This week’s episode of Be On Air we interview the extraordinary hosts of The Body Knows podcast, Mat and Marcela Wakeham. Right away we dive into both Mat and Marcela’s origin stories and how they began collaborating on mind-body healing. Some of the topics discussed in depth include understanding our mind body connection and why its important, ways to ground yourself, the influence of western cultural systems, patriarchy, masculinity, self-love, tips for successful podcasting and so much more!
Marcella is a senior yoga teacher and a movement therapist and a lifelong practitioner of yoga dance and Pilates. She has 20 years of experience in the field of body awareness, mindfulness, and body mind movement related practices, and is versed in anatomy and physiology.
Matt benefits from a lifetime of spiritual study, formal practice training and personal experience. Within this, there is a consistent thread of mindfulness-based meditation supported by loving awareness, concentration, and compassion. His healing journey over the last 20 years has taken in analysis, hypnotherapy, acupuncture, and psychedelic plant medicine. These he combines with external practices to most predominantly strengthened fitness training, as well as yoga and martial arts. And most recently somatic sexual healing, breath work, and cold exposure.
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Follow @embodiedpractices on Instagram and Facebook to learn more about Marcela’s courses and retreats!
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00:00 – Introduction
04:40 – Mat and Marcela’s origins?
10:54 – Collaboration and beginning a journey together
22:57 – Why get into your body?
29:14 – How to ground with your body
35:57 – Western cultural system of patriarchy
39:02 – Ancestral trauma in our DNA
42:42 – The Body Knows podcast
48:50 – Tips for other podcasters
53:03 – Group podcast coaching
54:58 – Podcast shoutouts
58:10 – Final messages
Mat: [00:00:00] having listening and having respect for what you hear, not wanting things to be other than they are not thinking that you’re right at the beginning, it’s going in with an openness and patience and a kindness to the other and to yourself.
K.Lee Marks: [00:00:46] Hello. Beautiful listeners. Welcome to another episode of Be On Air. I’m your host K.Lee marks.
And today I have brought on an extraordinary couple to share the importance of getting into our body. And what does that even mean? Why is that important? How it can radically change your life. So with us today, we have Marcella and Matt. Marcella is a senior yoga teacher and a movement therapist and a lifelong practitioner of yoga dance and pilates..
She has 20 years of experience in the field of body awareness, mindfulness and body mind movement related practices, and is versed in anatomy and physiology. Over the years, Marcella has searched for practices and teachings, which improve our sense of wellbeing, embodiment, and self-expression, she’s also a sweat lodge and cacao ceremony facilitator.
Matt benefits from a lifetime of spiritual study, formal practice training and personal experience within this, there’s a consistent thread of mindfulness based meditation supported by loving awareness, concentration and compassion. First learnt on the retreat in the forest of Thailand and continued in self practice and on retreat and UK, his healing journey over the last 20 years has taken in analysis, hypnotherapy, acupuncture, and psychedelic plant medicine.
These, he combines with external practices to most predominantly strengthened fitness training, as well as yoga and martial arts. And most recently somatic sexual healing, breath work, and cold exposure is synthesis of these has led him to discover a natural embodied simplicity to his understanding of wellbeing and spirit.
His journey speaks to the truth that if we want to, and if we’re willing to address the habitual patterns stored in our bodies, we can open. To pleasure, conscious connection and self-love to live guided by the body’s own wisdom. They’re hosts of the body knows podcast. And I’m very excited to interview them and go deep on today’s episode, stick around welcome Matt and Marcella. It is so wonderful to have you on the show. How are you both doing today?
Marcela : [00:02:57] Oh, thank you. Uh, for having us in your podcast. Uh, well, we are, we’re fine. Uh, I, I am. All right.
Mat: [00:03:06] Yeah. Great. K.Lee . I just want to acknowledge, uh, you, uh, doing live the live intro, um, as always, you know, one of the decisions you make, whether you’re going to do a live one or record one, um, as one of the things I love about your show is that, you know, it’s about, it’s not just about the, the message of the podcast.
It’s about the method as well. It’s it’s and, um, yeah, right off the bat, I’m like, Ooh, look at him, just put it out there. Well done.
K.Lee Marks: [00:03:33] I have to use that, Mat . I appreciate that. I might have to use that. It’s not just the ma it’s not the message. It’s the method as well. That’s very, very good.
Mat: [00:03:41] That’s one of the things that I have in my repertoire .
Um, it’s, you know, the body work, uh, and embodiment, um, somatic practices almost as, um, living. Whereas they’re what I do personally. I have a long, yeah. Professional, uh, path through marketing, advertising, storytelling, um, yeah. Getting the story out there, which is what I love about your little, uh, intro clip as well that you tell about storytelling.
K.Lee Marks: [00:04:12] Thank you so much. And we’re going to get into your body of work as well today. I would love to share with the listeners a little bit about your, your past, because it’s very, it’s, you’ve been, you’ve been, you’ve been involved in some huge, massive projects and, uh, the, the podcast launch the artwork for the body knows everything that came out is so top-notch so pro and it’s a really great example of how to do, how to do a launch, right.
How to do the, the promotional graphics, right. And everything. So we’re going to dive into that, but I thought we could start since you two are a lovely couple. Maybe you could share with us, how did you two meet?
Marcela : [00:04:47] Oh Wow. That’s a brilliant question. I love it. Oh, we meet in the beautiful island of Ibiza . In, uh, Spain, uh, I was living there working and living with a friends.
Uh, and I met Matthew in the place. I was working in one of the most beautiful place in Ibiza , in a restaurant and hotel, uh, Agroturisme Can Talaias, uh, run by the son of teratomas,
Mat: [00:05:18] he’s a famous English actor from the fifties and sixties and sort of the seventies. He was part of an ex-pat community and moved out to that island, the original Bohemians who moved to that famous party island.
That’s been an island for the hemians since oh long time back into history. That’s that’s another story. Um, yeah, and I saw Marcella Marcella was the first person I saw. I took, uh, when I got out of the car, I take my sister on holiday there and we got out of the car and I saw marcela walking across.
The, um, the dining room and something clicked in me. And I was like, oh boy, I mean, how much of this story would you like Katie? There’s a, there’s a, there’s a long story there.
