Big things. Little things.
Conversations with inspiring community leaders about the big things they’re doing and the little things that make them who they are.
Big things. Little things.
Berry Liberman - Small Giants Academy
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An episode from the 2021 archives featuring Berry Liberman, Australian podcaster (Dumbo Feather and Wisdom and Action Podcast), storyteller, filmmaker, philanthropist and co-founder of Small Giants Academy.
Hi, I'm Sophie. Welcome to Big Things Little Things, a podcast series where I sit down with inspiring change makers to discuss the big things they're doing, the little things that make them who they are, and together we vision pathways towards a better future. I'd like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which I'm recording, the Gethable people of the Bunjalung Nation, and pay my respects to elders past, present, and emerging. Hey guys, welcome back to week 16. Today I'm interviewing the one and only Barry Liberman. Now, it's a big day for me because uh when I set out to make this podcast, it was really inspired by Barry's work, right? So if you don't know Barry, she's uh a very incredibly powerful woman and change maker and creative and storyteller. And you're gonna be obsessed with her after you listen to her in this episode. So she lives in Melbourne and she uh is the editor of Dumbo Feather. It's a beautiful publication that comes out. I believe it's quarterly, and it's a very powerful storytelling medium which uh really addresses some of the biggest issues of the day, but also brings in some beautiful artistic creativity and stuff and it's amazing, and people are featured. I think every episode features five uh prominent sort of people that they um they dive into their stories. So I highly recommend you check that out. Dumbo Feather also has the most incredible podcast. And uh that podcast really is um was the impetus for me to do pretty much everything that I'm doing in terms of climate, um, because uh it was through Dumbo Feather that I heard an interview with Catherine Ingram, um, who if you've followed on from the beginning of this podcast, um Catherine Ingram wrote an essay called The Essay on Extinction, which is quite um confronting in terms of talking about our um future, possible future scenarios that we might face in terms of climate during our lifetime. And that was what really um took me over the edge to have a bit of a climate epiphany or ecological epiphany. So once I um became conscious of how severe the threat of climate change is, that's when I basically couldn't continue on with my life as I had previously. And that's when I started doing my art series called What If Wednesdays, which uh imagined um different future scenarios that we could be living in. And you can see those art pieces of artwork that I did and the pieces of writing that saved in my stories on Instagram. There's 10 of them, so that was the one series. And after that, I decided that I wanted to have deeper conversations with some of the people who'd inspired the work that I did in What If Wednesdays. And um, Barry was pretty much atop of the list when I made this list, and I never thought she would say that she would come on, as of like all the guests that have come on. Like I'm so astounded that people have been so uh gracious with their time. But I think that when you're dealing with an issue like climate change, it's people are just keen to do whatever they can, and especially those people who are super conscious of of the time frames that we're faced with and how big the country really is. So I'm very grateful for all the guests that came on. So um Barry also is the um co-founder and I believe creative director of the uh the Academy, Small Giants, and they do a lot of things um like impacting impact investing, where they um they help to uh um to drive businesses that are pushing for change in the right direction. And they also run some fantastic uh like educational programs. I believe they have a kind of like a master's that they run there. And so we dive into in this podcast, um we talk about a course that's coming up about morality that small giants is uh running. And I would like to try to get to that one, and uh I also um will put the link in the show link if you're interested in that one. So um yeah, it's a bit of a long intro, but uh, I mean Barry's a very worthwhile person, she's a powerful, uh powerful um voice to listen to, and you can tell that she just goes on like a flow state when she talks and she just taps into something incredible. So there's so much wisdom in this podcast, and um, I've had to listen to it a couple of times just to really like get all the wisdom from it because there is just so much. And um, yeah, definitely check her out in the podcast if you love hearing her speak here because she's just fantastic. So thank you, Barry. I hope you guys enjoy this. And if you do, I would love if you would share it, and I would love if you could give it um a five-star rating on our Apple Podcasts. Okay, enjoy. I'll talk to you on the other side.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I'm I'm on uh Bunaran country, uh the um traditional land of the Kulan Nation. Melbourne, Australia. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04I love that part of the world. It's one of my favorite favorite areas in Australia. Okay, so to begin, my first question, this is kind of this question has come from um I listened to your podcast episode with um Gino Borges, uh, Poetry of Impact, which I thought was really cool. That was the first one I'd listened to of his, and it was all great. And there was a little sort of section in that podcast that piqued my interest. So you were chatting about uh the state of the world right now. And you were talking about the bushfires, because this was recorded just as sort of after the bushfires, and you were saying, you know, we've got to this point in life where our experience of the kind of uh the structure of the earth is becoming extremely visceral. For example, we feel the smoke in our lungs, but we also are in the middle of a pandemic and we are, you know, experiencing the effect of COVID in our lungs. And you uh you made the comment that you would be interested in, you know, the perspective um the Chinese medicine perspective of this, you know, what uh what um what do these kind of um effects on the human lungs say about perhaps um you know the state of the human health and the state of the earth's health in general? So you were kind of doing these, uh drawing these analyses and you said something there, you said, I like to think about these times that we are experiencing on a bigger frame because I think it can really help us to have insight about and any portal to insight or to collective wisdom is important right now, and I am hunting for it. And that uh really resonates with me because the path forward, I feel, uh is is so unclear right now. And sometimes you almost are leaning into like intuitive feelings, you're leaning into uh mythology, into history, you're trying to work out um so much uh interpret so much information in the world around us to try to help to guide us in a in a direction forward through these really difficult times that we're experiencing. And I was interested to ask you right now whether there are any portals to collective wisdom that are piquing your interest at the moment. So anything that that you're kind of doing some deep dives into that you're looking to for guidance about the future?
