Explore every episode of the podcast Sex Birth Trauma with Kimberly Ann Johnson
| Title | Pub. Date | Duration | |
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| EP 214: Finding Language, Sharing our Stories, and Creating New Worlds around Mothering with April Tierney | 30 Aug 2024 | 01:09:32 | |
In this episode, Kimberly and April discuss her most recent book of poetry titled Matter / Mother which shares about April’s experience of traveling through the underworld of grief, hardship, and heartbreak while mothering her young child. Together, they share their desires for a culture that makes space for the depth of mothering experiences and stories through all of the different seasons of life. They also discuss how to bear the pain and responsibility of both creating a world we want our children to live in while simultaneously inhabiting the one that currently exists. Overall, their vulnerability and honest reflections from their differing seasons of mothering offers language to those deep experiences and possibility for all mothers.
Bio April Tierney is a poet, activist, craftswoman, mother, and lover of stories. Her work follows threads of ecopoetics, myth, culture, and lineage. She has been nominated for The Pushcart Prize and featured in Orion Magazine, Deep Times: A Journal of the Work that Reconnects, Clarion Poetry Magazine, and Real Ground Journal, among others.
What She Shares: –”Matter / Mother” poetry and mothering –Mothering in the upper world while traversing the underworld –Creative process while mothering –Motherhood hardship and joys of different seasons –Creating the world we want our children to inhabit
What You’ll Hear: –Latest book “Matter Mother” of poetry –Reading of “Birth Story” poem –Birth as animalistic and mythic –Decision behind black cover on book –Longing for more mothering stories from underworld journey –Writing a book during early mothering –Listening to experiences not from our own –Finding language for mothering experiences –Finding the right voices on mothering experiences –Birth culturally accepted as traumatic –Mothering in the underworld while raising children in the upperworld –Mothering as existential –Heartbreak of mothering in these times –Unable to talk about lived, ongoing way while holding children –Fantasy of modern motherhood –Modern living as kind of trauma we learn to cope with –Four forest fires in three days –Evacuating from home from forest fires –Pausing from writing and trusting the quiet places –Writing as torture until its tended to –Bringing forth for the world what is asking to come through –Books as living, breathing things –Creative portion of mothering in tension with energy and needs –Kimberly’s surprise of mothering young adulthood –Grieving and loving during mothering in all phases –Importance of sharing from different stages of mothering –Physical versus psychological demands of mothering –Noticing the glory spots of mothering –Sending children out into the world –Creating the world we want our children to live in
Resources Website: https://www.apriltierney.com/ IG: @apriltierney11
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| EP 213: Navigating Single Motherhood, Finding Sisterhood, and Forming Kinship with Marysia Miernowska | 23 Aug 2024 | 01:09:32 | |
In this episode, Kimberly and Marysia discuss how they’ve navigated the challenges and benefits of single motherhood. In many ways, their lives and stories run parallel: surprising pregnancies, marrying into another culture, becoming single mothers with babies, and living out single motherhood while being entrepreneurs. This honest, raw, and tender conversation offers vulnerable testimonies and nuggets of wisdom for other single mothers. They emphasize the difficulties but importance of building kinship and community, undoing internalized shame, and tending to community. Marysia’s School of the Sacred Wild is now open for enrollment with Kimberly as a guest teacher!
Bio Marysia Miernowska is a teacher, author, Earth activist, green witch, folk herbalist and healer rooted in the Wise Woman Tradition of Healing. Born in Poland, she carries with her a lineage of European folk herbalism. Marysia honors plants as sentient beings, elders, healers and teachers. As a Plant Spirit Communicator, Marysia channels messages from the Earth spirits and guides students to connect with plant spirits through meditation and through their bodies, to receive guidance and learn about the constituents, energetics and properties of plants. Registration is now open for the School of the Sacred Wild and can be accessed through the link below. What She Shares: –Journeys into pregnancy –Trauma and shame around single mothering –Finding kinship and community
What You’ll Hear: –Marysia’s surprising journey into motherhood –Managing cultural differences as a couple –Traumatic experience becoming a single mother with a baby –Kimberly’s pregnancy and divorce –Single motherhood sisterhood –Navigating single motherhood challenges and joys –Marysia entering single motherhood –Receiving judgment for divorcing –Physical manifestations of wounds and healing –Functional freeze reactions for survival –Finding the village as single mothers –Fairy godmothers and aunties –Bringing in chosen family for children –Cultural differences in background and local living –Anticipating the death of empty nest –Reviewing mothering choices –Grief and cultural isolation –Predictability and calm in hiring anticipatory help –Working through shame in asking for more help –Nervous systems and being trapped –How culture is physically organized disruptive to kinship –Spontaneous social interactions –Taking risks and extending our ways of gathering –Doing it imperfectly and letting go of shame –Tending to the ecosystem of families, parents, and single mothers –School of the Sacred Wild herbalism program –Creating kinship and a deep sense of belonging between human & non-human –Holding vitality of the Mother archetype and cutting back, releasing, and discerning –September 7th registration closes –10% off code for listeners –Kimberly to guest teach in School of Sacred Wild
Resources Website: https://www.schoolofthesacredwild.com/ IG: @marysia_miernowska Course Link for Listeners: here
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| EP 204: A Council on Matrimony with Stephen Jenkinson | 19 Feb 2024 | 01:04:38 | |
With special guest host Stephen Jenkinson, Kimberly and Stephen consult with three engaged couples and an unmarried woman to wonder aloud about the institution of marriage. Stephen describes his experience, when he was asked to marry several couples, how he did his homework.
Kimberly describes what she learned from having a wedding in the working terreiros culture of Bahia, Brazil. Stephen describes why a ceremony has no audience - it only has witnesses and participants. Stephen and Kimberly contend with how contemporary couples, longing for ceremony in their matrimony, strive for integrity in their union. This episode is just the tip of iceberg. Starting February 25th, Stephen and Kimberly will start their 5-part Online Series "Forgotten Pillars: Patrimony, Matrimony, Kinship, Ancestors & Ceremony." They will dive much deeper into the lessons gleaned from working cultures of the past to inform meaningful ways for couples, families, and communities to come together for experiences that linger long past the "big day." Find out more or join us: https://kimberlyannjohnson.com/forgotten-pillars/ | |||
| EP 203: Reflections on a Wedding Ceremony | 13 Feb 2024 | 01:22:30 | |
In this episode, you hear reflections on Kimberly’s wedding, just weeks out from the event in Salvador, Brazil. With guest host/podcast producer/cousin, Jackson Kroopf, you will hear Kimberly sit with all of the proceedings: from spiritual preparation to rehearsal to ceremony to celebration. What does it mean to be married in the traditions of a spouse’s culture? Who is a wedding for? What role do children play in their parent’s ceremony? How do we understand the relationship between matrimony and contemporary weddings? In this open hearted conversation, you will hear family reckon, reflect, and bask, in real time, on their expanding family. | |||
| EP 202: Death Doulas and Green Burials with Bodhi Be | 31 Oct 2023 | 00:46:10 | |
In this episode, Kimberly and Bodhi discuss his work as a death doula at Doorway Into Light, Hawaii’s only nonprofit green funeral home and educational resource center, The Death Store. They discuss what green burials and ocean burials are and how they are more generous and sustainable to the planet than modern burial practices. They also discuss how dominant culture fears death, responds to death, and death traditions across cultures. In light of all of the ways that people, and even babies, die, Bodhi asks us to deeply reflect on the question, “What is a full life?” P.S. His nonprofit is still taking donations for those displaced by the Maui fires; find the link below to donate!
Bio Bodhi is an ordained interfaith minister and teacher in the Sufi lineage of Sufi Sam and Hazrat Inayat Khan. He is the founder and executive director of Doorway Into Light, a nonprofit organization on Maui, which provides conscious and compassionate care for the dying, their families and the grieving, and has been offering community presentations and trainings since 2006 in the fields of awakened living and dying and the care of the dying. Bodhi is a bereavement counselor and educator; a hospice volunteer; a home funeral guide; a teacher and trainer of death doulas; a speaker and workshop leader and a ceremonial guide. He hosts a weekly streaming radio show, ‘Death Tracks’, on a Maui station. Bodhi guides memorials and funerals and leads grief rituals. He facilitates grief support groups for teenagers. He has trained hundreds of doctors, nurses, hospice staff, social workers, ministers, chaplains, therapists, artists and lay people in the spiritual, psychological, emotional and logistical care of the dying and the care of the dead, and for 4 years has taken dozens through a certification program to be death doulas. Bodhi has written a column called “Ask the Death Professor” for a local Maui magazine. He is a notary public, a coffin maker and a Reiki practitioner. Bodhi and his wife Leilah lead spiritual retreats in Hawaii and around the world.For many years Bodhi collaborated with Ram Dass, a neighbor and friend, who served on Doorway Into Light’s Board of Directors. Bodhi is continuing the work Ram Dass helped birth, in the fields of conscious dying in America.
What He Shares: –Death doula work –Green burials and ocean burials –Running a nonprofit funeral home and resource center –What you do (literally) when someone dies –Legalities of keeping a body with you –Generational stories of death
What You’ll Hear: –How he was led to death work and spiritual counseling –Working with Ram Das –Starting the death doula movement and a ministry of death –Running a non-profit funeral home –Culture pushing away death –Green burials –Hazards of embalming –Biodegradable graves –Death and burial as another practice removed from traditions –Cultural differences around death and burial –Ocean body burial –Being with bodies after death –Generational stories after death –Lingering with the body to witness death –Healthy life includes its death –Mothers of stillborns fighting for baby body –Giving families time and space with death beyond laws –Outlaw moves –Medical rules around bodies and placentas –Navigating baby and child death –What is a full life? –Entitlement around death –Death doula trainings –Facing Death, Nourishing Life course –Showing up for life and death
Resources Website: https://www.doorwayintolight.org/ IG: @thedeathstoremaui
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| EP 201: Informed Pregnancy and Evidence Based Birth and Bodywork with Dr. Elliot Berlin | 27 Oct 2023 | 00:34:46 | |
In this episode, Kimberly and Dr. Elliot Berlin discuss his informed pregnancy focused chiropractic work. He explains noticing a rise in out of hospital births post-pandemic as well as an increase in hospital restrictions and inductions in hospital births. He discusses various causes of breech positions, his chiropractic approaches to breech babies before birth, as well as the long history of cesareans and how VBACs became stigmatized in recent decades. The common thread through this whole conversation is providing education and information for pregnant people to make the best informed decisions for themselves and their birth.
Bio Dr. Elliot Berlin is an award-winning pregnancy-focused chiropractor, childbirth educator, and labor doula. His innovative techniques for prenatal wellness care address tight and painful muscles and tendons utilizing specific massage techniques based on soft tissue releases. He combines this with traditional chiropractic adjustments to restore motion to restricted joints. Dr. Berlin notably works with several hundred breech babies each year, most of whom turn into the ideal pre-birth position once normal function is restored to the mother's low back and pelvis. He is also the host of Informed Pregnancy Podcast, an award winning pregnancy focused chiropractor.
What He Shares: –Differences in births post-pandemic –Chiropractic approaches to breech babies –History of cesareans –Informed VBACs –Mind-Body health for fertility
What You’ll Hear: –Pregnancies post-pandemic –Rise in out of hospital births –Increase in restrictions and interventions in hospitals –Guiding clients in making best choices for birth –Training for breech births –Using Webster technique to reposition breech babies –Structural reasons for breech positionings –Functional issues of mother posture –Minimizing ultrasounds –Looking at baby position at 32 weeks –Chiropractic care outside of pregnancy –Approaches to releases and maintenance –History of cesareans –Myths around VBACs –How VBAC information is portrayed –Uterine ruptures –Insurance policies and cesareans –Induction drugs causing uterine ruptures in 1980s –VBAC Facts website –Using modern technology to improve childbirth –Downsides to how interventions are applied –What led Dr. Berlin to his work –Mind-body practices leading to natural fertility after years of treatments –Informed Pregnancy podcast –Informedpregnancy.tv streaming app
Resources Website: informedpregnancy.com/informedpregnancy.tv IG: @doctorberlin
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| EP 200: "Birth Control" - Maternal Agency, Education, and Systems of Perinatal Care with Allison Yarrow | 16 Oct 2023 | 01:05:15 | |
In this conversation, journalist Allison Yarrow and Kimberly discuss Allison's new book “Birth Control: The Insidious Power of Men Over Motherhood.” They go in depth about the culture and systems of perinatal birth care. They explore Allison’s extensive research around the differences between home birth care and hospital birth care, and go into depth about their personal experiences with each scenario. They wonder how future generations will approach their birth, as well as the deep impact of race on varying birth experience. With all of the information out there, they ask how do you prepare for birth?
Bio Allisoni Yarrow is a journalist for nearly two decades (in newsrooms like NBC News, Newsweek and The Daily Beast, and Vice), a national magazine finalist, the author of 90s Bitch (finalist for the Los Angeles Press Club Book Award), and she has written about the shortcomings of the perinatal experience in America for the New York Times, the Washington Post, USA Today, Vox, Harper's Bazaar, and Insider. Her new book Birth Control: The Insidious Power of Men Over Motherhood, which is out July 18 and arose out of my TED Talk. With the recent news that maternal mortality has risen 40 percent to the highest level in our lifetime, this subject couldn't be more important. The book draws on extensive reporting, interviews, an original survey of 1300 birthing people and mothers, and my own personal experiences, to document how women are controlled, traumatized, injured, and even killed, because of traditionalist practices of medical professionals and hospitals during pregnancy, labor, childbirth, and after.
What You’ll Hear How birth procedures and techniques were not developed by science by traditions? The overriding of midwives knowledge by doctors. How has birth become such a profitable medical field? Why C-sections are so prominent despite their limited need? How does home birth care differ from hospital care? What kind of mother culture do we need around birth trauma? The pressure to educate onesellf in the perinatal experience. What role does agency play in the birth experience? What needs to change about the system of birth? How will future generations experience birth care? Our bodies perceive surgery as interruption. The importance of sex education to the birth experience. The racial dimensions of birth culture.
