In this episode, Molly shares a meditation originally released on the podcast “Meditations,” by her friend Gregory T. Obert in May of 2019. We are happy to share this recording here, where you’ll hear a set of sexual healing affirmations, ready by Molly and repeated several times in a loop. You may prefer to listen to this meditation in a quiet and private space to take them in. If you’d like to hear these same affirmations read by Gregory, you can find his podcast and look for the episode released on May 26, 2019 on the “Meditations” podcast by Gregory T. Obert.

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Contact Sarah: www.theembodyconnection.com // [email protected]

Contact Molly: www.theembodyconnection.com // [email protected]

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Special thanks to:

Jenn Baykan, content creation for Somatic based healers: https://www.jbaykan.com/

Dave Hiltebrand for intro and outro music original composition: https://www.davehiltebrand.com/

Gina McLaughlin Photography for photo and graphic design: https://www.facebook.com/ginamclaughlinphotography/?fref=tag

In this episode, Molly interviews Amy Dawn about how she navigated the criminal justice system after deciding to press charges against the man who raped her. Some key highlights include:

• How Amy found herself in a role reversal from criminal justice student to someone navigating the system, and the challenge she experienced coming to terms with being a rape survivor.
• Her decision to report and then to pursue legal action.
• Disclosure and allowing other people’s reactions to impact how we feel about ourselves and what happened to us.
• Victim blaming, objectification, and dehumanization throughout the legal process.
• The importance of her legal advocate throughout the legal process.
• How the legal system’s way of poking holes in her character led to her questioning her very identity.
• The awkwardness/injustice/irony of being a mere witness in a case about her own rape.
• Her decision to leave the criminal justice world professionally.
• Finding her voice and her authentic self.

Amy Dawn has a Master’s in Criminal Justice and Criminology but left that field behind following her own experience with sexual assault. She pivoted careers and now volunteers with Resilience as a medical advocate. Outside of her full-time day job, she also works as a photographer. She is passionate about using her experience to foster dialogue whether it be through writing, photography, or advocacy. In her spare time, you’ll usually find her with her best friend, her dog Addison, who she rescued from Paws, and when they are feeling ambitious, they love taking in foster dogs.

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Amy Dawn is putting together a currently untitled photography project around survivors. It’s meant to bring to light the magnitude of words during disclosures, to convey the impact of victim shaming, and to humanize survivors. Link here: https://www.amydawnphotography.com/open-call

Contact Molly: www.theembodyconnection.com // [email protected]

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Special thanks to:

Jenn Baykan, content creation for somatic based healers  https://www.jbaykan.com/

Dave Hiltebrand for intro and outro music original composition: https://www.davehiltebrand.com/

Gina McLaughlin Photography for photo and graphic design: https://www.facebook.com/ginamclaughlinphotography/?fref=tag

In this episode Molly interviews Amy Collins, a survivor of things that were meant to break her spirit. Being honest with her past has helped her heal in so many beautiful ways. She believes in staying true to who she is and doing what’s best for her healing. In this interview, she shares her recent experience being in recovery from addiction, an eating disorder, and PTSD and the power of groups, among other things, in her relatively recently begun healing journey.

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Contact Amy: [email protected]

Contact Molly: www.theembodyconnection.com // [email protected]

Special thanks to:

Jenn Baykan, content creation for somatic based healers: https://www.jbaykan.com/

Dave Hiltebrand for intro and outro music original composition: https://www.davehiltebrand.com/

Gina McLaughlin Photography for photo and graphic design: https://www.facebook.com/ginamclaughlinphotography/?fref=tag

“Many sexual trauma survivors went into a freeze state.. And so there’s this sense of ‘My body betrayed me, and I don’t want to be in this body, but I’m stuck here, so I’m going to do the best job I can to not be here.’ And that is the ultimate disconnection. So what we’re going for is to start to reconnect that, just a little bit at a time, maybe at first just with questions and guidance, and little by little, help you start to recognize that your body is an ally in this process of healing. And in fact, because it was the site of the crime, it’s also the site of immense healing. And until you can actually feel that, there are things you can’t heal. There are things you can’t heal with words because words weren’t what injured you.”

In this conversation, Molly and regular special guest Sarah Brennan share their perspective on the role of touch in healing from sexual trauma. Some of the themes they explore are:

• The power of safe touch.
• Doing TO the body or making the body DO versus feeling, experiencing, and listening to the body with genuine curiosity.
• The body as key to healing injuries that were (and continue to be) experienced in the body.
• Feeling betrayed by the body’s response to assault or violation.
• Feeling subtle sensations again (or for the first time) after only being able to feel extreme sensations or numbing out or being hypervigilant - or any combination of the aforementioned strategic adaptations.