SPEAKER_03Beautiful question. Like we should ask everyone. We know that question. I know, yeah. So the way that I would answer that very rich question is to say I'm always listening, right? Every day for me, I feel like I'm I'm plugged in, tuned in, and and leaning forward. You know, as I sometimes say I lean so far forward, I get nosebleeds. Um because I because I I think that the way the culture, the collective consciousness is evolving is sort of hard and fast, and there are a couple of different things that happen. So one of the things is I'm as I said, I'm I'm in Melbourne, and we've just emerged out of the longest lockdown in the world, and the power of that lockdown on the collective was sort of this crushing, oppressive, exhausting encounter with restrictions, and it was like a huge experience and one that I wouldn't trade if I'm honest. Um, a lot of people said you could have just gone to Byron Bay, you could have just, you know, because we we're lucky enough to have um other places we call home as well, and we could have just gotten on a plane in between the lockdowns and gotten out of here, but um, it felt like a really potent encounter with things that I often have talked about but haven't practiced. So leaning into that, which is what what are you prepared to put on the table if in terms of these ideas, right? The practice of these ideas around what would we give up to mitigate a one and a half degree warming, which I don't think we'll be able to do now, but now we're talking about mitigating a two-degree warming. You know, that half a degree is so catastrophic, it's so profound how it's going to impact our lives, our children's lives, and our grandchildren's lives. So to be living into the resilience and the practice of what will you have to give up? You individual you, you collective communal you, you intergenerational you, like what does what is the me and what is the we? I think that's a really big thing that I've been pondering. Um, I'm also really tired, like the fatigue of lockdown and how the nervous system just sort of rearranged itself in and out, like it was the coming in and out of it and the uncertainty, certainty, and the expectations and the defeat of those expectations, it's big what that does. You can't understand it until you live through it, and that has taken me by surprise. And I think the thing I'm trying to practice now as we move into this beautiful summer of hopeful energy in Melbourne where everything's opened up, we're 92% vaccinated, um, people are really uh here. There has still been, well, that that's world-leading in many ways, we did the longest lockdown, and now we've got the highest vaccination rate. It's an interesting experience because a lot of people with fear and anger and resentment interpret that one way, and a lot of people with uh love and hope and compassion interpret it a really different way. And I think one of the biggest ideas I'm I'm trying to wrestle with at the moment is it's a practice, not just an idea, it's both. Is when you're at the crossroads of those two choices, which one do you make? And how are you able to make the choice of love, hope, resilience, and compassion over fear, anger, and resentment? Because, like, I have both all the time, you know. I I can be a grumpy motherfucker often, and just in my sense of injustice, my sense of hopelessness, helplessness, um, longing. You know, I have such a longing for connection and repair and restoration and healing. Like I see our capacity, I feel our capacity through love. Love, not the soft word, not the lowercase L, but the uppercase. The really love is a practice, you know. That's not a soft skill, that is a profound capacity that we have developed. And it's one that I think we've been um modelled by Mother Earth, you know, and I use mother and earth really pointedly, not as a soft articulation, but as a um, if we are, if we are nervous systems on legs, you know, let's go the scientific route. We have nervous systems and we co-regulate with one another, but we also co-regulate with all other sentient beings on earth and with plant life and with the air, the water, the you know, we really do. We can't make ourselves into rational, clinical, intellectual beings. We are bodies and uh we're the seen and the unseen, the tangible and the intangible. And I'm really compelled by that awareness that, you know, obviously I love the life of the mind, but there's all these intangible things that impact us. And lockdown in Melbourne articulated that so profoundly. There are things beyond our control and externalities that impact upon us individually and collectively. So for me, it's both plugging into that awareness that we are um absolutely in sync. Oh shit, sorry, I've got to turn off my inbox, which is beeping at us. That's so rude. It's like having your phone on. Yeah, so they're both how to uh make the more re more constructive choice when you when you move into action through through feeling, through thought, and into action, how can you make a more constructive choice in a world that's quite binary and there are not many orientations towards hopeful leadership that you can get that modelling from? So, how can I be that model and how can I orient towards those models and make more constructive choices? I'm lucky to be married to a really amazing human being who has helped me um undo my early learning around orientation towards competition, towards um winning and sort of individual sort of game. Um there was a lot of things I that I'm still constantly unlearning. I don't know if I'll ever I don't think I'll ever be able to put it down, you know. So so staying in good company has been really big for me. Um I'm fortunate to have a lot of that, making those better choices and and trying to kind of I was listening to a Buckminster Fuller quote yesterday. Bucky Fuller's a bit of a hero of mine, and his perception not just of breaking old paradigms because it's very antagonistic. The idea of breaking the old, I don't love that, but imagining into the new, imagining into healthy and constructive new paradigms, new systems, following change makers who are sort of able to use the alchemy of this moment to dream into and then manifest and make happen the world we want to live in and we want to leave our children. It's a pretty gnarly time because so much is impacting that collective direction.