K.Lee Marks: [00:06:09] Well, it’s all, it’s always interesting to the origin stories, right? And, and couplehood is such a, a vital piece of our society. You know, I consider it the bedrock, the, the kernel, the seed of society, right. It’s like, you’re either alone or you’re in community in the first community is when you’re in couplehood.
So it’s amazing to hear how, how two souls can be spinning around the planet and somehow cross paths. And then this amazing collaboration can, uh, can spring forth.. So how did w so Mat, were you already in, into bodywork and, and all that when you met Marcela.
Mat: [00:06:50] I was still, uh, gosh, six, 15 and a half, 16 years ago, I guess I would have been doing, um, my ma I would have been martial arts would have been a big part of my main practice then, um, and, uh, strength training, as I knew it, then, um, would have been what I was doing.
So I would’ve been doing, uh, physical practices, but quite external practices, um, uh, kind of, uh, based a lot on, um, social constructs of masculinity now, looking back on it. Um, so yeah, I was very in the body, um, and also had, um, I’d spent, as I said, as, as my biography said, and as you, as you, uh, I I’ve had, you know, a lifelong, uh, Inquiry into what it means to, you know, what spirit means.
So I’d read a lot of practices. So I had spiritual practices. I mean, one of the things that, you know, Ibiza is, you know, known for being a party island, but it’s also got a very big Bohemian, um, and spiritual community. So that was one of the things that drew me there as well. But, um, yeah. Um, it’s been, uh, it’s been a long journey and our relationship’s been a big part of, well, yeah, it’s been my, it’s been our, my life the last 15 years, so yeah, it’s been vastly changed.
It’s funny to think back to who I was and who I thought I was then.
K.Lee Marks: [00:08:18] And that’s the power right. Of, of these, of the alchemical, uh, transformation of relationship and partnership is it can take us to new levels that we just could not have reached alone. So Marcella, where, where were you in life when, when that meeting happened, were you already doing, um, yoga and somatic work at that point?
Marcela : [00:08:39] In that point in my life, I was doing spiritual work. Uh, I was doing ceremonies, uh, leading ceremonies for women. I was also, yeah, I was doing pilates and yoga, also teaching, uh, that part. Uh, but mainly I was into ritualistic dance. Um, I was, uh, opening, uh, art, uh, and spiritual ceremonies, a in one of the galleries in Ibiza, I was working closely with a spiritual artist, which she was working with crystals and all art was about spiritual awakening.
Let’s say. So when I met to Matt, a what attracted me to him is because he was reading a spiritual book. So I say, oh wow. That’s, that’s interesting. Uh, this guy that is not just here for the party also is into the spiritual path. And that was like, uh, if I open the doors to him is, is because I knew where he was in contact with that. And yeah.
K.Lee Marks: [00:09:44] What book was it? If you, if you don’t mind sharing or if you remember.
Marcela : [00:09:47] You say it mat,
Mat: [00:09:48] I can’t remember what it was called , it was, but this is a funny, a funny phase. I mean, it was very much in my seeker phase. Um, so I was looking, uh, I w it was before, um, I had, uh, found what Jack cornfield, the Western Buddhist teacher calls the one seat.
Now that one seat can be anything, but you’ve got to choose where you’re going to sit and what you’re going to practice with. So this was a book, but it was a new age book. Really. When you say that’s a fair title for it, Marcela, it was by a guy called Drunvalo Melchizedek and what was it called?
I think that the flower of life,
the flower, yeah. The flower of life. And it was, yeah, we went, we went and did a retreat with him. Um, and yeah, it wasn’t what I, that was, I decided that wasn’t the path for me.
K.Lee Marks: [00:10:42] It was a stepping stone.
Mat: [00:10:43] It was, yeah, it was, it was a path of inquiry and it was, um, not one that I in the I in the end decided spoke to me fully.
K.Lee Marks: [00:10:54] Well, maybe we could talk about that. So at a certain point, you two have become who you are now, and that’s, that’s a journey. And maybe what we could do is for the listeners, um, in today’s society, we, we aren’t really instructed to quiet the mind often and get into the body. And what does that mean? And we’re not trained from young age and many of us aren’t to tune into the innate wisdom of the body.
So how maybe you could break down why that’s important. And, and, and a little bit about your journey to, to kind of creating this collaboration that you, you two have going this beautiful collaboration.
Marcela : [00:11:36] Okay. Uh, w why, why it is important to inquire into your own self, uh, I guess is because you want to, you want to live a life fully engaged with everything which is alive. Could, it could be your partner could be, um, the, the surroundings. Um, and yes, they don’t teach us that in school. And I always grow up with something that was missing.
Uh, I remember being like nine years old and I saw a video of me, um, that someone asked me, what do you want for a present? And I say, I want to be happy. And which kid at 9 years old say that, that means that it wasn’t happy. So I think so my quest of finding my myself, it started when I hear the video.
Wow. I think so. I need to inquire to myself and always been into, uh, the art of moving the body. I did my, my career in dance, contemporary dance, and that if there were something that would make me happy, it was moving my body, um, as well as, that’s why when I, when I finished my career, I started to enter into ritualistic dance because it was just not dancing for the spectator.
I was dancing to the moon. I was dancing to the sun as my tradition knees. If you go to the Aztec tradition in the tenochtitlan, you’re going to see the dance, the dancers there, the concertos dancing to the moon, to the stars, to the cosmos. So that was my initiation into my inquiry into let’s go deeper into these and what I was doing meditations all over in nature.
I just started to feel my body waking up one day. I clearly saw my aura. It was beautiful. Green Emerald green, and, and they say this, this is it. This, this is, this is my path. Uh, and, and then I was introduced into the practice of yoga, which has a, quite a lot of spiritual connotation, uh, or re they’re imprinted.
So as I was doing yoga, I arrived to England and little by little, it started to get more into the Western tradition of somatic. Um, it started with, uh, with people that, uh, they are in touch with the somatic world, more deeper into part into cell memory or cell consciousness, moving through bones, consciousness, and muscle conscious consciousness, which is body-mind centering and practices like continuing movement and corner rod, which she channels her practice.
And that the quest star to this is incredible going inwards and inwards and deeper and deeper till. I found myself that I could regulate my nervous system. I could do little techniques, uh, breath techniques, movement techniques that it gives me that sense of wellbeing. Uh, when, when, uh, my systems start to be overwhelmed, which I have, uh, due to my background, my system goes in overwhelmed very easily because I have our difficult childhoods or my, my, my father was very strict with us.
