Bodyful Episode #23: Cleveland Hughes on Trauma-Informed Boxing to Heal and Find Your Power

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By Valerie Martin

As a person who’s never been into sports, the thought of walking into a boxing ring is more than a little intimidating— but that’s exactly what I did yesterday with the support of trauma-informed boxing coach Cleveland Hughes.

Not 10 minutes prior, I called it a “boxing rink” 🤡 😂 — so suffice to say, I don’t know much about boxing. But even with just a few minutes of instruction, it was so clear to me how useful these skills could be, not only to develop physical strength, but also sharp mental awareness, bodyfulness, and perseverance.

In this conversation, Cleveland and I talk about his journey to boxing, and his decision to gain further education to become one of the world’s first trauma-informed boxing instructors through his signature program, Healing Mitts. We also commiserated about some of the ways the fitness industry can be inherently harmful, especially for trauma survivors, when leaders do NOT have a fundamental awareness of trauma.

🎧 To listen to the episode, stream from the podcast player below, or visit this link to find the episode in your favorite podcast player. There will not be additional new episodes of Bodyful, but the existing episodes will live on in Valerie’s main podcast feed (which is now Bad B*tch Therapist podcast).=

About Cleveland Hughes (he/his)

Cleveland Hughes is a boxing coach and the developer of the Healing Mitts Intentional Boxing Training System. In 2009, a therapist suggested to Cleveland that he try boxing to help him cope with my anxiety and depression. He noticed the life lessons he was learning in therapy also applied to boxing. Through deep inner work, he gained the skills necessary to fight back against his mental health issues and trauma. He knew that he wanted to help people heal through the sport of boxing.

With 15 years of experience coaching boxing, and additional education on trauma-informed best practices, Cleveland developed Healing Mitts to help empower people struggling with mental health issues. He is proud to be a trauma-informed boxing coach and a mental health advocate.He currently offers group and private coaching in-person in Miami and Nashville (soon fully relocating to Nashville), as well as coaching online.

You can learn more about Healing Mitts at healingmittsboxing.com (a work in progress, more coming there soon!) and book a virtual or in-person session with Cleveland at the website or through DM on Instagram @clevelandh.boxing, where he shares tips and resources on boxing and mental health.

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Bodyful Episode #19: Laura Khoudari on Healing Trauma through Movement, One Rep at a Time

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By Valerie Martin

Each year, there are just a few books that make it onto my all-time favorites roster, and this year, one of those is called Lifting Heavy Things: Healing Trauma One Rep at a Time.

I highlighted damn-near half the book because there was so much that resonated personally and professionally. A few chapters in, I knew I wanted to try to get the author Laura Khoudari on the podcast.

Fortunately for me, she quickly responded and was down for it— after all, Bodyful is kind of a perfect fit for all the topics she wrote about in the book! And as a fellow Health at Every Size-aligned practitioner, Laura approaches fitness and training from a weight-neutral perspective (which, I don’t have to tell you, is unfortunately a rare thing in that industry).

This was such a rich conversation, and I can’t wait for y’all to hear it. Whether you’re a trauma survivor, work with trauma, love fitness, are repelled by working out— you’ll gain something from listening to this one.

To listen to the episode, stream from the podcast player below, or search & subscribe to Bodyful on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

About Laura Khoudari

A trauma practitioner, and certified personal trainer, Laura Khoudari is passionate about giving people the tools they need to heal from trauma and cultivate mental health and wellness. She is the author of the book Lifing Heavy Things: Healing Trauma One Rep at a Time. Her work has been widely recognized by the trauma and fitness community, and she has been featured on Buzzfeed, UpWorthy, Outside Online, Medium, Tonic, Nike, and Girls Gone Strong. She lives in New York City with her family and two cats.

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Bodyful Episode #13: Susan Shor Fehmi on the Power of Learning the Open Focus Style of Attention

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by Valerie Martin

Confession:

As much as I’ve lived (and practiced psychotherapy) long enough to know there is no such thing as a “magic bullet” cure-all for emotional and physical pain, I remain permanently and eagerly on the lookout for strategies and ideas that might be juuust a bit shy of magic.

And believe me when I say that I have purchased an embarrassing amount of books, programs, apps, trainings, and online courses in that ongoing quest. In the summer of 2021 as I was clicking around on Amazon, the good ole’ hate-it-but-kinda-love-it algorithm recommended a newly published book that caught my eye, called The Open Focus Life: Practices to Develop Attention and Awareness for Optimal Well-Being.

Focus? Attention? Tangible practices? Optimal Well-Being? The book was immediately in my cart. And because I also cannot ever just have a “casual” interest in anything, while I was waiting on it to arrive, I started listening to the audiobook of Dr. Fehmi’s previous book, The Open Focus Brain, which I quickly devoured, and downloaded/started using the Level 1 audio practices from the Open Focus website.