Links www.allisonyarrow.com Instagram: @aliyarrow
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| EP 199: Activate Your Inner Jaguar - Feminine Sexuality and Spirituality | 11 Oct 2023 | 00:40:38 | |
In this episode, podcast producer Jackson Kroopf interviews Kimberly about her upcoming course "Activate Your Inner Jaguar - Feminine Sexuality and Spirituality" that begins October 17th. Kimberly describes the nine year evolution of the course, tracing its foundations and considering the ways her ongoing somatic and spiritual work continues to serve different generations of women from maiden to crone. She opens up about her own experiences that have informed her evolving relationship to the intersection of sexuality and spirituality. She also describes what the experience of taking the class entails, particularly around issues of privacy, shame, and the concrete practices she offers class participants. You will hear about some of the class' guest lecturers including pelvic priestess and author of "Women's Anatomy of Arousal," Sheri Winston, and sex educator and writer of "Taking Back the Speculum" Pamela Samuelson. As the carrier of many womens' stories, Kimberly describes the way combining personal stories and somatic tools can address many things women are most curious about related to sex and self-actualizing an erotic practice for each participant.
You can learn more or sign up for the nine-week intensive course here: https://kimberlyannjohnson.com/alive/ | |||
| EP 198: Take Back the Magic with Perdita Finn | 08 Oct 2023 | 01:02:05 | |
In this episode, Kimberly and Perdita discuss Perdita’s latest book “Take Back the Magic,” which was inspired by the death of her father, their ambivalent relationship, and ongoing relationship to him now that he's passed. Perdita shares her experience of communicating with the dead for over thirty years and guides us in how we can do the same. They also discuss the history behind why we fear the dead and the suppression of communicating with the dead by organized religion. She shares how the dead are connected and long for the erotic and how we can return to the inner wisdom and rituals of ancestors that pre-date religion and political systems. She describes the crucial role of the this communication with dead to her key relationships with the living: as a mother, wife, and community member.
Bio Perdita Finn is the co-founder, with her husband Clark Strand, of the non-denominational international fellowship The Way of the Rose, which inspired their book "The Way of the Rose: The Radical Path of the Divine Feminine Hidden in the Rosary." For many years she supported her family writing books for children and educators like the "Time Flyers" series for Scholastic Books, "My Little Pony," and many others. She has been a ghostwriter, a book doctor, a copy editor and a writing teacher, but these days she is happy to be working primarily on her own books. She has a lively substack, "Take Back the Magic," where readers can get sneak peeks into what she's working on right now. Finn now teaches popular workshops on Collaborating with the Other Side, in which participants are empowered to activate the magic in their own lives with the help of their ancestors. She is the author of "Take Back the Magic: Conversations with the Unseen World" and lives with her family in the moss-filled shadows of the Catskill Mountains.
What She Shares: –Writing “Take Back the Magic” –Why we fear the dead –Cycles of life, death, and rebirth –How to commune with the dead –Eros and the dead
What You’ll Hear: –Darkness and dark matter as origin of life –Circles of entanglement and belonging –Use of letters in “Take Back the Magic” –Relationship with father and his death –Cultural fears of the dead –Long history of suppression of speaking with dead –Understanding how dead communicate –Alchemizing experiences with past monsters –Finding safety of ancestors –Starting small with communication –Assigning worries to those on the other side –Honoring the dead –Perdita and husband’s spiritual backgrounds –Spiritual experiences through birth –Spiritual community outside of empire –History of rosary –Erotic nature of the dead –Experiencing eternal return of dead and living –Trusting the long story of your soul –Everything dies and everything is reborn –Not every prayer is answered in every lifetime –What is the prayer we would carry with us beyond this lifetime? –We are all each others’ mothers
Resources Website: wayoftherose.org takebackthemagic.com IG: @perditafinn
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| EP 197: Erotic Seasons - Connect to Your Sensual Flow Through the Stages of Womanhood | 07 Oct 2023 | 00:09:35 | |
In this episode, podcast producer Jackson Kroopf interviews Kimberly about her upcoming free class "Erotic Seasons: Connect to Your Sensual Flow Through the Stages of Womanhood," which begins October 10th at 9:00am PST. We discuss Kimberly's inspiration for the class, and her evolving thoughts on the archetypes of the mother, maiden, virgin, crone. The class explores what it means to develop a mature sensual identity. Go on a journey through the seasons of womanhood and how those might impact your erotic energy (hint: it’s not all downhill). Shine a warm salt lamp light, not strobe lights, on some tender places that could use attention and give you clues about your unique erotic path. Discover your next proximal step to bridging the gap between your sensuality and spirituality. You can sign up for the free class at: https://kimberlyannjohnson.com/erotic-seasons/ | |||
| EP 196: Somatic Healing for Sex-Trafficking Survivors, Intergenerational Trauma, and Plant Medicine Integration with Atira Tan | 28 Sep 2023 | 01:00:55 | |
In this episode, Kimberly and Atira discuss her work as an advocate against sex-trafficking in South East Asia, how she combines art therapy and somatic practices to help survivors heal and repair, and the trauma-informed programs she offers for practitioners of plant medicine ceremonies. She describes how her own experience being an Asian woman facing compacted oppressions led her to her work. She also describes how even in some of the darkest places, she is able to see beauty and light in community and relationships.
Bio Atira is a senior yoga and meditation teacher (500 E-RYT), art therapist (M.A. Expressive Art Therapy & Grad Dip. Transpersonal Art Therapy), a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP), a somatic trauma specialist in sexual abuse recovery and trauma educator, TED speaker and #1 best-selling author. I’m currently completing my Ph.D. studies in Expressive Art Therapies. CEO of Art to Healing and Yoga for Freedom. She is also an Expressive Art Therapist, Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, Yoga Teacher, Counsellor & Coach, public speaker and author on women's health, sacred activism and leadership. You can find more about Art to Healing and her upcoming programs Somatic Plant Medicine and Integration program and a Trauma Informed Plant Medicine Facilitation program.
What She Shares: –Intergenerational trauma in the body –Somatic applications for recovery from sex trafficking –Plant medicine and trauma, catharsis and integration –Upcoming program dates for facilitators
What You’ll Hear: –Work supporting sex trafficked survivors –Atira’s ancestry and upbringing as an Asian woman –History of oppression of Asian female bodies –Witnessing child sex trafficking firsthand –Expressive art therapy to address complex trauma in the anti-trafficking org –Familial and religious trauma and cultural responsibility –Cervical cancer diagnosis at 26 years –Reclaiming sexual and sensual innocence -Developing a non-profit Art to Healing and train the trainer for survivors –Program in Cambodia and Nepal –Culture and place in non-profit work –First SE training for sex traffic survivors in 2019 with research –Gap in trauma-informed facilitators of ceremonies and psychedelics –Myth of catharsis and real integration –Creating app for sex trafficking for assistance, awareness, and education –Looking for tech & app development support –Upcoming Somatic Plant Medicine and Integration program –Trauma Informed Plant Medicine Facilitation program –Master classes available on differences of plant medicines –Exploring goals, resources, and intentions around using plant medicines –Staying well in midst of so much intensity and suffering
Resources Website: https://www.arttohealing.org/ IG: @arttohealing
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| EP 195: Maui In the Fires Wake - Gathering Herbs, Making Medicine and Walking in Grief with Khadija Meghan Rashell Striegel | 13 Sep 2023 | 00:54:56 | |
Summary In this episode, Kimberly and Khadija reflect on their recent mutual aid efforts in the wake of fires in Maui. Khadija shares what she has witnessed in her community and the tremendous impact of donations that have directly reached her neighbors. They reflect on destination travel and the impact of tourism on both the land and the people of Hawaii. Khadija describes what led her to invite Kimberly and Stephen Jenkinson to Reckon on the island this coming November. They wonder together about the ethics of retreats, tourism, and what it means to be an “under-the-scene” worker.
To learn more about Maui Reckoning with Kimberly Ann Johnson and Stephen Jenkinson, hosted by Khadija Striegel, go here. This is a gathering for the Maui ‘ohana. Khadija is an herbalist, bonesetter and farmer born, raised, and living in Maui. She’s in graduate school studying Hawaiian language and culture. Khadija works with a non-profit caring for the native plant gardens at a Heiau, an ancient Hawaiian place of prayer. She offers Lomi Lomi body work to her community, in addition to tinctures and remedies under the title Family Traditions Maui.
What You’ll Hear:
Resources
Maui Reckoning, with Kimberly Ann Johnson and Stephen Jenkinson, hosted by Khadija Striegel, for the Maui ‘ohana
You are welcome to contribute to the event. Please send your donation via PayPal to Khadija here with the note “Maui Reckoning Donation”.
If you would like to send herbs and materials directly to Khadija to support the community in Maui, find Khadija’s letter and list here.
You can connect with Khadija via khadija@familytraditionsmaui.com
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| EP 212: Hormones to an Evolutionary Biologist - Menopause, Endometriosis, and Grandmothering with Natalie Dinsdale | 15 Jul 2024 | 01:02:12 | |
In this episode, Natalie and Kimberly dive deep into the choose your own hormone phenomenon. They discuss an evolutionary biologist's perspective of individual vs. group think when it comes to women’s health, the connections between hormones and reproductive health issues like endometriosis and PCOS, as well as the evolutionary case for grandmothering. Bio Natalie Dinsdale, PhD is an evolutionary biologist, a researcher, an astrologer, a dancer, and a mother. She investigates how evolutionary dynamics shape features of sexuality, reproduction, and health & disease in humans.
What you will hear:
Resources website: https://www.nataliedinsdale.com/ substack: https://natalield.substack.com/ | |||
| EP 194: Marketing + Sales with Consent, AI, Authenticity, and Humanity in Business with Rachel Allen | 01 Sep 2023 | 00:45:54 | |
Summary In this episode, Kimberly and Rachel discuss how Rachel discovered copywriting and turned it into a business. When many entrepreneurs feel uncomfortable with marketing and social media expectations around business, Rachel provides thoughtful solutions to authentically representing one’s own business, making meaningful professional relationships, and regulating our nervous systems while marketing. They also discuss how to use social media as a tool, using discernment when posting content, as well as the pluses and minuses of Artificial Intelligence. Last, they discuss remembering humility and humor both in social media and business, as well as our everyday lives.
Bio Rachel Allen is the owner of Bolt from the Blue, a copywriting and marketing business that provides clients with services to best communicate their message to their audiences. Bolt from the Blue also offers a variety of trainings and workshops for professionals. Check out all that they provide in the link below.
What She Shares: –Marketing and consent –AI’s capabilities and limits –Bringing authenticity into sales –Remembering humanity and relationship in marketing –Genuine social media content –Building our world on and offline
What You’ll Hear: –How Rachel began copywriting –Body and mind in conflict –Marketing and consent –Reframing predator/prey mentality in marketing –AI and human creativity –AI cannot create –Using AI for ideation and brainstorming –No intellectual property rights over AI generated writing –Current market trends in online business –Thinking of clients as real human beings –All copy is sales copy –Bringing authenticity into sales –Sales as generative not conversion therapy –Relationship physics and marketing –Quality over quantity in marketing everytime –Being genuinely interested in relationships with people –Referrals over endless content posting –Being comfortable with ourselves as individuals before others –Find ways you’re comfortable connecting with people –Understanding own nervous system state and moving from there –Posting content that feels good to you –Mistaking transparency for authenticity –Sharing “minimum viable truths” in posting content –Figuring out your genuine “YES” –Remembering our social media algorithms as silos –Buy in with novelty and stay in with empathy –Hormones, marketing and empathy –Feeling connected and really good, closing the hormonal loops –Being responsible for consequences and outcome –Building in live interactions amongst digital work –Grounding in relationships in real time –Staying humble and using humor –Finding humanity and building world we want
Resources Website: https://www.boltfromthebluecopywriting.com/ IG: @backfromthebluecopywriting
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| EP 193: Intimacy with Plants, Aligning with Life’s Seasons, and Balancing Motherhood + Business with Marysia Miernowska | 28 Aug 2023 | 00:38:29 | |
Summary In this episode, Kimberly and Marysia discuss the origins of School of the Sacred Wild, plants as medicine, and entrepreneurship. Marysia shares about how her family and heritage influenced her journey to plants, how plants provide somatic, restorative experiences, and how she navigates single-parenting and running a business. Registration is now open for a new course at the School of the Sacred Wild starting September 12th.
Bio Marysia Miernowska is a teacher, author, Earth activist, green witch, folk herbalist and healer rooted in the Wise Woman Tradition of Healing. Born in Poland, she carries with her a lineage of European folk herbalism. Marysia honors plants as sentient beings, elders, healers and teachers. As a Plant Spirit Communicator, Marysia channels messages from the Earth spirits and guides students to connect with plant spirits through meditation and through their bodies, to receive guidance and learn about the constituents, energetics and properties of plants. Registration is now open for the School of the Sacred Wild and can be accessed through the link below.
What She Shares: –School of the Sacred Wild –Somatic experiences with plants –Benefits of motherhood and entrepreneurship –Aligning life seasons with cycles of nature
What You’ll Hear: –Embodying love and vastness –Creating container of safety and new culture of no judgment –Inviting in ancient plants –Plants offer flavor of love –Interacting somatically with plants –Creating intimacy with the natural world –New learning experience engaging with plants –Origin of School of Sacred Wild –Grandparents in Warsaw during WWII –Grew up in Poland during 1980s –Raised with responsibility to fight for justice –Symbols of Black Madonna and Isis –Mother as cosmic fertile void –Power issues in alternative medicine communities –Finding wild weeds from childhood in Vermont –Depleted by modern living –Restored with plant medicine –Learning to do business and being self-employed –Making earth medicine accessible to all people –Working with abundant, wild, and free plants –Making courses accessible, sliding scale, and scholarships –Single-parenting and business –Having fire from mothering to channel into business –Balancing motherhood with business –Aligning with the currents of nature and our bodies –Mother archetype is time of production and hard work –Working hard in summer to have a nourishing bounty in fall –Turning to plants and earth for healing support –Prayer to change culture –Learning through body’s challenges around needs –Digging and uprooting ancestral patterns of martyrdom –Wild plants encourage wildness in ourselves –Registration now open for School of the Sacred Wild
Resources Website: https://www.schoolofthesacredwild.com/ IG: @marysia_miernowska
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| EP 192: Yoga + Abuse, The Fierceness of Crones, and Yoga Practices for Intuition with Uma Dinsmore-Tuli | 25 Aug 2023 | 01:04:57 | |
Summary In this episode, Kimberly and Uma discuss the controversial updated edition of her book “Yoni Shakti” which Kimberly has used all throughout her writing and classes. Uma describes the legal battle she faced from the yoga industry when she wrote about all kinds of abuses happening in certain yoga schools. They discuss how yoga technologies which stabilize and help us understand our nervous systems have been co-opted by commercialization, creating much harm for practitioners, and taking away our intuition. They share how perimenopausal and menopausal women have a role to play in speaking out against systems of oppression and abuse as well as how intergenerational circles can enable all of us to make change against failing systems and create liberation for all.
