How Integrity and Power Balance Impact Family Recovery with Shiva JHow Integrity and Power Balance Impact Family Recovery with Shiva J
Families Navigating Addiction & Recovery
Jeff Jones talks with Shiva J about integrity, power dynamics and accountability in coaching and men’s work, with strong links to family recovery. Their conversation outlines a restorative approach to ethics that aims to create safer spaces for those seeking help.
39:27•11 Sept 2026
Integrity, Power and Safer Healing Spaces with Shiva J
Episode Overview
- Power imbalances arise automatically when someone steps into a guiding role and need to be acknowledged rather than ignored.
- Unregulated coaching and tantra spaces benefit from clear integrity commitments and accountability structures.
- Restorative, horizontally designed ethics systems can support both practitioners and those who feel harmed without defaulting to blame.
- Being genuinely heard often calms the nervous system, reduces defensiveness, and can shift how people see a conflict.
- Integrity certification, framed as an ongoing oath rather than a badge, can help practitioners stand out as safe and accountable.
“It's not about what happened is the general consensus we came to. It's about how do we handle it.”
How do people find strength in their journey to sobriety? This conversation between host Jeff Jones and guest Shiva J (also known as JJ) takes a surprising route: straight through integrity, accountability, and power dynamics in helping relationships. Shiva shares his path from decades of working in self-defence and fitness with women to creating men’s groups and an integrity-focused certification for male practitioners in coaching, tantra, and sacred sexuality.
He noticed a pattern: many women seeking self-defence weren’t there for fitness, but because, as he puts it, “this is somebody who's been at the hands of abuse and they are trying to empower themselves.” That realisation pushed him to ask whether he’d been working on the “wrong end of the problem” and inspired his shift toward making men safer, rather than just teaching women to protect themselves.
A big theme here is the automatic power imbalance whenever someone steps into a guiding role – coach, therapist, healer, or even family leader. Shiva explains that hierarchy appears the moment someone pays for guidance, and that without accountability, it’s “the wild west” in many unregulated spaces. To answer this, he describes a 10-week integrity programme and an ethics committee designed less as a punishment squad and more as a restorative, horizontally structured support system.
Shiva and Jeff compare this structure to restorative justice and talk about how being genuinely heard can calm nervous systems, soften blame, and expand perspective. As Shiva says, “It's not about what happened… it's about how do we handle it.” For families dealing with addiction, this conversation offers fresh thinking: how power shows up in helping roles, why feedback matters, and how clear integrity commitments can create safer spaces for healing.
It might leave you wondering: where does power sit in your own family’s recovery story, and what would it look like to share it more evenly?
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