Returning to the Body, Returning to Our Roots – with Juliet Hollingsworth

What if healing isn’t about fixing what’s broken, but remembering what’s always been there? In this episode, Juliet Hollingsworth invites us into a powerful conversation about the body, the nervous system and the ancestral threads that quietly shape who we are.

Having just returned from a soul-stirring journey through Africa, Juliet shares how connection to land, lineage and simplicity reignited her understanding of true safety and inner rhythm. Through her deeply intuitive work as a hypnotherapist, speaker and founder of The Burrow Farnham, she helps others return to themselves in a world that constantly distracts us from who we truly are.

This is an episode for anyone craving grounded healing, inner clarity and a deeper sense of belonging to themselves and the wider world.

In this episode:

• How Juliet’s time in Africa revealed new layers of ancestral and somatic wisdom
• The body as a guide for healing and reconnection
• The power of client-led therapy and what it really looks like in practice
• Why honouring our roots helps us build safety and agency in the present
• The creation of The Burrow Farnham as a space for community, rhythm and healing
  
  
  

Moonbeam Musings is a podcast that weaves together the magic of myths, traditions, and cultures from around the world. Hosted by Filzie, the show explores topics like folklore, spirituality, and the intersections of history and modern-day practice. Each episode invites listeners on a journey into the unknown, featuring thought-provoking conversations with experts, practitioners, and storytellers who share their unique perspectives and experiences. Whether it's Celtic traditions, Filipino folklore, or the mystical connections between nature and humanity, Moonbeam Musings uncovers the threads that bind us to our roots and to each other.

Connect with me:
Insta: @filzie
YouTube: @moonbeammusings

Chapters

• 0:10 Journey to Africa
• 2:27 Cultural Observations in Tanzania
• 14:41 The Human Mismatch Theory
• 24:10 Ancestral Living and Modern Challenges
• 35:43 Community and Connection

Transcript

Phillipa James (00:02)
Hi everyone and welcome to Moonbeam Musings. Today I'm joined by Juliet Hollingsworth, hypnotherapist, author and researcher into ancient wisdom and modern wellness. Juliet recently returned from a powerful journey across Africa where she spent time with tribal communities reconnecting with the rhythms of nature and exploring human potential through ancestral living.

In today's episode, we'll dive into her transformative experience and what we can learn from indigenous knowledge systems and how her travels have shaped her upcoming book, The Human Mismatch Theory, a compelling look at how modern life conflicts with the environments we're biologically designed for. From rituals to purpose, stress to rhythm, we're talking about the roots of healing and reconnection. Welcome, Juliette. Thank you so much for being here. So.

Juliet Hollingsworth (00:47)
Hello, thank you.

Phillipa James (00:51)
What inspired you to take up the recent trip to Africa?

Juliet Hollingsworth (00:55)
Well, despite your very full introduction, it was simply our 10 year old daughter who asked to go on a safari holiday to Africa. And I think it's something that I've always wanted to do. I remembered actually how a family member, when I was very young, pre-teenage, I think, went to Africa, maybe Kenya, on a safari holiday. And I was always inspired. And so that was really the starting of it.

And then I was so pleased, think pleased is probably too light a word, but so pleased to find out that ⁓ a tribe I'd been researching lived exactly where we were going. So that was really exciting. Although I can't say it was the inspiration for going, but it was certainly became part of the trip when I found that out.

Phillipa James (01:55)
Well, rather than focusing specifically on the tribe, what was your experience about the overall culture there? You know, how it felt to live outside of what we're used to over here. And we're based, for everyone, we're based in the UK in the South East. So you're sort of south of London, I'm east of London in the boroughs around there.

