At a time of rising authoritarianism, climate crisis, and lost hope, the Summit combines lived testimony, research, and practical solutions to reclaim a culture of partnership
Find out more and book at www.peacebeginsathomesummit.org
Watch here or listen wherever your get your podcasts
Am so delighted to welcome the Peace Begins at Home Summit Director, Gina Miltiadou, for Episode 81 of the Feel Better Every Day Podcast. Access full transcripts, links, show notes, and other resources at http://thefeelbettereverydaypodcast.com
The inaugural Peace Begins at Home Summit will take place on Wednesday, 29th October 2025 (and you can listen to the recordings for 30 days so don’t worry if you can’t make that day).
At a time of rising authoritarianism, climate crisis, and lost hope, the Summit combines lived testimony, research, and practical solutions to reclaim a culture of partnership.
Produced by the Center for Partnership Systems (CPS) and inspired by cultural historian Dr. Riane Eisler’s Partnership vs. Domination framework, the Summit reframes peace not as a distant ideal but as a systems challenge that begins where we live, love, and raise each other: In the home. Confirmed speakers include 26 leaders from 17 countries, among them:
- Dr. Riane Eisler – Holocaust survivor, cultural historian, systems scientist, and author of The Chalice and the Blade
- Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury – Former UN Under-Secretary-General and champion of the culture of peace
- Dr. Richard Davidson – World-renowned neuroscientist and TIME 100 honoree
- Ela Gandhi – Global peace activist, women’s rights advocate and granddaughter of Mahatma Gandhi
- Gary Barker & Jackson Katz – International pioneers in reshaping masculinity
- Angela Sterritt – Award-winning investigative journalist and author, serving as MC
Find out more and book at www.peacebeginsathomesummit.org
CHAPTERS
0:00 Do you ever feel overwhelmed by the state of the world
2:08 Introducing Gina Miltiadou and the Peace Begins at Home Summit
2:53 The ripple effect of early trauma
4:10 Self-care when you’re near the finish line
5:41 Purpose as a form of self-care
7:07 Interconnectedness and hope
8:15 Dr. Riane Eisler’s domination to partnership framework
15:19 Peace begins at home
17:30 Turning pain into purpose
20:05 Stories of healing and collective care
25:16 Peace is personal
Thanks for watching. New episodes come out every Tuesday morning (Ireland time) and if you subscribe (via your favourite podcasting app or by joining the Sole to Soul Circle), you’ll be notified about each new episode. Sole to Soul Circle members get an exclusive deeper dive each week.
Is the Feel Better Every Day Podcast helping you? Please leave a ***** rating and review for this and other episodes you’ve enjoyed. Your subscribing, feedback and support helps me help more people (of all genders) with trauma histories and/or ADHD. You learning to take better care of yourself isn’t just good for you – it creates a ripple effect and helps others. My ultimate dream, in a world in which SO much is coming up for healing and so many people are unsafe, is to do my part to help as many people as possible heal from trauma. To help create a world in which everyone everywhere feels safe, welcome and loved – able to thrive.
CHAPTERS
0:00 Do you ever feel overwhelmed by the state of the world
2:08 Introducing Gina Miltiadou and the Peace Begins at Home Summit
2:53 The ripple effect of early trauma
4:10 Self-care when you’re near the finish line
5:41 Purpose as a form of self-care 7:07 Interconnectedness and hope
8:15 Dr. Riane Eisler’s domination to partnership framework
15:19 Peace begins at home
17:30 Turning pain into purpose
20:05 Stories of healing and collective care
25:16 Peace is personal
DISCLAIMER
The content I share is not a replacement for one to one trauma therapy (etc). While you can do an enormous amount to support yourself, please always seek appropriate medical advice.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Do you ever feel overwhelmed and despairing at repeated patterns of horror endlessly perpetuated by humans, as if we never learn from the past? This episode’s for you. Feel Better Every Day. No, seriously.
It’s easy to feel helpless and hopeless, to go into that dorsal vagal “Freeze!” response. To feel completely overwhelmed, disconnected. Today’s guest has some hope and inspiration for you. Episode 81, I’m delighted to welcome you to Gina Miltiadou. She is the director of the Peace Begins at Home Summit. I’ll be sharing our interview together.
Welcome! You’re listening to the Feel Better Every Day Podcast (in spite of that gloomy intro). And I hope that you will find it helpful. Each Tuesday, I share new episodes, and they’re designed to help you work with the Feel. Love. Heal. framework I developed.
Today’s episode is very much in that Heal part, the collective care element, the co-regulation, the systemic elements of we’re all connected. The better we take care of ourselves and each other, the better for everyone.
