Healing Starts with Pleasure, Not Pain: Learning to Listen to Your Body

Healing doesn’t have to start by ripping open old wounds. Sometimes the most honest first step is simpler: notice what your body is already doing to help you, then let that support grow.

I’m joined by Steven Hoskinson , founder of Organic Intelligence and a leading voice in post-traumatic growth. We explore why the standard “dig into the trauma” model can backfire for some people, and what it looks like to build real capacity instead. Stephen explains how your biology constantly sends signals of regulation, comfort, and reorganization, small shifts in breath, posture, attention, and memory that he calls “postcards from home.” When we learn to catch and savor them, we create the state shifts that make deeper work possible.

From there we unpack one of the most practical ideas of the conversation: “bandwidth.” If you feel like your battery is flat by the end of the day, it may not be a personal failing, it may be a threshold issue. We talk nervous system regulation, sensory orientation, predictive regulation, and how reducing allostatic load can make anxiety, stress, and relationships feel less costly. 

You’ll also get a short meditation inspired by these themes, focused on widening your inner sky and reconnecting with moments of joy and steadiness. If this supports you, subscribe, share it with a friend who feels depleted, and leave a review. What’s one “postcard from home” your body has been sending that you want to notice more often?

Steven Hoskinson's contact details: https://organicintelligence.org/

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Hello everybody, I'm the Gentle Yoga Warrior, and shortly we will have a special guest who's going to share something groundbreaking. Shortly, we'll be joined by Stephen Hoskinson. The title of today's show is Healing Starts with Pleasure, Not Pain. Learning to Listen to Your Body. So Stephen Hoskinson is the founder of Organic Intelligence. He's an internationally recognized teacher, author, innovator in post-traumatic growth. And for over 20 years, he has been a presenter and professional trainer on a global scale. And he has been featured on Dr. Mark Him's Broken Brain documentary series. So, dear listeners, without further ado, joining us from California is Stephen Hoskinson. Welcome to the show, Stephen. I'm very much looking forward to our conversation too. And today we're going to talk about healing starts with pleasure, not pain, and listening, learning to listen to the body, which I've found a really interesting subject to talk about. So, Stephen, how did

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_00 2:24

you first get started on this path? And what led you to explore trauma, biology, and healing in the way that you do?

SPEAKER_01 2:32

Wow, that is such a lovely question. Thank you. It brings me back to some of my early days, just after undergraduate school, where I was working at an inner city health clinic where we were serving people who were unhoused, refugees, and people who were chronically mentally ill. And I thought that maybe spirituality was going to be the solution. And I realized that the needs were much more complex. And so I went to graduate school in psychology. And while I was there, I saw a sign on the wall that said healing trauma through the body, a workshop. And so I thought, oh, that's what they didn't share about in the school of psychology was healing trauma through the body. And so I went and then I began long study with Peter Levine of Somatic Experiencing fame and began to teach for somatic experiencing as well. And so that was really the accumulation

From Clinic Work To Somatics

SPEAKER_01 3:38

of all of these things. There is the spirituality and the contemplative approach, and then the joining of clinical psychology, and at the same time, then adding a somatic component, like how you understand the effect of working with the body in all of these. And so that's that's really where it all began. And then I began to discover that simply feeling the body's sensations associated with trauma wasn't always healing. For me, it had been. Really was profound, and it and it is and can be profound. But I found that there are times when it is not as helpful. And so that's what I really set out to discover is for whom what approach is going to be helpful. And what I discovered over time is that there is a way of working that recognizes that people develop over time and they change over time, given the right support. And so you can't treat everybody from the same perspective. You really have to have a map of how development and evolution happens, both from the standpoint of spirituality, but also from the standpoint of not so much of psychology, but of our biology. And that's what I began to work with more was that biology and the we began to understand something that we now call organic intelligence.

SPEAKER_00 5:15

You you founded organic intelligence through all your studies, and I saw that you've you've done papers on it as well. And I like that because one shoe doesn't always fit all, does it? And some people to kind of like really dig into the trauma and kind of bring it up again and again might not necessarily be their path, but then it might work better for someone else. So I like the idea of everything I've heard so far. So you often say that by biology is sending us healing messages, but we're missing them. What do you mean by that?