Juliet Hollingsworth (02:17)
Hmm, it's so different. can't, I don't want to, ⁓ you know, there's people who go and who are from Africa and there's people who go and work out there for short periods of time, but much longer than I was out there for. And there's people, I know someone, for instance, who lived for many, years ⁓ in Africa. I can't remember exactly which country, I believe Uganda, but

We were in Tanzania and we were there for a very short amount of time and so I don't want to... ⁓

you know, misinform or say things that aren't true or even act like I'm an expert on Africa. But my experience is that it just is so different in so many ways, yet similar in other ways. The first thing I noticed was how joyful and friendly the people that we came across were everywhere we went ⁓ from being met at the airport

to ⁓ staff in the restaurant, in the hotels, ⁓ just people falling over themselves to help us really, but not just that, also be friendly. Everywhere we went, everyone says hello in their language and big smiles and everyone seemed very happy. I had a few conversations with different people and some expressed happiness.

in general and some expressed hope for a better future. So again, I don't want to misrepresent these people who might be putting on a brave face to please the tourists that are spending their money there. But really, I got a sense that the people were far happier than the people here, even if they didn't necessarily realise it, which is...

⁓ a strange kind of thing. And one thing that I noticed, I was reading a book when I was there called Breath by James Nesta, which is a fantastic book. And I'd noticed before I started the book, how that these, I called it the African smile, like, everywhere you looked, everyone you looked at just had this beautiful smile on their face. And until I started the book, I was

just thinking it was just lovely to see people so happy and smiling all of the time. And I kept saying to people, you're all so happy. And then I read in the book about how we hear, well, actually, it just said humans, didn't say, it said modern humans, it didn't say ⁓ people in the Western developed countries. it talked about how we, now, didn't, you know, as hunter gatherers, we didn't cook our food in the way we do.

now ⁓ and we certainly didn't have processed food ⁓ in the way we do now and so the book was talking about how where we don't chew our food enough our jaws get misshapen and our misshapen jaws cause us to not breathe properly but what was interesting is part of that is that because of the misshapen jaws we get wonky teeth and as soon as I read that in the book I noticed that

Every single person that I came across, African person, Tanzanian person, had perfectly straight teeth. And I can assure you that these people were not going to the orthodontist because they were quite poor. don't think there was even a dentist, alone an orthodontist. ⁓ And I thought it's because their diet is more natural than ours, even though they are eating a lot of soft foods like rice and...

⁓ maze, they are still eating also more natural things and there's more chewing and it was just fascinating to see that. I noticed how much they walk everywhere, just walking and walking and walking and it was so interesting to see the ⁓ many of the males actually ⁓ walking down the

the streets, everyone had a stick in their hand. And I think part of that is to do with culture, but also a large part of that is to do with protection from the animals. so, yeah, lots of walking and lots of people are very much living in ⁓ all kind of handmade, I say manmade, our buildings are manmade, but manmade by

owner of the property ⁓ houses but so many ⁓ of these simple mud huts everywhere. Yeah and the carrying on the head, the way the women carry things on their head and I also noticed ⁓ you'd see the women as you drove down the road you'd see the women washing their clothes in the buckets and how they bend and it's an interesting thing because I know that lots of us bend to pick things up wrong.

and my dad's always pulling me up on it and always has, bend from your knees, bend from your knees. But what I noticed is these women are bending from their hips, they're almost doing a downward dog position. And it made me think, that's the way we should bend. And that's probably why downward dog is such a ⁓ important pose in yoga. And so I found that quite interesting. And also the thing that was starkingly obvious to me is how separate the males and females are.

So when we were out and about, and I don't think it's a religious thing, I think it's just a more natural way of being, I didn't see, I can't recall seeing one family unit as in a mum and a dad and children. I saw women with children and men in groups, know, groups of men, groups of women all sat around, but never a mixture of the two. And so

I found that quite fascinating. When I spent some time with the Hadzabi tribe, I was told there that the males and females don't really come together in the daytime. I don't think their rules are strict or authoritarian or anything like that. It's just the way it is. And so the women were in one area and the men in a separate area and they maybe come together at night, potentially back in their family groups. However, we then...

went on to the ⁓ Dato'ga tribe and I was speaking to them about the way they live and again it was the same the women were in one space and the men were in the other doing their jobs that they do ⁓ and at night the whole family sleeps together but the men sleep in one space and the women sleep in another space so I'm not sure about the Hadzabi whether they also sleep separately like that but they don't

tend to come together during the day. I think, as I said, it's not ⁓ a strict rule. They did a dance and included us in a dance and they all came together then. ⁓ But in terms of hanging out, if you like, it's very separate. And I noticed that across the whole of Tanzania.