You can find out more about the book, the podcast and older episodes and other free resources around trauma, ADHD, anxiety, sleep, menopause, being a solopreneur, all sorts of things, as well as ways in which we might work together, upcoming events, all of that at selfcarecoaching.net or the feelbettereverydaypodcast.com.
For now, welcome, welcome, welcome to this special episode, which I hope will inspire you.
So welcome, Gina. Thank you so much for joining me. And do you want to say a little bit about the summit and what you’re doing?
Yes, of course. Well, firstly, thank you so much for having me. It’s wonderful to have a chance to talk about this. But yes, I’m organising a global summit, which is happening on the 29th of October. And it is inspired by Dr. Riane Eisler’s work, which I’m sure we’ll talk more about later.
But what it is doing, it’s gathering 26 speakers from 17 different countries around the world. And essentially, we’re examining how early trauma or care experienced in the home ripples out into society and all the systems that we live in. So that’s my current project.
I love that so much. My membership is called the Sole to Soul Circle, like the soles of the feet to the soul. But it used to be called Personal Peace, because it was very much about the more where, OK, whether we’ve been raised in that caring environment, or whether we’ve healed that trauma, that then ripples out the intergenerational healing, all of it.
That’s exactly it. Wonderful.
I’m going to include a link in the show notes, but your summit takes place, this is going to go out on Tuesday.
It’s going to be tomorrow, as far as people watching are concerned.
It’s on the 29th of October. It’s the week after next.
I got the dates wrong! I was like, quick, quick, I really want to include it. Oh, that’s okay.
Yeah. Okay, so that’s fantastic. People have even more time to sort it out.
Exactly, exactly. And the best place to register is just go to peacebeginsathomesummit.org and they can register online.
So brilliant. And there’ll be a link in the show notes. Great. So you are very, very busy at the moment. Really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me. How is your self care in terms of the feel part of my Feel. Love. Heal. framework? The kind of active self-care? What are your essential daily practices that you rely on or don’t have time for at the moment?
Oh, goodness. Eve, I do not want to lie to you. I am 10 days away from the summit so my self-care is kind of non-existent at the moment. It is about just getting to the finish line at the moment. This has been a project that has been in the making for the whole year. And it’s wonderful that we’re kind of reaching the finish line. But you know, part of it is, just being gentle with myself and giving myself permission to almost not self-care, not guilting myself into, oh my God, I really should be minding myself better. I know that, but I actually just do not have the time. So I think it’s also just loving myself enough to kind of go, you know what, that’s okay. This is a season. It’s 10 days to go. You’re not getting as much sleep as you need. You’re not eating as well as you can, but that’s what needs to happen right now.
So it’s the odd thing. I think getting outside and getting fresh air when I can has made a massive difference. Even just the little things like taking the dog for a walk or just watching a really stupid, mindless piece on Netflix has really helped as well.
And I’m not going to lie, you know, chocolate and wine has also helped.
Excellent. And I’m also thinking what you’re doing because it’s so meaningful. It’s different to if you were in a job you hated and the grind and like this just, we’ve only just met, but the purpose is a part of self care and like giving yourself grace.
That’s gorgeous. Exactly.
Exactly. And I think that’s the thing is because this has been so purpose led, it’s actually been easy to do. I mean, even though I really am exhausted, but I’m also so psyched about it and I’m so buzzed about it.
And I think, you know, just meeting all of the different speakers and hearing their stories and just the, I suppose, the feeling that this is really going to make a difference at a time when people need it so, so badly. People want hope so badly is enough to keep me going because it’s just bigger than all of us. Yeah.
That leads us beautifully into the Love part of the Feel. Love. Heal. framework I developed. Love. You don’t need to do a thing. You are already part of nature, part of the divine. You don’t need to be endlessly improving yourself and giving yourself grace, but also that sense of being part of something bigger, looking up at a mountain or being in the ocean or whatever it might be. And I wondered, would you like to say anything about some of the speakers?
Yes, absolutely. And I think you’ve touched on something so beautiful and important there, the fact that we are all interconnected. And I think if people just realised that they would feel less lonely, they would feel that they could make a difference that every tiny little action does ripple out into the world. Because often we feel so helpless, you know, and we’re not, you know, even a tiny little thing can, can ripple out.
I think, you know, one of the, one of the key foundations of the summit was, so with Dr. Riane Eisler, she’s an incredible woman. She is a Holocaust survivor. She’s 94, which is incredible and still doing keynotes, which just blows my mind. If I could be a fraction as spry as she is, but you know, even when I’m 80, I’d be doing well.