SPEAKER_01 5:48

The organic intelligence really developed out of seeing. When you get the the proper support, then the biology itself begins to speak to you. It's speaking all the time, and and you know, the speaking really is these messages like from maybe sensation, you know, that we're we're sitting and and there's a gentle rocking that comes, or we're talking about problems, and I put my hand on my forehead, or I I am thinking about you know the difficulty with a friend, and then I remind myself that my grandmother, you know, used to walk home from church on Sundays by herself or something. You know, like like there are always little divergent messages, but the divergence is from the trauma. The the divergence is because we have what's known as the what's wrong attention or the negativity

Organic Intelligence And Missing Signals

SPEAKER_01 6:52

bias, which means our our attention gets continually and unconsciously drawn toward what the problem is or what's wrong. And so we now balance some of that with the attention to these divergent messages or these little what we call these postcards from home. And they are messages of biological reconsideration and reorganization and healing, in effect. So that's that's what I'm speaking of. And and those are messages, as you mentioned earlier, those are messages that feel good. They're often messages of pleasure. And not that that pleasure is the way to you know heal from trauma, it's not, but it's an important preliminary step. So the orientation to pleasure and actually connecting to the environment, what we call orientation, that's those are the two keys. If we get the connection to the environment through the senses, and then we begin to complement that with the awareness of these postcards from home, then we begin to have a biology that's really ready to grow and develop.

SPEAKER_00 8:09

I love this the sound and idea of that because I think I can sometimes be too focused on problems. Sometimes I can feel it kind of slip in of, like you said, like problem bias. And I I have when I see little robins, it reminds me of my late barber. It's kind of like like a postcard in the sense that it makes you feel really soup. So I guess it's like looking out for the positive messages maybe in the environment or nature, because life's always going to have problems, right? So it's kind of finding a way to get to get through that.

SPEAKER_01 9:20

Oh, absolutely. That's so nice. And and those messages are coming in like in from inside and outside all the time, and we just miss them. And so when someone works with an OI coach, then the coach is simply saying, Oh, you know, I wonder if you noticed that your breathing got a little deeper, or there's a little nodding of the head, or that they point out these messages that come. And when we take a moment of pause to really just savor that message, then we have a state shift and a kind of a downshift. And again, that's that's not curative, but it sure does feel good, and it begins to set the stage for what ultimately will be real and lasting healing.

SPEAKER_00 10:08

I like that. That's going to help a lot, a lot of people indeed are. So, what do you think is missing or misunderstood in the current model of therapy?

SPEAKER_01 10:18

Yeah, I think it's what we've been talking about that is, you know, there's the focus on what's wrong, but there's also the need to find what are the intelligent steps. We what we figured out and discovered really in organic intelligence is when you're not focused on what's wrong, not focused on the trauma, but really beginning to hear the bodily and psychological and image-based messages of support, that then something catalyzes in our own system, in our own biological system, that then a greater development happens. And we call that greater development simply the growth of bandwidth. That is the growth of capacity. So we can experience more of our life without so much reactivity. And so that growth of bandwidth is what we believe will happen when the biology enters its what we call the post-trauma growth mode. And when it gets into that post-trauma growth mode, it's really building capacity so we can face our problems, solve our problems, have more equanimity in relationship to the world and its issues, and simply be a better friend to people. So that's so that's kind of uh the direction that we're looking.

SPEAKER_00 11:42

I I love that it makes me feel really soothed, and also that it's going to reach and help so many people that that need this help in this day and age because the life life can be difficult for people, but then there's the beauty of the service that you provide and also kind of connecting with nature and ways to kind of navigate through it. So I know a lot of us have been taught that healing

Postcards From Home And Pleasure

SPEAKER_00 12:08

means facing our fears and digging into trauma from the root, but you don't quite see it that way. And I know you've we've touched on this a bit, but could could you explain your perspective of why that's not always always the best way to be?