Phillipa James (10:06)
It's really interesting. know some people in retirement here in the UK, they find it very difficult because they're together all the time. Naturally in communities, women have often been together and been together and a woman and man separated from a community or tribe don't often hang out for long periods of time. So it's quite interesting when we try and do that. And obviously it works for some people, but some...

some couples even here, one of them ends up going back to work or they have very separate lives. Another thing I wanted to mention when you spoke about them smiling and it's good to acknowledge that it doesn't sound like it's a front because last year I was in Cuba and it definitely was a bit of a front there. There was definitely an element, I mean the government dictates that foreigners and visitors see the country in a positive light.

Juliet Hollingsworth (11:04)
Right.

Phillipa James (11:05)
And I definitely heard, actually, one woman actually spoke up and she was talking in a negative way about the country. And I overheard her and she could see that because I speak Spanish and she said to me, ⁓ just close your ears, close your ears, you know, ⁓ because they're not allowed to do that in front of foreigners. ⁓ So it's interesting, but it does sound quite genuine from your experience. felt quite genuine. And especially if you were

out and about and you were seeing people in their daily lives rather than just in a hotel in sort of a specific environment if you were out outside the house and you were seeing people on the street etc.

Juliet Hollingsworth (11:48)
Yeah,

I mean, maybe it wasn't so much. I didn't see the smiling so much then. But ⁓ I think a part of it is, to some extent, what you say, they rely so heavily on tourism, that they want their tourists to have a good experience. But when we drove down the road, all of the children and some of the adults as well would wave as we drove down the road. And I never quite got to the bottom of why the children wave. And that seems like such a strange question to ask, why are the children waving at us? Because

Why shouldn't the children wave? It's lovely that the children wave at people driving past. I mean, that's beautiful. Maybe a bigger question is why don't the children here wave? But I do know that my kids quite like winding the window down and shouting at people, know, shouting hello and waving at people out the window. It's a fun thing to do and they do it almost as a game. And it feels a bit uncomfortable because that's not what we do here. And sometimes I want to say to them, don't do that. But when you drive through

Tanzania, all the children are waving as you drive past. But again, I never asked the question. I don't know if they're waving. You know, we did stop at one place at one point and some children kind of asked for some money. And so I don't, it didn't feel like it, but I'm not 100 % sure that it wasn't them trying to wave in hope we might stop and give them something. But it did just genuinely feel like they waved to be friendly.

Phillipa James (13:16)
Yeah, I mean, was there a moment that made you pause and think or any moment of inspiration or that you felt was fundamental when you were out there or epiphanies or anything?

Juliet Hollingsworth (13:33)
⁓ No, I think it certainly confirmed how I feel ⁓ about modern life and how we hear, certainly in our country and probably most Western societies, ⁓ are living in such huge misalignment with our biology and how damaging it is for us. And they are there in Tanzania, you can't ⁓

You can't pretend they're not, there are still people working and it's long, long days. But I still, I think we are so much more into our technology here. And it's pulling us so far away from our biology that I think it's really damaging. that was really confirmed when we were there, definitely.

Phillipa James (14:33)
Yeah, mean, I guess on that note, what insights did you gain about sort of the overstimulation and the disconnection in the West specifically?

Juliet Hollingsworth (14:44)
I don't know about over stimulation necessarily, but we just we don't move. I mean they walking everywhere there. Cars are not the way they are here and they walk miles. You know some of the children are walking five, six kilometers to go to school and

That's normal and it can sound like a hardship from our perspective, but actually it's probably really healthy. And you see these children kind of taking their time really as they walk and they've got their sticks and you just see groups of children stopped off playing about in the bushes, obviously on their way home.

the life is just more natural, it's more outside, they're not sat inside on a computer game or a screen and exercise. Occasionally we see people running out for a run, but really you see them doing, you know, living, they're living to survive or yeah, living to survive, but I don't mean that in a negative way, I mean in the things a lot of

For a lot of the people, the things they're doing are just so much closer to natural living that they don't need to go to the gym for an hour in the morning. And look, this isn't everyone. We were in hotel and there was on one night seven guests in the hotel and I think 10 members of staff. So those 10 members of staff are not living a natural life. They're getting up early and they're going to work and they're stood in a hotel waiting on guests for the whole day.

not different to how we're living here, but there are a lot of people just much more rooted in nature.

