LaidOPEN Podcast

This week, I chat with Chelsea Coleman, a brilliant musician, and storyteller. I first met her at an event called, "You're Going To Die" which creates room for people to talk about death, dying, and grieving. Together, Chelsea and I talk about her journey to healing Fibromyalgia and how having a baby helped her develop the embodied boundaries to do that.

We also speak about growing up in Fundamentalist Christianity, the structure and safety found in the black and white thinking of the church, learning to suppress your own needs, sacrificing your own wellbeing, abusive relationships, and healing shame. Plus, Chelsea sings a beautiful song about joy. There's something for everyone on this week's episode of LaidOPEN Podcast.

This week our guest is Aaron Quinn, an Oakland Firefighter for over 20 years, a yoga teacher as well as an advanced Wim Hof method instructor. We speak about his journey as a firefighter, which led him to develop a whole-body wellness program, including meditation, physical fitness, and nutrition for new firefighters. This program also helps recruits learn tools to aid in the parts of the job that can be psychologically taxing.

Additionally, we touch on a variety of topics and stories that have impacted Aaron's life. This includes his participation in brain research done on the impact of practicing Wim Hof, the role spirituality plays in his life, his ability to receive in his personal life outside of supporting others, as well as, the epidemic proportion of PTSD and suicidal ideation amongst firefighters. We end this incredible episode with a wonderful guided meditation led by Aaron to help us envision ourselves whole.

You can learn more about Aaron and his work at @live.serve.thrive on Instagram and at his website Live Serve Thrive.

When it comes to relationships, most of us have realized one size doesn't fit all. My guest today is Kate Loree. She's a sex-positive licensed marriage and family therapist who specializes in the non-monogamous, kink, LGBTQ, and sex worker communities. Kate's also the author of "Open Deeply: A Guide to Building Conscious, Compassionate Open Relationships," which i think everyone should read regardless if they're poly or not.

Kate's story is an interesting one. She spent a decade in the poly lifestyle and uses those experiences to contribute to her wisdom as a therapist. In this week's episode, she explains how she guides people through the pitfalls of creating relationships tailored to their own specific needs. Additionally, Kate provides useful case studies to illustrate how to use her communication model to help couples manage their triggers.

Not only that, she breaks down how understanding different attachment styles or injuries, and historical trauma are valuable and relevant in successfully navigating an open relationship. There's so much to gain from her story and knowledge and can't wait to share it with the world tomorrow.

Our guest this week is sensual intelligence educator and author of The Lost IQ, Shawnrey Notto. She has created a set of sensuality archetypes for you to self-reflect and discover your own style of relating. We discuss a variety of topics centering around sensuality including how dance and embodiment have been a path of healing for us.

Additionally, we cover everything from how to deepen sensual awareness, the gendered challenges implicit in our conditioning, healing sexual shame and abuse, and the importance of community in healing. As always, we end the episode with an exercise from me on attuning into our own sensuality.

Please welcome activist Jessica Pin as our guest on this week's episode of LaidOPEN Podcast. She's an activist and a biomedical engineer, whose life work is advocating for the inclusion of detailed clitoral anatomy in medical literature and curricula, training standards for vulvar procedures, and correction of medical misinformation about vulvas.

Together we discuss what contributes to the shame women feel about their larger vulva and the misinformation distributed by the medical field about the reality of how 50% of the population has "outties".

Jessica came to this cause because of her personal experience with a labiaplasty gone wrong, which resulted in her clitoral hood and entire inner lips being removed, and total loss of sensation in her clitoris.

Charna leads an exercise in becoming familiar with your vulva to reduce genital shame and lead to more ease and embracing of your body.

Meet Paloma De La Hoz, aka "MoMa" @awaremoma, she's a sex educator from the Dominican Republic, who uses her experiences to help people reconnect with their sexuality. Her passion is helping women have their first orgasms, whether it's alone or with their partners.

MoMa works internationally and sees clients from around the globe through intimate 1:1 coaching and group programs. Primarily, she helps her clients explore how to connect to their bodies, emotions, and desires, whether in or out of the bedroom. In this episode, we talk about her course on sexual healing she created, how her own sexuality evolved after being raised Catholic and what sexual freedom means to her at this juncture in her life.

You may have heard of this week's guest from her two podcasts, blog, or books. Kate Sloan is a writer and podcaster specializing in sex, kink, and relationships. We talk about her books '101 Kinky Things Even You Can Do' and '200 Words to Help You Talk About Sexuality & Gender,' the latter of which was recently released. Plus, we do a round robbin covering her two podcasts (The Dildorks and Question Box), sex-ed, and the perks of the daddy-little girl dynamic. We also chat about the fine art of surrendering to pain, as well as, pain as a tool for healing. If you've ever wanted to know the ins and outs of being a sex columnist, this episode is for you.

On LaidOPEN podcast this week, we're welcoming Layla London, better known by her podcast moniker, Curious Girl Diaries, a podcast dedicated to her sexual awakening and adventures. However, she wasn't always a podcast host.

Layla started as a high-powered businesswoman married to her job. After a 3.5-year dry spell from sex, she decided to reprioritize sex by way of a sex bucket list.

Layla documents all the cumming and going in her podcast. Together we talked about the unexpected benefits and openings her sex bucket list has delivered.

Plus, we talk about how her project became a 6-year podcast, how she offers her Sex Bucket List Challenge to listeners and the way she manages unwanted advances, and when men lie about their single status.

You'll find all this and more in this tantalizing conversation.

Recently my friend Stephanie Ragazzo had a TikTok go viral where she was expressing grief and rage at having been cheated on. Join us for an exploratory conversation about why people cheat, what happens when you're cheated on, and what a holistic view of cheating might be.

Our conversation also covers what to do when lines get crossed, how to recover after your partner has had an affair, the experience of being the cheater and then being cheated on, and the emotions that arise and need to be processed afterward. We also explore complicated topics like how attachment styles play into creating relationship dynamics, gaining clarity after betrayal, and how to be discerning in your next relationship.

Plus, Charna guides us through an exercise in deepening intuition and responding to your gut. If you're working through having cheated or being cheated on, don't miss this eye-opening episode featuring TikTok's own @gorizzo90

I am so happy to introduce you to Mark Tanaka, a teacher, and coach that specializes in helping people with nervous system regulation, somatic attachment/developmental trauma repair, and inner child work.

Mark is a beloved friend and colleague whom I met during a 2-year shamanic energy bodywork training. He has a background in teaching Qi Gong and Yoga, which he applies to his somatic attachment and development trauma repair practices.

Through his process of helping people unwind the physical body, he discovered that relationship trauma patterns left an imprint. This made him dive deeper into techniques that can help create more security and safety in relationships of all kinds.

In this episode, Mark guides a beautiful exercise on how to return to and regulate yourself when confronted with a hard conversation. I highly recommend you try it out.