SPEAKER_04Okay, this is later Sophie popping in. So at this point in the conversation, I fairly inarticulately tried to extract a bit of information from Barry, basically taking the insight that she has from the collective and translating that into practice. But I'm not gonna put you through listening to my tangents because you know they're not that relevant. So I'm just going to dive straight into Barry's response where she talks about what action is required right now. So let's go there.
SPEAKER_03I think that the real work of this moment is what happened to you when you had your ecological awakening, which is that each one of us, and Jung talks about this a lot as well, each one of us has to have a reckoning internally. It's personal. Is that chickens in the background, by the way?
SPEAKER_04Sorry, I think they're laying eggs outside the window. Sorry.
SPEAKER_03That is the best. I was listening, going, is that dogs? No, chickens. I'm sorry. I can't apologize for chickens. I've got chickens. I've got a really illegal amount of chickens in my backyard because Dan, my husband's um therapy during lockdown was all the heritage chickens he could get his hands on. Put in our backyard. And um, we live in an urban context, so it's pretty hilarious. I love them. They bring a lot of comfort. Um and I think that that's a case in point, you know, your own ecological awakening means that you now live proximate to chickens and you're deeply observing chickening, you know, not humaning, but chickening and how that expands your consciousness. It's not about the color of your skin or the suburb postcode you grew up in, or it's not about feeling bad about where we've come from. It's about owning our story with its richness, not owning our story with guilt and shame and mortification and bad and naughty. And no, it's saying, oh wow, these are all the things. It's an integration, not a separation. And I think a lot of the culture now uses language as warfare in order to separate, delineate, shame, blame, um, hang, draw, and quarter people on the social media platforms, online, it's all very binary. And I think that's the opposite of the place we need to come to. We actually need to integrate and we need to co-regulate from a place of hope and possibility and connectedness. Because what I've found, for example, with lockdown, we were separated in lockdown, and it was amazing how those social fibers were snapped and how the only place we could find each other was online or Zoom or like you and I on Zencaster today. It's it's great to a degree, but there's a place of exhaustion. We need to be reading each other three-dimensionally to get that food and that nourishment for all the other parts of ourselves so that we can continue to do the work of rebuilding the world, of regenerating and restoring the world.
SPEAKER_04I so you're moving towards those things that that bring you to to act from a place of love as opposed to a place of fear and hatred, because that's how you generate your ideas in terms of a portal to insight to collective wisdom, which is what the question was about.
SPEAKER_03So by the way, I don't I don't want to be like glib or um it's not when I say love, it's not like I feel like I need to give a caveat. It's not like the wellness world version of it. When I when I say that, I I'm talking about connection. I'm talking about hope and possibility as active words that help us wake up in the morning and dream into the future and then act. Because for me, the the portal of ideas that we need to have really big ideas at the moment from a really creative place. You can't be creative if you're feeling crushed, if you're living in binaries, you can only go to war in those spaces, and we need to um remake the world at the moment, and we need the energy to do that. And for me, I can't do that if I don't feel connected, yeah, and if I don't feel alive. So I'm I'm leaning into the ideas that bring aliveness and that um generate possibilities. That's what Dumbo Feather is about for me, always hunting for that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, no, I just so this this leads on to so we need to get to a place where we feel connected so that we can act from that place and move forward, right? And you were saying that the key is to kind of get people to have that kind of epiphany that I had, right? And to get to that epiphany that I had, I had to be pushed to the edge where I literally was like told by Catherine Ingram that, you know, your kids could be dead, you could be dead, the world could be gone to complete shit, and we may be too far gone and there may be nothing that we can do. So I had to slam my head up against the wall and have that scary realization. And if that is what is necessary to get everybody to a place where they can realize the importance. Important of connection and start to actually go there so that they can make the right decisions. How do we get the masses to slam their head up against the wall like I did? Like, how do because how do we affect that in a you know can we affect that? Or is it something we just need to roll out like and let happen as it will and just do our best through storytelling to to affect those around us? Like, what's the how do we do this?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I think so. First of all, privileged and underprivileged people, it doesn't matter black, white, rainbow, how you respond to trauma, how you respond to tragedy, how you respond to getting real, like having a real reckoning with this moment and the climate, for example, the way you respond to that will is directly related to how your inner life functions in your intimate world. You can't manufacture resilience if you don't have it. You have to go and build it. And the way you build it would be you say, I'm going to be accountable for these terrifying feelings that are coming up for me, and I'm going to do the inner work necessary to hold myself to self-soothe so that my actions don't perpetuate further trauma. That shit is hard. So then if you do nothing else, if you I genuinely feel this, if you do nothing else, do that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, just do the inner work.