Phillipa James (16:51)
So yeah, I mean, we've got all these mod cons that look like they're helping us, like washing machines and things like that. then we have to, instead of spending our time doing that, we have to go to the gym because we're not using our body at all in different ways that we would do if we were doing these chores that they're doing. And there's a joy in those sorts of chores in a way.

Juliet Hollingsworth (17:01)
Exactly.

Exactly.

Yeah, it gives purpose to life, which is what we all seek.

Phillipa James (17:20)
Yeah,

and you can do that in a joint way. watched, I was from the 1940s in a wash house in East London. I watched a little video about that and it was just lovely. The women used to go there and that was using machines, but they'd go there and it was a community thing and they'd see their friends there and they'd do their washing. And all of these things that help us in inverted commas sometimes are detaching us from our communities, isolating us in a way as well.

⁓ But I'd for you to talk a little bit more about the human mismatch theory, which is the main topic of your book.

Juliet Hollingsworth (17:59)
Yeah, so it's essentially ⁓ what you just said. I'm going to read you my core point because it's at least if I read you here, I get everything across. humans evolved to cycle naturally between stress and recovery. In our ancestral environment, survival depended on moving, nourishing, sleeping and connecting. From these survival needs a deep purpose emerged. Purpose wasn't abstract, it came from meaningful roles within the tribe, from contributing to survival and belonging.

We transitioned smoothly between the stress response, a short term motivator and homeostasis. Today, modern stressors keep the stress response switched on. Without the survival needs, we lack movement, nourishment, sleep, connection and purpose. And this leads to chronic dysregulation of the mind and body. So what we were just talking about and we're still talking about people living as more modern humans than our biology expects us to live. humans have...

as we know us today, pretty much, have been in existence for about 300,000 years. And the agricultural revolution happened about 12,000 years ago, which means that for 97 % of the time humans, 96 roughly, percent of the time that humans have been in existence. So our brains have been as we know them today, we lived as hunter gatherers.

We didn't own animals or keep animals. We didn't own plots of land. We didn't own anything. We didn't trade with each other. We would go out into the land and hunt for an animal to eat when we needed it. And we would go and pick roots and plants and fruits to...

supplement, I was going to say supplement but actually I think it was the other way around, the meat supplemented the plant-based foods. And we would follow the seasons so as the rains came the animals would move and we would follow that so that we could continue to hunt the animals. And we lived like that for 96 % of the time that we've been in existence and then for

Approximately 4 % of the time that we've been in existence, we have been getting increasingly more distant from that. So it started with the agricultural revolution when someone decided it would be a good idea to try and manipulate the plants and grow our own so that we didn't have to keep ⁓ chasing them. And the same with the animals, own our own animals and keep them. And then we didn't have to keep chasing the animals.

But that obviously immediately started or was the beginning of this scarcity culture that we live in. Because suddenly we were having to try and grow plants and crops in places where they weren't designed, designed, that's the wrong word, weren't necessarily wouldn't necessarily naturally grow. And we were trying to grow them in conditions, weather conditions that wasn't natural. So instead of

the plants growing in alignment with the seasons and us moving with the seasons, we would try and grow something in all seasons. And then we started to worry about what if it didn't grow? What if next month nothing grows? What if the weather's wrong and it doesn't grow? And then we start chasing things and then we started to think, well, I'm going to have to grow double the amount so that if I don't grow any next year, I've got enough in storage. And then the animals.