Uh, he, and the reason later, after doing all these work, I understood because, uh, my father had his mother died very abruptly, burnt alive. So I understood why my father was so strict and I understood why he was the way he, he was, um, I just healing this parts of me, healing those little by to understanding where it come from.
My, my. Uh, my life experience from inside out and dealing with those with so much care and compassion. And it was just one little day and movement initiation at a time. Um, um, yeah, I think so. That’s my path and why it’s so important because you want to be whole, you want to be, you want to be in this life fully alive, um, absorbing, absorbing the whole entire, um, nature inside of you and the more you go in and parts of yourself being healed, you can extend that and you can bring, uh, trees and rivers inside of your body.
And then you become so more vast than just a human being you are…
wow. Yeah,
…more bigger than that.
K.Lee Marks: [00:16:23] That’s amazing. I want to hear from Matt before I respond to that, um, I, I, there’s so much, there’s so much to delve into there, but please Matt, uh, add to it and, and share your experience coming into it. And then we’ll go deeper.
Mat: [00:16:35] I feel Marcela’s starting point in her childhood is very interesting because I’ve come to realize myself that there was a figure in my childhood.
Um, when I was very young, my parents used to have, uh, lodges people stay in the house to help cover the mortgage, to make a little bit of money on the side. And in fact later I had a little guest house, but the, one of the first people who made a really big impact on me was a young male nurse, um, who rented the room.
His name was Peter. Um, and he was now I look back on it. I realized I was really gravitated to him and I was super small, like three, four, and he was, there’s something really just different. He was kind and he was happy. Um, and growing up in the, like in a lower middle class, uh, working our parents and my parents were really working class English background.
It was quite austere in England, in the seventies. And, and, and life was sort of seen in terms of surviving as a real survival mentality. And he had something really different and he, and it turned out he was Buddhist and he talked about that. And that seed was really planted in me, I guess, at that point.
Um, and so I, uh, I didn’t read it, you know, it’s only looking back that I, that, that I put those things that, that, that, that seed, uh, I see the seed and, and, and how the fruit of that seed has grown. Um, jumping forward, I always had an interest. I had an interest in, um, really understanding. Who I was, um, and what it meant to be alive and it meant to be human.
But of course, I came at that. I was educated in a Western education system. So the tool that I primarily use to do that was my mind. It was a top down investigation. It was an intellectual investigation. It was a trying to understand and quantify with knowledge. Um, I used psychedelics to do that.
Um, and this was a time, uh, when I was doing that would have been in the early, the late eighties and early nineties. Um, there was a time, I guess, like 88 was called the second summer of love. Um, and it was very much, uh, you know, there’s a renascence in psychedelics now. And, um, I talk about this with a friend of mine.
Who’s now, um, a therapist who works with, um, psilocybin for treatment resistant depression on one of our episodes. Um, and she was, uh, she was a contemporary who, you know, um, I actually, uh, was there when she took her first, uh, psychedelic trip. So that was one, that was one of the tools I used. And I, I read a lot.
Um, I read a lot of Buddhism and as you know, as you’ve asked, as we’ve said already, I was looking at all sorts of things and just trying this, that and the other and jumping from one thing to another, which is what a lot of people do as seekers. And then we went, um, Marcella and I went off, she went, she went to do her yoga teacher training.
Um, we went to Thailand where she, uh, she was, uh, studying, um, where she actually met, um, all of the colleagues that she works with, um, now to this day. Um, and who, uh, other guests upon our podcast actually. Um, and I took this as a, you know, Thailand is a, is a Buddhist nation and I took this as a chance, uh, while she was, she was, you know, day in, day out going to her.
Her yoga teacher training. Um, and we’d gone there to visit my sister, uh, who was D doing, uh, around the world, uh, a trip around Asia at the time. Um, they left and I went off for a two week silent meditation retreat, a place called Suan Mokkh , um, which is, uh, uh, the retreat center set up by a Buddhist master called Ajahn Buddhadasa
And I was frankly shocked at what I experienced, um, you know I had all these, I’d read all these Buddhist books and I could debate ideas of Buddhism. And I thought, you know, it’s like, you know, I’ve been first book I’d read on, Buddhist practice, uh, was, you know, I’d read when I was 17 or 18. Um, when I sat down in silent meditation, for two weeks slept in a room with a wooden pillow.
Um, didn’t talk, had to do everything in silence. It’s not very silent actually, because you just have this raging monster inside your head, just talking absolute rubbish. And I compare it to be, it looks to me I compared it to being locked in the cupboard with my teenage self. And it was just like, I’m just glad no one could hear that.
You know, the monkey mind it’s called the monkey mind. Cause it just swings from branch to branch screaming and, you know, flinging its excrement around at you. So yeah, but at some point that just slowly abated like I, you know, I was, I committed to it and I, was like, no, I’m going to stay here. And my mind at some point during that retreat, my mind gave up and I entered a real serene space of just connection.
Um, uh, and just direct experience of. The felt sense of my body on the cushion, the breath coming into my body, being alive. It’s not, I wasn’t thinking about being alive and thinking about what does it mean to be alive? I was like, oh, I am alive. Where do I experience that? Right here, right now in the body.
Um, so then, um, that was, uh, that, that was the real that really kicked in then, and that I had, uh, you know, uh, built upon that practice from, from there. And, um, yeah, that’s my, that was my story into that sitting meditation and Buddhist inquiry. And from there, everything sort of built slowly day by day, uh, uh, upon that experience by experience and yeah.
Breath by breath.
K.Lee Marks: [00:22:57] So what’s interesting about this is the, um, the first of all, there’s like five different topics collectively that we could go into. So we’ll probably have to do a round two , um, excuse me. But I’m thinking from the listener’s perspective, I want to build a little bit of a for anyone listening, who feels like maybe there’s some terms or some experiences that maybe, uh, could, could be helpful to clarify what, what is the reasoning for getting into our body?
So I heard to feel more joy, to feel more pleasure to, to have a better life experience, to thrive, not just survive. Why is it, what is it about the body that holds the key to healing trauma that holds the key to bringing our full energy and gifts to the world? What, what is it about the body.
