//podcastplus.net/feed/survival-of-the-kindest~a1d78004 We are all learning how to keep kindness at the forefront of our daily interactions, how connecting with others can keep loneliness at bay, and how compassionate communities are emerging all over the world. The new podcast ‘Survival of the Kindest’ comes out of the international compassion movement that puts kindness at the heart of our lives, our towns, and our healthcare. Expert in compassionate communities and former palliative care doctor, Julian Abel, welcomes specialists each week to discuss the many ways to have a long and happy life. Fri, 15 May 2026 13:21:51 +0000 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a0dd17780bd5e8e0f18d86b/t/607ee1568f890468dd3841dd/1618928161661/James_mixdown.mp3 This week Julian talks to medical entrepreneur and health community builder James Maskell. There are many amazing things to dig into from James’ career and life which started in intentional Communities all over the world and has led him through health economics to now running a number of things including heal community - which is a 12 week programme that uses peer support to help people work through illnesses together by mainly addressing the root causes of chronic health conditions, and its associated isolation. James’s initial research showed the huge impact that collective health care can have, but its release coincided with the start of the pandemic, and James quickly realised that a more accessible, online, community set up was needed to address the many impacts of chronic diseases. The dwindling life expectancy, the exorbitant costs of health care, and the cumulative nature of medicine that deals with the side effects of other medicines have made this an emergency, and the HealCommunity techni... Tue, 20 Apr 2021 14:19:37 +0000 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a0dd17780bd5e8e0f18d86b/t/607ee1568f890468dd3841dd/1618928161661/James_mixdown.mp3 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a0dd17780bd5e8e0f18d86b/t/6075b92631f3247122b98208/1618328037438/Angela+Fell_mixdown.mp3 This week Julian talks to Angela Fell, who has been at the centre of a huge transformation in her area in Wigan, which has focused on how to stop relying on outside schemes, and instead starting to use the “treasures” of the neighbourhood that they have already. Under Angela’s expertise they have tapped into the spaces, the skills, and the motivation and kindness present in their neighbourhood, to start building it up, and piecing it back together. Angela has such fantastic insight into how communities work having been involved from the very start of her career, as well as seeing the results of mechanisms and schemes which provided her with extra help in school that many of her classmates were not given. From working with young people Angela’s route to where she is now is fascinating, and she is steeped in fairness and in giving everyone space to develop. From her we can all learn how tiny differences in the way help is given and offered have huge impacts on the way they are received in the comm... Tue, 13 Apr 2021 15:35:53 +0000 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a0dd17780bd5e8e0f18d86b/t/6075b92631f3247122b98208/1618328037438/Angela+Fell_mixdown.mp3 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a0dd17780bd5e8e0f18d86b/t/6075b92631f3247122b98208/1618925046902/Angela+Fell_mixdown.mp3 This week Julian talks to Angela Fell, who has been at the centre of a huge transformation in her area in Wigan, which has focused on how to stop relying on outside schemes, and instead starting to use the “treasures” of the neighbourhood that they have already. Under Angela’s expertise they have tapped into the spaces, the skills, and the motivation and kindness present in their neighbourhood, to start building it up, and piecing it back together. Angela has such fantastic insight into how communities work having been involved from the very start of her career, as well as seeing the results of mechanisms and schemes which provided her with extra help in school that many of her classmates were not given. From working with young people Angela’s route to where she is now is fascinating, and she is steeped in fairness and in giving everyone space to develop. From her we can all learn how tiny differences in the way help is given and offered have huge impacts on the way they are received in the comm... Tue, 13 Apr 2021 15:35:53 +0000 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a0dd17780bd5e8e0f18d86b/t/6075b92631f3247122b98208/1618925046902/Angela+Fell_mixdown.mp3 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a0dd17780bd5e8e0f18d86b/t/606c7ee760df9230853cc97e/1618325828998/Frederick+Riley_mixdown.mp3 Transcript available Here on our website This week on the podcast Julian talks to Frederick J. Riley, from Weave: The Social Fabric Project, part of the Aspen Institute. Julian and Frederick talk about how his early life, in the largely segregated city of Saginaw, Michigan, taught him how much you can share even when you don’t necessarily feel like you have a lot. How studying at Morris Brown University amongst other African American students, surrounded by the history and present of the civil rights fight, gave him the belief that he could do anything; that him and his peers could be leaders too. Frederick’s work after leaving university was initially with the YMCA, with whom he worked for a long time up until over a year ago where he was head hunted to become the executive director of Weave. As Frederick explains in this fantastic episode, despite the huge rifts in society, the ghettoisation of huge areas, the laws and legislation that make it so hard for marginalised communities to find a w... Tue, 06 Apr 2021 15:44:15 +0000 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a0dd17780bd5e8e0f18d86b/t/606c7ee760df9230853cc97e/1618325828998/Frederick+Riley_mixdown.mp3 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a0dd17780bd5e8e0f18d86b/t/606c7ee760df9230853cc97e/1617723326949/Frederick+Riley_mixdown.mp3 Transcript available Here on our website This week on the podcast Julian talks to Frederick J. Riley, from Weave: The Social Fabric Project, part of the Aspen Institute. Julian and Frederick talk about how his early life, in the largely segregated city of Saginaw, Michigan, taught him how much you can share even when you don’t necessarily feel like you have a lot. How studying at Morris Brown University amongst other African American students, surrounded by the history and present of the civil rights fight, gave him the belief that he could do anything; that him and his peers could be leaders too. Frederick’s work after leaving university was initially with the YMCA, with whom he worked for a long time up until over a year ago where he was head hunted to become the executive director