Almost immediately, I noticed that Open Focus practice— while similar in ways to other mindfulness meditation practices I’d done— left my mind feeling different than any of those practices. The best I could describe it is lighter, clearer— and, yes, more open.

I was hooked, and I decided to begin mentoring with Susan Shor Fehmi, who has carried on the work of her late husband Les (the creator of Open Focus). It was such a gift to have the experience of learning directly from Susan, who is a kindred spirit in many ways. I was delighted when, at the completion of my Open Focus Coach training process, I asked if she’d come on the podcast, and she said yes.

To listen to the episode, stream from the podcast player below, or search & subscribe to Bodyful on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

About Susan Shor Fehmi, LCSW (she/her)

Susan received her Master’s degree from Columbia University and is currently the Director of the Princeton Biofeedback Centre in Princeton, NJ, where she combines the teaching of Open Focus™ training with multi-channel, phase synchrony neurofeedback.  She is interested in combining traditional psychodynamic psychotherapy with the skills of Open Focus and Synchrony Training.  She, along with Les Fehmi, Ph.D. are co-authors of several peer-reviewed journal articles and their latest book, The Open-Focus Life, published by Shambhala.

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Bodyful Episode #12: Jill Dunkley on Being in Right Relationship with the World Inside & Outside

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by Valerie Martin

I am not a naturally “calm” person, and it’s not often that I meet someone who instantly makes me feel calm in their presence. But when I met Jill Dunkley in 2019, that’s absolutely how I felt.

Jill is grounded, real, warm, kind, smart, and wise, and I’m grateful to call her a friend.

In this conversation, Jill and I explore:

  • what it means to be in right relationship both inside and outside ourselves

  • how trauma-informed practices and ecopsychology can support us in developing those capacities

  • the relationship between our individual healing and our commitments to the work of decolonizing

Learn more about Jill’s current and upcoming offerings on her website here.

To listen to the episode, stream from the podcast player below, or search & subscribe to Bodyful on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

About Jill Dunkley (she/her)

Jill Dunkley lives on unceded Algonquin Land in rural Eastern Ontario with her husband, ecopsychologist, Andy Fisher.  For most of her adult life she has explored the question “what does it mean to be in right relationship with the world inside of me and the world outside of me?”  Now in late adulthood, she currently lives with that question at the intersection of trauma-aware mindfulness, yoga that adapts to the needs of the individual, and the earth. Jill is also a certified yoga therapist and mindfulness instructor and has found many great insights about her questions in the field of radical ecopsychology.

 

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Bodyful Episode #11: The Non-Diet-Trainer Barb Puzanovova on Joyful Movement

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by Valerie Martin

Spoiler alert: Diet Culture (along with its co-conspirators The Patriarchy and White Supremacy) is THE WOOOORST.

And even though it may be called “diet" culture, this term has come to represent a tangled, shitty web of harmful systems that impact not just our relationship with food, but also our relationship with our bodies, movement, and how much privilege (or lack thereof) we carry in our day-to-day lives.

For the majority of people who were raised in that overculture, “exercise” was something to be dreaded— an entirely unpleasant (even punishing) experience intended to whittle away fat (which was determined to be disgusting and unacceptable), and carve sharp, angular edges.

But there is a new generation of fitness leaders heading the charge to both dismantle diet culture and revolutionize our relationship with movement. One of them is badass Nashville-based personal trainer Barb Puzanovova, who is on a mission to bring the JOY back to training and fitness.

In this episode with Barb, we dig into the harm caused by diet culture, how to reclaim bodily autonomy in regards to movement, and why the conversation around privilege and body size in our society is complicated.

Here’s the truth: Thin doesn’t equal healthy, fat doesn’t equal unhealthy, exercise doesn’t have to be about weight loss, and most importantly, health is context-dependent. There is no one-size-fits-all... both literally and metaphorically.

Barb’s body of work is all about redefining and cultivating joyful movement, and she reminds us that we don’t have to force ourselves to do exercises we hate…and yes, you will hear me proclaim on this episode that I may never do another single burpee again 😂. There are no rules to exercise (walking counts! bouncing around and prancing through the park counts! stretching counts!)— and tapping into pleasure with movement creates a much more powerful experience that can help you become more bodyful in your WHOLE life.

This episode with Barb will empower you and give you a giant permission slip to move in a way that feels good, and I can’t wait for you to listen!

Barb offers training sessions virtually, and her schedule opens up again in late January if you’d like to work with her!

To listen to the episode, stream from the podcast player below, or search & subscribe to Bodyful on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

About Barb Puzanovova, CPT (she/her)

Barb Puzanovova, aka The Non-Diet Trainer, is a Health at Every Size (HAES), weight-neutral, and inclusive ACE-certified Personal Trainer, Behavior Change Specialist, and Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor. Due to her own story of recovering from an eating disorder, she empowers people to step off the scale and into their life so they can move their body with less rules and more joy.

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