But her whole thing, so she’s a systems scientist, she’s a cultural historian. She has consulted to the WHO, the UN, the World Economic Forum, etc. And she has spent her life developing this Domination to Partnership framework. And one of the things that she really wanted to do (I sit on her board as well), at the end of last year, she said, “Look, you know, it’s no surprise I’m running out of time here. I really want kind of like a last hurrah. And one of the things is, I want to connect the dots. I want to help people connect the dots between that early childhood kind of domination and what we’re seeing in the world today.”
I suppose that speaks to that interconnectedness as well, and just helping people realise that they are part of something bigger. All of the speakers have been, you know, I’ve curated the program very, very carefully and very consciously in terms of what are all of the systems that that early kind of childhood experience ripples out into. It’s everything. It’s from, you know, economy, economics, to story and narrative, to gender relations, to how we treat our children, to all of that.
So I’ve chosen experts in all of those fields from around the world to speak to that interconnectedness, to joining those dots in the areas of expertise. So I hope that answers your question.
And I saw Richard Davidson is on. Oh, he’s amazing. I remember studying him as part of my trauma-informed yoga therapy training years ago. So I can’t wait to see that one. But all of them sound brilliant. And I’m also struck as you’re talking, I remember years and years ago reading Gloria Steinem’s Revolution from Within. Yes. She talked about a Holocaust survivor who was then guarding a Nazi prisoner. And he was filled with hate, because of what the Nazis had done. And after a few days of guarding, watching this man who had been part of such atrocities, this man asked if he could go to the toilet.
And the Holocaust survivor realised that he had been so disconnected from his body, from childhood, from like toilet training techniques that were popular at that time. And that had helped enable the rise of fascism. It wasn’t just Hitler. It wasn’t just one person. And thinking about what’s happening in the world at the moment and how we know better, we’ve seen this before. And yet, children, babies still being dominated, like you say, like rather than nurtured, cared, respected.
You have hit the nail on the head. And that is the entire thing that this is about. It is about that, you know, when a child. I’ll actually preface it by saying that two out of three children in the world experience violence in their life. Two out of three.
Most of my practice is with survivors. But I only work with adult survivors. Only people who have survived childhoods I work with.
But the point is, right, so when a child, so bearing that statistic in mind, so when a child learns domination or sees domination in their home, they learn very early and powerful lessons about how to control others around them. Yeah. And now this is, you know, that doesn’t happen to all survivors of trauma. Of course, you know, they don’t, it’s not automatic that everybody goes into dysfunction, but you know, a lot of people then struggle with, “OK, how do I control what is around me?” And what they’ve been taught in the early foundational years is that you need domination to control that.
And that ripples out into everything. To the way that people vote. That’s why we see the rise of authoritarianism as we do to our nature being in peril, because it is man’s domination over nature that has put us in the situation we’re in. That early domination, you know, you cannot underestimate that that is the most foundational lesson that a child can learn. That is the ultimate answer to peace. Yeah. You know, because peace isn’t just the absence of war. No. It’s not the period in between wars. You know, it is our natural default position, but we’ve almost lost our birthright to peace.
Absolutely. It’s like with the Polyvagal Informed approach, I work a lot with Polyvagal Theory. I use the cats, the rescue cats to illustrate it for people to make it more accessible [selfcarecoaching.net/feline]. But you’ve got the ventral vagal is the most recent, the highest part of the vagus, the, I call it “Purr!”, when you feel safe, it’s that science of safety and connection. So you’re able, there’s that kind of both and mindset. Yes. Both and, yeah, rather than either or. And you’re kind of co-regulating. It’s the collective care, the collaboration, the creativity, the play, the abundance, the all good things. And that is our natural state. That’s what we were wired for.
But then so much of modern life puts us into, I call it “Hiss!”, but like sympathetic survival, that disconnection, that fear-based othering people, or dorsal vagal, the “Freeze”, the collapse, overwhelm. The, “What’s the point? Can’t do anything.” But I keep thinking like if every baby, if every child, if every adult on the planet was safe, welcome and loved, they would be able to thrive. All the problems of the world could be solved by nurturing and nourishing and ensuring safety and shelter and water and love. And it has to start in the home.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I totally agree with you. And the thing is so much of it is about denial, you know, for babies and children to survive their childhoods that are traumatic.
They have to deny that this is happening to them by people who are closest and dearest to them. And that leads to a scarcity mindset, a denial mindset. So then you get things like denial of reality, denial of election results, denial of all of that.