Bio Uma Dinsmore-Tuli PhD is a yoga therapist, yoga teacher trainer and retreat leader with special expertise in women's health, including birth, pre-and post-natal yoga, and yoga for positive menstrual health and fertility. She works internationally, sharing yoga retreats, trainings and empowerments that support the natural arising of prana shakti: the power of life. She trains specialist teachers in Total Yoga Nidra and Yoni Shakti Well Woman Yoga Therapy for menstrual and menopausal health, pregnancy, birth, and postnatal recovery. She is co-founder of the Yoga Nidra Network and has developed Total Yoga Nidra, Wild Nidra, Yoni Nidra and Nidra Shakti: radical creative and intuitive approaches to sharing yoga nidra. You can follow Uma’s writings and offerings on her website linked below.
What She Shares: –The cancel campaign against “Yoni Shakti” –Revealing abuses in the yoga industrial complex –Discernment, intuition, and nervous system technologies –Power of crones speaking truth –Yoga for liberation
What You’ll Hear: –Cancel campaign against “Yoni Shakti” –Revealing multiple abuses and investigations in yoga schools –Censoring of yoga school abuses in first edition –Uma sued for “defamation” of a guru already in investigation –”Yoni Shakti” back in print –Toxicity of the Yoga Industrial Complex –Turning to yoga after sexual boundary ruptures –Yoga technologies and nervous system repairs –Politicizing and patriarchal overtaking of yoga –Powerful birth initiations –Discipline and discernment versus control –Entering ethical arrangements with trust, agreement, and discernment –Cultivating intuition and understanding nervous systems –Eradicating individual intuition through prioritizing certain knowledge –Moving beyond legality and consent as baselines for human interaction –Educating potential yogis on abuses of power –Yoga schools and structures not fit for purpose anymore –Deciphering stressful events through perimenopause –Navigating climacteric menopause –Uncontrollable rage speaking on behalf of those without voices –Role of perimenopausal and postmenopausal women to speak up –Intergenerational groups of women –Fierceness and integrity of crones –Commercialized and colonized yoga trying to have maidens forever –What are you willing to risk?
Resources Website: https://umadinsmoretuli.com/ IG: @umadinsmoretuli
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| EP 191: Soul Work and Source Regulation Through the Fluid Nervous System with Katie Dove | 10 Jul 2023 | 00:47:05 | |
In this episode, Katie and Kimberly discuss their evolving relationship to trauma and spiritual work. After serving clients one-on-one for over 20 years, they consider the importance of community and creativity to healing. In the wake of so many people sharing their trauma stories online, they consider the tools we need for spiritual fortification to find resolution. They introduce Katie’s upcoming 4-week course “Source Regulation: Connect to Source Energy through Your Fluid Nervous System,” which begins July 12th.
Bio Katie Dove is a somatic therapist, intuitive guide, healer, and mystic with over two decades of experience working with individuals and groups. She is a keeper of ancient wisdom, exploring new paths for the preservation of human nature through connection to mother nature. Her methods weave a mixture of experiences she has collected over time, modalities she has personally cultivated, and extensive studies in transpersonal psychology and craniosacral therapy. With exploration in voice, touch, sound and movement, she guides her clients and students to investigate habits, freedom of choice, expressiveness, and the wealth of sensory information within and around them. Her upcoming course “Inhabit the Heart” is a four week journey into deep relationship with self and soul.
What You’ll Hear —Combining Trauma and the Spiritual Path —Healing and Trauma Re-negotiation —From Trauma Therapist to Resilience Coach to a Release of All Titles —Beyond Individual Repair: —Repairing the Continuum of Self, Soul And Source —Sharing your trauma on Social Media and then what? —Seeing people who have experienced trauma in their wholeness —How sexual boundary rupture differs from other kinds of trauma —The conflation of worth and virginity —The connection between rupture and creation —Psyche vs. Soul —The value of Source Regulation and Regeneration through the fluid system —The power of spiritual assistance and fortification in trauma repair
Website https://www.katiedove.love/source-regulation IG: @divineportals | |||
| EP 190: Rethinking Ethical Sex in the Age of Consent with Christine Emba | 08 Jul 2023 | 00:55:12 | |
In this episode, Christine and Kimberly discuss contemporary relationships to consent and ask what is ethical sex? They consider the complexities of sex positivity, navigating sexual conversations with your children, as well as coming to terms with what we want and what we owe each other.
Bio Christine Emba is the author of “Rethinking Sex: A Provocation,” as well as an opinion columnist for the Washington Post focusing on "ideas and society.”
What you’ll hear: –In a sex positive culture why are people still having bad, unwanted sex? –Where is our sexual culture in this moment? –Is consent a high enough bar? –Are your politics making your sex better? –The value of “willing the good onto the other –How has our sexual and romantic culture changed over time? –Developing trust with someone. –What do you want from a sexual encounter? –Parenting in the age of cell phones, accessible cannabis, and internet porn –The value of boundaries in parenting –The way we talk about parenting girls –The crisis of masculinity with a lack of rites and role models –The pitfalls of gentle parenting –The intersection of dating apps and corporate interests –The value of making healthy, moral judgements –The pendulum swing of normalized kink –What we want and what we owe each other
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| EP 189: Nurtured Parenting, Co-Regulation, and Infant Sleep with Greer Kirshenbaum | 19 Jun 2023 | 00:43:14 | |
In this episode, Kimberly and Greer discuss her upcoming book “The Nurture Revolution: Grow Your Baby’s Brain and Transform Their Mental Health Through the Art of Nurtured Parenting.” Greer discusses combining her work as a doula, neuroscientist, and sleep specialist after completing research on infant sleep. She proposes “nurtured parenting” as a revolution that tends to the complex emotions and stressors of both parents and infants. With tending to these needs and co-regulation, parents can help babies develop better stress responses in their brains.
Bio Greer Kirshenbaum PhD is an Author, Neuroscientist, Doula, Infant and Family Sleep Specialist and Mother. She trained at the University of Toronto, Columbia University, New York University and Yale University. Greer has combined her academic training with her experience as a doula and mother to lead The Nurture Revolution. A movement to nurture our babies’ brains to revolutionize mental health and impact larger systems in our world. Greer wants families and perinatal practitioners to understand how early caregiving experience can boost mental wellness and diminish depression, anxiety, and addiction in adulthood by shaping babies’ brains through simple intuitive enriching experiences in pregnancy, birth and infancy. Her book is called The Nurture Revolution: Grow Your Baby’s Brain and Transform Their Mental Health Through the Art of Nurtured Parenting. See the link to her website below.
What She Shares: –Connecting doula work, parenting, and neuroscience –Nurtured parenting tending to infant and parental emotions –Developing brain growth in babies –Demystifying infant sleep and high needs’ babies –Emotional co-regulation during infancy
What You’ll Hear: –How infanthood led her to doula and neuroscience –Fascinated by early life experience and neuroscience –Wanting to take research into the public –Attachment parenting as good foundation for nurtured parenting –Nurtured parenting tuning to both parent and infant emotional needs –Nurtured presence and empathy for parent and baby –Emotional co-regulation at center of parenting practices –Uniqueness of infant brain –Baby borrows parent’s brain in places their brain hasn’t developed –Stress responses and systems in parent brain –Baby detects parent responses through their senses –Increasing oxytocin and lowering stress response in baby’s brain –Co-regulation in first 3 years builds areas of brain to handle stress –Major life moments and stress responses –Becoming parent changes brain chemistry similar to infancy –Brain areas become tuned to be more aware and empathetic of babies –Brain shifts during perimenopause –Being near babies also changes brain areas –Cultural changes causing less experience with babies pre-parenting –Issues with attachment parenting –Demystifying infant sleep –Understanding what is biologically normal for babies –Cultural expectations are off for infant sleep needs –Babies develop sleep on their own and can be supported –Infant sleep like a river and physiological process –Night-waking, sleeping nearby, closeness –Circadian rhythm, sleep pressure, stress, daily movement –Babies don’t need sleep training or sleeping alone –Sleep in same bed or room for 6 mo to 1 year –Babies need to sense safety of parents –Optimal circadian input –Opportunities for light, movement, and sensory input –Time in nature and green space helpful for sleep –Normal features of infant sleep –Stress reactivity and sensitivity is genetic and experiential –”High needs” infant sleep –Intergenerational experiences and epigenetics –Experiences in ancestry, pregnancy, and birth contribute to temperament –Identifying needs for intense crying –Emotional contagion and mirroring –Addressing parental burnout –Infant emotions and physiological responses –Anticipating infant stressors and verbalization –Parenting with empathy and compassion to grow brain
Resources Website: www.nurture-neuroscience.com IG: @nurture_neuroscience_parenting
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| EP 188: The Biology of Safety, Rejecting Quick Fixes and Tending to Cultural Wounds with Sophie Strand | 06 Jun 2023 | 01:05:09 | |
In this episode, Kimberly and Sophie explore the nuances of being public entrepreneurs and authors. They wonder aloud together about the various roles of knowledge, expertise, and experience and discuss issues such as psychedelics for women, the complexities of social media, the need for eldership, disability and sickness as an altered state, as well as healing practices outside of a hyper-fixated and individualistic framework. The common threads connecting their questions center around identities as facilitators and writers, the need for connection to community and lineages, and managing the challenges of social media and identity politics in a hyper-individualistic culture. Ultimately, they land on the beauty that comes from maturation, wisdom, and growth over time that cannot be done by a quick-fix nor in isolation.
Bio Sophie Strand is a writer based in the Hudson Valley who focuses on the intersection of spirituality, storytelling, and ecology. Her first book of essays “The Flowering Wand: Lunar Kings, Lichenized Lovers, Transpecies Magicians, and Rhizomatic Harpists Heal the Masculine” was published last year in 2022 from Inner Traditions. Her books of poetry include “Love Song to a Blue God,” “Those Other Flowers to Come” and “The Approach.” Her poems and essays have been published by Art PAPERS, The Dark Mountain Project, Poetry.org, Unearthed, Braided Way, Creatrix, Your Impossible Voice, The Doris, Persephone’s Daughters, and Entropy. She has recently finished a work of historical fiction, “The Madonna Secret,” that offers an eco-feminist revision of the gospels, and will be released this summer. She is currently researching her next epic, a mythopoetic exploration of ecology and queerness in the medieval legend of Tristan and Isolde. What She Shares: –Cultural band-aids for deeper wounds –Public and private identities –Demonizing and idolizing figures –Impact of social media and identity politics –Elderhood, wisdom, and changing perspectives
What You’ll Hear: –Problematizing psychedelics –Gendered experiences with psychedelics –Harder for women to recover after psychedelics –Cultural band-aids on wounds –Sophie addresses disabled writer label –Publishing editorial choices and confinement –Public identities and social media –Collective energy demonizing or idolizing figures –Navigating social media pressures and intuition as entrepreneurs –Is the medicine of these times insignificance? –Story of Joan of Arc –No saviors, no heroes –Creating money and wanting to be insignificant –Tensions between community, authority, and parasocial diffusion –Bodily impact of social media –Problematizing gatekeeping of knowledge and lived experiences –Risk-averseness and obsession with safety –Safety as limited capacity to survive –Hyperfixation and hyper-individualism of healing –Impact of identity politics on youth –Maturity, wisdom, and changing perspectives –Discerning between privacy, secrecy, and transparency –Using discretion when writing memoir –Difference between rot and fermentation
Resources Website: https://sophiestrand.com/ IG: @cosmogyny
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| EP 187: Reckon and Wonder - Witness, Matrimony, and the Making of Oral Culture with Stephen Jenkinson | 11 May 2023 | 01:17:29 | |
In this episode, guest host and podcast producer Jackson Kroopf interviews Kimberly and Stephen Jenkinson about their ongoing event series Reckoning: Birth and Death Among Us. They discuss the role of witness in their work as birth and death workers, the politics of feelings in a culture where pop psychology has become a religion, and dive deeply into their relationship to matrimony. In anticipation of their final event this summer, “Reckon and Wonder: Grief, Elderhood and Spirit Work,” taking place this June 29th-July 2nd, 2023 at the Orphan Wisdom school in Ontario, they reflect on the difference between recording and live events and the unique impact that their convergence has revealed in their respective relationships to the oral tradition.
What You’ll Here
Bio Stephen Jenkinson is a cultural worker, teacher, author, musician and ceremonialist. He is the creator and principal instructor of the Orphan Wisdom School, founded in 2010 with his wife Nathalie Roy. He has Master’s degrees from Harvard University (Theology) and the University of Toronto (Social Work). Since co-founding the Nights of Grief and Mystery project with singer/ songwriter Gregory Hoskins in 2015, he has toured this musical / tent show revival / storytelling ceremony across North America, U.K. and Europe and Australia and New Zealand. They released their Nights of Grief & Mystery album in 2017 and at the end of 2020, they released two new records; Dark Roads and Rough Gods. Stephen is the author of Come of Age: The Case for Elderhood in a Time of Trouble (2018), the award-winning Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul (2015), Homecoming: The Haiku Sessions (a live teaching from 2013), How it All Could Be: A workbook for dying people and those who love them (2009), Angel and Executioner: Grief and the Love of Life – (a live teaching from 2009), and Money and The Soul’s Desires: A Meditation (2002). Most recently, Stephen published Reckoning (2022) with Kimberly Ann Johnson.