And then we had to start protecting our space because people would come and steal each other's spaces or each other's animals. And so that's when we started putting in boundaries from each other and separating ourselves from the rest of the community. And then, of course, the industrial revolution came, which made all of that that little bit easier. We had machinery to do things. And then it's gone from there. And so our

Brains still expect us to function as they did prior, as we did prior to the agricultural revolution, following the seasons, living in a community as one, hunting, gathering, no boundaries, different foods depending on the season, ⁓ regular movement when we go and hunt, but then regular downtime when we've finished ⁓ foraging and hunting.

come together as a community, also ⁓ deep, deep knowledge of the other people within our community and sleeping in alignment with the rising of the sun and the falling of the sun, which obviously was different as soon as the agriculture revolution started and they were having to get up at different times to tend to the crops, etc.

So we're moving even further away from it with computers and all the other technology that we have. And so even though we think that these things are benefiting us and bringing us closer together and helping us reconnect, they're not helping us in the way that our brain expects us to function. And so we have this idea in our head, this conscious idea that this is great. We're doing all the right things, but the brain is still

almost exactly the same as it was 300,000 years ago, up until just 12,000 years ago, when we lived in a vastly different way. And it's hugely damaging for us and it's probably why we're all so sick.

Phillipa James (24:01)
Wow. Yeah, thank you for that. ⁓

It's very interesting. And I think it's very true. I absolutely loved what you said as well previously about the chewing.

Yeah. ⁓

Juliet Hollingsworth (24:23)
because we didn't cook foods until the advent of fire.

Phillipa James (24:29)
Hmm. And when- do you know when that was?

Juliet Hollingsworth (24:32)
No, but I think it was probably quite early on. I mean, I do, but I've forgotten. We had to be able to live in a very, very cold climate. So I think it was quite early on. But still, it's very different cooking something on a fire and eating it that you've picked in the wild and cooked.

yourself to what it is going and buying a packeted food in the supermarket in terms of how much you have to chew it. know meat, even wild caught meat and the hunter gatherers, eat all of the animal, not the bones I'm sure, but the chewier parts as well, whereas we're so precious here and we don't even want to order or buy the fattier, grittlier parts of the meat, let alone eat them.

Phillipa James (25:23)
Well, I mean...

Exactly, and you know when you eat an organic chicken it is often slightly tougher than another supermarket bought chicken and so imagine back then it was even more and maybe I don't know I haven't looked into this but I imagine also that a lot of stuff was eaten raw and even with the fires primarily I imagine that was for meat anyway.

Juliet Hollingsworth (25:54)
Yeah, when we were with ⁓ the tribe they were showing us, so there's a tree ⁓ that they have in Tanzania called the Baobab tree. Baobab tree, I think that's the right name. And these trees live up to 3,000 years old and they're huge, but they have a fruit on them. And so the people there pick the fruit and eat the fruit as you would, but

Phillipa James (26:05)
Mm-mm.

Juliet Hollingsworth (26:21)
there's seeds inside the fruit and they chew the seeds like chewing gum. They don't have a chewy texture like chewing gum. They have a seed-like texture. They're probably the size of... ⁓

I know, like a nut, a small nut. And they chew it and it's got ⁓ a flavour to it, which I can't remember. think it might be like a lemony flavour. And then they spit it out when they're done. But even that kind of chewing.

Phillipa James (26:55)
Yeah, I mean other cultures also have that. So the Greek culture has mastic, masticia, which yeah, is, and it's much better than our unnatural chewing gum that we have today. I always try and grab some when I'm out there in Cyprus. Yeah. Oh really? Yeah, it's really, cause it's good. Cause I think our chewing gum can cause stomach ulcers, whereas this actually heals stomach ulcers. So it's the complete opposite.

Juliet Hollingsworth (27:00)
of course. Yeah.

It's recommended in the Breathe book. Yeah, I think you can buy it here now. Breath, breath, not breathe. Yeah.

Phillipa James (27:23)
But yeah, you've got to get used to these things. It is chewy, it's not chewing gum. It doesn't have the same flavour. Yeah, I always like that though. So I guess different cultures, they knew they needed to chew.

Hmm.

