LaidOPEN Podcast

Today's episode is a special one. I'm joined by my friend and birthday twin, Carrie Katz, on our birthday, February 7th. Carrie's a fellow somatic psychotherapist and as you've probably surmised, my birthday twin extraordinaire. Together we celebrate our birthday and discuss ketamine-assisted psychotherapy and answer listeners' questions about the ins and outs of determining whether you could benefit from ketamine.

I candidly share how I've benefited from ketamine-assisted journeys to reboot my nervous system. While Carrie shares about her client work, using her knowledge to answer all your questions. We discuss the recent large transitions Carrie has gone through with the loss of her dad, her son going to college, and the disbanding of Rosen Coven, a band she's traveled the world with for over two decades.

If you've ever considered doing a Ketamine journey with a professional to help you with your anxiety, depression, PSTD, complex PTSD, ODC and more–this is the episode for you. We do a deep dive into people who are potentially good candidates for ketamine therapy and circumstances when it's inappropriate. We also talk at length about the difference between social use, versus therapeutic use, especially since so many people self-medicate.

Carrie ends the episode with a beautiful rose in the heart meditation sometimes used in the ketamine space.

Please welcome this week's guest, Dr. Walter Sipe. He's a beloved colleague and friend of mine, who started his career as a pediatric gastroenterologist, before switching gears and becoming a psychiatrist.

He has a private practice where he works with adolescents and adults. More importantly, he's inherited the unusual legacy of being an expert witness around cases of institutional abuse of power and child sexual abuse.

Walt was born to parents who met when they were both members of the Catholic clergy. His mother was a nun and his father was a priest who both eventually quit the cloth. Walt's father, A.W. Richard Sipe, became a psychiatrist whose specialty was testifying as an expert witness thanks to his experience in the church and his research and writing about celibacy.

In this week's episode, we explore a variety of interesting topics, including cults and how to spot the difference between a cult and a spiritual community focused on personal evolution. This opens the door to conversation on many of the learning communities in the bay area that blur this line.

Plus, we even talk about what makes a leader sociopathic and how to determine when one is. Walt's story is an unusual and compelling one. I hope he decides to write a memoir one day. He ends his episode with a simple breathing and grounding practice that can help you reset.

This week's guest wants to help men unlock their soul force. Tyson Adams is an integrated men's work practitioner. His leadership program for accelerated self-awareness is aimed at giving men the tools to lead better lives.

With over 2 years of celibacy, Tyson developed a self-practice to release himself from and heal himself from an addiction to porn. He uses this work to help men in this same way, but also in their relationship with their cock, and claiming their cock.

In the time we were together, we talked about how certain ailments can be related to ancestral trauma or past lives, as well as, mindful masturbation, mirror masturbation, and being your own lover. Tyson also speaks on the importance of connecting to yourself rather than objecting yourself and how that simple practice can shift men's relationships with women and the earth.

He also lets us in on the ways in which healing from a chronic physical ailment that forced him to relate to his cock differently. We end the episode with Tyson leading a breathing practice that helps shift attention away from compulsive behavior.

If you haven't heard of Annie Brook before, you should have. She has a Ph.D. in perinatal psychology and is a seasoned somatic psychotherapist who works with birth trauma and developmental trauma. Her work is key to discovering why you repeat the same behaviors, resulting in the same disappointing outcomes over and over again. If you are curious about why you keep repeating the same patterns, and want to change but don't know how--this is the episode for you.

Annie explains the different courses she offers so anyone can become ready for the relationship they've always wanted or heal their birth trauma. Additionally, she's trained therapists for decades in how to work with complex trauma in a sustainable and effective way. Plus, how to facilitate the unwinding and repatterning of patients on a cellular level.

We talk about all the ways birth trauma can imprint and show up in adults, how to detect it, and integrate it to fully heal, something most of us want, even if we can't admit it to ourselves. We also, both share our in-utero and birth experiences and Annie provides some case studies from her over 4 decades of experience.

This week we welcome Nathaniel Hodder-Shipp, a drug and alcohol counselor, breathwork practitioner, and founder of the American Breath Work Association and Breathwork For Recovery, an 800-hour breathwork clinician that provides more intense training for teachers and practitioners.

