🌿Healing & Growth
A curated collection of voices, channels, and spaces that have shaped my understanding of healing, the mind, and what it means to be human.
Over the years, I've wandered through countless corners of the internet in search of things that actually help — content that goes beyond surface-level advice and speaks to the deeper work of living. This page is my personal collection: the creators, educators, and resources I return to again and again. I hope something here finds you at exactly the right moment.
🧠 Science of the Mind & Body ▾ open
Dr. Huberman is a neuroscientist at Stanford whose YouTube channel has genuinely changed how I understand my own brain. He breaks down complex science — sleep, stress, focus, dopamine — in a way that feels empowering rather than overwhelming. I especially love his episodes on nervous system regulation, which connect deeply to my own healing journey.
Robert Sapolsky — Stanford Lectures
If you want to understand why humans behave the way they do, Robert Sapolsky is your person. His Stanford lectures on human behavioral biology are long, rich, and endlessly fascinating. He has a gift for weaving together biology, psychology, and society in a way that makes you feel more compassionate toward yourself and others.
Robert Sapolsky — Father-Offspring Interviews
A more personal and conversational side of Sapolsky, interviewed by his son. These feel like sitting in on a thoughtful family dinner where the topics happen to be consciousness, free will, and what makes us who we are.
Anton starts almost every video with "Hello, wonderful person" — and it never gets old. His channel covers daily discoveries in astronomy, astrophysics, and physics in a calm, jargon-free way that makes the vastness of the universe feel close and personal. I find it grounding to remember how small and how miraculous our existence is.
Derek Muller has a gift for making you question things you thought were obvious. His videos start with a puzzle or a misconception and gradually unfold into something genuinely surprising. Whether he's exploring physics, mathematics, or human perception, every video feels like a small awakening.
Beautiful animated videos that tackle the biggest questions — from the nature of consciousness and loneliness to death, time, and the possibility of other life in the universe. Kurzgesagt manages to make even existential anxiety feel... strangely comforting. There's a warmth in how they hold the weight of these topics.
A theoretical physicist who doesn't shy away from challenging popular science myths. Sabine brings a refreshingly honest voice to topics like quantum mechanics, dark matter, and the limits of what we actually know. Her clarity and willingness to say "we don't know yet" is, oddly, one of the most reassuring things about science.
StarTalk — Neil deGrasse Tyson
Neil deGrasse Tyson brings science into conversation with art, culture, philosophy, and everyday life. The format blends interviews, humour, and genuine wonder in a way that never feels like a lecture. A reminder that curiosity about the cosmos and curiosity about ourselves are really the same thing.
Medlife Crisis — Dr Rohin Francis
A UK cardiologist who covers offbeat science, forgotten chapters of medical history, and why modern medicine doesn't always work — and then, as he says himself, ruins it all with bad jokes. His videos are unexpectedly philosophical and remind me that the body and its mysteries deserve more wonder than fear.
💛 Healing & Trauma ▾ open
Healing Days — Day 1: How Trauma Rewires Your Brain
with Gabor Maté, Tim Fletcher & Marisa Peer
This was one of those videos I had to pause multiple times just to breathe. Gabor Maté's perspective on how early experiences shape the nervous system felt like someone finally putting words to things I had always felt but couldn't name. A powerful starting point if trauma is something you're exploring.
Healing Days — Day 2: How to Release Trauma Stored in the Body
with Bessel van der Kolk
Bessel van der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps the Score, speaks here about how trauma lives not just in memory but in the physical body — and what we can do about it. This shifted something in me around how I approach my own healing.
Healing Days — Day 3: How to Reconnect with Your Authentic Self
with Gabor Maté
The third part of this series focuses on identity and authenticity — what we lose of ourselves in the process of surviving, and how we find our way back. Deeply moving and worth watching with a journal nearby.
A term I reference often on this blog. Co-regulation is the psychological concept of how we regulate our emotions through safe connection with others. Understanding this changed how I think about relationships, attachment, and why human presence can be so healing.
🌍 Ideas, Wisdom & Meaning ▾ open
TED has been a companion for years. Whether I need inspiration, perspective, or simply something to listen to while I make tea, there is always a talk that meets me where I am. The variety of voices and topics keeps me curious about the world.
The animated, shorter format of TED-Ed makes complex ideas accessible and beautiful. I find myself recommending specific videos to friends regularly — it's the kind of content that sparks genuine conversation.
