What is Collective Healing?

Hosted by Sonita Mbah. Produced by J'aime Rothbard.

When Rita Maria Brown's daughter was three years old, they were playing in a garden in her native Brazil when an older girl approached Rita and asked: 'Do you hit her?'

"Her words went straight to my heart. I'll never forget that moment," Rita says. "And it was like time slowed down and I felt the weight of that question in my own nervous system because of my history with domestic violence, but also what that question meant to her."

In this episode, Rita...

Hosted by Kosha Joubert. Produced by J'aime Rothbard.

What happens in a Pocket Project Integration Lab? And how does the process contribute to individual and collective healing?

In this episode, Adrian Wagner, part of the Pocket Project's research team, explores his work using software known as SenseMaker to capture the subtlety of the processes that occur in collective healing work.

After gathering personal stories from participants in the last round of International Labs in 2024, Adrian curated the Sacred Story Book – which opens a window into the many ways people explored collective trauma across di...

Hosted by Kosha Joubert Produced by J'aime Rothbard.

When Dorotea Gucciardo returned to Rafah in southern Gaza in November last year, she could barely comprehend the scale of the devastation caused by the Israeli military.

"I couldn't recognize a thing. Every building was gone. and not just gone but removed, rubble removed and new roads built. And I remember asking the U.N. representative on the bus that was bringing us in, where are we?...It was as if I was on a completely different continent."

In this powerful episode, Gucciardo, who is...

Hosted by Matthew Green. Produced by J'aime Rothbard.

What is a global acupuncture point? Join us as we explore how the mystical is born out of integrated lived experience. Valencie shares her journey into collective healing, tracing her story from birth and early life in Haiti, into her formative years after her family migrated to the United States.

Valencie speaks of the imprint of cultural collisions that she faced as she came of age in a foreign land, offering a glimpse into the mountainous terrain that she carried within. She draws us into a parallel...

Hosted by Sonita Mbah. Produced by J'aime Rothbard.

What happens when we expand the circle of collective healing to go beyond the purely human world? And how can we begin to address the enormous weight of animal pain caused by factory farms?

In this episode, Christine Gerike and Michael Grünwald introduce a year-long Pocket Project Integration Lab they're hosting from February 25 called Ethics of Animal Harm: Wounds in the Collective Field. Opening Ourselves to Animal Welfare and Ethical Violation in Factory Farming.

The Lab is one of more than 40 Integration Labs the P...

Hosted by Matthew Green. Produced by J'aime Rothbard.

In Pocket Project Global Social Witnessing calls, we come together in community to mindfully attune to global crises we've learned about through the news. But what happens when we make the people and systems delivering that news our focus? What can we learn about both the media's capacity for courageous truth-telling and its potential to amplify collective and inter-generational trauma loops from the past?

This episode features James Scurry, a senior producer at Sky News, psychotherapist and co-convener of MediaStrong, an annual symposium convening senior industry figures...

Hosted by Matthew Green. Produced by J'aime Rothbard.

For centuries, the march of modernity has not only unleashed devastation on Indigenous peoples and our natural environments, but also aimed to eradicate healing arts that have sustained communities and landscapes for millennia.

Hāweatea Holly Bryson is an Indigenous psychotherapist, rite of passage guide, and Māori healing practitioner of the Ngāi Tahu and Waitaha tribes who is working to challenge the colonial power structures that still endure within Western psychotherapy, and restore the role of cosmologies that long predate modern psychology.

While thi...

Hosted by Kosha Joubert Produced by J'aime Rothbard.

When Teddy Frank was diagnosed with breast cancer, her initial reaction was one of shock and denial. Then a more competent part of herself — a part she recognised from her ancestral lineage — took charge, seeking to gather as much information as possible about her treatment options.

The visceral experience of existential terror came on much more slowly – and with it an initiation into what it means to feel at first helpless, and then embraced by a much bigger force.

In this episode, Teddy speaks about the en...

Hosted by Matthew Green. Produced by J'aime Rothbard. 

This episdode is a rebroadcast from July 1, 2025. 

Solea Anani sees the collective healing work taking place in the world today as the answer to prayers offered long ago by our ancestors.

In this powerful dialogue, Solea opens a unique window into ancestral healing work – drawing on her roots as a member of the red-skinned Taino people of the Dominican Republic, who know the island as Quisqueya, or Mother of All Lands.

Solea describes how the grief, fear and isolation she experienced as a chil...

Hosted by Matthew Green. Produced by J'aime Rothbard.