Marcela : [00:23:54] Well, the body is the one who keeps it , who keeps the memories. Uh, we hold the memories of whole, uh, creation in each cell. Um, we have, we hold the memories from where we were just living a water. We hold the memories where we were reptilians. We hold a memory where we were the first mammals and the first humans, um, is in our, uh, in built system, body system, cell, each cell, you have that memory, uh, E the mind, what it does is, uh, act upon is just looking straight at it , um, and, and fit enough from information inside of the body.
When you start to clear. Energies or, eh, yeah, energies stalking the body, little by little start to play out into your lives. So, um, a friend of my experience very well when you work with the body, you have to be very gentle because if you overwhelm the system or you, you open the lead of the subconscious what is inside all of this body memory, you can overwhelm yourself.
So that’s why it’s so important to go a little by , little into inquiry inside of yourself.
Mat: [00:25:28] And that’s why the mind, the conscious mind can be so frightened of the idea of, of looking at the subconscious. There’s plenty of people who say I’m not interested in looking, you know, I’m, I’m in a, there was a real stigma, I mean, more so in the UK than there would be with you guys over there.
Um, on the other side of the Atlantic about therapy, you know, it’s because people, you know, I don’t want to look at the monsters that I have in there, but, you know, as jung said, you know, to be whole, I must have a shadow. Yeah. To fully understand yourself. You need to be willing to look at those things.
But as Marcella was saying, if you just rip, you know, if you, if you just. The plaster off is going to hurt. And, you know, and then your, your mind is just gonna, you’re just gonna jump back from it. And they, it’s going to be an overwhelming
K.Lee Marks: [00:26:16] traumatizing
Mat: [00:26:18] retraumatizing because we are, we are all traumatized, um, from life, you know, and that can be, that can be a trauma with a cap, with a, with a capital T you know, we can, we can have experienced, uh, abuse of all sorts of levels and it can be, you know, it can be trauma trauma with a small t, but life is traumatizing, you know, um, just not, you know, not having the sovereignty.
You don’t ha you don’t have sovereignty as a child, you know, just by its very nature. But as being a child, you know, you have to live by the dictates of, of other, uh, of adults and as adults. Doing the best they can, but they might not have had the love that they needed. They might’ve been imprinted, you know, what they believe parenting or teaching or discipline is it wasn’t a good model.
So you know that you’re looking at all those things, simplistically, let alone anything else on top of that?
K.Lee Marks: [00:27:16] Yeah. So there’s this book called the body keeps the score by maybe you guys caught me with their name.
Marcela : [00:27:23] Bessel van der Kolk
K.Lee Marks: [00:27:24] Boom. Yeah. And it, so the cutting edge, as far as besides the maps and the psychedelic assisted psychotherapy, the cutting edge trauma healing therapy that I know of is neural feedback.
And he, he has a training, you know, that he does with, uh, um, but the body keeps the score. Physical ailments can actually cause. Uh, or sorry, uh, traumatic experiences that maybe didn’t hurt, hurt the body quote unquote can cause physiological diseases, illnesses, you know, injuries, all sorts of things can come in.
Mat: [00:28:02] And that’s exactly what I was going to say. It doesn’t even have to manifest as they may manifest as injuries if you ignore them for long enough, but they may just, they may materialize as they did in myself as migraine, as muscle strain, as discomfort, or as a complete lack of feeling.
Marcela : [00:28:24] Yeah. Clinical depression anxiety , uh, or the system overwhelms is, you know, if, if, if you are not fully embodied yet and you cannot feel your, your system is so tight or so depleted, um, You can, you cannot full engage with, with, with, with what is in front of you.
You either, you don’t have the boundaries because you are very, totally down the press or you’re so tight you’re you are. So, um, in, in, in that moment of nothing entersto my system that you reject all information, so both ways you and live out of ideology and yeah, exactly.
K.Lee Marks: [00:29:14] So I just want to ask real quick here, cause this is, this is really powerful information and it is not mental information.
Like it is, there is an aspect that’s that’s that is info that we can hear, but the , what I’m hearing is that there’s a huge part of that that has to be felt. And so I wanted to ask what is the quickest way for our listeners, if they want to experience being in body, what is the quickest way? Could you, is there a practice, a short practice that you could kind of help the listeners just to ground into their body so that we can have a tangible somatic , uh, you know, understanding.
Marcela : [00:29:52] So the one who comes up into my mind just right away is a sense of touch. Um, like a seated in a plate sitting in on a place that you feel comfortable in, a chair on the floor, it doesn’t matter. And just to start to touch your face, just being aware of your first boundary, the skin and you know, just bit by bit going to your neck, covering the hands down to your chest and really feel it.
This is me. This is me. This, uh, from, from here inwards from here is my insides . And from here out is, the world. So just going very methodic, methodically, very slow and very, very conscious about. Who is this body it’s my body it’s been here, it’s going to love and kindness. This is skin that’s been protecting me from the rays of the sun or from, from, from cold, putting their hands into your heart, feeling the beat of your heart.
This heart’s been beating since the moment I’m in the womb in my mom. It’s been there for me. For me 44 years is, uh, um, uh, going into your stomach and just feeling this, uh, the turning, turning of the inter signs. Well, my inners have been processing a lot of good food, a lot of bad food, and it does.
So just turn it into these. We are not a machine. We are, we are a living ecosystem. But every organ , it has its say in it the skin has its consciousness. Uh, you know, you can go deep into your bones, your, your marrow that is creating blood cells every time and, and creating these, uh T-cells to fight infection.
So just going a little bit more deeper of inquiring of who i am , really. I am a beautiful biological, uh, entity that every day is doing processing things and making, making the best, the best for being alive. Even though that things look `that look wrong,it helps because every day is like a victory.
I survive. My body did everything for survival.
Mat: [00:32:21] Something, you said really interesting there, Marcela as well is that it’s like, it may look wrong or, or you might, you know, ideas may come up that it’s like, you might start having ideas about your body. And at this moment, it’s okay. It’s like, you, you, you can just say to yourself for this moment, I’m going to set I side ideas about what I, you know, what, the stories that I carry about my body.
And there might be areas where you don’t feel, you might touch yourself and you might have a feeling there, and there might be areas where you have stories about touch. You know, it it’s like it might fit, you know, a man’s going to have a different feeling, touching his chest. Then a woman is, um, everybody’s got stories about when they go down to their genitals, if they touch themselves, they’re these that, you know, our body carries massive stories and, um, it’s okay.