SPEAKER_03I try to teach this to my kids when they want to beat each other up or they want to, you know, they my kids, my older two had a big argument last night. Um, and I I was listening, they wanted me to mediate, you know, they wanted me to take in all the feelings and then resolve it on their behalf. And we do that a lot. We we throw all of our feelings on Twitter, or we throw all of our feelings into whatever group situation, into the pot. Actually, one of the amazing human beings I work with, her name's Meliani, and she's Tongan and Dutch. And she taught me this exquisite notion of it's from Tongan culture, it's called the VAR. They call the space between the var. And everybody is responsible for that space between. What a magnificent notion. If we all understood that we were responsible for the var, for the space between us. And therefore, you must be responsible for your own processing, your own metabolizing of your feelings, your fear, your anger. You actually have to be accountable for it first. And then once you've metabolized it, which is really hard work, it means you have nightmares, powerful dreams, you might just be like so damn uncomfortable. And what we've been taught in our culture is to eat those feelings away, drink those feelings away, take drugs, shout at people we love, just dump all the shit in the middle. What if we actually hold our own shit, you know, sit with it?
SPEAKER_04And that's kind of that's like a countercultural thing too, because yeah, we like you're saying, because that's a radical act. Yeah, in no way, shape, or form does society and its current in its current structure encourage you to face up to any of these feelings. It's all the money comes from easing those feelings, you know, because then saying, well, let's make you comfortable, let's distract you with this, let's sit, you know, sit you in front of this TV or whatever. So it's it's quite a radical act to even do the inner work to begin with.
SPEAKER_03I'm I'm really experienced at it, right? I did 15 years of therapy, I've I meditate, like I hate it. Um I think it's natural, and we have to be kind to ourselves and know that we're gonna go in and out, in and out, in and out. Like, but it's continuing to show up to that work as opposed to. I think when you have this other, whatever the other is, and that other is the is the focus of all of your rage and anger, I think it's more well, compassion says touch base with all that shadow in yourself. And how are you behaving in ways that are not ecologically minded, that are hateful, that is in binary mode? How are you othering? And then and then you move into action, move into action from a constructive place or from a place where you are well aware of your own shortcomings, and you realize, well, what are my actions going to actually generate in the world? How am I doing things? What is my how is my being? And then how am I moving into the doing? And I think what's needed in this moment is that inner work and the outer work. That's what's also super hard and super charged about this moment. We're taking in a lot of information, we're taking in a lot of content, a lot of it is scary. Um, people are shutting down and shutting off.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_03Um, and when they do plug in, it's in closed Facebook groups that are that are really self-affirming algorithms, which means that um we're becoming tribal and narrow-minded, and the more spaces that are broad tense, that's something I'm really interested in. How can um liberal and labor voting people show up at the same forum and have a robust conversation about the future of this country, our children's futures? I don't think, honestly, on values, we would be far apart. No, no, but I think how we get there would be disagreed upon. And isn't that a juicy conversation? Isn't that a juicy conversation? Like we actually need conservative and progressive ideology and then action to come together into that's what parliament, that's what the idea is around. And people say democracy is dead and whatever. I I think that human beings coming from different perspectives in a room, people talk about diversity, they talk about it, but they don't know how to do it, really, which is the diversity is what lives inside of us. We need diverse inner lives coming into a space together to wrestle with our present, our past, and our future. It's big work right now, and we need people who have big capacity to do it, to be showing up.
SPEAKER_04I'm trying to think of how to how to make this practical for those who are listening, just so that they know, okay, from this this discussion, you know, what is it that I can implement in the way that I'm living so that I can move to a place where, you know, I'm acting, you know, in a way that's benefiting everything in a in a the positive direction. Um and I just thought of what you said about VAR, the space between. And that perhaps something that people could think about is that space between. And when, for example, you're confronted, like say you can't like we're just talking about coming in coming into a room with people over Christmas with these vastly different um opinions, you know, that may be extremely triggering. You may just want to leave the room, you may want to outburst at them, you may want to, you know, lecture them or whatever.
SPEAKER_03So if you're listening to this right now and you're freaking out about Christmas, and you're going to be sitting at the dinner table with all kinds of characters, which we all do, right? Brothers, sisters, parents, grandparents, children, who knows, partners who think differently. So all I would say is just because you're having a feeling does not mean you need to do something about it. Like if you're a grown-up, committed to being a grown-up, feelings are information that you can hold without throwing them all around the room. We do not have to do anything in the moment. The only thing you you know have to do, and I would say if you can do it consciously, is breathe. It's really, it's really radical. But you win nothing by throwing your feelings around the room in a toxic soup of competition. Because in the end, do you want to be heard? Do you want to win? What are you gonna win? Maybe just sit with really, really gnarly, awful, toxic ideas. Sit with them for a moment and see how it feels to just hold the space differently in yourself, like just your own feelings. That's it.