Juliet Hollingsworth (27:40)
Yeah, it's fascinating.

Phillipa James (27:42)
Well, moving on a little bit, because I wanted to touch on a community that you run here called The Burrow. So I wonder if you could tell us a bit about that and what inspired you to set that up.

Juliet Hollingsworth (27:54)
Yeah, I think what's happened is I've had a washing machine of thoughts and ideas going around my head and it's come together into one thing, which is the book that we just talked about. So prior to that, I should explain or you said about my work, but I've worked as a therapist for 18 years or so.

And so I've had the privilege of hearing people's stories and a lot of stories. ⁓

putting them all together come to some conclusions really. And a couple of years ago, or not a couple of years, about a year and a half ago, ⁓ I just really felt quite strongly that people needed to access ⁓ different types of, a holistic, ⁓

treatment plan, that's wrong. I was speaking to a lot of people who were coming to see me for therapy, and I knew that I could help them, but I knew I couldn't help them alone. They needed more. And I don't mean more as in ⁓ more experienced therapist or more therapy, but they needed a more holistic approach. So it's all very well talking, but there's so many other healing modalities that need to come together to truly heal the mind and body.

I was saying to people, know, go and try this, go and try that, go and do this, go and do that. And I eventually ⁓ realised that it would be quite nice to be able to bring all those things together into one space. I had had previous experience, you didn't mention, but my children had gone to a community-based school for five years. And so I'd had that experience of being in a community.

that did focus quite a lot on self-development and healing as well. And that unfortunately folded for reasons that were relevant to this podcast. And so I was missing that as well. And I managed to find some land and put together this concept, I guess, which we call the burrow.

And we put on various events throughout the year that come together to provide a space for people, which is community focused and there's healing workshops, example, gong meditations and five rhythms, dancing and just coming together as a community. really, although it's

evolving and it will always be evolving. It's evolving into something that somehow gives us all a snippet into living a bit more naturally. Although we only have a couple of events a month and you know people when you're living naturally it's all day every day. It's nothing like that but it's just a little bit of time away from

the screens and coming together with other people, less individualism and also some of those healing tools like other people doing things for you like the Gong meditation where that's a sit there and have someone help you type experience.

Phillipa James (31:47)
Yeah, and I'll say I've come along to one and it was really lovely. Everyone was very friendly. There was a family atmosphere. Everyone pitched in to support because it's mostly outside, although there's shelter ⁓ and there's fire. And it was just really, really lovely to get together and be part of that. people will put some links in the bio. People are welcome to come along. But I know that you book out quite often, you sell out of your events. They were getting more and more popular because there's a need for it.

Juliet Hollingsworth (32:13)
Yeah.

That's exactly it. Every time anyone comes to anything, they express how much there is a need for it and how much they need it. One of the things that we do monthly is a fireside chat. And so we come together around the fire for two hours on a Friday evening. And there's a ⁓ topic of conversation set before. Sometimes it's suggested by the community, sometimes I decide it. And it's ⁓ generally...

some kind of philosophical topic of conversation. And we sit there and we bring food, you know, just nibbles. We sit on hay bales around the fire and we just talk about that topic for two hours and then we go home. And it's really, really lovely. It's just really uplifting and energizing and feels good.

Phillipa James (33:12)
Mmm.

Juliet Hollingsworth (33:12)
But

interestingly, when we visited the tribe, the Hatsabi tribe in Tanzania, as we approached their base camp, I don't know what you call it, as we approached, we walked up to a group of men sat around a fire chatting. And I just felt like we were at one of our fireside chats. That's what it felt like. They were sat on logs.

Fair enough, they were all dressed in animal skins, which is not what we dress in when we're sat around Alfaire. But they were sat there talking as we are. I mean, the only difference was they were a group of men and the women were somewhere else crafting, sat in their space crafting. It just felt very familiar, very normal.

Phillipa James (34:03)
Hmm, it's interesting how we have to actively bring back these rituals into our lives that have been lost in order to be more, I'm going to use the word grounded, I think a lot of listeners will understand that, to be more grounded in our lives because there's so much screen time and so much detachment from nature and other people. And now we're having to actively look at

implementing these rituals.

