It’s that time of year once again, a period to reflect and recognise all of the things we have achieved and learnt throughout 2023.
If you’ve stayed connected with us over the past few years, you’ll know our final Sunday Journal of the year is something quite special. This year we’ve reached out to all of our Invivo team to ask them to share their favourites of the year, from transformative reads that highlighted their year, to simple moments of learning that changed the way they looked at the world.
Although many of you won’t have the opportunity to interact with Invivo’s people face to face, our team are such a diverse and interesting group of human beings, with a variety of passions, so we are excited to share what they consider highlights of their years.
We can’t wait for you to explore this collection of favourites that have both excited and influenced our team throughout 2023 and we look forward to welcoming you back in 2024.
Reads
Do/Pause/ You Are Not a To Do List by Robert Poynton – Whether it’s a reminder to punctuate your day, or a public talk, or a meeting, with moments of pause, or to give yourself the breathing space in your schedule to think and dream big about your future so you’re not just reacting to the day to day, this book is packed with inspiration.
– Emily
Lessons in Stoicism by John Sellars – It’s a dip-into from-time-to-time book. It is not about suppressing emotions as commonly believed, but about reframing the stories we tell ourselves and realising that our happiness comes from within. Easier said than done!
– Lesley
AI-guided discovery of an antibiotic targeting a deadly superbug, Acinetobacter baumannii – This article reports the use of AI to screen thousands of molecules for their potential to treat multidrug-resistant pathogens; and the discovery of a novel class of antibiotics to tackle antibiotic resistance (AR), one of the biggest threats to global health, food security, and development today.
– Jonathan
Eastern Body, Western Mind by Anodea Judith – A really in depth look at the chakras or energy centres, which I have found to support my spiritual journey, but also my physical healing. It has been a great read from both a person perspective and as a nutritional practitioner & transformational coach to help my clients.
– Naomi
Entangled Life: How Fungi Make our Worlds, Change our Minds, and Shape our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake – A fascinating and accessible journey into the world of mycology, and how fungi interact with near every aspect of life, from their natural growth in woodlands where they can create an underground “wood-wide web” network, to their developing role in human neuroscience.
– George
The Compassion Project by Julian Abel – A book about how the introduction of kindness and compassion in a small UK town reversed trends of otherwise declining well-being in the community. What this town achieved, we can all adopt in our own lives to powerful effect.
– Katharina
– Mercedes
– Belinda
– Matt
– Sophie
Listens
SelfHealers Soundboard with Dr. Nicole LePera – So many episodes to choose from on all topics around relationships to yourself and others to help on a healing journey.
– Naomi
Survival of the Kindest with Dr. Julian Abel – Survival of the Kindest is far more accurate to describe humanity than the survival of the fittest. This podcast is a series of interviews with amazing people who are helping make the world a better place in a whole variety of ways, with a focus on compassion and equity.
– Katharina
Food and Mood: Nutritional Psychiatry, the Microbiome and Mental Health from Pathways to Well-Being – Such an accessible, vibrant, inspiring podcast episode covering the fundamentals of how food affects mood and the microbiome connection.
– Emily
The Turd Nerds. Newly discovered integrative gastroenterology podcast. Conversations with three practitioners speaking our gut language. Check it out.
– Lesley
Could Mycoforestry help feed the world and save the planet? from Food Matters Live
– Belinda
Amazon Jungle, Uncontacted Tribes, Anacondas, and Ayahuasca from The Lex Fridman Podcast
– Matthew
Learning Moments
I visited Jekka McVicar’s herbarium again this year and learned so much – sharpen garden secateurs every day, keep your different mint types apart otherwise they’ll all end up with the same flavour, and that fresh rosemary, lemon verbena and tarragon teas are delicious and have loads of useful actives in them.
– Belinda
“Healing comes from within” – All the external diet/lifestyle/supplement/therapies can be incredibly powerful (and necessary) but even more effective when someone is truly able to “do the inner work” of self-awareness, self-compassion and self-healing.
– Naomi
I had several a ha moments when reading Philippa Perry’s book ‘The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read‘. This book was packed full of learnings about how generally to have positive, nurturing, authentic relationships. Not least the reminder of the importance of leaning into difficult emotions and taking a breath in a reactive moment to think about why you or someone else in your life may be feeling that way, so you can respond in a constructive way which helps you to work through a tricky situation and ultimately grow through it. It’s about taking that breath, that pause, to allow you to switch from reacting, to thinking and feeling.
– Emily
Systems thinking and that you need to think backwards when you are planning big. This is the same as saying, that you need to understand the “why” before you decide on “how” and “what”. But also that it doesn’t come easily and we need to train our brains to work like that.
– Katharina
When I was trying to learn Italian and used a bit in Italy to debatable effect.
– Matthew
Finding out that binturongs exist.
– Sophie
The Sunday Journal is our fortnightly newsletter saving you time by finding the most interesting articles, podcasts, and videos about human ecology, culture, and science. Sign up to our newsletter to receive your copy.