SPEAKER_04That's something I struggle with personally. Um not necessarily that I'm somebody to to attack or outburst or or rage um directly at somebody, but just I guess sitting in discomfort I really struggle with, you know, like and and I want to resolve it as quickly as possible, whether that often I guess for me is a is a flight or so just running away from a situation. So um yeah, that's something that through these podcast discussions has come up quite a few times and and is really important is um, yeah, the ability to sit in that discomfort, which um I historically have struggled to do and have not really.
SPEAKER_03There are there are like extra layers, you know. Um the extra layers that can be added once you've practiced that a little bit is to see that person who's expressing that toxic opinion through a different lens, like a lens of compassion, just for a moment, it might be really hard, but just to overlay that their ego is desperately trying to own the space that uh whatever it is, and to sort of just I don't know, there are two versions of us, and Eckhart Toll speaks about a friend of mine sent me this great podcast with him. He's got a hilarious voice, but he's got lots of wisdom, and and and not just him, but of course, many, many wisdom traditions through the ages have said, and I I actually love Jung's expression of this: there's a self-one and a self-two. I love just knowing about this. Self-one is our our better angels, if you will. It's our spiritual self, it's the self that is the observer of the eye. You know how when you're doing something, you've got a part of you that is observing you doing that thing, and sometimes you're like, don't do it. Stop, no, don't. Or or it's it's the observer self. And that observer self is this really kind of juicy and amazing self to be aware of because it it has greater capacity, greater capacity to care, greater capacity to love, greater capacity to hold. And then self too is like Barry going, you know, I've got a list of things I need to get at the shops and get the kids to school, and fuck that person for saying that thing on Twitter or whatever. Oh my god, I just read CNN, the headlines for this or that. Oh my god, I just that self too, very busy with the doings and very busy with the racing thoughts that come through and need to be deciphered. And you know, that amazing um kids' film, what's it called? Inside Out?
SPEAKER_04Oh, I haven't seen that yet.
SPEAKER_03No, oh my god, which is like basically there's a there's a feeling station internally that's constantly navigating all of these sort of really big experiences and these racing thoughts. But self-one is that self that you come to in meditation that is a slowed heart rate that has deep breath and that is in alignment with all of life and um kind of knows, like is very wise. I'm like, why can't I just be self-one all the time?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it's hard to it's hard to get to that place. I I'm doing some, I don't know, even what you call it, like it's called soul coaching, but it's like therapy sessions with um Adora at the moment, and um a lot of the stuff that part of the stuff that we do together is yes, we do these meditations where she gets you basically into your body or gets you breathing, gets you out of your head, and then tries to, I guess, navigate some challenges that you're facing from that place. And um it's interesting the answers that come up when you're in that. I guess, did you say is that self-two or is that self one?
SPEAKER_03No, no, self-one, self-one has knows knows is very wise self-one.
SPEAKER_04Oh, self, yeah, so right. So I mean I struggled to get to self-one because my self-two is loud and she's fucking heady. So she's like um, but like when I'm doing these sessions with the doula and I do like get to that point of self one, and um, yeah, the information that I can get to is is interesting, and the answers that come out to some of the questions that she asks are really interesting.
SPEAKER_03Isn't that crazy? Yeah, but like if you just asked your wiser self for answers to a lot of the questions, it's very peaceful there. Yeah, she's very wise and she's very grounded almost in an intergenerational wisdom. You know, it's it's quite profound, and yet we're a lot of us just I mean, we're we're human beings, we're Homo sapiens, you know, we're also geared to survive. Um, but we have these other capacities. That is fascinating. I don't know how we got to this part of the conversation, but yeah.
SPEAKER_04Oh, well, don't don't worry. I mean, it's yeah, it's it's interesting. But just a question, like uh not a question, but just a comment about what you said about accessing that intergenerational wisdom, I guess. That kind of ties into some of the conversations you had a little bit with um with Jade Miles um and some of the work that she does about ceremony and ritual, because I think that tapping into that intergenerational wisdom comes from those moments when you are sort of deeply absorbed and in touch with that self-one. And for example, like I get there with cooking and oh my god, I really don't know. With cooking and with gardening. There are two things that I find that I get into this state where I'm I forget other things and I just get into this like flow where I'm just concentrating on the task at hand. And it's funny how I'll be presented with a situation of like, you know, a plant that I've never dealt with, or I'm harvesting something or or caring for a plant or cooking a different meal with different things. And I don't know, it's like the knowledge comes from within me when I get to that place. Like if I just keep going, I seem to be able to tap into some kind of, I don't know, it's a weird thing to say. I'm sorry, you probably think I'm a freak.