Juliet Hollingsworth (34:33)
Yeah and they're so important because without them our body suffers.

Phillipa James (34:41)
or lot of illnesses, inflammation, etc. Bored out of that. I feel like we're sort of a generation that suffering a little bit because of the way that there's a bit more knowledge now about computers and things like that. But we've had, I don't want to show our age, but we've had probably 20 years of computers and sitting at desks and things which have had an impact. ⁓

I know for sure my job has always been that. I think as a therapist you've managed to probably escape that for a little bit of time, but you still have to use a computer every day.

Yeah, well, if someone's feeling disconnected on that note or overwhelmed, where would you suggest that they would begin?

Juliet Hollingsworth (35:35)
So disconnection is a massive part of, I have kind of five things that I think are paramount ⁓ and they are nourishment, sleep, movement, purpose and connection. Without those five things, I think that we suffer. ⁓ And so I think it's important, from my perspective, they come together. I don't think one thing can ⁓ heal, but in terms of

connection. Can I explain why I think why it's so important to us? So ⁓ when we lived as hunter-gatherers, was really important to live ⁓ with other people in a community because we're unsafe when we're not. So you know there are animals, if we go back to the Hazabi tribe when they go out hunting, there are animals that can hurt them.

Phillipa James (36:09)
Yeah, of course you can.

Juliet Hollingsworth (36:33)
And not only when they go out hunting, they live, they still live in the wild. So there are still dangerous animals like lions and dangerous animals like elephants who can trample over them right on their doorstep. And when they go out hunting to try and get their food, there is the possibility that they will come across any of these animals. And that's exactly how it would have been.

for all humans for 96, 97 % of our history. And so we needed to live as a community, as a group, as one. ⁓ And therefore the brain is designed in such a way that when we are not connecting with other people in this way, it will try to motivate us to connect with other people in this way. And so...

We have what I call the ⁓ motivator hormones and the gratifying hormones. And so the motivator hormones are the ones like cortisol and adrenaline that will try and encourage us to move, to do something, to act. And then there's the gratifier hormones like oxytocin and dopamine that will give us just a short burst of feel good.

when we've done something that's put us back onto the right path. And so I have a kind of analogy that the road of survival is this straight road, completely straight from one point to another point. And then as human beings, we should ⁓ kind of snake around this road. And every time we kind of come off it, one of the, my hand's hit, every time we kind of come off it.

a motivating hormone kicks in like adrenaline, which nudges us to act and do something and puts us back onto the road. And then as we get onto the road, we get the gratifying hormone, which rewards us for a short period of time. And then we might come off it slightly and the motivator hormone will kick in and it will nudge us back on. And we kind of go like this for life. That's how we should go. And that's exactly how our body's supposed to work. those... ⁓

motivator hormones are what we call stress ⁓ or anxiety and we are supposed to experience them and the body expects to experience them. It's not a bad thing. Stress in that way is a really, really good thing. It's exactly what the body is designed to do as are the gratifying hormones but they're only supposed to be short and they're there to help us remember how to behave as well. So if we do something that helps us survive then

those gratifying hormones help the brain to log it as a stored memory to know what to do next time. We, as modern humans, are kind of going like this, away from the survival road. Like we very rarely come back onto it. ⁓ And one of the things that the brain wants us to do is remain in connection with our tribe.

because it's safety. It's all based on safety. you know, the survival road, the one that we're up, snaking across, it's all, it's just safety. It's just to survive, to stop us dying. And as soon as we move away from connection with other people, we're putting ourselves into danger. So the brain wants us to get back onto that road. So it alerts us with the motivating hormones, which are the ones that we don't like today. They're the ones that we think don't feel good. And when we don't have

Connection, physical connection. I mean, by physical, I don't mean ⁓ necessarily sexual or overly physical, but just face to face as opposed to ⁓ on a screen. When we don't have physical connection with people and form strong bonds with a group of people, then the brain is going to keep trying to nudge us back to do that, which means it's going to keep ⁓ releasing these

motivating hormones, the adrenaline, the cortisol, the ones that cause us to feel the feelings that we describe as anxiety or stress. So it's really important for our mental health and physical health because a permanent feed of motivated hormones is damaging to our body. Short bursts, really exactly how the body is supposed to behave. Permanent, really damaging. And