You need to tell yourself its okay. And what Marcella said there was, you know, it’s having some compassion for yourself as well, you know? Um,
Marcela : [00:33:20] Yeah. And if the story comes up, let’s say if someone is touching the genitals and the story comes up into that moment. That’s what it calls titration.It’s okay so don’t overwhelm and go more into the story.
You come back up to the heart. You don’t have to linger into the place that it might be arise . This, uh, if you start to do this exploration, let’s say, and something started, you touch a part of the body and the body start to see, oh my God, this is danger. Come back up. Or in other area that it was, it’s a resource where it brings you.
Goodness. So again, you bring that quality of taking care of yourself, instead of going deeper into, I want to inquiry and I want to heal that, you know, because in the process of the body, there is no goal orientation. You have to be very gentle. You have to be very slowly like a slow, beautiful. Uh, oh, sorry. Um,
K.Lee Marks: [00:34:23] because it’s like, it’s like, we want to treat our ourself almost as if we would treat our child. Right. Like with
Marcela : [00:34:29] that level of love.
Exactly. Yeah. So would that level of love with that level of compassion, with our level of understanding that we don’t have everything figured out is, is not possible. And we never going to, thank goodness.. Otherwise life will be very stale and we’d know everything. No,
Mat: [00:34:47] It’d be like the Cyclops. Yeah.
Um, and it’s also, it’s like this the time, you know, we’re coming out of a period where people we’ve all been starved of touch, um, and, and connection. And actually there’s a paradox in that because we can, we’ve all have had the ability all the way through.
To, to, to touch ourselves. Um, but we all have pathways that we do that we all have habitual touch, you know, ways that we do things. And actually, can you just be with yourself with, as Marcella said without, uh, without a story, can you just, can you just feel and just notice and that’s where mindfulness comes in and, and mindfulness is a real, is a, is a, is a tricky word because you, I think you hear it in the Western, it feels like you’re doing something with your mind knows isn’t mindfulness.
What do I do with my mind? Well, I think so. I’ve got to think about these things and it’s just being present for what’s coming up. And it says, Martha said, if a story come, you know, if you touch somewhere and a habit or a story, you start going into things. Can you just notice that? And can you come back, uh, just come back.
K.Lee Marks: [00:35:57] So I want to ask you
I want to get into the podcast, you know, in, in a second here and it’ll lead in, but I want to just address this. I think that, and I’d be curious on both of your thoughts. So, uh, in today’s world, would you agree that men especially are sort of trained or maybe physiologically because of nature for whatever reason, to not be very connected in with our body and so often times you might, you know, men might feel numb, which is a feeling, you know, that like you were saying, you might not feel a sensation.
I’m not saying women don’t also feel this, but what would you say that that is a kind of a consistent issue for men is being disconnected from the body?
Mat: [00:36:42] I think it’s okay so now we’re getting into sort of the realms of the patriarchy. Um, and I think it’s important to acknowledge that that men are not the patriarchy and it’s women are raised within the patriarchy as well.
And so it’s not, um, it’s not a man thing to, to just not be able to feel now we may be conditioned differently. And then, you know, boys may be brought up to, you know, to, you know, the whole to rough and tumble too. And the only, the only emotion that’s okay to express is anger and violence is okay. And then, you know, that that’s a whole other conversation about, um, conditioning of, of, of, of boys and what it means to be a man.
But I think, uh, I think that’s, that’s doing men a little bit of a disservice and, and it’s, uh, and it’s, it, it, it’s not fair to say that because I think. As humanity. The, the major problem is our disconnection from ourselves and that’s men and women. And, you know, and it’s not, it’s not binary when I, you know, it’s, it’s people who identify as male people identity and identify as female it’s non-sexualized, it’s not genderized notes that it’s actually just a cultural as a Western cultural experience because we’re so top-down we’re so we, so we we’re disconnected, you know, there’s, there’s us, there’s still a prevailing tradition where we believe that, you know, that we ask questions about, you know, even this conversation we’re having, is it the mind or is it the body it’s one thing, you know, it’s like, it’s, you know, the mind is in the body and it.
It’s in, it’s in the body. And actually it’s, it’s a, it’s, uh, it’s an old way of looking at things. Neuroscience hasn’t looked at that division. We looked at it that way since the eighties, you know, but it’s still prevailing because it’s so, cause it’s such a cultural assumption.
K.Lee Marks: [00:38:40] Yeah, that I, I really appreciate that clarification.
That makes sense. We’re all part of this, of this cultural system, at least in the west at the very least where yeah. That, that trains us to be, uh, to, to create a disconnect where there’s not one and, and even, even
Mat: [00:38:57] And the heritage in the west as well, you know, we’re colonial, you know, we, we, we’re living with the heritage of colonialism as well, so the west mindset.
K.Lee Marks: [00:39:03] So let’s talk about that because yeah, we come from, uh, an ancestry of like fleeing. So I follow this one, author Resmaa Menakem. He wrote my grandmother’s hands and he talks a lot about how racial trauma is stored, both white people and black people have racial trauma in our bodies, from our ancestors going through, you know, and, and even like taking race out of it, just fleeing from, you know, all the, all the, uh, pilgrims, like, you know, we were running away from something.
So we have, we have the ancestors, we have that in our body that fleeing well,
Mat: [00:39:40] and I’m, you know, I’m, so it’s like, obviously a lot of the dialogue you hear, um, on the internet is about, um, the north American experience. Um, because obviously that’s such a large culture and that’s the majority of culture, but I’m, I’m, you know, so you’ve got a Mexican woman here and an English man, my hat, my, the, the, the trauma that I’ve experienced is being, um, the, the, the being of being.
You know, my, my ancestors were made to work in fields in mines, in factories were sent to war that’s. That’s the, that’s the trauma, that’s the history. That’s the ancestral trauma that I’m experiencing. And the I that there is within my DNA. Marcela’s trauma is completely different
Marcela : [00:40:29] it’s the same and it comes to colonialism even though you say, uh, because when, when Mexico, well, America was colonized is exactly we have a genocide there where all indigenous people work put to work in mines implantations till the verge of extinction. And so this colonization is, is just pervade scenes. Uh, I don’t, I don’t know, 15 hundreds perhaps. I don’t know where. Um, yeah, and all these memories is stuck in our bodies. When I arrived here to England to be from Mexico.