SPEAKER_03Well no, oh my god, a freak is a strong word. No, no, no. I I think I think um so many people find flow state in so many different ways, and it's a real thing to hunt around for in your life. Where do I find I'm in flow? You were talking about with that with me before the recording um turned on. That place of flow and harmony and um groundedness um is something to search for because it's the thing you should do a lot of. I don't find it in showing. I don't find it in cooking. Um what is it for me? So so many things, music, um, connection. When I'm connected with other people, I'm I'm an extrovert introvert, so I need a lot of time in nature, just stillness, also hiking in nature can get me into flow state. Um, music definitely making music 100% um and and connection. So, like a big love language for me is quality time. Yeah, I find I get into flow state when I'm in quality time with my beloved peeps. And and actually, I'm in flow state when I'm communicating ideas. Like I really you can tell from my own work that when I'm I'm in storytelling flow, uh, I feel profoundly connected to a wiser part of myself and the world.
SPEAKER_04Well, that's why I think Dumbo Feather as a podcast is so powerful. And the people, obviously, that you work with, you know, it just you do seem to to drop into something that um really resonates with the humanity, like of me as a person that I also think, you know, the the listeners, it just it it really does uh resonate with them. So um I was going to ask, I know that I'm small giants is running a course on morality, and I thought that is fascinating to me. So I'm interested to ask like, why do you think that morality is so important to discuss and deep dive into right now?
SPEAKER_03I think that without religion, we are there's no ballast around ethics and morality in our culture. It's a bit of a free-for-all. And I I actually think that we are you talk about self-one, talk about wisdom, intergenerational wisdom. I think religion held that space for better or for worse. I I I'm not um religious myself in any way. I'm I think I I'll I'll reframe my answer to say that we've been on this planet for not very long, but we've formulated formulated some very sophisticated and very refined ideas around how to be whole as individuals and collectively. And I think that we need boundaries. Everybody needs boundaries, every ecosystem has boundaries, um, even the cells in our bodies have semi-permeable membranes, and those boundaries socially have to be refined and defined by things like morals, ethics. What are they? Which ones do we keep? Which ones do we dispense with? Um, how do we want to live? Those questions of who are we, how do we want to live, what is the good society, um, what future do we want to leave our children, how to be good ancestors, these are really big questions that are both individual and collective, constantly in tension with one another. And you know, the theological traditions, the religious traditions, have the richest resource to date of really pondering these questions, practicing these questions, soaking in them as essential for the development of human consciousness. I think it's still true. I think without morality, we are untethered from our better angels. We don't know how to be with ourselves and each other if we're not asking ourselves really elevated questions. One of my heroes is Victor Frankel, um, the Holocaust survivor and um therapist who came up with the idea of logotherapy, and he's got an incredible book called Man's Search for Meaning. And he's also got some amazing videos from the 1950s where he talks about this idea of man's search for meaning. We are meaning-making creatures, and if every generation we are trying to start from a lower baseline, a primitive baseline, like we've got so much, so many wisdom traditions, so many traditions that we can keep crafting from, keep elevating from. And Victor Frankel has this amazing video on um YouTube where he's giving a lecture in the 1950s. This is like 10 years after the Holocaust when he was in Auschwitz. Talk about resilience. Talk about love. What a loving act to be. Be persecuted and to watch the mass murder of your entire community and to come out of the ashes of that and still want to teach and laugh and share and write and tell stories and be with humanity, that is an act of radical love. And so he, amongst many, Ettie Hillison as well, so many heroes I have from the past and now who teach me about what it is to continue to show up. And he talks about how, in essence, humanity, we need to aim really high. We need to go for the most exquisite manifestation of our moral compass. We need not as a didactic, not moralizing. We don't need to force upon each other the way, which is hideous. No, we need to, like artists of our own humanity, sort of gather from the best of traditions and aim really, really high for what we could be, because there will be a natural drift to our best selves. But if we aim for our sort of medium, we will drift to our lower and base selves. And there will all we we kind of have to keep striving for the magnificent possibilities in us, which allows for drift, which is what we've been talking about. You know, self one and self-two were in constant, if we allow it, if we create enough space while you're cooking or gardening or meditating or sitting in synagogue or church or wherever you are, allow for a space of dialogue with your higher and better self and the higher and better part of the collective. So that's why I listened to Krista Tippett at On Being. That's why we do the work we do at Dumbo Feather and you're doing what you're doing because there's a rich space of longing and striving that is non-didactic, but is a calling forward of us to live into health and wholeness. And I think the word healthy is really important. It's important for scientists when they're looking at repairing ecosystems, and I think it's important for us when we're looking at repairing the collective human ecosystem of our consciousness. And if we want to evolve where we are participating in the restoration of our ecosystems on this planet, and where we can live into the incredible um privilege that we've all been given of being born on this planet in this time. Wow! Then we need to strive, we need to reach quite high, and um, we need to constantly be um crafting our inner lives and our outer lives the entire time. It's a there's sort of theology and then there's practice, and the two go hand in hand.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I I find morality an interesting um discussion piece at the moment, and definitely um an element that is uh really missing from life at the moment now that we have become so separated from religion, not that I I also am not um particularly religious in any sense, but I just wonder about how to bring back this uh moral compass or this sort of sense of morality without imposing like a body of rules onto people, you know, how do we how do we encourage it? Is it just kind of like a cultural thing that each individual needs to just work on their own internal morality and that will slowly sort of um like be absorbed into those around them? How do you how do you think that's yeah?
