#050 - The Power of Centering People and Their Knowledge of Themselves with Holland Otik (pt.2)

The Good Life Unravelled

This is part 2 of the interview with Holland Otik. Listen to part 1 on episode 48 first.

Holland Otik is a maker, chef, teacher, researcher, and animistic object enthusiast who incorporates magic and ritual into everything they do.

In this episode we cover a range of topics in quite some depth. It's a super interesting discussion with some pretty profound and insightful ideas.

We cover:

• How most of the spiritual and wellness industry in the west uses eastern philosophy, beliefs, and culture and repackage to make it accessible to white westerners.
• History of folk religion in the UK was linked to the natural world and a lot of that has been lost with disconnection through urban life.
• The importance of autonomy in our current way of life.
• Links with personal spirituality between autonomy.
• How capitalist society needs us to be disconnected to keep the system going.
• Personal art is essential and not a luxury.
• Everyone is has a creative practice if you reframe what they do.
• Everyone is a curator and noticing that is liberating.
• The imperfections in relationships make them more meaningful.
• The good life comes from being yourself and giving space for others to be themselves.
• Living with chronic illness taught her to accept that it's not possible to always be happy or without pain, but finding a peace and accepting moves you forward.
• The pandemic has opened her eyes to how able-bodied people see illness. This is triggering for the chronically ill and disabled whose lives are always like that.
• How the wellness industry can make the chronically ill feel disempowered.
• The tragedy narrative attached to disabled people and the chronically ill.
• How seeing disabled people thriving might change perception of illness.
• Even the perception of a wellness treatment can change depending on who it is serving.
• Wellness industry not accessible to the people who need it the most.
• What to say to somebody who is chronically ill.
• Holland's MA art work on tragedy narrative, child abuse, and self-harm.
• The problem with centring trauma response on authority figures and not the victim.
• The need the allow people to self-soothe in the way they know best.
• The power in truly seeing one another and appreciating their autonomy.

Show notes: https://www.elizabethdhokia.com/hollandotik2

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