I remember carrying these, uh, colonial, uh, diminishing of myself because I, um, from the, the, the con con I’ve been conquered, and it’s not something that is just out into the world or into the surface of my consciousness. It was deep ingrained inside of me where I said, why I feel this, that I, where I don’t feel my fully self here.
But that was the, these memories. And these just passing through that, we w we were conquered
and i live with the other other side
Mat: [00:41:43] of colonialism as well, is that I’ve talked about the experience of, of those of my ancestors, my direct ancestors and my family lineage who were, uh, working class. Then of course, I can’t deny it.
The fact that I, that I’m English and of what we did. Colonially, . Just, uh, in the, the legacy of, of violence and, and, and what we’re, you know, we’re all still living with that, you know, you know, looking at what’s happening, you know, with what we did in, in the middle east and, you know, it’s. Political quagmire. Right.
K.Lee Marks: [00:42:23] And it’s a time of reckoning for, for everyone in their body, I think, and the way forward and, and this, and this leads into your podcast. So the way forward is through the portal of Soma as my, um, my dear friend says she has a podcast called the synchro Soma podcast, shout out to Melissa Meader there.
Uh, she does archetypal somatic training
Marcela : [00:42:43] I love her!
K.Lee Marks: [00:42:43] Oh, cool. That’s wonderful. Yeah, me too. And, uh, and so yeah, it’s a portal, it’s a portal. And so maybe let’s, let’s move into the pod into the body knows podcast,
Mat: [00:42:51] That’s a beautiful term. It’s a portal. Yeah. I mean, with the latest episode that Marcela did, you just did a bonus episode, um, and what that, it was great listening to being in the audience and listening to it.
And there’s a great bit, um, one of her guests, um, Gave this great explanation about, um, of yoga, uh, as the, uh, the asanas , the positions being like an alphabet. And so, and, and it’s a language and that language, it transports you to another dimension, and it’s a dimension of, of awareness, uh, of, of knowledge.
And that knowledge can only, you can only become aware inside yourself. There’s no other place to wake up. That’s it? That’s the vessel we’ve got.
Marcela : [00:43:35] Yeah. Yeah. It’s um, bringing, bringing that a word. I think so that’s why the podcast is we, we created Martina. We create the podcast just to bring that awareness because I carry this.
I don’t know when I’m starting to grow up more deeper into my, into myself and I start to share my, wisdom. It come from pouring into, inside of me and from, and from the spirit and from nature. So I cannot hold it in my body anymore. I need to take it out. So one day I say, Matthew, I said, what about we do a podcast about, about these beautiful wisdom of the body and interview people that it can tell their little bits of a story because everyone has, um, everyone has their own way to, to explain how the body is alive and how the body can hold, hold the wisdom.
And it’s a way of the colonized people. My quest as a sweat lodge leader, cacao ceremonies is to eradicate, eradicate the colonial mind to in my beliefs. Everyone has available in their cells, their ancestral knowledge of co connect of communing with nature of, a way to return to the natural essence, which is ourselves.
And what is that is through art dance , uh, singing, talking to a tree, um, poetry. It doesn’t matter how it comes out because when you do, when would you work with your body and you little bit start to liberate that energy. The first what infuse your whole life is creativity. Is art is, those things suddenly you have, you have a space to expand your wings and take a little bit of the, the beauty of life inside of you.
And everyone is an artist. Everyone is connected with the spirit. So that’s why it’s so important or to, to, to work with that. Or for, for us Mat and I would say, yeah, let’s, let’s do that. Let’s let’s, let’s just. Take it out. Take, take out.
Mat: [00:45:54] I love something you said that reminded me of something. I heard Francoise Bourzat
so on a podcast the other day, she’s, um, uh, she’s a very interesting woman. She’s been, she trained with an indigenous, which is a French woman, but in trained with indigenous wisdom, actually, um, in a, uh, tradition that Marcella has experienced within as well within with psilocybin, uh, with a very famous teacher in Mexico.
Um, and one of the things that she said is once you’ve experienced once, when, once this has woken up in you, yeah. It’s just like, it just, you, you can’t not want to share it. Um, you know, and as I think I said at the beginning, um, you know, from our seller, this is a, this is a livelihood. Um, and you know, we’re beginning to use the podcast more as a way to get that out there and for her to, for it, to be a business tool for, for that.
Um, uh, and we’ve been in, you know, we we’ve been inspired by other podcasts as you did that. A woman called Julia Allen who runs a podcast called authentic sex. Um, and she basically introduced, you know, she lives, she lives in a very switched on area in Australia and she basically interviews all of her friends, all of the people in her community.
And then she re you know, she she’s sponsored by her own products and by her own teachings. And that’s, it’s really great, but, you know, uh, but yeah, that for me, The podcast was an end in itself, you know, I wasn’t, I wasn’t looking, you know, although I’m, although I’m, I am training in, um, somatic sexual healing, it’s not something I’m doing, you know, it’s not something that I’m currently, um, monetizing.
It’s just training that I’m doing. What was the most important thing was to ha you know, it was to share this experience we have, because it’s trans it’s transformative. I’ve lived a life of, of, um, pain that I’ve inflicted on myself physically, mentally, emotionally, and these technologies, these ancient technologies have unlocked.
Life. Mhm. It, there, there it’s there for everyone, you know, you don’t, it’s not, it’s not, you don’t need to go and have interventions. You don’t need to see someone that you, you don’t, although you know, you, yeah. I’ve sat at the seat of, of wise teachers. Um, I I’ve, you know, had healing at the hands of really, you know, amazing people, but in the end, the experience is one that you live and it comes out through you.
Um, one of my Buddhist teachers said the only book worth reading is the heart.
K.Lee Marks: [00:48:34] I love that. I love that. Yeah. And I mean, from my experience at both of you, is it really. Feels like you found something that has transformed your lives and you’re excited and inspired to share it with everyone. And that’s what the body knows podcast is all about.
As you’re interviewing, uh, each, you know, you’re talking to each other, you’re interviewing other experts and, and, you know, uh, folks embodying this knowledge and living it, and you’re giving a wealth of knowledge and you cover everything from, from, you know, healing trauma to, um, what tantra actually means to, uh, conscious and, and, um, Uh, you know, sexual healing.
And so, you know, what, for the listeners who are a lot of podcasters, what are some of the things that, that have really worked for you, uh, in, in the launch of this first season and what are some, uh, tips or ideas that you could give the listeners as far as if they’re thinking either of launching their show or just how to take it to the next level?