SPEAKER_03I think growing up secular in Australia, morality was a dirty word because you don't want to, like we said, moralizing is repugnant. Um, I don't like to be patronized and told something is moral. Uh I'd like to investigate that myself. Um, but I think in the context that we host it at Small Giants, first of all, you should come to the event. I want to, yeah. I do have that conversation. Um the thing that I realized as I as I grew older and and I saw the sort of unraveling of the world with the AI platforms that really I think have unraveled our collective ability to make sense of things together.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, I agree.
SPEAKER_03Our collective sense making is very much under threat. Um, and we are all willingly walking into that bonfire. And I'm that is probably the thing that terrifies me the most. Our ability to collectively make sense of anything. Um, and I think being able to be in a deep and rich discussion around what is morality in the 21st century is a worthy conversation to have. Um we can't shy away from it. It's not it's not something that we can leave on the sort of on the floor in the dust as something of the past. We kind of need to get back to the essential oil of the word. Actually, I'd be really curious to know what the etymology of morality is. Can we look at that?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Like I've looked up morality. This is something I do all the time. My teacher, my teacher, when I was very young, taught me about words and the power and the significance and the potency of these words, and that we use a lot of words that we don't even know the etymology, which means the root of the word. So, morality, principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior, a particular system of values and principles of conduct, the extent to which an action is right or wrong. I mean, that seems like something we should be talking about. And it comes from late Middle English, from the old French moralité or late Latin moralitas. But then it doesn't tell us what that what that core word, etymological meaning, directly from the Latin moralitatem, manner or character, from the Latin moralis of manners or morals, a doctrine or system of ethical duties. Huh, from the 1590s. That was just a thing there. So um well, it's a system, it's a system, right? It's it's what are our ethical duties that we all agree upon? Like we agree on traffic lights, red, amber, and green. And we we all just make the assumption that we're gonna stop at red lights, yeah, and go at green lights. So we, you know, and upwards from that, ever more sophisticated, we have to have a kind of agreed upon range of ethical duties that we are accountable to each other. I don't know, that's what I think.
SPEAKER_04In terms of morality and getting to a place where we can, I guess, more clearly define our ethical duties that we all agree upon, um, in a way, we need to be very cautious of the data that we're presented with in front of us through technology. And and one of the questions I was going to ask you is to do with how do we how do you personally interact with technology, knowing that it is so it just has such a capacity to steer us off course, but it's also one of the things that's allowing us to kind of continue in society as we know it and communicate during lockdowns and continue to work and things like that. So, how do you how what's your relationship with technology like and how do you mediate it?
SPEAKER_03Uh I I'm not on social media to the degree that other people I know are. So I'm on Instagram, but I've stopped posting because I'm in, I'm in constant tension as I try to me personally, not talking about my businesses, um I'm in a lot of tension with the power dynamics because I think the algorithms are more than cynical, I think they're murderous. And um engaging with that feels like a cynical act for me at the moment, so I'm not. Um, but I consume a huge amount of content, huge. I I listen to audiobooks, podcasts, um, I watch all the streaming platforms. Like I'm a huge consumer, so like we all are, I'm sure. And I'm here, I'm with you right now on technology using this incredible platform to record this conversation. So um the tension is real and the participation is also real. So I'm here I am. Um I haven't opted out. I never want to opt out of systems of power fully. I'm my favorite word is discernment. I try to practice discernment all the time and try to practice regulating behaviors around it. So making sure I get out in nature and move my body every day is a really regulating behavior. I try to get a lot of sleep and I try to eat really well and limit alcohol to like one day a week, and you know, all those kinds of things so that my discerning mind is able to function and I'm not completely overwhelmed and swamped by the algorithms and the chatter and the um because there's a pull, right? There's a pull for us to give all of our life force to technology. It's it's demanding our attention, it's the attention economy, and so we have to do whatever we can to keep practicing our humanity.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. So part of what part of your response is staying nourished as a human being outside of tech technological systems so that you're able to have the capacity to exercise your discerning mind.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, like our inboxes, right? The more you address your inbox, the more that comes into your inbox.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, that's true.
SPEAKER_03It's it demands you're in exchange with it. But like when I was a kid, we didn't have emails.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03There was more human-scale response and reply time. So I don't have any answers other than I'm in constant tension with it, and I don't ever just fully succumb.