SPEAKER_01 12:24

What we would like to see instead is that we grow this bandwidth or we grow this threshold. And and you know how it is when maybe it it happens at the end of the day, like your battery is just getting low, and everything seems to just be a bit irritating or or stressful. That's that's the sense of, oh my bandwidth is limited. I don't have room for more input or processing or anything. What if that bandwidth could grow? So that by the end of the day, or after a very full day, we feel more or less as fresh as we did early on. And that can happen with that growth of bandwidth. And that also means that the things that take bandwidth then can be experienced without so much stress. So trauma and the memory of what happened in the past, or my states of disquiet, or my states of anxiety and fear, and those states then feel like they're endless. It feels like a bottomless pit of anxiety or trauma. But really, all that is saying is our bandwidth has run out. That is, all of the intensity has eaten up the bandwidth for the day, and there's nothing left. And so what we provide is a growth of that bandwidth. So then, yes, we can face our fears, we can face our past, we can we can be, you know, who we are without trying to deny our past, but we can do that without it having this terrible toll on our system. Like stress means going over that bandwidth level. And what we've figured out is how with orientation and orientation to pleasure, we can grow bandwidth so that then we can really integrate whatever needs to be integrated from the past, or even better, simply to be in this present moment with what's before me.

SPEAKER_00 14:36

Oh, you explained that really well, Stephen. I found it very interesting. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 14:41

So we're it's it's such a it's such a key notion that how the biology works is according to these thresholds, about the thresholds of intensity and how our system can process things without our work. Like often we think, oh, I'm anxious now, I've got to take some deep breaths, I've got to, I've got to meditate a little bit, I've got to go for a walk. But that's compensation. And that's good to do. It's good to know how to do that. Okay, so if my bandwidth is running out, then I'm gonna cope. But the other alternative that is less known that we'd like to offer is growing the bandwidth so we don't have to spend more energy to cope with having spent so much energy already in the day. Right? That's that's a way of running the battery completely to zero. So that's that's why we're suggesting this approach is to be able to understand that there's a threshold and that it's not fixed. It absolutely can grow.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

So we've got the ability to expand our threshold rather than thinking, oh, it's just it one size and that's it. So that's that's that gives me a lot of hope for the future. That's fantastic. So your approach, organic intelligence, focuses on changing in the change in the biology. So as we we were discussing, it grows our grows our bandwidth.

Therapy Limits And Growing Bandwidth

SPEAKER_00 16:07

Is there anything else, any other parts of it that you'd like to share about as well?

SPEAKER_01 16:12

You know, the the point of the growth of bandwidth is that we become more connected to and realize our own nature. And that's that's really all it is. It's not like we're becoming a Marvell superhero or something, it's that we become ourselves. And most of us understand that. We feel like, oh, I was irritated, I was cranky, I I didn't respond like I wanted to. And so we are often a bit hard on ourselves for that. But what we hope is that when we come back to ourselves more, we can do that by growing that capacity. And the end result is kindness. You know, it's just our caring for people. That's our nature, is really just love and compassion and protection of life, and you know, really the relationships of being together, all of that can happen when our biology is ready for that and when it is expressing itself in its nature. And so that's what we're suggesting.

SPEAKER_00 17:16

Oh, that's good. I've got a question actually. Uh I was just thinking as you were saying that, is you know, our bandwidth, because I guess it can change as well at different as well as during the day, but also different stages in your life. So, like as an as like an older woman like myself, when the kind of the brain's changing as you're going through the change, your bandwidth can you don't you don't look that old as a?

SPEAKER_01 17:37

I mean, I know I think we're talking about midlife right now, but it seems to me you got a good bit of spark going.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

Oh, thank you. Thank you. Uh just that I guess that you know, like hormonal changes, like when you're going through like the menopause and the brain changes and the bam with it, it it can kind of feel like you're a bit it just everything feels a bit different. Yeah, exactly. Because the brain's changing and things like that.

SPEAKER_01 18:01

Oh, the the brain, the body, and and all of that adaptation is such a big deal. Hormonal changes, you know, our our bodies are meant to be synced within the rhythms of like night and day and waking and sleeping, and that includes hormonal balances as well. And so at life changes, you know, menopause and and others, like then those rhythms are thrown off and we feel discombobulated. And all of that then means that we're having to cope. That is, that we don't feel as well, life is not as easy, and that then we're uh means we are carrying a load, an extra load of physiological processing. So that could be this time of life, it could be illness, like you know, when you got the flu or even a cold, that's taking energy. Your body is spending energy on that, and so your energy battery gets used more and more. And so what you're describing is exactly what we work with and totally understandable about the way the biology gets, you know, gets to process what it needs to process and how we can grow bandwidth.

SPEAKER_00 19:15

Oh, brilliant. That's going to be a great help for some of our listeners. If polarization is really at the core of many of our challenges right now, what can individuals do to shift that?