We sit down and talk about Nathaniel's journey of becoming involved with breathwork, his decision to help create Breathwork For Recovery, and the necessity of developing equity, ethics, and regulation in the field of breathwork. I also share my story about attempting to learn breathwork and that it was a traumatizing experience. Nathaniel offers a compassionate take on what I went through, which may have also happened to some of you.

We end the episode with two breathing practice options you can choose to do to reset and reframe yourself anywhere, and at any time. This episode is a must for anyone looking into breathwork who wants to know about it from a real expert.

This week we welcome Sarah Strong. She is a star seed coach, divine feminine activation coach, medium empath, telepath, and psychic. She also channels star beings, beings from other dimensions, and many other beings of the light, including the ascended masters angels, and fairies.

Together we speak about how trauma can be a gateway to spiritual awakening, paranormal phenomenon, how trauma is associated with spiritual awakening and what can happen when you push a young person well beyond what they're capable of handling, and how a reaction to that manifests in a variety of ways.

She also guides us in a lovely meditation that's sure to help you clear space as you start 2023.

I was thrilled to have Lucy Wallace, the founder of Dance to be Free, as a guest. I strongly support her mission of bringing dance to incarcerated women to help heal trauma. I share a little about my own experience growing up with a father who was in prison and my own volunteer work teaching kids in an orphanage in Nepal so they could teach their peers. This coincides with Lucy's program, as she identifies the importance of the teacher training program for the prisoners rather so they can continue to help people instead of going in to "save" them.

In addition, we talk about how this mission found her and unfolded with dedication despite all of the bureaucracy inside the prison system and how this transformative program has grown into over 15 prisons nationally. We also explore a variety of other topics that align with Lucy's work and her program including how trust is earned, holding space versus preaching, and how freedom is a perception and state of mind.

We end the episode with a practice Lucy uses with her students that you can also use.

Our guest this week is a dear friend of mine. Ned Buskirk is the founder of You're Going to Die, which started as an open mic that offered a communal space to share stories about death, loss, and grieving. It progressed, as most things do, eventually becoming a nonprofit that brings music to the bedside of hospice patience, operates grief groups, delivers resources to help people in the prison system process their own grief and loss, and even a podcast of the same name, You're Going To Die.

I truly believe in Ned's work and purpose, which is why I've repeatedly used these resources myself, as well as, referred my clients to them over the years. Together we discussed how You're Going to Die has evolved, reorienting to aliveness and life after tragedy, what he has learned over the years, what his own coping strategies around loss are, remaining humble, being a community resource, and the positive as well as the weighty impact of this work on all aspects Ned's life. We even spend a good amount of time talking about, Alive Inside, a non-profit and runoff of You're Going To Die, where Ned brings his work and experiences to the incarcerated.

Dying, death, grief, and tragedy are all a part of this journey we call life and Ned brings a lot of necessary community and awareness to these topics. Join us this week in demystifying death by accepting it during our life.

I am so honored to have Julia Loken, a comedian, podcast host, and astrologer from Los Angeles, as my guest this week. I really enjoyed our conversation because Julia is one of those people who can talk about anything while making you feel like you've been friends forever. Because of this, we discuss a variety of topics including her astrology podcast @whatsyoursign, her discovery of astrology, and how astrology can be used to gain perspective in our own lives, as well as, how it can be used to look at cultural and political trends.

Plus, we talk about how it was for her to listen to her husband's interview with me, being to another comedian, her bachelorette weekend at the notorious Madonna Inn, the merits of being flexible in an ever-evolving partnership with your best friend, and how therapy led her to develop more self-love and acceptance.

We end the episode with Julia guiding us through a brief grounding practice that she uses to reset anywhere, anytime.

This week's episode of LaidOPEN Podcast features former guest Jessica Graham. She returns to help me answer a listener's question on the topic of having our pleasure matter in the context of a sexual relationship.

This leads us into an extremely interesting conversation between two sex educators about what sex is, how to be an advocate for your own pleasure, what attunement and connection are, how we can freeze up in a sexual situation or hard conversations, how to become present, and how to practice speaking up on your own behalf when you want your sexual needs to be included.

There's a lot to learn about ourselves, how do we relate to others and how we treat our own pleasure. A must-listen for anyone who struggles to communicate their sexual needs.