One of my all-time favorites. The School of Life explores emotional intelligence, philosophy, and the art of living thoughtfully. Their essays and videos have a warmth and depth that I find genuinely comforting — like being understood by a very wise friend.
The Ending of Fear — Krishnamurti
Krishnamurti was a philosopher who spoke about freedom, fear, and the nature of the mind in a way that still feels radical today. This particular video is one I return to when I feel stuck in anxiety or overthinking. He doesn't offer easy answers — he invites you to question everything, which is its own kind of relief.
A Greek science blog that covers physics, cosmology, and the big questions about the universe. I include it here because wondering about the cosmos has always been part of my healing — it puts my inner world in perspective. If you read Greek, this is a wonderful resource.
Michael Stevens asks questions that sound simple — "What is the speed of dark?" "How much does a shadow weigh?" — and turns them into journeys through science, philosophy, and the strangeness of existence. One of the most mind-expanding channels on the internet, and proof that curiosity is its own kind of healing.
Grant Sanderson makes mathematics visual, intuitive, and genuinely beautiful. Even if numbers aren't your thing, watching how he reveals the hidden patterns beneath reality is something close to poetry. He has a way of making you feel the elegance of the universe through geometry and motion.
Cosmic Skeptic — Alex O'Connor
Alex approaches philosophy and ethics with a clarity and rigour that I find very useful for thinking through big questions — about meaning, morality, religion, and how to live a good life. He's not here to tell you what to think, but to help you think more clearly. A thoughtful companion for anyone navigating their own beliefs.
The official archive of Alan Watts' lectures — a philosopher who spent his life translating Eastern wisdom (Zen, Taoism, Vedanta) into language the Western mind could receive. His voice and ideas have been a companion to me in difficult moments. There's something about the way he speaks about the self, about letting go, about the nature of now, that quietly unravels anxiety.
Named for the average number of hours we spend working in a lifetime, this nonprofit asks: how can you use your career to do the most good? Their research and interviews challenge assumptions about what meaningful work looks like and invite a different kind of question — not just "what do I want?" but "what does the world need from me?" Thought-provoking whether or not you agree with all their conclusions.
🧩 Neurodivergent Life ▾ open
A charming and relatable channel exploring ADHD in relationships and daily life. Short, funny, and surprisingly moving at times — especially for those of us who have only recently discovered that ADHD was part of our story all along.
A resource dedicated to understanding neurodivergence with depth and compassion. I appreciate how it approaches topics like autism and ADHD not as deficits, but as different ways of experiencing and moving through the world.
Kaelynn is an autistic therapist, author, and advocate who was diagnosed at ten and has since turned her experience into a life of service and education. Her content brings warmth, authenticity, and real professional grounding to conversations about autism — including the difficult ones that often go unspoken. I deeply appreciate her willingness to bridge the gap between lived experience and clinical understanding.
Sam was diagnosed autistic at 33, after YouTube kept recommending her a video about autism in women — and she finally clicked on it. That story alone tells you something about the channel's spirit: it's for the late-diagnosed, the quietly struggling, the people who spent years wondering why they felt different. Her videos are relatable, thoughtful, and grounding. She also lives in the Netherlands, which is a small and delightful connection.
🌱 Wellness & Self-Discovery ▾ open
Earth Day: Episodes to Hear and Love — Ologies Podcast
Alie Ward's Ologies podcast is a love letter to science and the natural world. These special Earth Day episodes remind me that healing is not only an inner journey — it's also about reconnecting with the living world around us. Deeply nourishing.
A warm, accessible space for positive psychology and personal growth. I find it a gentle complement to the heavier inner work — a reminder that growth can also be light and joyful.
I include this here with full honesty: understanding your own body, pleasure, and sexuality is a real part of healing and self-worth. This resource approaches the topic with openness, education, and zero shame — which is exactly the energy I believe we all deserve.
Chris Packham is a British naturalist, conservationist, and television presenter who is also openly autistic. His love for the natural world — from birds to bats to beetles — is contagious and deeply healing to witness. He speaks with equal passion about wildlife conservation and about his own neurodivergent mind. I find that reconnecting with nature through his work quiets something in me that nothing else quite reaches.
🔮 Spirituality & the Esoteric ▾ open
Ram Dass was a Harvard psychologist who went to India in 1967, met a teacher who changed everything, and came back to share what he found. His 1971 book Be Here Now became a quiet revolution. The YouTube channel carries decades of his talks on presence, love, suffering, and the art of simply being. His voice is one of the most tender things I have encountered — wise without pretending to have all the answers.