SPEAKER_01 19:27

Yeah, polarization is another description of a biology that is out of sync. And so we have a biology that can grow bandwidth by integrating or being continuously present in our states. But when our states are, as you described, like discombobulated, then it's really hard to tell where I should put my attention. And so I'm often not present. I'm my mind is going, my attention is going to what's wrong, it's going to what they said and what I should have said in response, and how I haven't been treated as well, and how the world is, you know, falling apart, and and all of that, all of those thoughts and the negative experience of that further eats our bandwidth. It further consumes the battery of our being.

SPEAKER_00 20:29

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

And so what we would suggest then is to begin to work in orientation in particular by connecting to the environment through the senses. That is, instead of paying attention only or mostly inside, we begin to fill our awareness with what's on the outside. And because the brain is making predictions about what's coming and getting us ready. So to do that better, then we like to be able to pay attention to the exterior environment so that then we feed the brain, here's what's coming, and then the brain can do its job of getting us ready. And then that readiness means that we can then meet the moment and do the right thing. All of what

Thresholds Versus Coping Strategies

SPEAKER_01 21:16

that says is in readiness and being able to do the right thing with plenty of bandwidth. It says that we then can reduce our load, right? Reduce all of that decharging of our battery, and that's called allostatic load. Like there is more processing to do than we really have time or space for, then that's called an being sort of overloaded. And uh allostasis is the term for it. And so we have a a way of working that helps people reduce their allostatic load, reduce the feeling of stress, and and grow their bandwidth, and to work with ourselves and one another by being compassionate in this kind of understanding. So that's I guess where I'd begin with.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

That's wonderful. And I know that they have a link with spirituality with all this as well, don't you? Maybe you could explain a bit about that as well, please, Stephen.

SPEAKER_01 22:21

Well, you know, it's it's related to understanding where people are, because in terms of spirituality, there's a there's a classic book on spirituality by Evelyn Underhill, and it's called Mysticism. And in that, she describes a phased approach. That is, there is illumination and purgation and union. And what we have seen is that those kinds of three phases are everywhere, especially in the spiritual literature. It's in Hinduism, uh, you know, as Shiva, Brahma, and oh gosh, Shiva. You maybe become Vishnu, yes, yes. So uh so these three, the trimurti, uh, or in Gurjev. Gurjeff talks about the three uh phases, you know, the three forces, the negative, positive, and the unifying or uh neutralizing. So there are, I think that's a real key is to understand uh where a person is so that you can then help somebody with their journey and not to, you know, have them looking so far into the future that they miss the uh the the gutter that they're stepping off from, you know, in the street. You know, it's not like hey, look, there's there's the Himalayas, you know, and the mountains, let's climb there. And and they missed the next step. So I think that's that's what. We're proposing, and that's what we really work with the step-by-step process.

SPEAKER_00 23:54

I like that step-by-step process. So if I'm a listener, and I think this is going to help so many people, and if I'm a listener, I'm thinking, oh, I'm I'm really liking what I'm hearing. What are the best next steps that they can do within your system and how can they access it? Because we've got international listeners. So I'm guessing you it people can have Zoom sessions with different people.

SPEAKER_01 24:19

That's right. We have a directory of our trained professionals, our coaches that are trained in post-trauma growth. Our website is organicintelligence.org. It's org, which is nice. It's organic intelligence, organicintelligence.org. And the other thing, though, would be to begin right away with a lot of self-compassion and whatever self-forgiveness you can find, and then orientation. It's to take these orientation breaks and just let your eyes go where they want to go. And just take a moment to give your eyes the freedom simply to explore and see what they like to see. And that'll help the brain do its processing, getting you ready for what's coming. It's called the predictive, predictive regulation. And we can feel better. And so that's our thought is begin by feeling better as fast as you can, and then help us all by learning how to do this either as a coach or beginning with, say, the end of trauma course at organicintelligence.org.

SPEAKER_00 25:31

Brilliant, brilliant. And I'll put details in the show notes as well, dear listeners. So, Stephen, I found it really interesting what you've had to say today, and there's a lot, there's a lot of depth in it. I had a few questions lined up, but I I feel like we kind of naturally worked through them. So I would like to offer you is there anything that you would like to leave our listeners with that you feel I haven't covered today?