SPEAKER_04Well, I think that you did kind of answer like that nourishment piece is really actually important, I think. Well, just as an interesting side note to this, so I have just moved house. Um, we moved 35 minutes out of the town I'm living in here, and we've moved up to a mountain where there is basically no phone reception and there's no internet. And we haven't sorted any of that out. I don't know when or if we will. Um so for the last couple of weeks, we've been there most of the time, and it's amazing what that does to my mind being out just not having those things, not having my phone on me all the time because there's no point. I can't look at anything, can't call anyone. Um, and it's just really, it's really amazing how that creates this like spaciousness inside of myself that I felt that I didn't have before, um, for ex just even with my own thoughts, because I think when I'm super connected to to my devices and to the internet platforms that you know they have, um, I just feel like I'm in this go, go, go. My mind's a million different places, you know. But moving out there and just not having that access for a short period of time really made me think how much it does influence me and my mind on a daily basis when I do have too much exposure to technol technology and those platforms. So, yeah, I do really agree with what you're saying. Um, all right. So I was just going to ask you, I know that Catherine Um Ingram is your one of your mentors. And I was interested to ask about that relationship. And can you tell me what has been some of the most beneficial learning that has come from your um relationship with Catherine?
SPEAKER_03Oh my goodness, don't ask me to encapsulate that in five minutes. Um I love Catherine. She is a beautiful soul. I for me, she's modeled a life of inquiry and practice and leadership and um compassion. She's got the most um spacious and beautiful soul, you know, um, and it can hold a lot, really big ideas and she's lived so much life, she's such a great storyteller. Um, and she's very, very, very wise. And I just think if I if all you listeners hear from this podcast is find a wise one and keep them close, that would be my advice. Um Catherine is um a port in the storm, she's really um grounded in all the wisdom traditions that she learned from. And she's a great synthesizer. She's incredibly adept at taking a life of learning and then synthesizing it into really nourishing, really streamlined practices for how to live a meaningful life. You know, she's not, she did, it's not about being a nun on a mountaintop in a cave separate from life. Her wisdom is about weaving it into life. Um, and she's very grounding for me, you know, because I do a lot. I I have about 30 businesses um that uh I I'm I'm hands-on and all in on everything that we do at Small Giants, and I can get a little bit ahead of myself and I can lose track. And Catherine is one of my sort of measuring sticks. Like she, I come back, I'll I'll call in and she'll reflect back to me an incredible mirror of wisdom, and instantly it drops in, and I'm able to sort of reset and remember why I'm doing what I'm doing. She has that effect on me. It's really magical. I feel very, very lucky to have her in my life.
SPEAKER_04Oh, it's so nice, yeah, to hear even like you can tell when you respond to that question, like that you were very peaceful as soon as you started speaking about Catherine. And um, I yeah, I recommend anyone listening um check uh checks into her in the deep podcast, is fantastic and she has shares her wisdom there. So tune in. So um, Barry, thank you so much for for your time today. Um, I've really loved chatting with you, and I hope that you know you had a nice, nice time.
SPEAKER_03Thank you so much. So yeah, I'm just really like so impressed and so grateful that you've created this podcast just for your own life and your own nourishment, and then you get to share it with everyone who's tuning into your work. This is exactly the kind of meaningful work that changes hearts and minds and helps other people to start their own journey. It's really beautiful. So thank you for inviting me.
SPEAKER_04Well, that was our chat, and I really loved it. I think that there's some real gems of wisdom buried deep down in there about you know what we can all do as individuals, and especially talking about the inner work. That really relates to a lot of the conversations that I've had so far through this series on the podcast. So I did want to say like a massive thank you to Barry for giving um so much of her time to have this discussion um with me and you know with this whole community because her work is so important right now, and uh, you know, I think she's one of the most important change makers of the day. Um I would listen to anything that she wrote or said, even if it was like uh literally engraved into a piece of rock. Um so yeah, I hope you like it too. So next week I'm gonna sit down with Claire Riley. So Claire's a really interesting um woman. She lives down near Melbourne, and uh she has been diagnosed with MS, and that created a really pivotal life transformation for her. And uh, when she was um diagnosed, she was a really desperately seeking community um of like-minded people. So um she branched out and started a podcast called MS Understood, and it's a fantastic podcast. I've listened to it. And I think that uh insight into chronic illness is relevant to everyone because uh even if you don't have MS, some of the themes that it brings up are totally transferable to the experiences that everyone has in in life. And I think it's really important to gain a deeper understanding of some uh some people's experiences in the world, especially those who uh who maybe have different challenges to you so that you can have some deeper insights. So we had a lovely chat and uh, you know, we sort of covered many topics, so that will that will come out next week. And we're nearing the end of um season one. Uh I think Claire's will probably be the last episode for the season um before Christmas, but I am looking to come back next year with a second season, and um I'm really excited about it. I think that its form will change somewhat. Probably the uh episodes might be monthly. Um and I'm not too sure. They might just change form a bit. I'm going to give myself maybe three months, two or three months off over Christmas and just allow the creativity to come and see what ideas can um can be generated because um we've moved up to the new house block now, and uh just having that real um being that step outside of the busy bustling life that I had in town, you know, I'm having some real um creative waves coming to me, and I'm excited to to see what comes next year. So yeah, we'll we'll be back. And um, yeah, I I look forward to hearing your feedback. I hope you have a wonderful and safe Christmas, and that you can take some wisdom from this podcast in your interactions with loved ones if they are charged. Okay, see you guys. Bye.