Do we need 'parenting schools'? What does it mean to be initiated into the archetypal power of being a mother or father? And what responsibility do we hold to build the kind of healing communities that can nourish us in our daily lives – and allow us to nourish others in return?

In this second part of a conversation first published on Point of Relation, Pocket Project co-founder Thomas Hübl builds on a question about the transmission of ancestral trauma from parent to child to set forth an...

Hosted by Matthew Green. Produced by J'aime Rothbard.

Why do we beat ourselves up for getting pulled into the same old triggers? And how can we grow our capacity to observe our emotional reactions  – rather than being hijacked by them?

Pocket Project co-founder Thomas Hübl has devoted his life to helping as many people as possible to 'grow our cup' – his term for building a capacity to meet the trauma loops playing out inside of us with more awareness, spaciousness and compassion.

In this episode, Thomas and Matthew go back to basics by exp...

Hosted by Matthew Green Produced by J'aime Rothbard.

It's often said that peace starts within. But what does that mean in practice?

Eva Dalak is a Palestinian peace activator, international consultant, and women's empowerment coach with decades of experience as a gender and conflict expert working across Africa, Latin America and Asia.

In the immediate aftermath of the October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel, Eva founded Peace Activation, a global peace initiative that brings Israelis and Palestinians together to heal divides by bearing witness to each other's pain. She continues to host this space every...

Hosted by Matthew Green Produced by J'aime Rothbard.

When Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022, Dasha Gaian had just embarked on Thomas Hübl's two-year Timeless Wisdom Training in the principles of collective trauma healing.

Born and raised in Ukraine, and living in the United States, Dasha recognised that the surge of anxiety she was experiencing as she witnessed the devastation being visited on her homeland was shared by millions of fellow Ukrainians and people watching in horror from around the world.

In this episode, Dasha shows how collective healing work can n...

Hosted by Sonita Mbah. Produced by J'aime Rothbard.

Wycliffe Ngoko Oloo is on a mission to support vulnerable young people to share what's on their hearts. 

As team leader at the Kenyan organisation Kitbag Africa International, Wycliffe convenes sharing circles on soccer fields, in classrooms or under trees – anywhere he can find where people can gather. 

"I have seen young people drop their masks and speak their truth," Wycliffe says. "I have seen widows laugh after years of silence, and this is always beautiful."

In this inspiring conversation with Sonita Mbah, Wycl...

Hosted by Matthew Green. Produced by J'aime Rothbard.

How can learning to grieve cultivate resilience? And why are people reviving the ancient social technologies of collective grieving rituals today?

Luka Faradsch shares how teachers such as Francis Weller, Sobonfu Somé, Malidoma Somé, and Joanna Macy helped her understand how working with sorrow and loss — far from being only heavy and painful — could become a "sacred practice of aliveness."

By honouring the universal truth that the old must die for the new to be born, Luka describes how grief work can awaken a profound form o...

Hosted by Kosha Joubert. Produced by J'aime Rothbard.

In the run-up to the Climate Consciousness Summit 2025, we ask: How can we live with the knowledge that humanity is rapidly destroying the foundations of the ecosystems that support all life on Earth? And how can we learn from suffering without falling into overwhelm or despair?

In this inspiring dialogue, Kosha Joubert speaks with Brother Phap Dung (pronounced "Yung"), also known as Brother Embrace, and Brother Phap Linh, also known as Brother Spirit, who are both leading teachers in the monastic movement of Thich Nhat Hanh. 

Hosted by Kosha Joubert. Produced by

Hosted by Sonita Mbah. Produced by

Hosted by Matthew Green. Produced by J'aime Rothbard.

Can artificial intelligence (AI) support humanity to foster greater coherence and alignment with truth? Or does the headlong rush to exploit this new technology risk amplifying existing trauma loops – pointing to a more dystopian future? 

In this dialogue ahead of the Climate Consciousness Summit 2025, Matthew Green and Nico Forest Heinimann explore how AI could potentially aid both individual and collective healing by serving as a mirror revealing patterns previously hidden deep in the human psyche. 

At the same time, Forest emphasises the urgency of developing a sa...

Hosted by Sonita Mbah. Produced by J'aime Rothbard

What role can the more-than-human world play in collective healing? And what lessons does the enduring reciprocity between Native American communities and the buffalo have to teach? 

In this special episode previewing the Climate Consciousness Summit 2025, Sonita Mbah speaks with Dallas Gudgell, a Yankton Dakota and a tribal member of the Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes of Montana, about his work to restore buffalo herds and grassland ecosystems in Yellowstone National Park and tribal lands.

Buffalo once roamed from Florida to Alaska in their t...