Mat: [00:49:35] Well, our first season we came to realize is, you know, we’ve spoken to, we’ve shared our experience through, we we’ve interviewed friends and colleagues and teachers of our own directly. So this first season has been very well. I think one of the things that’s amazing about podcasting is it’s, it’s direct, right?
It’s very, you know, it’s like authenticity is, is what, you know, what attracts people to the communications, you know, it’s like it, there’s no filter, you know, there’s, uh, I’ve worked here. Professional, uh, you know, professional media, um, in film and TV in broadcasting and there’s layers in between there, you know, there’s editorial there there’s, there’s there’s codes of things that can, and can’t be said, um, that doesn’t apply that doesn’t apply in podcasting.
That’s up to you. You decide what can, and can’t be said, there’s things that we’ve decided not to go into in this thing. So you haven’t, but I think that’s the most it’s I think what it boils down, the first thing you’ve got to work out is your why, why are you have in these conversations. Um, and we were taught that we went on a, a podcasting course, um, we’re, uh, run by a guy, which is very much like you run yourself, K.Lee .
Yeah. It was run by a podcaster, a guy called mark Larousse and it’s way in, I feel really lucky because it was a, it was, uh, it was a course called the podcast revolution and it, and he stopped it. Now. He has, he he’s been podcasting a long time. He had a podcast called the unconventionalist and I’m speaking in the past tense because he stopped.
Um, so I feel, I feel really lucky that Marcela and I got to do, we’ve got to be the last cohort of his podcast revolution. Um, and we did that with some, with some great other podcasters. Um, I think you’ve spoken to one. Is that right? You spoke, did you, did you interview Ravi
K.Lee Marks: [00:51:28] yes. Now, now it makes sense. That’s awesome. That’s a, so you guys went through this accelerator and for those listening, I run a similar kind of mastermind called amplify what you love and the power of going through these launches together is that it can be A: overwhelming to launch alone, uh, and the, the benefit of everyone’s brains and ideas and just moral support and encouragement.
And then when the podcast launches, you’re sharing and interviewing each other, it’s just very valuable to go through with, like you said, a cohort.
Mat: [00:51:59] You th th I mean, it’s just like, there’s 1,000,001 reasons you’re going to have in your head, why you don’t put your podcast out there, you know, what microphone should I use?
You can see Marcella and I are sitting here still, you know, with just the, I’ve got the free headphones that came with my phone and it’s like, it doesn’t, you know, it’s like, yeah, it doesn’t sound like studio quality, but that’s th that’s not the most important thing, you know, it’s, I love, I love the Silicon valley, you know, ship fast, you know, fail fast, get out there.
We’ve, you know, we could a week of worried and tried and tried to perfect everything. The mode of the podcast we’ve learned the most from is the one where we, we kind of crashed and burned a bit, you know, it’s like, we, we did, we didn’t have the interview that we thought we were going to have. Um, and that was, you know, you, you, you learn on your feet, you’ve got to get out there.
Don’t be, you know, Just have the conversations and you learn
Marcela : [00:52:57] it was great to have an eye open on exactly what I don’t want to do on the podcast
K.Lee Marks: [00:53:03] Exactly, there’s a lot of, of, uh, there’s there’s many parts to podcasting that that can be overwhelming. I’m curious with the idea of ship fast, get it out there. There’s reasons. Would you still recommend to people to go through some sort of group launch or some sort of.
Mat: [00:53:21] Uh, hun well from us a hundred percent.
Marcela : [00:53:24] A hundred percent. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, because you know what you’re doing. You, you have the support of the group. You have the support of someone if there is, because it’s that little question, silly question that stop you from doing it all is you’re amazing. And you know, there’s many people who does not do that, but, uh, I think so for the majority of the people is very differently.
If you really have the heart of doing a podcast, if you really want to do that, if you heart is pumping, I want to do a podcast, but something needs stopping me, just do it, do the acceleration , whatever.
Mat: [00:54:04] I mean, the first time we interviewed anyone would have been, or not on our accelerator. I mean, you know, Marcela and I are generation X, so.
Although we, you know, we were the first generation to have the internet. We didn’t come of age of age with it, and we’re not necessarily as comfortable, you know, uh, being on camera as maybe millennials or gen Z or of just, you know, even the fact that I remarked at the beginning of our interview. I loved you doing a live interview Marcela and I don’t do a live interview.
Um, we, uh, alive intro, we record ours, uh, because I always, you know, it’s like, I stumble, I start a Marcela cuts me. It makes me sound a bit better.
K.Lee Marks: [00:54:48] Yeah. I have my brother edit this afterwards to fix all the things I do want it to go live eventually. But, um, something you said there. Uh, you know, so we are getting to the end of the interview.
I would love to have you all on in the future again, but at the end of these, I always want to ask just a couple sort of resource collecting, rapid fire questions. Um, and so the, the first one on, on this, on this category of podcasts is what are, what is one other podcast, uh, from each of you that you would like the listeners to tune into?
Obviously the body knows. So everyone listening, the podcast that you want to listen to first is you want to go search for the body knows podcast after consuming the entire first season, then, uh, Matt, would you share one podcast that you think would bring value to my listeners?
Mat: [00:55:37] Well I’ve already. Given a shout out to Julia Allan’s, um, authentic sex podcast at the moment.
I’m really enjoying the mythic masculine by Ian Mackenzie. I, I love it. You know, it’s really looking at, um, I, I love for me, uh, as a professional storyteller as well. I love looking at, uh, masculinity through the lens of story. Um, and, uh, I believe that stories are, are the key of what makes us human. And, you know, that podcast is really looking at the old myths of masculinity and what masculinity can mean now.
It’s, um, yeah, fascinating conversations with really, you know, heartfelt, uh, amazing insights.
K.Lee Marks: [00:56:20] Amazing. Yeah. You’ve you’ve you shared that with me and I’ve been tuning in and really enjoying it. So definitely recommend that one.
Mat: [00:56:25] I probably sent you to that one that was about, um, the relationship as the, the, the, the vessel for awareness, right.
Yeah. Yeah. It’s amazing.