Links Reckon & Wonder: Grief, Elderhood, Spirit Work ~ A weekend at Orphan Wisdom, Ontario
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| EP 186: The Future of Women's Health with Keli Garza | 04 May 2023 | 01:46:17 | |
In this episode, Kimberly and Keli discuss the future of women’s health. During this recorded live event from Kimberly’s living room, we learn about the extensive health benefits of vaginal steaming and how the shortcomings in gynecological training reflect contemporary cultural politics around women’s bodies. They discuss how to bridge the knowledge gaps found in western medicine’s approach to gynecological health when it comes to menstrual cycles, birth, postpartum, and menopause. They discuss their role in pushing the science forward with their collaborative vaginal steam study. They go in depth about healthy periods, uterine cleanses, the fertility industry, and the importance of new language that evolves Women's health. This conversation helps us understand how tending to gynecological care holistically is a way to tend to our own bodies, to tend to future generations, and to build mother culture.
Bio Keli Garza has a Masters degree in International Development graduating cum laude with a focus in nonprofit management and human rights. Keli is the owner of Steamy Chick and the founder of the Peristeam Hydrotherapy Institute. Through her company she raises awareness on the benefits of vaginal steaming, makes supplies accessible, conducts research and trains practitioners. Keli is the author of the Vaginal Steam World Map, Pelvic Steam Testimonial Database, Fourth Trimester Vaginal Steam Study and Steamy Chick blog. Some of her notable work includes executive producing the Hot & Steamy Podcast, creating the annual #steamyaugust Vaginal Steam Awareness Month and an upcoming documentary film with the working title STEAM. With over 20 years experience in the nonprofit field, Keli also serves as the founder and president of the Bahia Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to artistic, cultural, physical, educational and financial community wellness as well as the founder of the Good Gynecology Project.
What She Shares: –Steaming impact on postpartum, infertility, and for all cycles –Centering cycles and uterus for overall health –Inadequate medical care for women –Creating mother culture
What You’ll Hear: –Need for physiological care postpartum –Using better language to create stronger mother culture –Vaginal Steam documentary –Gaps in women’s health –Training practitioners for vaginal steaming –History of vaginal steaming in U.S. –Significant blood pressure levels lowered after steaming –Steaming for preeclampsia, birth injuries, and postpartum care –Lack of conversations around postpartum recovery –Disconnect between possibilities of postpartum issues and medical solutions –Fertility in relation to overall health –Destigmatizing steaming –Morality and ideology versus physiology –Infertility industry –Tending to postpartum care before crisis –No structural space for cycles in work, education, and healthcare –No definition for miscarriage recovery or infertility –Women’s physiology as cyclical not just deviant men –Menstrual leave policies for workplace –Period is a uterine cleanse –Cramps are uterus contracting to clear out residue –Healthy periods begin and end with fresh red blood –Lack of consideration in health of uterus during IVF –Using periods for postpartum practice –Female brain and female nervous system –Understanding phases and cycles post menopause –Importance of endocrine system for overall health –Viewing the body as a whole not separate parts –Purposes of the uterus other than reproduction –Reproductive system as health –Centering, understanding, and defining the uterus and care –Other applications for steaming after assault and infection –Facilitator steaming training –Building mother culture - Menstrual health as a vital sign - Definition of Postpartum Recovery - Uterus is more than a Reproductive Organ - Physiological Feminism (different from choice feminism) - Female systems are more sensitive and resilient than male systems - Stop normalizing pain with s*x the first time (instead of “it’s gonna hurt” “it shouldn’t hurt.”) - Build MotherCulture
Resources Website: www.steamychick.com IG: @steamychick www.fourthtrimestervaginalsteamstudy.com
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| EP 185: The Path of Deep Inquiry and Devotion with Katie Dove | 12 Apr 2023 | 01:22:49 | |
In this episode, Kimberly and Katie discuss the roles of student, teacher, mentor, elder, and friend. They discuss their experiences in each of those roles but how many conflate them. In an age of constant information, many want to consume, but few commit themselves to the devoted path of long-term learning. They also discuss different teaching styles, finding elders versus mentors, and their experiences of being teachers and students. Katie highlights the value of being in circle with others as a commitment to learning and growth.
Bio Katie Dove is a somatic therapist, intuitive guide, healer, and mystic with over two decades of experience working with individuals and groups. She is a keeper of ancient wisdom, exploring new paths for the preservation of human nature through connection to mother nature. Her methods weave a mixture of experiences she has collected over time, modalities she has personally cultivated, and extensive studies in transpersonal psychology and craniosacral therapy. With exploration in voice, touch, sound and movement, she guides her clients and students to investigate habits, freedom of choice, expressiveness, and the wealth of sensory information within and around them. Her upcoming course “Inhabit the Heart” is a four week journey into deep relationship with self and soul. What She Shares: –Roles of student, teacher, mentor, and elder –Path of deep inquiry and devotion –Reciprocity between teacher and student –Learning and embodying versus consuming –Important of circle and communal spaces
What You’ll Hear: –What it means to be a student –Katie’s relationships with teachers and students –Teachers versus mentors –Worth in long-term relationships with teachers and mentors –Being curious and humble to receive teachings –Path of deep inquiry –Understanding real devotion and repetition –Experiencing similar teachings with different transmissions –Maturing beyond teacher pedestals and accepting human limitations –Valuing different ways of wisdom teachings –Story-tellers as original teachers –Awareness of different teaching styles –Valuing shared wisdom and intuitive knowledge of teachers –Embodying as internalizing information –Greatest teachers embody their teachings –Consuming information versus embodied knowing and wisdom –Repeating classes and exploring foundational aspects of the heart and embodiment –Fundamental difference between therapist role and teacher role –Safe spaces blocking real learning and growth –Remaining in long-term practices and observation spaces –Public role of apprenticeship and as a learner –Reaching mastery through devotion of a certain path –Reciprocity of learning between student and mentor –Learning through relationship of mentorship and eldering –Differences between friendship and mentorship –Being a good student before being a good elder –Defining what you’re about and what you’re not as a student and teacher –Elderhood finds you –Work itself as a teacher, mentors and elder just reflecting lessons –Circles and communities that are teaching and holding us –Hours spent in devotion in circle –Learning versus consuming –Valuing elders who have longer life experience –Calling in right students and right teachers –Knowing what seat you’re taking in which circle –INHABIT THE HEART: A 4 week journey into Deep Relationship with Self and Soul
Resources Website: https://www.katiedove.love/
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| Episode 211: Travel, Tourism, and Home in a “Post-Pandemic” World with Chris Christou | 31 May 2024 | 00:54:45 | |
In this episode, Kimberly and Chris dive deep into the impact of travel on their lives and the consequences of tourism in places they call home. As two world travelers, who have each spent a decade living abroad, Kimberly and Chris consider what they have learned about home, hospitality, and culture from places far from the lands they were raised. They discuss how the pandemic impacted travel to where Chris resides in Mexico, one of two countries that kept its borders open? How Air BnB’s, second homes, and passive income have changed the real estate landscape for future generations? They wonder what it would look like to re-imagine the set of relationships and responsibilities one has if they “belong” to their neighborhood? They ask what if we imagined both our “leisure” and our “work” as connected to the place we live? And how does the question of confinement to home, so relevant to new mothers, show up in the “post-pandemic” summer of 2024?
Bio Chris Christou is a writer, educational curator, and activist. Born and raised in Toronto, Canada, he moved to Oaxaca, Mexico in 2015 after a decade of delirious wanderlust. In 2016, Chris began concurrently working in and writing about the tourism industry, founding Oaxaca Profundo, a deep learning organization focused on food culture and radical hospitality. In 2021, alongside friends and strangers, he organized and launched the End of Tourism Podcast. He is the author of a book of poetry entitled the Black Braid of Memory, as well as forthcoming books on the psychedelic culture, the unauthorized history of tourism, and radical hospitality. Finally, he is a student of all things chocolate and cacao-related.
What You’ll Hear
Resources https://www.chrischristou.net/ IG - @zajorino / @theendoftourism / @oaxacaprofundo | |||
| EP 184: Cultural Crises, Radical Hope, and Strategies for Building Community and Resiliency with Jamie Wheal | 26 Mar 2023 | 01:06:03 | |
In this episode, Kimberly and Jamie discuss his book “Recapture the Rapture: Rethinking God, Sex and Death In a World That's Lost Its Mind.” Jamie gives an anthropological perspective of human history across millennia to trace how we ended up today with economic, climate, technological, mental health, and other crises. He discusses how all of our social media and culture wars are missing the mark on the actual crises to our planet, and if we don’t address it, it will destroy us all. His solution for processing this grief is by making intentional choices toward hope, and moving from hyper-individualism of our times to supportive, intergenerational communities.
Bio Jamie Wheal is the author of “Recapture the Rapture: Rethinking God, Sex and Death In a World That's Lost Its Mind” and the global bestseller “Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work” and the founder of the Flow Genome Project, an international organization dedicated to the research and training of human performance. His work and ideas have been covered in The New York Times, Financial Times, Wired, Entrepreneur, Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Inc., and TED. He has spoken at Stanford University, MIT, the Harvard Club, Imperial College, Singularity University, the U.S. Naval War College and Special Operations Command, Sandhurst Royal Military Academy, the Bohemian Club, and the United Nations. He lives high in the Rocky Mountains in an off-grid cabin with his partner, Julie; two children, Lucas and Emma; and their golden retrievers, Aslan and Calliope. When not writing, he can be found mountain biking, kitesurfing, and backcountry skiing. What He Shares: –Increase of fossil fuels and global population –Finding radical, authentic hope –Antidotes and strategies for building community through crises
What You’ll Hear: –Finding meaning in global crises –Rapture ideologies –”The Great Fact” of increase of human population –Environmental impact of human population increase –Crisis is population increase with eroding resources –Global impact increasing food insecurity, housing shortages, and migration –Migration increasing political tensions and culture wars –Finding authentic, radical hope during global crises –Grief as central to finding mature, radical, useful hope –Deep responsibility and service to others –Human experience of privilege and responsibility –Building resilient communities and cultures on behalf of hope –Finding transcendent courage to move forward to progress –Breaking away from hyper-individualism –Returning to rituals of initiation –Authentic resurfacing of traditions of lineage without appropriation –Ways to dispel and dispense micro-PTSD –Highest cultural unrest as release valve during quarantine –Having tools on a regular basis to help us level-set nervous systems and defrag –Addressing conflict, reparation, and restitution with elders –Accessing awe and tapping into experiences of meta-physical –Inter-generational awareness –Gratitude on behalf of ancestors and service on behalf of descendents –Deep, rooted presence –Taking risks to find community –Camp Omega for more
Resources Website: https://www.flowgenomeproject.com/ IG: @flowgenome
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| EP 183: Challenges, Advantages, and Strategies for Women in Business and Entrepreneurship with Ash Robinson | 17 Mar 2023 | 00:44:28 | |
Summary In this episode, Kimberly and Ash, one of Kimberly’s business strategists, discuss all things related to women in business and entrepreneurship. Ash acknowledges the historical gaps in financial literacy and opportunities for business that women have only in recent decades begun to access. They discuss common challenges for women in business, such as over-personalization and under-selling, as well as advantages such as creating strong strategies for collaboration and equity in ways that are sustainable to us as individuals and to our families. Ash offers wise advice for creating and expanding businesses as women and for women audiences. She offers Ignite, a 9-week online program for women looking for expertise in creating and expanding their businesses.
Bio Ash Robinson, a returning podcast guest, is a woman, daughter, and mother of two. As an entrepreneur for most of her career, she spent most of her time creating and building, not consulting. She bootstrapped two of her own startups; raised over $12M in funding; had a successful exit to a public company right before the 2008 recession and has been consulting through bon·fire since 2013. Her passion and research in neuroscience, cognition, behavior change, and culture inform both the tools and approach used in bon·fire. She believes we have to build the world we want to belong to. The Ignite program for women interested in creating and/or expanding current businesses begins at the end of March. Find out more about it through the link below.
What She Shares: –Gaps in womens’ opportunities for finance and business –Challenges of women in business –Handling over-giving, access, and pricing –Collaboration, intuition, and partnership –Ignite program for women in business starts end of March
What You’ll Hear: –Honoring the gaps women have had in financial education and business –Under-resourcing ourselves as women entrepreneurs –Over-personalizing business failures –Over-complicating client needs –Lacking clarity on business strategy and plan –Distinguishing between needing personal or business resources –Factoring in childcare for women in professional work –How to know when to hire an assistant –Focusing on business structure issues over personal –Service and/or product market-fit –Articulating your service in easy language –Power of our stories as women –Pricing issues hardest in business –Formula for pricing –Most women entrepreneurs are under-priced –Creating more wealth to create more opportunities for under-serviced populations –Inner capacities and outer structures –Interrogating inner-world beliefs around making money –Over-giving models in tensions with access –Feeling depleted with over-serving is unsustainable –Scholarships and trade as ten percent of business –Moving to strategy instead of overwhelm –Cost basis impacted by inflation –Unique skills women have in business and market –Collaboration, intuition, and partnership –Running businesses supportive of our families not depleting –Building capacity for women in places they haven’t had it –IGNITE: A series of frameworks to create, organize, and harness businesses –IGNITE: 9 week program beginning end of March
Resources Website: http://bon-fire.co/ignite
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| EP 182: Introducing Mother Circle Facilitator Training with Jessica Connolly | 09 Mar 2023 | 00:33:45 | |
In this episode, Kimberly announces the opening of the first ever MotherCircle Facilitator training. She is interviewed by Jessica Connolly, a circle facilitator working with Kimberly to bring this 8 year long vision into the world. Kimberly shares about how the current structures do not support the deep longing we have to mother and be mothered in real community, and how concentric circles of mothers supporting mothers in this way creates a pathway of wisdom and support that impacts generations The MotherCircle Facilitator training equips women to create, strengthen and lead circles of mothers in their in person or online communities. Participants will learn the facilitation skills to lead groups in circle, as well as receive certification and a comprehensive 8 week curriculum to use for paid or unpaid offerings. We begin May 3rd. The 9 week MotherCircle Facilitator training is now open for enrollment at a one time founders rate until March 12th. Who the MotherCircle Facilitator training is for:
At the end of this training, you will:
Go to www.mothercircle.com to become part of the MotherCircle Facilitatorfounding community! | |||
| EP 181: The People Pleasers’ Guide to Anger with Juna Mustad | 05 Mar 2023 | 01:04:25 | |
In this episode, Kimerbly and Juna discuss our relationship to anger, especially as people pleasers. While we are often conditioned to resist or dismiss anger, Juna describes anger as being an ally for our ultimate healing and the charge for our life force energy. Juna explains her relationship to anger which often made her uncomfortable as she spent much of her life pleasing people at the expense of her own mind, body, and vitality. She learned how anger can show us parts of ourselves that need tended to as well as move us deeper into connection with others. Her upcoming course on anger and people pleasing begins March 5th!