 “People who are terrified need to get a sense of where their bodies are in space and of their boundaries.  Firm and reassuring touch lets them know where those boundaries are: what’s outside them, where their bodies end. They discover they do not need to constantly wonder who and where they are. They discover their body is solid and they do not have to constantly be on guard. Touch lets them know they are safe.” ~Bessel Van Der Kolk

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Contact Sarah: www.theembodyconnection.com // [email protected]

Contact Molly: www.theembodyconnection.com // [email protected]

Book: The Body Keeps the Score, by Bessel Van Der Kolk

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Special thanks to:

Jenn Baykan, content creation for somatic based healers: https://www.jbaykan.com/

Dave Hiltebrand for intro and outro music original composition: https://www.davehiltebrand.com/

Gina McLaughlin Photography for photo and graphic design: https://www.facebook.com/ginamclaughlinphotography/?fref=tag

“I’m still struggling with ‘my body is my own’... It really does make me angry because it feels like I’m missing out on this wonderful thing that you experience with a partner.”

In this episode, Molly interviews Anne Jensen, a survivor of childhood sexual abuse within a religious cult, shares her journey over the past several years after disclosing the abuse to her family. She discusses how the process of disclosing was retraumatizing for her, how she started doing the true work of healing when she was truly ready, the role of religion & purity culture in her silencing and disempowerment, and her ongoing struggles with intimacy.

Anne was born and raised in a non-denominational Christian cult in Ontario, Canada, where she endured years of sexual, emotional, and religious abuse. After her family moved out of the community, she spent her teenage years and early twenties in evangelicalism trying desperately to find some kind of healing. She stayed silent about the abuse until she was forced to reveal it in 2015. Since then she has left religion and fully committed herself to her own healing journey which has included talk therapy, yoga, meditation, and medication. She started sharing her story on social media in the hopes that it would encourage other survivors and make them feel less alone. Since she spent so many years suffering in silence, she has made it her mission to use her voice to advocate for survivors of both sexual and religious abuse. She is currently writing her memoir and hopes to get it published one day.

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Contact Anne: [email protected]

Twitter: @annemargaretj

IG: @annemargaretj

Contact Molly: www.theembodyconnection.com // [email protected]

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Special thanks to:

Jenn Baykan, virtual assistant for creatives: https://www.jbaykan.com/

Dave Hiltebrand for intro and outro music original composition: https://www.davehiltebrand.com/

Gina McLaughlin Photography for photo and graphic design: https://www.facebook.com/ginamclaughlinphotography/?fref=tag

In this conversation, Molly and regular special guest Sarah Brennan discuss consent in and out of the bedroom, fear of rejection (being rejected and/or rejecting someone else), and how communicating clear boundaries begets trust.

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Contact Sarah: www.theembodyconnection.com // [email protected]

Contact Molly: www.theembodyconnection.com // [email protected]

Washington Post Article: Consent is not enough. We need a new sexual ethic. By Christine Emba: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/17/sex-ethics-rethinking-consent-culture/

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Special thanks to:

Jenn Baykan, copy creation for somatic based healers: https://www.jbaykan.com/

Dave Hiltebrand for intro and outro music original composition: https://www.davehiltebrand.com/

Gina McLaughlin Photography for photo and graphic design: https://www.facebook.com/ginamclaughlinphotography/?fref=tag

“I like to think that I grew up in a relatively progressive area of the country… but I definitely, by osmosis, absorbed the cultural expectations and ideas of what a man is and should be, and it was definitely not somebody who’d been sexually abused or taken advantage of. And I think that was another factor inhibiting me from talking about it - just not wanting to deal with the consequent shame and humiliation that I’m sure would have come.”

Phil is a poet, journalist, and content marketer whose debut poetry collection, How to Bury a Boy at Sea, will be published by Stillhouse Press on April 5th, 2022 and is available for pre-order (see his website or direct link below). His poetry has been nominated for a Best of the Net award and has appeared in or is forthcoming in The Laurel Review, Rust + Moth, Two Peach, 2River View, Awakened Voices, The Indianapolis Review and elsewhere. He currently lives in Alexandria, Va., with his wife, Jenny, and their animals: a dog named Brenna, and two cats, Grady and Princess.

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Contact Phil: https://www.philagoldstein.com/

Twitter: @philgoldstein

IG: @philagoldstein

FB: https://www.facebook.com/philgoldsteinpoet/

Pre-order Phil’s book, How to Bury a Boy at Sea: https://www.stillhousepress.org/stillhouse-store/how-to-bury-a-boy-at-sea

Phil’s book upcoming events (including DC and Chicago, as well as virtual): https://www.philagoldstein.com/book-events

Contact Molly: www.theembodyconnection.com // [email protected]

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Special thanks to:

Jenn Baykan, virtual assistant for creatives: https://www.jbaykan.com/

Dave Hiltebrand for intro and outro music original composition: https://www.davehiltebrand.com/

Gina McLaughlin Photography for photo and graphic design: https://www.facebook.com/ginamclaughlinphotography/?fref=tag

“A lot of the work that I’m doing now is because of what happened in the backseat of that car... I would be lying if I said that that is resolved... I am recognizing that I still have a freeze response… It’s taken me nine years of resisting that there was still work to be done from that - because I didn’t want to investigate it… I lived with a very, very deep sense of shame until the last few years… The event plus the shame created this shut-down - a lack of circulation, a lack of life, a lack of movement in the middle part of my body… And even though I couldn’t articulate it, I [began] moving toward something that was regulating my nervous system and making me feel better... So I think it’s this really beautiful dance between the top-down information that I’ve learned and the bottom-up primal work that I’ve been doing. It’s helping me put myself back together.”

