Living Authentically with Maria Camara Serrano

Denizen

In this episode we delve deep into how we can live more authentic lives, in alignment with our true selves.

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Our guest is Maria Camara Serrano, co-director of the Hoffman Institute's international division. In addition to her work leading the Hoffman Institute internationally, Maria is trained in Gestalt Therapy, Mindfulness, and Emotion-Focused Therapy. She has a PhD in psychology and has been studying and practicing Buddhism for over 20 years.

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Jenny and Maria integrate both psychology and spirituality into the conversation as they explore the question of how we might live more authentic lives, covering the following:

• What does it mean to live authentically?
• Why this topic is so relevant for Denizen's vision for the future
• Why most of us don’t lead an authentic life
• What the spiritual traditions have to teach us
• What psychology has to teach us
• What the work to learn to live authentically looks like
• What the work doesn’t look like, and common ways people misunderstand what the work is or try to bypass critical components of it
• The Hoffman Institute’s cycle of transformation: awareness, expression, compassion and forgiveness, and new ways of being
• What a healthy relationship with our emotional experience looks like
• How we can heal from traumatic experiences stored in the body
• Why our emotional competence is so important for compassion and forgiveness
• Why compassion and forgiveness is an essential part of returning to our authentic selves
• What it looks like to live authentically in our day to day lives
• The role of self love

Resources:

• Hoffman Institute: https://www.hoffmaninstitute.org/
• The Body Keeps The Score, by Bessel Van Der Kolk