Bio Juna Mustad is a friend and recurring podcast guest. Juna is an iIntuitive counselor, somatic experience practitioner, life and relationship coach, and support team member for Kimberly of all things somatic. For 13 years, Juna has been offering intuitive coaching sessions for individuals and groups. Her upcoming course, “The People Pleasers’ Guide to Anger” is a six-week online course for cultivating a healthier relationship with anger, boundaries, and your innate power. What She Shares: –Juna’s relationship to anger and people pleasing –Destigmatizing anger and fight responses –People pleasing as survival –Reconnecting to our bodies’ desire through anger –”The People Pleaser’s Guide to Anger” online course
What You’ll Hear: –Jana’s TedTalk on anger and people pleasing –Anger as an ally for healing –Anger as a pesky, creative spark and connecting with life force –Visceral fight responses leading to transformation –People pleasing same as fawning –Internal Family Systems and multiple selves –Distancing core self from other selves in fawning –People pleasing and gender/racial dynamics –Effects of people pleasing like illness, distortions, addiction, etc. –Destigmatizing fight responses and anger –Using play, humor, and safety in accessing anger –Multitudes of responses to anger –Using play to release charge –Destigmatizing people pleasing as a coping skill –People pleasing as a survival tactic –When people pleasing becomes dominant way of being –Creating capacity for relating better –Primal power and instinct is outside of people pleasing –Leaving ourselves to create connection through others –Leaving a psycho-abusive relationship –Anger needs action –Reconnecting to body and desire –Speaking to our anger instead of from our anger –Holding others’ anger with our own –Fight response as our inner protector –Dismissing anger blocks flow of life force energy –People pleasing to make others feel safe over ourselves –Cultural differences around confrontation –Adolescence and people pleasing/social nervous systems –Six-week online course beginning March 5th
Resources Website: https://www.junamustad.com/ IG: @juna.mustad
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| EP 180: Midwifery as Salve, Ancestral, and Community Care with Racha Tahani Lawler Queen | 24 Feb 2023 | 01:01:43 | |
In this episode, Kimberly and Racha discuss Gather Grounded Midwifery, a midwifery practice and birth home created by Racha. They also discuss Racha’s generational influence to midwifery care, how she ended up in Virginia as a California native, and how the pandemic impacted midwives in particular. They also discuss the rich and complicated history of Black midwifery and how it tends to entire communities. The link to contribute to Gather Grounded Midwifery to help this Black owned birthing home provide the resources and services can be found below!
Bio Racha Tahani Lawler Queen is a Black homebirth mama, wife, and midwife of 20 years. She is the CEO and owner of Gather Grounded Midwifery, a Black-owned and operated birthing home and center in the Musqueam Territory / Richmond, Virginia. Opening this Spring 2023, Gather Grounded Midwifery is a safe and welcoming place where Black, Brown, Indigenous, and queer families are prioritized. The birthing home features two birthing suites, where our very own can receive pregnancy, birth and postpartum care in a unique retreat space, nestled in a predominantly Black neighborhood. Gather Grounded Midwifery has a goal to provide families with a sacred place to receive prenatal care, labor amongst 100-year-old pine trees, birth in and out of water, and receive postpartum care that's in alignment with their individual, Ancestral and spiritual practices. We will also support and partner with Black businesses that prioritize the healing and protection of Black birthers and families. Find the GoFundMe link below to contribute to this important space. What She Shares: –Impact of pandemic on midwives and home births –How and why Racha relocated to Richmond, Virginia from LA to create a birthing home –Black midwifery history and community care –The impact of a birthing home on a community
What You’ll Hear: –How Racha from CA ended up in Richmond, Virginia –Midwifery services and birthing home in Virginia for Black and Brown families –Taking a break from birth work to grow –Racist real estate practices while finding birth home –Impact of pandemic on midwives –Background in environmental health and safety and disaster preparedness –Hospital turning away home-birth transfers during pandemic –Advocating for community midwives –EMTs refusing to service –Midwives and birth workers quitting after pandemic-induced trauma –Black Farm Studio House in LA county, non-profit –Non-profit relocated to Richmond –Importance of midwifery in community care –Making midwife ancestors and grandmothers proud –Eradication of Black midwifery in previous centuries –Midwives regaining acknowledgement as intimate healthcare profession –Legacy of great, great grandmother was town midwife –Providing safe care in homes during pandemic –Midwifery as more than prenatal visits –Providing care during so many unknowns –Wider possibilities for midwives in Virginia –Birthing home honors Black midwives elder for rest and care –Prioritizing Black and Brown birth –Birth home will be opening by March –GoFundMe: ”Support a Black-owned Operating Birthing Home” –Crowd-funding for $50,000 for an operating home
Resources Website: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-a-black-owned-operated-birthing-home IG: @gathergroundedmidwifery
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| EP 179: Radical Aliveness and Building Capacity in a Cancel Culture with Esi Wildcat | 12 Feb 2023 | 01:12:14 | |
In this episode, Kimberly and Esi discuss how to lean into discomfort during difficult conversations. Esi explains her background growing up in a Black middle-class family in Los Angeles, how she came to her current work and offerings, and her four years of somatic experiencing school. During that program, Esi learned how to stay in her body as a Black woman with mostly white individuals, especially surrounding discussions of race and racism. Through the years, she learned the importance of non-shaming, curiosity, and having truthful conversations through difficult topics and uncomfortable experiences. She offers a nuanced perspective and radical medicine in a time when most are quick to cancel or dismiss. Her Human Slop course begins February 19th.
Bio Esi Wildcat is a Somatic Practitioner and Ceremonialist, an Ordained Priestess of Isis, a Shakta initiate and yogini in the lineage of Sri Vidya, certified holistic health practitioner, and interdisciplinary healing artist with over 20 years of expertise. As a bridge builder to the New Earth, she is making waves in the cultural somatic realm and is injecting the social justice sphere with much needed humanness and nuance. Esi seeks to highlight the extraordinary in the ordinary – and how the power of presence in our lives can transform not only how we relate to ourselves, but the world around us. Her upcoming offering, Human Slop: A Radical Aliveness Worldworking Dojo, starts February 19th. What She Shares: –Esi’s upbringing and call to her work –Somatic experiencing school and feminine chaos –Avoiding cultural scripts and bypassing –Radical aliveness and magic of being human –Human Slop circle coming February 19th
What You’ll Hear: –Cultivating awe and wonder everyday –Deep connection to unseen world –Attended Radical Aliveness Institute –Learning to be with the feminine (chaos) –Mentor’s nuanced perspective on systems of oppression –Subversive work recognizing beauty –Sanitization and carefulness of somatic experiencing programs –Decision to not be trauma-informed as a practitioner –Working towards real racial integration in community –Being in reality of tensions –Accessing and thriving from own life force and vitality –Deconditioning from being the “good girl” –Pain and tensions around race and difference –Systemic influence in personal contexts –Telling truth of socialization around race and class –Spiritual bypassing versus holding multiplicities –Addressing rage, anger, and collapse –Subversiveness in being alive and feeling instead of running away –Learning to stay and increasing capacity for conflict and disappointment –Remembering to human and holding grief –Living in a traumatized culture and a loss of soul –Ripples for culture making and the magic of being human –Human Slop: A Radical Aliveness Worldworking Dojo –Upcoming program starts February 19th
Resources Website: https://wildholyhuman.com/ IG: @wildholyhuman
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| EP 178: Psychedelics, Female Biohacking, and Frontiers for Future of Modern Medicine with Dr. Molly Maloof | 07 Feb 2023 | 01:00:56 | |
In this episode, Kimberly and Dr. Molly discuss psychedelics, biohacking, and frontiers for the future of modern medicine. Dr. Molly’s background in medicine and innovation has led her to advocate for the supportive use of psychedelics, understanding biohacking for female biology, and the importance of bonding hormones and building safety and connection in western medicine. They discuss the benefits and risks of psychedelics, who should and shouldn’t use psychedelics, problems with male-centered psychedelic circles, as well as the male-centered biohacking world. They also discuss the importance of understanding sexuality and hormones, from an evolutionary perspective as well as in regular medicinal care. Dr. Molly offers a vision of an evolving and innovative healthcare system which centers non-traditional medicines, safety, connection, and the female experience.
Bio Dr. Molly Maloof is on the frontier of personalized medicine, medical technology, health optimization, and scientifically-based wellness endeavors. Since 2012, she has also worked as an advisor or consultant to more than 40 companies in the digital health, consumer health, and biotechnology industries needing help with clinical strategy, product development, clinical research and scientific marketing. Dr. Molly challenges healthcare practitioners as well as industry influencers to re-think health and healthcare in order to reduce costs, improve patient outcomes, and improve the human condition. Her upcoming book “The Spark Factor” comes out January 31st and is available for pre-sale purchase. What She Shares: –Risks and benefits of psychedelics - Biohacking for women –Frontiers for modern medicine to expand –Safety, connection, and love as fundamental for health
What You’ll Hear: –Dream of being a doctor as a child –Works in tech and medicine –Creating a new system of building health in the body –Boom of psychedelics during 2020 mental health crisis –Healing sexual trauma with psychedelics –Transforming trauma to bliss and empowerment –On ketamine and ayahuasca –Not discounting modern medicine for evidence-based results –Understanding dominant nervous system structures and connective tissue –Male-centered culture, power-dynamics, and containers in psychedelic circles –Neurobiological impact of experiences like birth and sex –Psychedelic experiences without psychedelics –Moving towards innovation but preventing harm –Development of oxytocin in evolution for connection –Oxytocin as bonding hormone –Lack of emotional intelligence knowledge and hormones in modern medicine –Sex drive is fundamental to human biology driving towards connection –Importance of safety when experiencing large amounts of oxytocin –Needing safety, trust, and love in every aspect of modern medicine –Upcoming book as treatise on mitochondrial health –Metabolism, energy, and mitochondria creating charge –Gathering electrons through food and environment –Exercise as best anti-aging practice –Different kinds of stress and hormesis –Understanding why women biohacking need to be careful and discerning –New book breaks down biohacking, personalizing nutrition, and exercise for women
Resources Website: drmolly.co IG: @drmolly.co
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| EP 177: Grounding, Aligning, and Tending to Your Heart Space with Katie Dove | 03 Feb 2023 | 00:56:47 | |
In this episode, Kimberly and Katie discuss Katie’s work as a somatic therapist, intuitive guide, and healer. She explains how she came to her craniosacral and healing work as a young child. She discusses chakras as the portals between our nervous systems and our spiritual connection, as well as the importance of grounding, alignment, and the heart space. They discuss heartbreak and grief as utterly human, and how the internet serves as the nervous system for the collective. Katie offers hope for maintaining our connection, regulation, and containment during difficult times.
Bio Katie Dove is a somatic therapist, intuitive guide, healer, and mystic with over two decades of experience working with individuals and groups. She is a keeper of ancient wisdom, exploring new paths for the preservation of human nature through connection to mother nature. Her methods weave a mixture of experiences she has collected over time, modalities she has personally cultivated, and extensive studies in transpersonal psychology and craniosacral therapy. With exploration in voice, touch, sound, and movement, she guides her clients and students to investigate habits, freedom of choice, expressiveness, and the wealth of sensory information within and around them. What She Shares: –Katie’s journey as a healing practitioner –Chakras as nervous system regulators –Grounding, aligning, and vulnerability –Internet as a collective nervous system –Mothering from the heart space –Upcoming in person and online classes
What You’ll Hear: –Initiation into healing journey at three years old –Felt light sensation passing through sister’s body into own hands –Raised Catholic and trying to make senses of experiences –Developed ability to sense into the body –Experienced trauma and initiation into shadow work –Mapping unseen terrain of the body, psyche, and soul –Began massage school and followed craniosacral teachers –A gift funneled through framework of somatic work –Holding circles and living principles of community –Psycho-structural balancing –Facilitating alignment with Source –Conscious relationship with Source through somatic and transpersonal psychology –Chakras as intermediary between nervous system to ethereal –Flow state as full relationship and trust to that which moves us –Self-regulating and Source –Not living in heart is not living in relationship to Source –Grief as a portal to Source –Acknowledging the collective heart right now –Entering through the heart space instead of the mind –Develop our relationship to the Vertical –Grounding into Earth and finding individual pathway to the Vertical –Myth of aloneness causing devastation –Source regulation means being in our power –Deeply rooted vertically to connect horizontally to world around us –Chakras supported by consistent, vertical rooting –Nervous system can remain grounded –Spiritual bypassing occurs with no substance or rootedness –Cannot bypass our own hearts and connection to One Heart –Better to have broken heart than an uninhabited heart –Brokenheartedness makes us humble, curious, and driven –Experiencing heartbreak when becoming pregnant –Gift of expansion through motherhood –Connection to the planet is connection to the Greater Heart –Stewarding our bodies and Mother Nature –Internet as a collective nervous system –Turning to internet as a responsibility to coregulate in online world –Grounding online world back vertically –Individualism is not goal at this edge of human evolution –Walking the edge is revolution –The unnegotiable open heart –ROLFing for the chakras class –Upcoming online classes on source regulation, grounding techniques, and containment
Resources Website: https://www.katiedove.love/ | |||
| EP 176: “Girls on the Brink” Unpacking Mental Health Issues in Girls with Donna Jackson Nakazawa | 20 Dec 2022 | 00:56:57 | |
In this episode, Kimberly interviews Donna Jackson Nakawaza about her latest book “Girls on the Brink: Helping Our Daughters Thrive in an Era of Increased Anxiety, Depression, and Social Media.” Donna’s book explains recent research behind the increase of significant mental health issues among girls and young women. Whereas neuroscience research only ever examined male brains and bodies, this book overviews recent research on females and how feelings of unsafety, threat, high expectations, and algorithms on social media heavily contribute to this increase. They unpack the ways in which the female brain stress responses are connected to immunity and overall well-being, as well as the myriad stressors young girls in particular face today. Last, they discuss strategies for parents to create a sense of connection, attunement, and safety with their children to mitigate these environmental and cultural stressors.