A self attumement to meet the watery edges of the self, facilitated by Kosha Joubert. Kosha is the CEO of the Pocket Project. 

What is Collective Healing? Are you curious to find out for yourself? Every month, the Pocket Project hosts a range of different free events open to everyone. To find out what's on this month, visit https://pocketproject.org/pocket-events/

Hosted by Matthew Green. Produced by J'aime Rothbard.

What changes when the body is no longer a place of suffering but of joy and presence? How does collective healing shape individual transformation? And how would the world change if women reclaimed their bodies as home? 

Animated by these questions, Stephanie Pizarro joined María Troya and Karla Mejía to co-lead a Pocket Project International Lab exploring the theme "Embodying the Feminine" in 2024.  

Joined by more than 40 women from 15 countries across Latin America, the year-long exploration helped participants to renew their relationship with their...

Hosted by Kosha Joubert. Produced by J'aime Rothbard

How to bring collective healing practices to people affected by gun violence, poverty and systemic injustice? And how to build structures to support the leaders doing this work to thrive? 

These burning questions have animated Karen Simms, founder and director of the Trauma & Resilience Initiative, a nonprofit organisation in Champaign, Illinois, throughout her 20 years of working with marginalised groups.

In this episode, Karen traces her early influences — from childhood summers in Maryland spent memorising the speeches of Dr Martin Luther King while her cousins performed mig...

Hosted by Matthew Green. Produced by J'aime Rothbard

How can we release old ways  of relating rooted in past trauma and instead allow our bodies and hearts to naturally relax together in the here and now?

That fundamental question has guided Danny Cohen's many years of psychotherapeutic training and spiritual practice –  and also lies at the heart of his pioneering programme, the Art of Communication, which helps people transform how they communicate and connect in everyday life.

In this illuminating and moving episode, Danny describes how his deep search for ways to restore rela...

Hosted by Matthew Green. Produced by J'aime Rothbard.

Born into a farming family in Cameroon, Sonita Mbah grew up imagining that she would always be able to make her living off the land. But as she began to recognise how far patterns of colonialism, extraction and displacement still ruled the lives of African farmers, Sonita felt a deeper calling begin to stir.

In her inaugural appearance as a co-host of What Is Collective Healing?, Sonita shares about her mission to transform the "trauma architecture" of exploitative global food systems in line with a more equitable...

This grounding attunment is a prelude to our next episode Crafting Conscious Food Systems, with Sonita Mbah. It delivers new depth, color and gratitude to anybody curious to explore a mindful eating practice. As you are sitting down to your next meal, you are welcome to settle in with this meditation and receive its sumptuous invitation to connect with all of the elemental, human and nonhuman worlds that when recognized, unlock deeper nourishment of food into mind, body and soul.  

About Sonita Mbah: 

Sonita serves as communications coordinator at the Pocket Project and holds a Mast...

Hosted by Kosha Joubert. Produced by J'aime Rothbard.

Description: For Dr Bayo Akomolafe, Global Social Witnessing is a way to "be with each other in the fires, and not burn."

As the Pocket Project prepares to launch Phase Two of the Global Social Witnessing Facilitator Training on September 3, 2025, this episode features a dialogue between Bayo and Kosha Joubert, the Pocket Project CEO, from Phase I of the course.

"For those of you who would like to show up for this sharing together, this is not a place of checking each others' stories – it's a...

Hosted by Matthew Green. Produced by J'aime Rothbard.

Born in the former East Germany, Nadja Lichtenhahn started her career as a legal and business strategist, serving 20 years in leadership positions in the film and media industry.

In the past decade, Nadja has honoured a deep sense of calling that took her in a new direction: serving as a transformational coach, guide, and facilitator for individuals and organisations.

In this episode, Nadja describes how the Pocket Project, and the Timeless Wisdom Training and Collective Trauma Facilitator Training led by Thomas Hübl, has helped h...

Hosted by Matthew Green. Produced by J'aime Rothbard. 

Kosha Joubert, chief executive of the Pocket Project, sees Global Social Witnessing as one of the most potent tools for helping people to access a greater sense of presence, sensitivity and agency in relation to the many crises on our news feeds. 

In this episode, Kosha, one of the co-hosts of the What is Collective Healingis podcast, describes how her own relationship to the practice has evolved since her first remarkable experience with Global Social Witnessing a decade ago, in a workshop run by Thomas Hübl. 

Hosted by Matthew Green. Produced by J'aime Rothbard.