Angela's Symposium — Dr Angela Puca
Dr Puca is a scholar of religious studies with a PhD in Italian Witchcraft and Shamanism, and she has built one of the most unique channels on the internet — exploring paganism, magic, esotericism, and shamanism from a rigorous academic perspective. She is the bridge I didn't know I needed between intellectual curiosity and spiritual wonder. If you've ever been drawn to the old, wild traditions of the world, this is a beautiful place to begin.
A professor of philosophy and religion who produces lectures on Western esotericism — alchemy, Kabbalah, Hermeticism, mysticism, Theosophy — with the depth of academia and the warmth of genuine fascination. Dr Sledge approaches these traditions not as belief systems to evaluate, but as extraordinary chapters in the human story of asking what we are, and what the world is. Rich, scholarly, and quietly awe-inspiring.
This one is close to home — literally. The Embassy of the Free Mind is a museum on the Keizersgracht in Amsterdam, housing the Ritman Library: one of the world's largest collections of rare books on Hermeticism, alchemy, Kabbalah, Rosicrucianism, and Western spirituality. Their YouTube channel brings these extraordinary teachings into the digital world. I find the very existence of this place, a few cities away, quietly wonderful.
A collaborative, interdisciplinary exploration of mysticism across traditions — Sufism, Kabbalah, Vedanta, Christian mysticism, Buddhist non-duality, and more. They ask: beneath the differences in language and symbol, is there a common thread in humanity's experience of the sacred? I return to this channel when I want to feel less alone in the search for meaning.
A calm, academic channel exploring the world's religious and spiritual traditions — Islam, Sufism, Buddhism, Gnosticism, Hinduism, and beyond — with depth and genuine respect. No agenda, no evangelism, just careful scholarship that opens up rather than closes down. A wonderful companion for anyone curious about how humans across time and place have sought the sacred.
📜 History & Culture ▾ open
Named after Ibn Khaldun's masterwork of historical philosophy, this channel tells the story of the Islamic world — its rise, its golden ages, its empires, and its peoples — from a secular, historian's perspective. Syawish started the channel because so little of this history was available online in depth or detail. I find it deeply enriching to understand the civilisations and ideas that shaped such a large part of human experience.
History made visual — family trees of monarchies, timelines of ancient civilisations, genealogies of world religions and philosophical traditions. UsefulCharts has a way of making the connections between people, ideas, and events across centuries suddenly click into place. A quiet and satisfying way to spend an afternoon understanding how we got here.
Jon Y explores the history and geopolitics of technology — especially semiconductors — with the thoroughness of an academic and the storytelling instincts of someone who genuinely loves what they're researching. The chips in every device we use have an extraordinary human story behind them, involving decades of rivalry, invention, and political tension. A channel that makes you see the invisible infrastructure of modern life in a completely new way.
💻 Technology & How Things Work ▾ open
Technology Connections — Alec Watson
Alec makes beautifully researched documentary-style videos about the history and inner workings of everyday technology — toasters, dishwashers, light switches, VHS tapes. He approaches the mundane with genuine reverence and a lot of dry humour. This channel has given me a profound appreciation for the invisible engineering in ordinary life, and that sense of noticing the extraordinary in the everyday feels very much in the spirit of this blog.
Jeremy is a network engineer who started making free, detailed courses on computer networking — and has since helped hundreds of thousands of people understand how the internet actually works. His teaching is patient, clear, and structured. For anyone on a learning journey into IT, this channel is a genuinely generous gift.
Nana is a DevOps educator and Docker Captain who has built one of the most welcoming entry points into the world of cloud technology, Kubernetes, and software development. Her teaching style is step-by-step, visual, and full of real-world examples. Even complex concepts feel approachable. A wonderful resource for anyone curious about how modern software is built and deployed.
Patrick Boyle — Finance Explained
Patrick is a hedge fund manager, university professor, and former investment banker — and somehow also very funny. His channel explains quantitative finance, market history, and how the financial world actually works, with a dry wit that makes even derivatives bearable. I include him here because understanding money and how systems of power function feels like part of living thoughtfully in the world.
This page will grow over time, just like I do. If something here resonates with you, I'd love to hear about it — feel free to leave a comment or reach out. 🌸
With softness, Elli
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