Exactly. So, you know, you could just see how it’s just dominoes, you know, how it affects and it just has to start in the home. And that’s why, you know, when I came up with the name of the summit, Peace Begins at Home. I just think it so perfectly sums that up because it does connect it all, you know?
Yeah. Well, that is wonderful. And I’d love to hear, like, you said that your self-care has gone out the window, but I’m imagining, like we touched on it earlier, but with the collective care element, the Heal part of my framework, because the Heal part, it’s, I work a lot with trauma survivors and ADHDers, and that sense of justice sensitivity and the desire to break trauma cycles and, like, help heal things to make things safer for future generations and current generations. The idea of turning what hurts people’s hearts into action. At different stages, you might be able to do the active self-care (Feel), you might be able to get yourself to walk or whatever it might be. Or it might be that you have no bandwidth for that, but you are able to give yourself some grace (Love). Or it might be that that’s impossible.
But even the idea of a future version of yourself feeling OK enough to begin to help use your pain to guide others or to ease in some way, but sorry, that’s a really convoluted way of describing it. But I’m thinking, I’m imagining that you’re liaising with all of these amazing speakers that is helping you with your co-regulation, helping you feel more hopeful about 2025 and beyond. And I might be putting words in your mouth, I don’t mean to be doing that. But I wondered, is that the case? Or what does help you turn the pain into hope?
Yeah, I mean, it’s a funny thing, this project started because I was kind of entering a year of yes. OK, so I had sold a part of my business, and I was like, what is next? Right. And when I met Dr. Eisler, it was funny, I met her at a webinar, and she kind of dropped into our breakout room by accident, when she was meant to be kind of like my speaker break. And we got chatting. And she said, Listen, will you help me? I, you know, I, you know, I just, she said what you do. And anyway, she said, Look, can you reach out? I’ve got this project that I want to do.
And can you help me? And I was like, and I had decided that last year was my Year of Yes. So I was like, yes, absolutely. That’s fine.
Anyway, and so it went on. And I have followed the yeses throughout this whole project. It has been I have done many, many projects in my time.
And with this one, I think what has really helped is that I was very conscious of just following my instinct. You know, and when a speaker didn’t feel right, I didn’t pursue it. When something didn’t, you know, it was just like, I kind of really have tapped in to what is needed now.
And have just kind of asked, I’ve kind of gone, “OK, Spirit, God, Mother Earth, Gaia, you know, just use me for the greater good, you know, and I have just followed wherever that has taken me.” And to be honest, I think that has saved me, because I am a team of one.
Yeah, wow.
I’ve had a few. Yes. Yes. I have had a wonderful volunteer who’s given me a day a week. That’s it. And I’ve had a few little freelancers helping. But honestly, it has been through just pure. Yeah. You know, sweat that this has happened. But it is, I think, so sorry, it’s a very long way to answer your question. But, you know, it is, I think, having that sense of a greater purpose. Yeah. Reducing to what needs to happen in this moment and trusting that the right thing is going to happen. And also, I think with the, I’ve self regulated, you’re quite right, by tapping into all of these experts’ stories.
For instance, one of the speakers is a lady called Scarlett Lewis, and she has an organisation called the Choose Love movement. And she is the mother of a little boy, Jesse Lewis, who was killed in the Sandy Hook shooting, which was one of the most fatal school shootings in the US. And he got killed because he stood up in front of his class. And he went, “Run, guys, run.”
And he got shot. He was six.
Wow.
He was six.
OK. Yeah.
So I’m in this interview with her. And she’s because obviously, I’ve had to meet with all the speakers and see if they’re a good fit. And for the overall narrative. Yeah. And, of course, they’re all amazing in their own right. But just for the narrative.
Yeah, of course.
And she, I’m sitting there. And I mean, obviously, as a mother, as a human could feel her pain in that. But the thing that blew my mind, right, is, since then, was a few things, three things. So she tells the story of when she came home after going to identify his body. And she walks into her kitchen, and on the side of their fridge, they had this like blackboard kind of chalkboard thing. And this little six year old had written Choose Loves.
Oh, OK.
And this little equation, which I can’t remember what it is right now. But basically, the equation to happens. And she looked at this, and she said, Oh, my goodness, this is the day that her son’s been killed, right. And she said, right, I don’t know what to do with that right now.
But I know I need to do something with it. And part of the words was, you know, Choose Love. So she went on to create this Choose Love movement, which basically goes to schools all over the world, and basically teaches children, self-regulation, coping strategies, resilience, things like that.
But the other thing that blew my mind, right, was that she also goes to prisons, and she works with shooters. And she asks them, “How have we failed you?”
Yes. Yes.
