, I was lucky enough to stumble across the caveman diet (paleo). Within a few weeks of starting to eat a more nutrient rich wholefood diet, my health dramatically improved. My thyroid was healing.

As I started to improve more and more, I realised getting back to basics and focusing on the simple things were really important for me. Kicking my shoes off and getting barefoot has been powerful.

Working in the mines gave me a high paying job but I was miserable. Shift work and all-nighters were shitty. It was a scary decision, but I quit my job to travel Australia. I had zero plans but to get back into nature and just immerse myself into some beautiful scenery and see where the road would take me.” – Adam Kavanagh

Some of the points we weave in and out of include:

• How long Adam hid his symptoms of food intolerances, depression, anxiety attacks and everything else that came with hyperthyroidism.
• The doctors’ suggestions for a *solution* that lead him to shifting to a paleo diet.
• Adam’s inner process for leaving the mines: his fears, hesitations, conditioning and action plan.
• His journey to Africa that was a strategy for his wellbeing and ultimately supported his decision to leaves the mines.
• What it was like to meet the locals, community and be invited into the indigenous community in outback Australia.
• His step-by-step process to stripping things back to as clean and simple as possible and the improvement in his wellbeing.
• What it’s like to eat and live off the land using indigenous tracking techniques, a bow and arrow and fire pit cooking.
• His three-week experience of being on the reality TV show, Naked and Afraid where he was dropped in the middle of no man’s land in a part of Africa with a woman he’d never met, naked and had to survive without assistance for three weeks.
• How he survived one of his most confronting encounters in the outback including being ripped up by a wild boar and collecting honey from killer bees.
• What he believes is the most important skill of all for surviving the outback.
• What he learned from the land and the indigenous friends he made who now feel like family to him.
• What he’s now doing (taking people to have bush experiences, working with fire making and re-wilding).

You can listen along here

You can listen along here

Contact Adam and find out more about this legend in these places:

Website: https://adamkavanagh.com.au/

Instagram: @adam_kavanagh_

The Amber Hawken Podcast is available to subscribe to on your chosen platform  - iTunes, Spotify, Libsyn - if it feels good for you, we always love a review of the show. Grateful in advance and thanks for listening. 

Hugs,

Ambs

Psychology, embodiment and toxic relationships...

What a subtitle, eh?

Let me begin with a little appreciation for your patience. It's been a minute between podcasts as they draw the short straw when I'm elbow deep in projects. I can assure you, this is worth it. 

Laura Corcoran is a Holistic Psychologist. Her 10 years of experience in the field range from forensic, mental health, and addictions primarily. She's also an incredibly honest, raw, intelligent, kind woman and a Mum of "two light beams", as she puts it.  

This episode is vast in its topic and while it began with the contradictions around some of the principles of psychology, we weave in and out of rabbit holes that most people can relate to including repressed trauma emerging in the *stressful* now of life and toxic bonds in passion relationships. 

Including:

• Trauma that we might not realise is trauma (it's not always how it seems).
• All of us have in our life experienced a time where what we were feeling was too much.
• Toxic bonded relationships we think are filled with passion but are bound together by pain.
• An embodied approach to healing and the basis 
• The basics that psychology can forget that make all the difference to long term change
• Sensory experiences, breath and movement for regulation and healing
• A ton more...

This little quote is from one of Laura's influences, Peter Levine, and somewhat encompasses the point Laura unpacks around the dire need for embodied practices within psychology treatments. 

"If frightening sensations are not given the time and attention they need to move through the body and resolve or dissolve, the individual will continue to be gripped by fear." - Peter A. Levine, Psychologist

Listen here

Find more of Laura here:

IG @hersuccessfulmind

Facebook

The Amber Hawken Podcast is available to subscribe to on your chosen platform  - iTunes, Spotify, Libsyn - if it feels good for you, we always love a review of the show. Grateful in advance and thanks for listening. 

Hugs,

Ambs

Is it worth it?...

I have a really rad friend called Benny and he developed an app based on vice optimisation.

Basically, you check in the next day after getting on the booze and decided if it was worth it or not.

This reflection practice, alone, has proven to support humans in staying in integrity and showing signs of increased happiness by up to 400%.

I actually made that up that stat, but who hasn't been 400% more stoked when they've been able to pause and shift direction from an otherwise destructive path? Exactly.

I borrowed my mate Benny’s idea and held that question up with a magnifying glass to my life and business.

My priority is joy, that's my measuring stick for 'worth it'. Because - joy.

Usually, people look at the return and if it's shiny or powerful looking enough, they sacrifice the juiciness and don't question the burnout factor or the destruction of busyness.

In fact, there's a virus nestled in the minds of humanity that if it had a voice it would say, "The more time and energy you put in, the more worth it, it is. Never mind the collateral damage to your mental health, wellbeing, relationships and happiness - it's the outcome that counts”.

It would also be in Trump's voice…..maybe, I don't know. But you get the idea.

How often are we sacrificing happiness, joy, spaciousness, peace, love and orgasms for a cost we will pay 10 x time, at least, sometime in the future?

I have been known to be guilty of such things and right now is a great time to pull things apart and examine what’s working, honest and fulfilling and what’s not.

Below is a solo-session podcast talking you through the process.

My anthem is - self-lead geniuses for the win. You being the genius, me leading you to the water and you drinking form your own genius pond.

Have a listen here. There is a step by step on the page as well as a 12-minute breakdown of how to do it.

I hope you enjoy looking at the inside of your life; the sacredness and ceremony of energetic  flow itself. 

And while we are on the topic of things that are worth it.

SuperCharged is almost full. All you fence-sitters, let's jump or you will miss it and it'll be sad and you'll have to turn to Ben and Jerry's half baked ice-cream to grieve the spot you didn't claim as yours.

Proces:

Stpe 1. Grab a piece of paper and split it into three columns.

 Column 1 = list.

Column 2 = is it worth it?

Column 3 = action.

Step 2. Write your list of the following in column 1

• List all the things you do in a day, week, month and year.
• List the 10 relationships you invest the most time in.
• The three things you spend the most money on.
• List the 10 thoughts that ruminate through your mind.`
• The top five food/beverages you ingest.
• The beliefs you am currently choosing to believe about money, time, energy and making stuff happen!

Step 3. Assess what is worth it or not and mark it with a Y or N.

Step 4.  Next to the things that are an N, write what action you will take to either reduce the amount of time/energy/money invested or remove it altogether.

Enjoy. There are no rules, adapt to your life.

Be Honest.

Apply for SuperCharged here.

The Amber Hawken Podcast is available to subscribe to on your chosen platform  - iTunes, Spotify, Libsyn - if it feels good for you, we always love a review of the show. Grateful in advance and thanks for listening. 

Hugs,

Ambs