In this episode, Molly interviews Lauren Dollie Duke about her new memoir, Sh!thouse, which is the story of her own brutal girlhood and her ongoing journey of untangling herself from intergenerational trauma. In this rich conversation, she and Molly explore themes including:

• Complex/relational trauma and its relationship to sexual trauma
• The importance of both top-down (cognitive) and bottom-up (somatic/body-based) approaches in healing
• The idea of “story follows state” and “fake it ‘til you make it”
• The nervous system, polyvagal theory, and trauma (look for Stephen Porges’s work if you’d like to learn more)
• The paralyzing potential of sexual trauma and shame and how that might relate to digestive issues, shallow breathing, and an overall lack of pelvic sensation/connection
• Yoga and breathwork techniques as tools to bring our whole bodies back online
• Teacher as student and healing as a lifelong journey

Lauren Dollie Duke is a writer, educator, healer, entrepreneur, community activist, and thought leader. She has taught thousands of yoga students over the last 15 years, led dozens of retreats and trainings, and continues to push the edges between yoga, mental health, and trauma. In a sea of corporate yoga, where most independent studios don’t survive, Lauren Duke founded a one-of-a-kind Community-Care/Yoga studio in Encinitas, California, creating a thriving community where she teaches and hosts a variety of beloved yoga classes, educational seminars, and writing workshops.

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Contact Lauren: [email protected]

Get her book: theunapologeticvoicehouse.com/lauren-duke/ (also available on Amazon)

IG (personal): @dollieduke83

IG (book): @shithousebook

FB: Surviving, Healing, and Evolving

Contact Molly: www.theembodyconnection.com // [email protected]

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Special thanks to:

Jenn Baykan, virtual assistant for creatives: https://www.jbaykan.com/

Dave Hiltebrand for intro and outro music original composition: https://www.davehiltebrand.com/

Gina McLaughlin Photography for photo and graphic design: https://www.facebook.com/ginamclaughlinphotography/?fref=tag

In this conversation, Molly and regular special guest Sarah Brennan share their thoughts and experiences with big emotions, including “overreacting,” acting out/bad behavior, being labeled as “too emotional” or “too sensitive,” self-shaming, shutting down – and ultimately building the capacity to tolerate those big scary emotions with compassion for yourself and others. They also discuss triggers and how they manage them, the question of how to communicate about big feelings, how (and whether) to explain the experience of physical violation, and ultimately, what it means to face your emotions head on rather than allowing them to come out sideways.

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Contact Sarah: www.theembodyconnection.com // [email protected]

Contact Molly: www.theembodyconnection.com // [email protected]

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Special thanks to:

Jenn Baykan, virtual assistant for creatives: https://www.jbaykan.com/

Dave Hiltebrand for intro and outro music original composition: https://www.davehiltebrand.com/

Gina McLaughlin Photography for photo and graphic design: https://www.facebook.com/ginamclaughlinphotography/?fref=tag

In this episode, Dr. Rhonda Sherrod shares insights from her own healing journey from early childhood sexual abuse, which she also shares in her recently published book, “SHE - Surviving Healing & Evolving: Essays of Love, Compassion, Healing, and Affirmation for Black People.” A passionate educator and sought after public speaker, Dr. Sherrod previously taught undergraduate and graduate psychology at two HBCUs. She is now the president of The Need To Know Group where she conducts professional development trainings for educators, devises communication strategies for entrepreneurs, and creates, and delivers enlightening classes on the history of Blacks all over the world for private clients.

Dr. Rhonda Sherrod attended public schools in the western suburbs of Chicago. She has an undergraduate degree in journalism from the University of Alabama, a master’s degree in English from Chicago State University, and a law degree from the University of Texas. After practicing law several years, she matriculated at Jackson State University where she had her doctorate conferred in clinical psychology. A licensed

psychologist, Dr. Sherrod completed her pre-doctoral internship at Harvard Medical School before serving as a

clinical fellow at Harvard. She has also completed liberal arts graduate classes at the University of Chicago and the Harvard University Extension School.

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Contact Rhonda: [email protected]

Twitter: @HealingEvolving

IG: @survivinghealingevolving

FB: Surviving, Healing, and Evolving

Contact Molly: www.theembodyconnection.com // [email protected]

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Special thanks to:

Jenn Baykan, virtual assistant for creatives: https://www.jbaykan.com/

Dave Hiltebrand for intro and outro music original composition: https://www.davehiltebrand.com/

Gina McLaughlin Photography for photo and graphic design: https://www.facebook.com/ginamclaughlinphotography/?fref=tag