Bio Donna Jackson Nakazawa is an award-winning journalist and internationally-recognized speaker whose work explores the intersection of neuroscience, immunology, and human emotion. Her mission is to translate emerging science in ways that help those with chronic conditions find healing. Her writing has been published in Wired, The Boston Globe, Stat, The Washington Post, Health Affairs, Aeon, More, Parenting, AARP Magazine, Glamour, and elsewhere. For her reporting on health-science, Donna received the AESKU lifetime achievement award and the National Health Information Award. She has appeared on The Today Show, National Public Radio, NBC News, and ABC News. Her latest book, “Girls on the Brink: Helping Our Daughters Thrive in an Era of Increased Anxiety, Depression, and Social Media” (Random House/Harmony, 2022) is available for order wherever books are sold. What She Shares: –Increasing rates of major depression in girls –Female biology as super-powers –Girls experiencing cognitive dissonance and perpetual unsafety –Social media impact on adolescence and maturity –Parenting strategies for connection, attunement, and safety
What You’ll Hear: –1 out of 3 girls exhibit major depression –Recent increasing rates of major depression in girls –Suffering from guilt, fatigue, unworthiness, hopelessness –Suicide rate rising 51% among girls –Only recently NIH requested neuroscience on female brains –Significant differences in way stress impacts female body and brain –Lack of research on trans and non-binary individuals –Need to hear and know science to galvanize change –Female sex differences used against women throughout history –Unmitigated chronic stress and sense of unsafety –X&Y chromosome differences regarding immunity –X chromosomes provide extra protection in placenta –Male babies more likely to have health issues –Vulnerability of immunity shifts with increasing estrogen during puberty –Estrogen master-regulator in body of neurons –Women 3-5x more likely to have auto-immune diseases –Estrogen evolutionary advantage but flips with stressors in environment –Social and emotional stress –Estrogen increases stress response versus testosterone –Girls born 1995 or later demonstrate major drop in mental health –Trends of social media algorithms connect to mental health decline –Social media mimicking tribes but generating negative activity and isolation –High activity and high emotion in social media –Social media activates dopamine (reward circuitry) repeatedly –High health-risk behaviors from other teens of images on social media –Big emotions overtime turns off ‘be careful’ filters for teens –Prioritizing deep connections with real world individuals vs. digital –Girls more likely to be criticized on social media for appearance –More sexualized increase of girls with social media –Over-medicating adolescents –Girls caught in a state of cognitive dissonance between gendered sexist messages –Lowering puberty ages throughout history –Removal of in-between years of maturity, growth, self-interests –Hierarchical valuative list of benchmarks for girls to achieve –How can girls develop senses of selves in this culture –Recreating connection, attachment, and bio-synchronicity with our children –Being grounded and regulated to offer sense of safety for our children –Brains rewiring before adolescence (used to happen later) –Brains remodel on sense of unsafety before puberty –Creating connection, mattering, and belonging that is bigger than the world –Children flourish in safety and connection with parents –Parents to talk less and listen more –Younger generation needs adult help more than ever to articulate feelings –Wondering aloud with our children to develop their interior selves
Resources Website: https://donnajacksonnakazawa.com/ IG: @donnajacksonnakazawa
And you can sign up for the upcoming MotherCircle Waiting List here: | |||
| EP 175: Astrology, Tech, and Finding our Humanness During these Times with Virginia Rosenberg | 12 Dec 2022 | 01:10:40 | |
In this episode, Kimberly and Virginia discuss the astrological significance of this past decade and the decade to come. They discuss how the increase of technology impacts culture, our nervous systems, and the ways in which we understand and interact relationally. They discuss what it’s like to be entrepreneurs who are creating content on social media, using discernment with social media use, and parenting during the increase of tech, AI, and social media. They also discuss how to return to our humanness, embodied practices for grounding, and finding ancestral practices that have stood the test of time.
Bio Virginia Rosenberg is an Intuitive Astrologer and Movement Artist. Her passion is natural healing of self and society. Virginia believes that we are made to heal, and that healing is a matter of becoming more conscious of and connected to ourselves, each other, and the more-than-human-Worlds. She teaches astrology, qi gong, and various forms of dance, leading retreats, classes, and workshops. Her writings on astrology, spirituality, and society have gone viral and are used as teaching tools in meditation and study groups. Virginia has been interviewed and featured on numerous publications and podcasts. She is Resident Astrologer for the global Qoya movement. Her educational background includes post-colonial and women’s/gender studies, cultural anthropology, journalism, documentary filmmaking, Taoist philosophy and internal martial arts, myriad forms of dance, spiritual alchemy, ritual, ceremony, and energy work. What She Shares: –Increase of tech –Upcoming planet shifts –Navigating humanness in social media –Astrological significance of next decade
What You’ll Hear: –Evolution of sharing on social media –Making social media less personal as an entrepreneur –Speaking to collective story through personal observations –Kimberly shares experience with social media and audience –Increase of focused technology in next decade –Pluto moving through Aquarius next year –AI and astrology –Making peace with artificial intelligence –Identifying reference points for relating with others –Existentialism and motherhood –Human connection with the increase of technology –Falling out of relevancy with culture –Changing currencies in upcoming reconfiguration of society –Our role in changing of society –Being more mindful and intentional around technology use –Our perception and relationship to what’s happening with tech –Finding our center points –Parenting with increase of tech –Commenting on social media as knee-jerk reactions –Viewpoints outside of acceptable milieu –Absence of humanity in relating –How psychology on social media disrupts –Specific identities and tension of expectations to be for all identities –Understanding and teaching discernment –Times of high stakes –Using nervous systems and intuition as guides during these times –Planets that role and correspond with the nervous system –Collective versus individual nervous systems –Using location as a center-point –Movement as centering nervous system –Using martial arts and embodied meditation for centering and anchoring –Connecting across ideologies –Offering astrology calendar for upcoming year –Teaches depth-foundations training in astrology
Resources Website: https://virginiarosenberg.com/ IG: @virginiarosenberg | |||
| Episode 210: Restore Your Core, Healing Journeys, and Mothering Teens with Lauren Ohayon | 25 May 2024 | 00:57:03 | |
In this episode, Kimberly and Lauren discuss her teaching journey, which led to the restorative exercise techniques Lauren offers in the women’s health field. As a lifelong mover, Lauren went through several different yoga trainings and anatomical frameworks to arrive at a simple truth: there isn’t a right or wrong, good or bad when it comes to understanding your body’s needs. They discuss re-writing injury stories, and consider what leads women to medically intervene at different phases of life. In addition, Kimberly and Lauren talk about raising teenage girls. In this open hearted conversation, two somatic experiencing practitioners talk through their way of practicing what they teach.
Bio Lauren Ohayon isan internationally recognized yoga + Pilates teacher specializing in core and pelvic floor issues. She has been teaching for the past two decades. Lauren creates online exercise programs that are challenging, unique, safe, sustainable and life-changing. In addition to yoga and Pilates, she is certified as a Restorative Exercise Specialist™, in Neurokinetic Therapy® and in Anatomy in Motion. The web site Holy Shift yoga was her first online baby and has since become this web site under her own name. Nothing has changed but the name. Learn more at www.laurenohayon.com
What You’ll Hear
Resources IG: @thelaurenohayon Website: www.laurenohayon.com | |||
| EP 174: Embodied Astrology + Everyday Radiance with Heidi Rose Robbins | 05 Dec 2022 | 00:59:17 | |
In this episode, Kimberly and Heidi discuss all things astrological. Heidi shares how she came to her work in astrology, how she incorporates astrology into her mothering, and how we can all benefit from understanding our own signs and signs’ energies. They discuss how embodiment connects to astrology, balancing motherhood with work and creative projects, as well as Heidi’s upcoming book which can be accessed through her link below. Heidi even reads some of Kimberly’s chart which connects to sex, power, and safety. Bio Heidi Rose Robbins has been a professional astrologer for 25 years, helping thousands of clients all over the globe live with more authenticity and clarity. She hosts two podcasts, THE RADIANCE PROJECT, featuring poetry, astrology, and good company, and CHART YOUR CAREER, with co-host Ellen Fondiler. Twice a year, she leads Radiant Life Retreats, for people wishing to take a deeper dive into her work. Heidi has written two books of poetry, This Beckoning Ceaseless Beauty and Wild Compassion, and has been a featured poet at two TedX events. She was also recently a guest on Glennon Doyle’s You Can Do Hard Things podcast. Last year, her 12-book series The Zodiac Love Letters, was published by One Idea Press, and her new book, Everyday Radiance--based on her daily Instagram offerings--will be published by Chronicle in January. Heidi grew up in Fargo, North Dakota, learning the zodiac with her A,B, C’s, and calls herself “a poet with a map of the heavens in her pocket.” What She Shares: –Heidi’s work with astrology + astrological embodiment Radiant Life retreats –Embracing the energies of our signs –Motherhood and astrology –New book called Everyday Radiance
What You’ll Hear: –Learning astrology from a young age –Background in theater contributes to workshops and retreats –Embodying signs and energies –Teachers including somatic backgrounds in trainings and workshops –Theater providing powerful embodied experience –Building community and holding space over time –Non-linear paths of healing and growth –Positive reparative experiences with embodiment –Ritual and embodiment –Rising sign as our gift to the world –Expanding and embracing the energies of our signs –Our charts as watercolors, messy and gorgeous –Kimberly’s chart is read –Heidi’s experience working with her father in astrology and art –Heidi’s experience with Sofia Diaz –Role of spiritual teachers versus psychologist –Finding people with your rising sign as embodied teachers –Motherhood and astrology –Mothering as a way to encourage fullness of our children –Importance of children seeing mothers in our fullness –Importance of retreat time away from mothering –Kimberly’s experiencing teaching yoga while mothering –Raising children with chosen family and community –Inner-conflicts around creating with children –Evolution of Heidi’s creative process while mothering –New book coming Everyday Radiance as a daily astrological read –Book available for pre-order –Heidi reads poem of hers on father’s death
Resources Website: heidirose.com IG: @heidiroserobbins | |||
| EP 173: Healing Addiction, Spirituality, and Internal Family Systems with Ralph de la Rosa | 30 Nov 2022 | 01:05:42 | |
In this episode, Kimberly and Ralph discuss commonalities between their work regarding somatics, psychotherapy, and spiritual traditions. Ralph describes his journey of seeking from mainstream religion to various spiritual traditions and how his time in rehab propelled his work in psychotherapy, teaching, and writing his books. In addition, he describes his journey regarding gender and sexuality and how that correlated with his neurodivergence. In addition, he describes Internal Family Systems, our four selves, and his niche work of combining psychotherapy and meditation. Towards the end of the conversation, they share their reactions to receiving negative reviews and the arduous process of writing and publishing a book.
Bio Ralph is the author of two internationally published books about trauma recovery, meditation, and the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model of psychotherapy. He is personally mentored by Richard Schwartz, founder and developer of IFS. He is a psychotherapist in private practice and a seasoned meditation teacher known for his radically open and humorous teaching style. His most recent book, Don't Tell Me to Relax: Emotional Resilience in the Age of Rage, Feels, and Freak Outs was named one of the “Best Books of 2020” by Mindful Magazine. What He Shares: –Ralph’s journey with addiction, spiritual practice, + becoming a psychotherapist –Gender identity, sexuality, and neurodivergence –Multiple selves & Internal Family Systems –Nervous system responses to criticism
What You’ll Hear: –Evolution of his yoga practice –Raised Southern Baptist, experienced early childhood traumas, turned to Hare Krishnas –Experienced suicidal ideation until reading Ram Das –Traveled with Amma –Turned to spirituality as an attempt to continue high –Experience of drug addiction alongside spirituality –Encountered deep spiritual practice in rehabilitation center –Began mindfulness based practice through Buddhist teachers in 2005 –Began teaching meditation at yoga studio –Seeing the humanity of Buddhist practices –Also discovered psychotherapy in rehab –Healing traumas of previous wounding and insecure attachments –Sexuality journey of “neuroqueer” –Journey around gender and sexuality distinctly –Experienced violent bullying in high school because of gender –Embracing the term “genderqueer” –Influence from Bikini Kill and Riot grrrl –Internal Family Systems Therapy and parts work –Internal conflicts and internal dialogues –Multiplicity and multiple selves offers us map of our psyche –IFS and somatics and meditation- Ralph’s niche –No one therapy heals all of us –Pandemic and upheaval of socio-political upheaval –Collective inability to metabolize impact of pandemic –Process of writing first book, dealing with lack of confidence –Confronting demonization of cognition (monkey mind) in spiritual circles –Experiences after publishing first books –Risks of writing and publishing –Reading bad reviews of work –Criticism triggering sympathetic nervous system responses –Shambala as an ethical publishing company –Protecting our own energy –Meditation, movement, breath work, diet, 80-20 lifestyle –Self energy in IFS have to be in compassion and holding space –Embracing all of life’s experiences –Being effective for others through burnout –How the term “neuroqueer” connecting spectrums of queerness and neurodivergence –Labels as stigmatizing and liberating –Upcoming course on mindfulness, somatics, IFS, and more –”Unstuck How to Heal every part of you” starts Dec 2nd
Resources Website: https://ralphdelarosa.com/ IG: @ralphdelarosa | |||
| EP 172: Wildness, Embodiment, and the Feminine Needed in Our Time, “The Wild and Sacred Feminine Deck” | 21 Nov 2022 | 01:01:43 | |
In this episode, Kimberly talks with Elizabeth Marglin, Niki Dewart, co-authors of “The Wild and Sacred Feminine Deck,” and Jenny Kostekci-Shaw, artist of the deck. They discuss how the deck came to fruition, its roots and connection to motherhood, and the publishing process of the deck. They also discuss the rich meaning behind wildness, the sacred feminine, and embodiment, as well as their individual creating processes while mothering. At the end of their episode, they pull a card for the collective with a powerful message of traversing through these difficult times.