of Weave. As Frederick explains in this fantastic episode, despite the huge rifts in society, the ghettoisation of huge areas, the laws and legislation that make it so hard for marginalised communities to find a w... Tue, 06 Apr 2021 15:44:15 +0000 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a0dd17780bd5e8e0f18d86b/t/606c7ee760df9230853cc97e/1617723326949/Frederick+Riley_mixdown.mp3 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a0dd17780bd5e8e0f18d86b/t/60621df6bbd0d3495874e93b/1617721444072/M%26D_mixdown.mp3 Transcript available Here on our website In the week where Derek Chauvin is to stand trial for the murder of George Floyd, Julian talks to Dipankar Mukherjee and Meena Natarajan, who founded and run the Pangea World Theatre on the street on which the murder took place. While they have focused in the last year on responding to COVID and then to the riots and protests that followed George Floyd’s death, the main theme of their careers has been about ‘illuminating the human condition, celebrating cultural differences, and promoting human rights by creating and presenting international, multi-disciplinary theatre’. They centre community, ancestors, connection to people and place, and widen what theatre means, how it can be sacred, healing, educational and accessible for everyone. Having both grown up in India, each with a connection to their own historic dramaturgical roots that extend thousands of years back, they were also both educated under a colonial system that placed western literary tradit... Tue, 30 Mar 2021 06:06:00 +0000 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a0dd17780bd5e8e0f18d86b/t/60621df6bbd0d3495874e93b/1617721444072/M%26D_mixdown.mp3 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a0dd17780bd5e8e0f18d86b/t/60621df6bbd0d3495874e93b/1617043288502/M%26D_mixdown.mp3 Transcript Available Here In the week where Derek Chauvin is to stand trial for the murder of George Floyd, Julian talks to Dipankar Mukherjee and Meena Natarajan, who founded and run the Pangea World Theatre on the street on which the murder took place. While they have been focused in the last year on responding to COVID and then to the riots and protests that followed George Floyd’s death, their entire career has been focused ‘illuminates the human condition, celebrates cultural differences, and promotes human rights by creating and presenting international, multi-disciplinary theatre’. They centre community, ancestors, connection to people and place, and widen what theatre means, how it can be sacred, healing, educational and accessible for everyone. Having both grown up in India, each with a connection to their own historic dramaturgical roots that extend thousands of years back, they were also both educated under a colonial system that placed western literary traditions as the pinnacle of... Tue, 30 Mar 2021 06:06:00 +0000 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a0dd17780bd5e8e0f18d86b/t/60621df6bbd0d3495874e93b/1617043288502/M%26D_mixdown.mp3 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a0dd17780bd5e8e0f18d86b/t/6051cf21305a1f21c2b58cb1/1615974554680/FH.mp3 TW: Abuse, Adverse Childhood Experiences, Trauma Fritzi Hortsman’s life turned around when she started to learn about trauma, and adverse childhood experiences. The insight into something which had flavoured her entire life, and the ability to now address this that that had laid dormant and unacknowledged for so long, also formed part a great compassionate drive and inspiration to start the Compassion Prison’s Project. Fritzi’s understanding that we can be almost exclusively shaped by adverse childhood experiences, and that this is far more present in society that we would care to admit, coincided with her visiting a prison for the first time. Instead of seeing what we are trained to see, (ne’er-do-wells) she saw kindred spirits. Fellow human’s also suffering, also weighed down, also living in a state of constant fear created by the experience of many great traumas.  Her work has allowed so many to access emotions for so many men and women who are suffering imprisonment, to find forg... Tue, 16 Mar 2021 13:22:31 +0000 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a0dd17780bd5e8e0f18d86b/t/6051cf21305a1f21c2b58cb1/1615974554680/FH.mp3 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a0dd17780bd5e8e0f18d86b/t/6051cf21305a1f21c2b58cb1/1616954761490/FH.mp3 CW: Abuse, Adverse Childhood Experiences, Trauma Transcript available here Fritzi Hortsman’s life turned around when she started to learn about trauma, and adverse childhood experiences. The insight into something which had flavoured her entire life, and the ability to now address this that that had laid dormant and unacknowledged for so long, also formed part a great compassionate drive and inspiration to start the Compassion Prison’s Project. Fritzi’s understanding that we can be almost exclusively shaped by adverse childhood experiences, and that this is far more present in society that we would care to admit, coincided with her visiting a prison for the first time. Instead of seeing what we are trained to see, (ne’er-do-wells) she saw kindred spirits. Fellow human’s also suffering, also weighed down, also living in a state of constant fear created by the experience of many great traumas.  Her work has allowed so many to access emotions for so many men and women who are suffer... Tue, 16 Mar 2021 13:22:31 +0000 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a0dd17780bd5e8e0f18d86b/t/6051cf21305a1f21c2b58cb1/1616954761490/FH.mp3 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a0dd17780bd5e8e0f18d86b/t/6047cc4191f86d5c63415393/1615899379116/SH_mixdown.mp3+2.mp3 ‘We can’t expect children to recover from mental health or trauma unless we keep them safe’ Our guest this week is Stephanie Hunter, who has develop award winning mental health and trauma services for children in care, and who has just made a film with Social Work England about our care system.  The deep compassion with which Stephanie has approached her career seems to lay behind the transformative nature of her work. She talks enthusiastically about the value of being cared for, how much she has learnt from every interaction with young people in care, and how to become trauma informed, and the importance of learning more about trauma as a society. At the moment people who live with the after effect of adverse childhood experiences can die up to 20 years earlier than the general population, the likely hood of them self-medicating with substances, or risk taking behaviours is so much higher.  This is a public health emergency and the knock-on effects are serious and involve our... Tue, 09 Mar 2021 19:35:53 +0000 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a0dd17780bd5e8e0f18d86b/t/6047cc4191f86d5c63415393/1615899379116/SH_mixdown.mp3+2.mp3