The Great Famine in Ireland – also known as an Gorta Mór, or the Great Hunger – claimed the lives of a million people, or one in eight of the population. More than a million more only managed to escape starvation by emigrating, many of them children who undertook the gruelling voyage to the United States or Canada, never to see their parents again.

In 2024, Simon Courtney, Bill McCart and Kathy Scott led a year-long Pocket Project International Lab to support people of Irish descent – whether living in Ireland or the dia...

Hosted by Matthew Green. Produced by J'aime Rothbard 
Growing up in her native Romania, Teodora Rădulescu was taught that the path to success lay in acquiring enough education and resources to leave the country, and join the millions of her compatriots seeking a better life in Western Europe.

In this deeply moving episode, Teodora speaks about her process of reckoning with the painful legacy of the East-West divide, and her commitment to reclaim the land-based Indigenous practices that makes Romania such a rich repository of culture, kinship and community. 

Training in the principles of int...

This week we feature a complimentary 11 minute attunment for our listeneners:

This bonus episode offers a guided attunement to support you in connecting to your own internal resourcefulness through an embodied awareness of the resourcing that is always present within your body.

Listen to the full episode with Jaden Ramsey here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7EkFTdNdMxVmh2ddAkMva1?si=aa02e7c0d2bc4ed5

In last week's episode, Jaden shares his perspective on collective healing as a natural, life-affirming process that unfolds when we create spaces of safety, presence, and connection. Through...

Hosted by Matthew Green. Produced by J'aime Rothbard. 

Drawn to the idea of engaging in community, Jaden joined the two-year Timeless Wisdom Training led by Thomas Hübl and team,  and began to learn the principles of integrating individual, inter-generational and collective trauma. 

Hosted by Matthew Green. Produced by J'aime Rothbard. 

Despite building a highly successful career as tech start-up entrepreneur, Claude Terosier could sense that something in her life wasn't working.

Through years of training with Thomas Hübl and his team, Claude worked steadily to integrate the ancestral trauma suffered by he...

Hosted by Matthew Green. Produced by J'aime Rothbard

Solea Anani sees the collective healing work taking place in the world today as the answer to prayers offered long ago by our ancestors.

Interview by Matthew Green. Produced by J'aime Rothbard.

In her new book of documentary poetry UNRULY, Antoinette Cooper braids her experiences of medical trauma and sexual violence with the stories of the "Mothers of Gynecology" – enslaved Black women who were subjected to medical experiments by 19th century gynecologist J. Marion Sims, who appears in the book under the pseudonym Father Butcher.

In this deeply moving and intimate conversation, Antoinette speaks about the generations of shame that made it so difficult to share her experiences, and the fear that others would not be able to hold th...

Hosted by Matthew Green. Produced by J'aime Rothbard.

Yocheved Sidof traces her ancestry back 2,500 years, to the Babylonian exile from Jerusalem. This pivotal event in Jewish history forced her forebears to seek sanctuary in new lands, and they ultimately established a community in Mashhad, in present-day Iran. In the 1970s, Yocheved's parents emigrated to the Midwestern United States, where she was raised in an Orthodox Jewish community steeped in Hasidic practice and Jewish mysticism.  

In this extraordinary dialogue, Yocheved and Matthew explore how collective healing work led by Thomas Hübl and team brought her int...

What does collective healing have to do with creativity? And what role can poetry play in a world gripped by so much suffering? 

Lori Shridhare, a writer and director of communications at Harvard Medical School, began studying with teacher and international facilitator Thomas Hübl. After years of immersive study of collective and inter-generational trauma, Lori turned to writing poetry. Throughout 2024 as the destruction of Gaza unfolded, she began to experience words and images spontaneously come through her regular writing practice – fragments of sentences that spoke of struggling voices yearning to speak. This process inspired her to write...

Witness. Target = Rubble. by Lori Shridhare

Published in Merion West, February 2025

I write as both the witness and the experiencer.

We appear as two separate individuals.

We are not.

Witness is now the living trace of this encounter. -Gert-Jan van der Heiden

Echoes of seismic blasts penetrate this skin of memory.

I am under.

Boulders on my back. Polygonals, squares, round.

Slabs.

We try to hide from what our vision sees, but we...

Hosted by Matthew Green. Produced by J'aime Rothbard. 

Laura Calderon de la Barca leads us deeper into discovery and exploration of the concept of collective healing as it relates to entire nations.  Laura brings us into her personal pilgrimage that led to her realization that much of the shame she felt was inherited from her ancestors. Through her process of deep inner connection with that pain, she was led to a wider stream that merged her personal trauma to the broader collective trauma of colonialism experienced throughout Mexico. 

Laura shares stories and insights illuminating her jou...