Bio Elizabeth Marglin, M.A. is the coauthor of The Mother's Wisdom Deck with Niki Dewart. Elizabeth is a journalist and writing coach who writes for publications such as Yoga Journal and Spirituality & Health. Marglin lives in Colorado. Niki Dewart writes books, designs sacred spaces, and leads rituals and retreats that nurture the feminine soul. Jenny Kostecki-Shaw is a national award-winning author and illustrator, a homesteader, and a mother. What They Share: –Motherhood and “The Wild and Sacred Feminine Deck” –Wild, Elemental, Archetypal and Divine suits in the deck –Wildness, embodiment, and Spirit –Creative processing while mothering –Reading of a card for the collective
What You’ll Hear: –The Wild and Sacred Feminine Deck –Wanting to create a deck for mothers –Publishing process with Shambhala –Expanding deck from mother’s wisdom to all aspects of the feminine –Meaning behind the title “Wild and Sacred Feminine” –Decision on four suits and feminine within each –Wild, Elemental, Archetypal, and Divine –Jenny’s process of artwork for the deck –Meaning behind 52 cards in the deck –Multicultural approach to card selection –Using ritual to create deck –Importance of Inanna –Elizabeth and Niki’s reactions to Jenny’s artwork –Embodying the Shapeshifter and fluidity –Incorporating the Wolf into the deck –Jenny surprised by her own artwork –Mothering and the creative process –Creating space away to write and create –Wanting to offer other mothers shorter readings –Creating the deck at the beginning of the pandemic –Weaving pandemic, spiritual life, and mothering into the deck –Jenny’s creative process while mothering –Facing struggle trying to find art in early motherhood –Kimberly’s process getting Fourth Trimester cards published –Writing the How to Use guide –Kimberly’s use of decks –Using decks intermittently or frequently –Co-authoring the deck and collaborating with art –Building meaning through collaboration versus individually –Deck to bring us into soul wholeness –Message of embodiment and spirit to matter through the feminine –Drawing a card from “The Wild and Sacred Feminine” deck –Collective question around our relationship to the earth and traversing these times –Reading of the card
Resources Website: https://www.shambhala.com/the-wild-and-sacred-feminine-deck.html | |||
| EP 171: Friendships, Desire, and Healthy Attachments with Deborah Bagg | 30 Oct 2022 | 00:57:00 | |
In this episode, Kimberly and Deborah discuss friendships, desire, and healthy attachments. Deborah explains her experience with having a large capacity for many friendships and how her clients often discuss issues around finding and keeping lasting friendships. They discuss how our original wounds seek out repair in patterns that often appear in friendships, as well as how the pandemic changed many relationships and friendships. Deborah debunks the myth that healing, love, and growth happen individually to assert that we are wired from birth for secure attachment, love, and attention. Friendship can be an opportunity to help us acknowledge past wounds, seek out ways for resolution, and grow as more whole and healed beings.
Bio Deborah Clare Bragg is a somatic psychotherapist, yoga teacher, doula, and practitioner of feminine arts. She graduated from Naropa University with a masters in somatic psychotherapy. Alongside her therapy work, she teaches yoga at Love is Juniper and is hosting an upcoming Friendship Workshop which starts on November 17th and can be accessed through the link on the website below. In this episode, Kimberly and Deborah discuss friendships, desire, and healthy attachments. Deborah explains her experience with having a large capacity for many friendships and how her clients often discuss issues around finding and keeping lasting friendships. They discuss how our original wounds seek out repair in patterns that often appear in friendships, as well as how the pandemic changed many relationships and friendships. Deborah debunks the myth that healing, love, and growth happen individually to assert that we are wired from birth for secure attachment, love, and attention. Friendship can be an opportunity to help us acknowledge past wounds, seek out ways for resolution, and grow as more whole and healed beings.
Bio Deborah Clare Bragg is a somatic psychotherapist, yoga teacher, doula, and practitioner of feminine arts. She graduated from Naropa University with a masters in somatic psychotherapy. Alongside her therapy work, she teaches yoga at Love is Juniper and is hosting an upcoming Friendship Workshop which starts on November 17th and can be accessed through the link on the website below. What She Shares: –Why it’s hard for women to make friends –Tending to original wounds and repairs –Attachment styles in friendship –Impact of pandemic on friendship –Secure attachment and community –Deb’s upcoming Friendship Workshop
What You’ll Hear: –Hesitancy around discussing friendship –Attending to previous ruptures in friendships from adolescence –Pains leading to narratives around female friendships –Knowing our capacity for friendship –Honoring desire and vulnerability –Making bids and invitations –Tolerance for rejection –Discerning when friendship is worth conflict or not –Patterns of conflict avoidance –Including and excluding –Alchemy variations in different groups –Different attachment styles in friendship –Repetition and compulsion –Original wounds searching for repair in patterns –Impact of pandemic on friendships –Experiencing major life changes and friendships –Debunking myth of loving self before loving others –Interconnection and healthy attachment –Feeling safe as children and in friendships –Sickness individualization –Picking community that reflect love and value –Taking stock of people in our lives –Breakout rooms and flight responses –Rejection and secure attachment –Friendship Workshop starts November 17th
Resources Website: https://www.loveisjuniper.com/ IG: @loveisjuniper | |||
| EP 170: Cece on Teens Navigating Challenging Times | 21 Oct 2022 | 01:12:11 | |
In this episode, Kimberly welcomes back her daughter Cece to the podcast. Cece first appeared on the podcast in 2019 when she was in 6th grade. She shares what has changed in her and Kimberly’s lives since then. Together, they discuss Cece’s perspective on issues important to her peers and teenagers in general such as sex, intimacy, mental health, climate change, and more. Cece explains that much of her and her peer’s frustrations are with older generations who cannot empathize with adolescence experiences today. Cece suggests for parents and older generations to provide specific information regarding these major issues to have non-defensive, open-hearted conversations. She also provides some comical tidbits of what it’s like being Kimberly’s daughter.
Bio Cece, Kimberly’s daughter, is a 15 year old biracial highschooler, who shares her perspectives on Kimberly as a mother, Kimberly’s work on sex, birth, and trauma, and other important topics that her peers are discussing. She is a guitarist and has enjoyed playing in a band since she last appeared on the podcast. What She Shares: –Cece’s evolution since her first podcast episode –Teens’ perspectives on sex –Technology’s influence on teen girls’ mental health –Intergenerational conversations on complex issues, including climate change –Pandemic’s impact on teens
What You’ll Hear: –Cece’s first podcast episode in 2019 –Moved to NYC, Moved back to California, started high school –Cece’s interest in guitar and writing music –Cece’s perspective on having Kimberly as a mom –Parents discussing sex –Remaining neutral in conversations around sex with teenagers –Cece’s experience of over-exposure of Kimberly’s work –Teenage girls’ perspectives on porn –Cece’s friends turning to her for information on sex –Teens turning to social media for intimacy and dating –Rejecting labels of sexual identities –Social media impacting teen girls negatively –Social media and comparison –Teenage girls using social media to tear each other down –Experimenting with removing social media –Higher rates of depression and anxiety in teen girls –Disconnect of understanding from older generations to teens now –Generations without technology –Expressing anger towards older generations for contributing to climate change –Having difficult conversations without getting defensive –Adolescence during threats of nuclear warfare, climate change, artificial intelligence –Having specific conversations around complex issues –Feelings of impending doom culturally contributing to mental health issues –Accepting and enjoying solitude without spiraling –Cece’s reaction to Kimberly’s work with Stephen Jenkinson –Pandemic’s impact on Cece and peers –People who didn’t transition well back into socializing | |||
| EP 169: Food as Healing, Understanding Needs for Safety and Satiation with Ali Shapiro | 29 Sep 2022 | 01:05:31 | |
In this episode, Kimberly and Ali discuss how food intersects with physiology and psychology. Specifically, they discuss how to identify our physical and emotional needs, how to send safety signals to our bodies, and how to unpack some of the deeper impacts of socialization and culture around eating and body image. Similar to our nervous system signals, our bodies and minds send signals when dealing with chronic stress and unconscious stories around our behaviors that often motivate our food choices. Ali works with women to help them unpack issues around diet culture, body image, and eating for satisfaction and nutrition.
Bio Ali Shapiro is an MSOD, CHHC, holistic nutritionist, cancer survivor, and host of the podcast “Insatiable.” Her work is at the intersection of physiology and psychology as she helps women unravel their relationships with body image, food, and movement in order to ultimately build a sense of safety and satisfaction. She offers the Truce with Food Coaching program as well as individual client sessions and speaking engagements.
What She Shares: –Uncoupling body image from normal human emotions –Physical and emotional safety signals –Identifying physiological and psychological needs –Emotional immune system –Food for healing and health –Truce with Food program
What You’ll Hear: –Issues with body image/positivity marketed to women –Socialization and religious culture influencing body image –Prioritizing safety signals –Unpacking individualization and systemic issues surrounding food –Weight and health –Physical and emotional safety signals –Identifying foods and movement right for our individual bodies –Prioritizing sun and sleep especially through aging –Re-establishing relationship with our bodies with food experiments –Identifying which foods make body feel safe and satisfied –Intrinsic motivation versus shame-based motivation around health –Emotional safety –Emotional immune system run down by chronic stress –Anticipating deprivation and/or restricting with food –No baseline of neutrality and satiation –Translating the body’s signals –Intuition based on patterns, difficult with lifetime of dieting/overeating/undereating –Highly processed foods hijacked intuitive understanding –Practicing intuition with three meals a day for physiological and psychological benefits –Rejecting commercialized brand names of diets –Restriction with food in relation to aging, stress, parenting, etc. –Processed foods on a continuum –Amount of attention to give eating can be overwhelming –Undoing binary thinking around foods –Emotional health in relation to food, exercise, diet –Emotional immune systems made up of stories –Intersection of physiology and psychology –Family, peers, religion, work influences to emotional health –Overriding body’s signals to “deserve” to eat –Seeking belonging on deepest level –Food one of our first senses of safety and comfort –Understanding insulin resistance, blood sugar levels, and stress –Turning to sugar for nurturance and comfort –Reducing stress and balancing blood sugar results in less sugar intake –Sleep-deprivation contributing to higher sugar intake –Nervous system predisposes towards certain tolerances with foods –Identifying physical and psychological needs for health and sense of safety –Basic human habits declining with modernization and individualization –Food and community
Resources Website: https://alishapiro.com/ IG: @alimshapiro | |||
| EP 168: Honoring Limits and Capacities through Life Cycles, Business, and Yoga Practice with Sara Avant Stover | 12 Sep 2022 | 01:07:44 | |
Summary In this episode, Kimberly and Sara discuss how they met through yoga, how they approach their businesses, and how they navigate moving through biological seasons such as premenopause and menopause. While culture wants women to continue pushing towards growth, Kimberly and Sara explain the importance of honoring their own limitations and energy levels especially as entrepreneurs. They also discuss Sara’s approach to her online yoga teacher trainings for women.
Bio Sara Avant Stover is a teacher of feminine spirituality, bestselling author, and Internal Family Systems (IFS) Practitioner. After graduating Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude from Columbia University’s all-women’s Barnard College, she had a cancer scare, moved to Thailand, and embarked on a decade-long healing and spiritual odyssey throughout Asia. Since then, Sara’s gone on to uplift the lives of tens of thousands of women worldwide. The creator of the world’s first Women’s Yoga Teacher Training, she specializes in supporting women to navigate challenging life transitions and heal from trauma, in service of living with more ease, wholeness, and fulfillment. Sara has also been featured in Yoga Journal, the Huffington Post, Newsweek, Natural Health, and on ABC, NBC, and CBS. She lives in Boulder, CO, and online at SaraAvantStover.com What She Shares: –Kimberly and Sara’s yoga teaching experiences together –Sara’s The Way of the Happy Woman: Yoga and Meditation Teacher Training for Women –Accepting limitations and different capacities in business –Navigating biological seasons and accepting life’s paths
What You’ll Hear: –How Kimberly and Sara met –Sara’s experiences hosting yoga teacher trainings –Discovering love and capacity for leadership –Developed women’s yoga teacher training –Transitioning to online teacher trainings –Reasons for focusing on women in trainings –Having sensibility and sensitivity while working with range of people –Processing emotions in community during trainings –Sara’s experience dismantling and rebuilding business –Business practices valuing simplicity, cohesion, and sustainability –Navigating behind-the-scenes business challenges –Business expectations and assumptions for coaches –Marketing in the self-help, coaching, yoga worlds –Regret in business and entrepreneurship –Limitations and the feminine –Feminism, fertility, aging, and biology –Accepting limitations around bearing children –Childlessness and singleness in US culture –Ideology trumping biology in many circumstances –Technology and IVF not guarantees –Specific practices for pregnancy, postpartum, menstruation, perimenopause, postmenopause –Internal Family Systems therapy –IFS therapy part of teacher training –Range of experiences, ages, etc. in trainings –Intergenerational and international training –Women learning through modeling and others’ stories –Setting up life and business to prepare for menopause –Sara’s YTT starting early October –Honoring Zoom fatigue during online training
Resources Website: https://www.womensyogateachertraining.com/ https://www.saraavantstover.com/ IG: @saraaventstover | |||
| EP 167: Making Friends with Yourself through Aging with Barbara Dilley | 08 Sep 2022 | 00:59:29 | |
In this episode, Kimberly and Barbara discuss Barbara’s iconic career as a dancer and performer in the 1960s, her work as a founder and President of Naropa University, and her pedagogy which combined dance and performance with mindboby practices and various spiritual traditions. She also discussed the early days of Naropa University which symbolized the creative and expansive, alternative movements that were happening culturally at the time. Barbara then shares her reflections on aging, sickness, and internalized ageism as well as creative ways for aging people to live and embrace the end of life.
Bio Barbara Dilley (Lloyd) (born 1938) is an American dancer, performance artist, improvisor, choreographer and educator, best known for her work as a prominent member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company and The Grand Union, from 1969 to 1976. She has taught movement and dance at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, since 1974, developing a pedagogy that emphasizes what she calls “embodied awareness,” an approach that combines dance and movement studies with meditation, “mind training” and improvisational composition. She served as the president of Naropa University from 1985 to 1993.