K.Lee Marks: [00:56:38] Yeah. Thanks for shutting out an episode too, for the listeners. What about you, Marcella? What’s a podcast. You’d like people to tune into
Marcela : [00:56:43] I think I like the one that you say the Synchrosoma podcast. Uh, she, so I think so she’s really spot on. She’s so authentic. She’s very, very fresh and all her insights are like just, I mean, body-wise therapeutical wise.
Very good spot on. And I like the We Move guys . I liked. I liked that they are a very good,
Mat: [00:57:07] we love we move.
Marcela : [00:57:08] We interview them. Um, the interview, it was, we wished to be better, but I think so he’s podcasts all the time that he, they are. So hearted whole hearted and they’re the, they’re guests all the time. They are very good and they put a lot of effort and an he’s all about transforming life. I love weMove .
Mat: [00:57:34] They really live, they really live their own story. Um, and yeah, and I, I, you know, we we’ve interviewed them once and I, I believe we will go back to speak to them again. And I’d also just like, I’d love to give a shout out to my, to my man, uh, cam Fraser as well. Um, uh, who does a great podcast about masculine, about sexuality and masculinity.
And he’s like, if, if any men, uh, you know, wanting to dive into masculinity, all of his channels, you know, cam Fraser on, on Instagram, et cetera, he’s he, he’s a really great Australian sexologist.
K.Lee Marks: [00:58:11] Amazing, amazing. And, um, You know, one of the goals of this platform is to teach the next generation and young people that you know about the power of their voice and the power of, of sharing information and building a council of, of safe mentors.
So if this was given to a large group of young people and you, you both, you know, could share like one thing about the re about relationships, and one thing about the body, maybe you guys could collaborate a little bit and give a message to this, uh, you know, figurative group of young people,
Mat: [00:58:52] I would say first in both in, in relationship.
And it’s interesting that I’ve jumped in first and I’m going to say this, but in relationship, um, and in the voice, counter-intuitively the most important thing first is listening. So if you’re interviewing someone else. Listening to what they’re saying is really important. If you relate it relating to another or relating to your body, listening is really important.
Being able to wait and actually hear what’s going on instead of chasing what you think is going on or trying to impose your ideas of how something should be on another person, on a situation on yourself. It really having listening and having respect for what you hear, not wanting things to be other than they are not thinking that you’re right at the beginning, it’s going in with an openness and patience and a kindness to the other and to yourself.
Yeah, I would say the same in relationships. Uh, build up a relationship with yourself, uh, in a way that you are, uh, nurturing compassion to all the bits of yourself, uh, of the, the mind slashing, uh, there, your body type, uh, be kind to yourself, eat well, do everything with reverence to your body. So it can, the moment you start to spill your relationship out of yourself, you know how to do it, you know how to be kind to that other.
The first Marcella, you just nailed it. The first relationship, the most important relationship you have is with yourself. Um, and if you’re not, if you don’t love yourself and when I’m talking about self that’s a bit. I hope from this conversation, it’s really clear that I’m not talking about your ideas of who you think you are, but really just unconditionally coming from a place where you know yourself and you love yourself.
If you’re getting pulled outside of yourself to start with, and you’re looking for external love for external validation, you’re just going to just keep chasing it’s a hamster wheel. Self-love is the most important love.
K.Lee Marks: [01:01:20] Beautiful beautifully said both of you. I appreciate your time so much coming on and sharing your, your work and your message with my audience. And we’re definitely going to have you back on if, if you will honor us and again, listeners tune into the body knows podcast, check out Matt and Marcella. What they’re working on.
Uh, see, when is season two, come in out soon. Is it, is it out already? Not TBD?
Mat: [01:01:45] No. Um, this was very much part of the buildup to one of the reasons I wanted to speak to you was because I wanted to kind of, it’s a nice little in breath, you know, it’s like we finished season one. Marcela is doing some, some, you know, some little bonus episodes that are about the offerings that she’s putting out there.
Um, we just wanted to sort of rest and reflect upon what we’ve done. What’s worked what hasn’t worked. Um, um, you know, maybe set up some other things, some other ways to go about going about things. Um, uh, and. Uh, Season 2 come about when it’s ready to come about.
Marcela : [01:02:20] It’s still, the bonus episodes are over.
There are out. One, one is out the last one and I’m going to release other one in June. Uh, there are more shorter the time this comes out. Yeah. There are shorter, um, uh, very interesting ones that are very good too. So, so even though the season finish is still, the body knows podcast is, is, is producing good conversations.
Mat: [01:02:47] Hmm. I’ll continue to produce social content as well. You know, it’s like, there’s, it’s still, we communicate our. You know, things come up, that information comes up through conversation with each other and through our practice. So there’ll be things that we’re posting as well. So that’s a dialogue as well that we’re in dialogue with.
There’s an audience that’s online as well as, as an audience that listens.
K.Lee Marks: [01:03:10] So could the listeners collaborate and work with you, especially if they were, if they, if they would like to learn more about this and work with you, what’s the best way to reach out.
Mat: [01:03:20] W, uh, uh, I’m there on DMS in on Instagram, @thebodyknows_podcast
um, we have a Facebook page. Um, we haven’t yet set up a site. Um, so we don’t have a mailing list, but that’s one thing that we’re going to do, you know, but, um, yeah. You know, reach out it’s, there’s always conversations that we have. We’ve got a nice little group of people that we speak with, you know, little communities building through our socials.
That’s what social media is. Right. Um, it’s how we’re speaking to you now, for example,
Marcela : [01:03:52] they can find me in embodied practices. Uh, that’s the, I mean, in Instagram @embodiedpractices also Facebook, um, yeah.
Mat: [01:04:04] Marcella shares her teachings there as well. And, and all the things that, all the courses and the workshops that she’s running, some she does online.
K.Lee Marks: [01:04:11] Um, So if people wanted to do a retreat or take a course or work with you, one-on-one, that’s a possibility and they could reach out through Instagram, definitely embodied practices. Yes. Awesome. I’ll make sure that’s in the show notes listeners, but just to recap, the body knows underscore podcasts. This is at Instagram and embodied practices on Instagram and a tune into the body knows podcast.
Matt Marcella, it’s been an absolute privilege to speak with both of you. Thank you for your time and your energy, and, uh, hope to have you on very soon in the future to share some more knowledge.
Oh, thank you. That will be fantastic. It was absolutely owner to be interviewed by you, K.Lee . You have a great, great energy.
Absolutely more power to you, K.Lee . Thank you very much! Big love y’all Yeah, bye bye.