Menopause And Life Changes Drain Energy

SPEAKER_01 25:54

No, I think all the main points have really been covered. I think that you know there's a there's a notion that the medium is the message. And so uh it has been so lovely in our exchange to be able to have you know this this sharing of interest in compassion and the sharing of interest in healing. And so that's that's what I would say. Let's let's schedule more conversations with people who care about people. Like the the end result of our work in organic intelligence is gauged by the kindness that people manifest in the world. And so, really, you know, we want to think about who we are when nobody's watching. You know, and so that kindness, I think, is a key, and and your kindness in offering this to your listeners, I think, is really a great example. So the only thing that I would suggest is just that to uh be kind to oneself and others as best as we can.

SPEAKER_00 26:58

Very, very wise words and a good reminder, so dear listeners, be kind to ourselves and others as much as we can. And I've I've really enjoyed having you on the show, and I love conversations like this. I think it's going to help so many people. But you know, I think just I was thinking that just even like one sentence could change someone's life, so that's the reason why I share share my work and have a wonderful guest like yourself on the show. So, Stephen, thank you so much for joining us today. Um, forgive me with the time difference, but do stay tuned, listeners. There's a meditation inspired by today. But, ladies and gentlemen, the wonderful Stephen Hodkinson. Thank you for joining us today, Stephen.

SPEAKER_01 27:41

Thank you too. Such a pleasure.

SPEAKER_00 27:43

Top tips for the meditation is either sit nice and cross-legged on the floor with a nice straight back, always nice to sit on a block or a cushion, or that's not available for you. You sit in a chair with the back nice and straight. The important

Polarization And Allostatic Load

SPEAKER_00 27:57

thing is you're not slouching. And if you're doing something that requires even concentration, all you need to do is just pause this and you can reconvene the meditation at a time that is good for you. If you're doing the meditation, that's vegan. Expanding your bandwidth. Three moments of joy and being. With our eyes closed, we can sit here and imagine a beautiful vast spring sky. With the delicate scent of cherry blossom and the rich and expansive energy of this time. So picture in your imagination a beautiful spring sky. Some clouds float by which symbolize our thoughts and feelings. They can be there in our expanded sky, but instead, can we in our imaginations bring our intention to something that will soothe and expand our being? For me, it's seeing a robin as it reminds me that my father is watching me from a far off place. Remind being reminded that the courage of my grandparents when just when so very young in the war, and how they managed to survive so that I could be here today. Think in your imagination about some resourceful times or some inspiration from friends and family gone or here today. Or perhaps that feeling that you got when you expand yourself in some way. For me, it was traveling across Europe in a country where I didn't know the language, and yet I felt alive. For each and every one of us, it will be a different thing. And I'm a true believer that regardless of what age we are, we've always got that possibility to expand our bandwidth and being. As you place your hand on your heart center, and you imagine it opening up like a beautiful flower, whatever flower you like for you. And as that expands, that is the joy, the beauty, and the wonderfulness of who you are. And you can tap into this feeling, tap into this vast, expanded sky, which we all have in our mind's eye. And we can choose to see things from a bird's eye, expanded view, and then it dilutes things that may make us feel less expansive. So just take a few calming deep breaths and picture your most favorite thing in your mind's eye that brings health and benefit to you. And as you exhale, you slowly come back into the moment, slowly come back into the room. I want to leave you with a small invitation. If this podcast has ever inspired you, made you feel as if you've come back to yourself, or even made you feel more

Spiritual Phases And Step By Step Growth

SPEAKER_00 33:20

relaxed, then imagine what a whole hour could do for you. I run a small weekly yoga class online, and you don't have to be flexible, experienced, or even sure yoga is your thing. For one hour we move, then we slow down, we breathe, and hopefully for a little while, the noise of the world softens as you get to reconnect with yourself even more. The class is intentionally small, and before joining, all I ask is that everyone fills out a short form with some medical questions, and if you've got anything medical whatsoever going on, please clear this with your doctor before joining the class. If it's something that you've been craving for a little while, a little more space, a little more time to connect with yourself, then please come along and join us. You can find details on my website when spiritual work feels stuck. For the month of April, subject to the questionnaire answers and availability. I'm allowing people who have not joined the Yorg class before to join for one session for free. And if you like it, then you can come back each week or when you can. But like I said, must fill out the form first before joining. Any questions, pop me a line as well. Thank you for listening, dear listeners, and I'll speak to you soon. Bye!