What She Shares: —Early career as a dancer —Performing as a young mother —First President of Naropa University —Origins of Mind-Body practices in 60s and 70s —Ageism in spiritual and New Age communities —Kindness through sickness, aging, and death
What You’ll Hear: —Being the “first” in various fields —First President of Naropa University —Transition from ballet into modern dance —Pregnancy and mothering while performing —Shadow-side of touring the world as a young mother —Modern dancing in India in the 1960s —Strain on family life while touring —Leaving marriage and family during 60s —Personal drive to pursue performing career —Cultural environment of new thoughts, opportunities, creativity, avant-garde world —Origins of Movement Studies work —Improvisation performance technique styles emerging —Began teaching at Naropa in 1974 —Created dance program at Naropa and leaving NYC —Teaching alongside Ram Dass and Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche —Contemplative Education from East and West at Naropa —Incorporating Mind-Body practices into Dance courses —Spiritual appointment of serving as President at Naropa —Transitioning to retirement from writing and teaching —Feeling emotionally and physically drained leading to health issues —Learning through aging and cultural ageism —Working through cultural imprints around aging —Feeling in competition with younger self —Ageism in spiritual and New Age communities —Kindness through aging which is inevitable —Accepting inevitability of aging and death instead of turning away —”Spiritual materialism” —Becoming invisible as an aging woman —No cultural appreciation for elders —Holistic understanding of human journey including aging and death —Multicultural and multigenerational living instead of nuclear families —Finding small community to discuss sickness, old age, and death —Stormy waves of birth, old age, sickness, and death | |||
| EP 166: Activate Your Inner Jaguar Alumni Round Table | 02 Sep 2022 | 00:42:22 | |
In this collection of testimonials, Jaguar course alumni speak about how the Jaguar work and community have supported their journey of healing trauma and widening their capacity to actively and presently engage with life. As Kimberly and her team prepare for the next round of Jaguar, this testimony speaks beautifully to the type of experience you might find in the upcoming 4-week course "Activate Your Inner Jaguar Foundations." In this episode, you meet three dynamic Jaguar women: Audrey Holst, Tori Miller, and Nicole Siegel. Each of these women talks about specific before and after experiences that intersected with their Jaguar work.Here is some of what you will hear in this episode: Audrey:
To sign up for the Foundation Edition of Activate Your Inner Jaguar that begins September 6th, or to read more about the course and about what other women are saying about Activate your Inner Jaguar, go to https://kimberlyannjohnson.com/sessions/. | |||
| EP 165: Disrupting the Narratives of Perimenopause + Menopause, and Radical Self-Care with Catherine Hale | 27 Aug 2022 | 00:53:07 | |
In this episode, Kimberly and Catherine discuss their personal experiences of perimenopause and menopause. Catherine shares how her identity as a holistic health practitioner and educator initially conflicted against her need for allopathic medical treatment or HRT, hormone replacement therapy, which has been life-changing through her experience of menopause. Together, they discuss symptoms of perimenopause and menopause and how menopause changes pelvic health, business, sex, and relationships. Menopause serves as a season that invites us inward while disrupting areas in our lives that need shifted. They also discuss how today’s generation of menopausal women are disrupting the narratives around this life-changing initiation.
Bio Catherine Hale is a UK-based practitioner and educator. She is trained in Sexological Body Work, Tantra, Sexual Shamanism and supports clients collectively and individually around trauma, sex, pelvic health, nervous system regulation, money, business, and more. Recently, she has publicly shared her menopausal journey as a practitioner which has helped her further support her community. She offers coaching, courses, and more on her website below. What She Shares: –Symptoms of perimenopause and menopause –Using Hormone Replacement Therapy –Radical self-care and self-love –Navigating business, sex, and relationships through menopause
What You’ll Hear: –Identifying perimenopause –Irregular cycle, change in length of cycle, hot flashes, etc. –Feeling like cognitive function dissipated during hot flashes –Debilitating hot flashes during nighttime –Difficulty as a sex, tantra, women’s health practitioner but not finding solutions –Menopausal underwear –Identity as a practitioner, belief about Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) –Strong identification against HRT created sense of belonging in community –Sense of being a failure using HRT –Becoming humbled by menopause journey and HRT –Change in newer data showing not as strong link between cancer and HRT –Spiritual healer identity –Synthetic hormones versus bio-identical hormones –Dutch test to identify hormones –Radical self-care and fully caretaking of body in business –Changing relationship with business through menopause –Prioritizing body and self more fully in business –New levels of needs and organization through and post menopause –Finding new sources of energy and needs for rest –Menopause and relationships –Menopause gives blueprint for who you’re moving towards –Fear in some men around women’s power during menopause –Gap in communities for men to be supported during partners’ menopause –Vaginal and libido changes –Creating closer relationship to vulva and internal felt senses for vaginal tissue –Misinformation in tantra trainings around sexuality and menopause –Intimacy, sexual, and spiritual communities ignoring menopausal bodies –Catherine’s offerings around nervous system, trauma, money, and more
Resources Website: https://catherinehale.co.uk/ IG: https://www.instagram.com/catherinehaleuk/ | |||
| Episode 209: The Journey to Becoming a Village Auntie and Girls Group Facilitator with Johannah Reimer | 12 May 2024 | 00:50:17 | |
With fellow educator and Orphan Wisdom Scholar Johannah Reimer, Kimberly discusses Johannah’s long cultivated journey with Girl Groups that work on collective rites of passage. They explore the difference between weekend and longer form rites of passage processes for girls crossing the threshold to adolescence and womanhood, as well as ways to de-emphasize soul work that doesn't center "the self." Johannah emphasizes the impact she has seen guiding Girls Groups and their families into relationships that reflect boundaries, values, and connection. Johannah talks through her passionate approach to the Matricarchical archetype, as well as their shared thoughts on being a single parent. Johanna describes her upcoming 9-month Girl Group facilitator training “Pathways to Womanhood” where she shares her elemental curriculum, which has been honed over 10 years of work with girls of all ages. Links to a free workshop and the facilitator training below.
Bio Johannah Reimer is a soulcentric educator, ceremonialist, teen mentor, and an artist of many trades. Trained as a Waldorf teacher, Johannah has been working with children of all ages for over 20 years and holds a particular passion for tweens/teens striving to meet their developmental needs for mentorship and initiation in a culture that has forgotten how to do so. An apprentice of visionaries: Sage Hamilton and Melissa Michaels of SOMA Source, Johannah has worked for many years as a Waldorf teacher under the guidance of her elder Sage, and as an embodied leader for international youth in movement based Rites of Passage with Golden Bridge & Golden Girls Global. What She Shares
Resources Pathways to Womanhood - Girls Group Facilitator Training | |||
| EP 164: Reckoning Book Release - Grief, Heartbreak and Elderhood in a Me-First Era with Stephen Jenkinson | 18 Aug 2022 | 02:03:53 | |
Celebrating the release of their new book Reckoning, Kimberly Ann Johnson and Stephen Jenkinson grapple with the key themes of their convergence: grief, heartbreak, culture work, elderhood, and the prevalent myth of individualism in this Me First era we find ourselves in. Three times as many people listened to their 2021 conversations (Episodes 135 and 136) than any other talk, which led to a five conversations series, an exchange of letters, and now Reckoning.
To order the book - hardback, paperback, or audiobook - go to: www.orphanwisdomschool.com/reckoning
Bullet points won't do this episode justice, so buckle in for the two-hour ride that is more in the spirit of the original conversations than about the book itself. | |||
| EP 163: Getting your Power Back through Managing your Personal Finances with Jennifer Mayer | 14 Jul 2022 | 00:45:21 | |
In this episode, Kimberly and Jen discuss financial planning and making financial decisions such as investing, budgeting, managing debt, saving for emergency funds and retirement. With recent inflation and a possible upcoming recession in addition to ethics of equity, many feel overwhelmed by their personal finances moving them into a state of freeze. Jen provides practical steps towards mapping out a budget, paying off high-interest debt, and creating savings. Jen also discusses how she works with clients individually and her upcoming 12 week financial planning program for entrepreneurs.
Bio Jen Mayer is a Brooklyn-based mother of two, financial counselor, and former doula with a vast background in the wellness industry. She currently works with clients by offering non-judgemental financial counseling such as paying down debt, planning for retirement, in addition to other major life changes such as starting a business or having a child. Jen can be contacted through her Instagram and website linked below.
What She Shares: –Inflation and the current US market –Overwhelming debt –Saving, investing and emergency funds –Shame and freeze around finances –Profit Foundations 12 week financial planning course
What You’ll Hear: –Transition from doula work and agency to finance –Personal finance counselor and coach –Debt management, financial foundations, retirement, savings, and more –Non-judgemental support, shame around finance –Advocacy in finance –Offered free counseling sessions –Financial trauma and shame –Navigating ideals around money and real-world contexts –Retirement needs within the US –Anti-capitalism and individual preferences and comfort around money –Investing, owning and other decisions around money –Emergency funds for 3-6 months living expenses –Distinction between savings and hoarding –Saving with a plan instead of hoarding –Cash losing value from inflation –Stock market depreciating –Possible upcoming recession –Uncertainty around current economy –Investments waiting for financial rebound –High interest debt over 6-7% –Opportunity for investments –Paying off debt as rates go up –Ambivalence around entrepreneurship –Fixed expenses, variable expenses, debt and savings –More leeway in increasing income versus cutting spending –Managing massive amounts of debt –Nervous system responses to debt –Aggressive strategies for more financial freedom –Debt as morally neutral –Having witnessing and accountability to personal finances –Getting a personal banker and an advisor –Understanding different roles of financial professionals –Profit Foundations: 12 week financial program –Self-employment finances –Program for personal finances, business projections, tax strategy and retirement –Benefits of one-to-one sessions versus group program –Investing and saving while paying off debt –High interest and low interest debt –Investment growth and debt compounds –Invest in traditional retirement account to lower student loan debt –Women having personal accounts while married and partnered
Resources Website:www.fullyfundedx40weeks.com IG: @fullyfundedx40weeks @jennyleighmayer | |||
| EP 162: Connective Tissue, Movement, and Understanding Stress with Alicia Fajardo | 10 Jul 2022 | 01:05:57 | |
In this episode, Kimberly and Alicia discuss connective tissue, states of the nervous system, dealing with chronic pain, and more. They discuss the complexities of fascia, differences between genetics and epigenetics, understanding individual dominant nervous system states, and body/mind mapping. Understanding the differences between physiological stress versus emotional stress as well as the importance of consciously and specifically paying attention to pain can help us begin to understand how to manage it better.
Bio Alicia has over 35 years of experience in the fitness industry and holds a B.S. in Exercise Science and Sports Studies. A longtime movement enthusiast, Alicia has studied, practiced, and taught many different types of movement throughout her career. She is the Founder of the Fajardo Method of Holistic Biomechanics which teaches movement education and motor re-patterning in conjunction with nervous system awareness. She teaches various kinds of classes and has an upcoming workshop which can be accessed by the link below. What She Shares: –Composition of Fascia –Ehlers-Danlos syndrome –Genetics versus epigenetics –Place and grid cells –Working with chronic pain –Physiological versus emotional stress
What You’ll Hear: –Syndrome longer lasting consequences affect autoimmune system –Ehlers-Danlos syndrome as connective tissue disorder can go through all layers of tissues –Can occur in muscular, joint, organ, vascular system(s) –Attacks in different ways for different people –Different types of testing to determine syndrome –Perceptual experiences of symptoms –Fascia made up of collagen, elastin, glycoproteins and protoglycans –Ground substance in fascia –Dominant state of nervous system determines ground substance –Body weight distribution dependent upon dominant state of nervous system –Nervous system state determines mineral absorption and digestion –Hypermobility and developing support for joints –Getting valve system to move –Creating dominant parasympathetic motor patterns versus sympathetic motor reflex –Genetics versus epigenetics –Genetic has dominant or receptive expression from parents’ genes –Genetic expression has to do with mutation of a gene –Epigenetics deals with genetic expression –Epigenetics internal or external environment can potentially change gene expression –EDS can be both genetic or epigenetic –Many mental health issues connected to hyper-sympathetic nervous system –Emotional stress versus physiological stress –Physiological stress is sympathetic nervous system –Emotional stress causing conflict to conscious and unconscious brain firing off sympathetic nervous system –Vagus nerve and adaptability to sympathetic and parasympathetic –Trigeminal nerve largest nerve in body, controls brain and senses –All nerves have roles in either sympathetic or parasympathetic states –Paying attention to bodily sensations doesn’t create brain map –Paying attention to external environment to communicate safety to brain –Proprioception and greater movement orientation –Brain map –Sensation and location awareness –More movement and dynamic and parasympathetic –Exercises for mapping –Keeping awareness between two points on body –Different stages of states and conservation of energy –Emotional Anatomy by Stanley Keleman –Observing and being very specific about what’s happening in body with EDS –Bodies constantly changing –Avoiding labels when understanding pain –Losing body’s adaptability when labeling –Attachment to diagnoses and labeling –Symptoms dependent on nervous system states difficult to diagnose and treat from medical perspective –Adapting sympathetic activation to be appropriate to environment –Brain assessing environment to determine appropriate state –Physiological responding to environment instead of emotional state –Teaches various classes and upcoming workshops
Resources Website: https://fajardomethodmovement.com/ | |||
| EP 161: Activate Your Inner Jaguar Alumni Round Table | 06 Jul 2022 | 00:38:10 | |
In this collection of testimonials, Jaguar course alumni speak about how the Jaguar work and community have supported their journey of healing trauma and widening their capacity to actively and presently engage with life. As Kimberly and her team prepare for the next round of Jaguar, this testimony speaks beautifully to the type of experience you might find in the upcoming 6-week course "Activate Your Inner Jaguar - Somatic Healing Through Movement." To sign up for the Movement Edition of Activate Your Inner Jaguar that begins July 12, or to read more about the course and about what other women are saying about Activate your Inner Jaguar go to kimberlyannjohnson.com/jaguar-moves. Bios Kimberly Chan Ko is from Southern California. Mother of a 2 year old girl and 8 year old puppy son, She is an Ophthalmologist who now enjoys teaching physicians how to start ketamine infusion clinics and content marketing. We will hear about Kimberly’s discovery of how societal programming and cultural pressures influenced many of her life desisicions — ones that were based out of fear. Her newly discovered sense of grounding and assertiveness has affected her decision making, which now comes more from her gut and is less about people pleasing. | |||