“How have we failed you?” Because we’re all connected. We’re all connected. And somebody is not perpetrating violence, because they’re a happy person.
No, you know, yeah. Nine out of 10 times they have experienced trauma in their home. And as one of the other speakers who is speaking Dr. Suzanne Zeedyk, who is an incredible child psychologist, I’d really encourage you to check out her work.
She talks about the fact that if we cannot be curious, as to why people are doing that, perpetrating violence, we will continue in the cycle forever.
Absolutely.
You know, so that’s, that has really been incredible for me, as a self care thing is just immersing myself in these stories, taking the wisdom out of it. And it just kind of has kept, it makes it easy to keep going. Because there’s so much wisdom, there’s so much pain, there’s so much beautiful. No, there’s so much terrible pain that has been catalysed into the most beautiful action.
The most beautiful wisdom, the most beautiful work that’s happening around the world. And that is just so inspiring. That’s incredible.
And thank you so much for joining me.
In terms of the Circle, you’re going to stay on for a bit of bonus content for the members. But, I’m going to say what one thing, but if more than one thing comes to mind, like what kind of hope do you want to share with listeners, with viewers now? Like what, like you came across this woman in your, I’m really lucky with the work I do, I’m inspired the whole time. But what might you say to someone who isn’t necessarily, who might be feeling hopeless?
Obviously buy tickets, you’ve got recordings. Yeah, of course. And I would say, actually, if you can’t make it on the day, it comes with a 30 day replay. So don’t worry about if it’s not in your time zone, or you can’t watch the whole day. It’s seven hours of amazing content. You get seven CPD hours for attending from Sarasota University. So there’s a little added bonus as well. But yes, please buy tickets. There’s also loads of layers of that we didn’t want to make a price. They’re very cheap. Anyway, they’re only $47. But there are solidarity tickets.
If somebody’s experiencing financial hardship, there are free tickets. So just come. Yeah, so there’ll be links again in the show notes.
Yeah. Thank you. Go on.
Sorry. No, you asked me the one thing to give people hope.
No pressure, like.
No, no, I would say, all right, that peace is personal.
Yeah. It starts with each one of us. Yes.
You know, and sometimes it feels like such a big, overarching, lofty goal. Yeah, it’s not. It’s actually intensely personal.
And it’s how we love and relate to other people. And that actually just ripples out and creates a better world. So that’s what I would say. It starts with it starts with every one of us. Yeah.
And with ourselves as well.
Like that every one of us. Exactly. Yeah.
Yeah. And thank you so, so much. We appreciate and yeah, thank you.
You’re welcome.
And I would love to hear from you in terms of what you’re going to do, maybe within your community, maybe in the world, maybe in your home, maybe reparenting yourself, whatever it is, let me know how you’re going to bring more love, more peace to yourself this week to your world this week.
You can potentially join the Sole to Soul Circle if you’d like that bonus content, where for this week, we’ve been talking about parenting, and what Gina wishes that everyone had access to, and moving from that kind of domination to partnership, even with small children (while also being very clear about not shaming parents who have enough kind of pressure!).
And it’s been an absolute delight talking to her and sharing this with you. And thank you so much for listening. I really appreciate being able to do this part of my work.
I love all my work. And thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for listening or watching the Feel Better Every Day Podcast. This episode, like all of them was produced by me, your host, Eve Menezes Cunningham.
You can find full transcripts, links, and more information in the show notes, and also at selfcarecoaching.net, as well as more information about the book, 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing. And if you’re interested in those deeper dives, joining the Sole to Soul Circle, as well as lots of other free resources and information about other offerings. If this episode was helpful, please leave a five-star review. In a world in which so much is coming up for healing, and so many people are feeling unsafe. I want to do whatever I can to help as many people as possible heal from trauma, helping create a world in which everyone is safe, welcome, and loved, physiologically, emotionally, spiritually, and mentally able to thrive. So your subscribing or liking or sharing feedback and other support helps me help as many people of all genders with trauma histories and ADHD. And your learning to take better care of yourself isn’t just good for you, it creates a ripple effect helping others heal too.
So keep looking after yourself, do what feels good, let yourself honour your nervous system, let yourself honour your charge, your life force, and Míle buíochas, a thousand thank yous.
I’ll be sharing more next time, and actually next time it will be about the gorgeous phenomenal film, and I’m going to attempt to record it without spoilers. I Swear about John Davidson’s journey with Tourette’s, based on his memoir, and how we can apply so much of the majestic film to trauma recovery and ADHD or AuDHD.
So sending lots of love, have a brilliant week.
Le grá (with love),
Eve