So that's why we need to have connection. Now, one part of how we used to live and the connection we needed was also close, deep connections. And that's why a lot of these ancient tribes have rituals, because those rituals, rituals in, ⁓ maybe rituals is the wrong word, but regular celebrations, regular kind of comings together and ceremonies and things like that was for

so that the tribe members would demonstrate their commitment to the tribe and that makes them trustworthy people and it makes everyone trust each other. And it's really important as well in these groups that everyone knows everything about each other because you've got to be able to rely on each other and work together. And there's actually a magic number, so the researcher called Dunbar, he did some research and he found out that the kind of

perfect number of people really in one group is 150. When there's 150 people, everybody can know each other well. Beyond 150, you can't really do that. He doesn't say in his research, but logically to me, everyone's 150 must be the same 150. Like my 150 must be the same as your 150, because otherwise that doesn't work. And so

For people who are feeling disconnected, the important thing is to try and find a community, a group of people where it's generally the same group of people who you can get to know well, and you can trust each other and you have physical face-to-face contact with each other. And that can be anything, you know, people do different things. Some people just go to the same

yoga group a couple of times a week. Some people have a tight social group, other people volunteer somewhere. There's so many different things, even, I don't know, I don't know what I'm thinking of it, but like a neighborhood watch group, I imagine that they're a group of people who come together. It's very, very difficult in our world. It's just impossible to have 150 people and every person in that 150.

It's the same 150. Like I think without creating an environment that could appear quite cult-like where no one is allowed to talk to anyone outside of it, it would be near on impossible. But trying to achieve that in as close a way as possible would be a good way to start to feel a sense of connection and belonging.

Phillipa James (44:13)
Hmm. Yeah, it's really insightful. Thank you so much. And it's very interesting because I was thinking about the fear element and how ⁓ I know you alluded to this, how obviously when there's fear before of an animal chasing you and then you run and that's the motivator to run. And yet when you were speaking about later on, the fear was that the crops weren't going to grow. And that's the sort of fear level we have now where there's no physical

there's no way physically of getting rid of those hormones, like an animal that runs in the wild away from another animal that wants to eat it, and then it shakes. And so we don't have that now. So we're storing all of that fear rather than shaking it out.

Juliet Hollingsworth (44:45)
Exactly.

Yeah, and it's less that we don't have the ability to get rid of the fear. It's more that the pressures don't go away. So like you just said, the fear of a crop's growing, that's a permanent fear. That fear would be there forever. And now obviously it's a more modern thing like financial pressure, having to pay the mortgage each month or having to do a presentation at work. That might be a shorter term stress, but you still might have a month of stress.

Phillipa James (45:05)
Mm.

Juliet Hollingsworth (45:29)
because you've got a presentation to do and you don't like speaking in public.

Phillipa James (45:34)
Absolutely and that's why we have insurances as well because of those fears they ⁓ so that they

they're there to stop us having these fears about certain things and people will pay for them. Some people have lot of insurances, some people don't. So yeah, I appreciate that. Is there anything else you want to share with us before we wrap up today?

Juliet Hollingsworth (45:58)
No, I've enjoyed sharing those things I've shared.

Phillipa James (46:02)
Yeah, well thank you so much for your time and we'll put some of the people that you've mentioned and also a bit about your book in the bio. It's not out yet, is it?

Juliet Hollingsworth (46:05)
Thank you.

No, it's

still very much in draft. So it's one to come back to.

Phillipa James (46:15)
Well, the time,

yeah, by the time people watch this, you know, and get round to this podcast, maybe it will be ready. So as soon as it is, what we'll do is we'll add the link into the bio as well. So we look forward to reading that. Thank you so much, Juliet, for your time today.

Juliet Hollingsworth (46:26)
Yeah.

Okay.