The time has come for me to heed my own intuition and embrace impermanence. I want to leave you with a few parting gifts so please listen and sit with me one last time.

Meet Tamara Powell

 

Tamara Powell, LMHC is a licensed therapist, university psychology instructor, and soul mentor for non-conformists. She is also a reiki master teacher known for integrating science and mysticism.

With specializations designed to quell existential angst and provoke the highest potential in each individual to achieve their true soul purpose, Tamara is passionate about holding sacred space for misfits and mystics.
If you’re interested in working with her, you can learn more about her services here.

Sound Editing provided by Pete Bailey: http://petebailey.net/audio/

Do you have a negative voice in your head that kicks you when you’re already down? Then this episode is definitely for you. Meet Elizabeth Cush! We do a deep dive on self-compassion: what it looks like, what it takes, problem solving our self-talk and finding some loving truths for ourselves.

In this podversation:

Do you have a negative voice in your head that kicks you when you’re already down? Then this episode is definitely for you. Meet Elizabeth Cush! We do a deep dive on self-compassion: what it looks like, what it takes, problem solving our self-talk and finding some loving truths for ourselves. She also shares with us the amazing Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook so you can start practicing some fierce self-compassion anytime!

• 2:35: Learning about Elizabeth
• 4:10 - Relabeling anxiety to be more culturally acceptable
• 6:20 - Why is self-compassion so important?
• 10:20 - This is what crapping all over ourselves when we miss the mark gets us
• 13:35 - Actually being KIND to yourself!
• 15:38 - The familial element
• 19:30 - Finding your loving truths when it all feels like lies
• 23:35 - We might be afraid to heal
• 28:08 - Being fierce in your self-compassion
• 34:20 - Woman Worriers

 

Meet Elizabeth Cush

Elizabeth Cush, LCPC is a therapist, podcaster, business owner and blogger in Annapolis, MD where she hosts Woman Worriers, a podcast for anxious women. In her private practice, Progression Counseling, she helps women who feel overwhelmed, anxious, and stressed out find more connection with themselves and others, allowing them to live their lives with more ease, intention, and purpose. Elizabeth has been a featured guest on the Women In Depth podcast, The Practice Of Being Seen podcast and Selling The Couch podcast. She’s also an expert contributor for Good Therapy, a guest contributor to the Happily Imperfect Blog on Psych Central and has been quoted in articles for The List, Teen Vogue, Tonic, Best Life, Bustle Thriveworks, UpJourney and The Paper Gown. She’s worked in the mental health field for over 10 years and is a certified clinical trauma professional. Elizabeth incorporates mindfulness and meditation into her psychotherapy work.

Researchers estimate that approximately 1/5th of the world's population could be classified as being an HSP - highly sensitive person. Don't let the language fool you though; as Patricia Young shares, HSP's have superpowers and there is great strength in flipping the negative narrative around feeling deeply.

 

• 2:25 - How did you find this work?
• 4:15 - HSP’s and limiting explanations
• 8:50 - Differential Suscepta-WHAT?
• 13:10 - Deep reflecters
• 16:05 - We’re all just saturated sponges
• 18:43 - Feeling on a cellular level
• 20:53 - We’re EXTRA extra(sensory)
• 25:40 - Does sensitivity mean we’re automatically prone to codependency?
• 32:55 - What people thinks make us weak are actually what makes us so powerful
• 36:52 - HSP’s in relationships
• 41:42 - HSP love and support suggestions

 

Meet Patricia Young Patricia Young, LCSW is a therapist who specializes in working with Highly Sensitive People (HSPs) online in CA. Patricia also hosts the podcast Unapologetically Sensitive, which is about embracing our strengths and modeling vulnerability and authenticity in order to help people to live fuller, richer and more meaningful lives. Patricia helps clients to turn their perceived shortcomings into superpowers. Patricia is passionate about providing education to help HSPs and non-HSPs understand and truly appreciate all the gifts we have to offer. Patricia is creating some small online specialty groups for HSPs.

This week we’re talking with Devi Maisha and WARNING (!!!), there is a LOT of explicit language in this episode. We talk about juicy orgasms, tantra-based holistic lifestyles, parenting, poly and more. If you have little ones around, wait ‘til they’re in bed to hop in the bath, grab your drink of choice, turn on this episode, and get ready to feel sexy and whole. If you want more, don’t miss her upcoming program: Orgasmic Alchemy for Women starting May 6th!

 

 

• 3:25 - How did you begin walking this path?
• 6:27 - Are we just a bunch of fuckin’ hedonists?!
• 9:45 - Our pain is not the final frontier
• 12:15 - Do something we’re all doing anyway and TRANSFORM
• 14:07 - Thinking of sex as sacred
• 17:10 - Others as additions to - not reasons for - fucking
• 24:50 - The synchronicity of having our needs met and who we are as energetic beings
• 27:37 - What would our lives look like if we saw everything we did as an act of worship?
• 30:00 - Tantric… parenting?
• 35:26 - Wholeness and kink
• 40:20 - Be poly in your monogamy!!
• 45:05 - Sometimes we just need to GET OFF
• 48:25 - Orgasmic Alchemy for Women

 

Meet Devi Maisha Devi Maisha is a sensual healer and erotic witch who specializes in showing men and women how to take their sex lives higher, release their trauma, create better relationships, and transform their lives into abundance and ecstasy. She is a former certified personal trainer and nutrition coach who combines her knowledge and study in the areas of psychology, tantra, and sacred sexuality with her training in energy work to facilitate inner healing and better sex for her clients. Maisha has studied Chakra Healing and LifeForce Energy Healing with Deborah King, Active Tantra through The Grand Trine Tantra System, Relationship Dynamics with JujuMama LLC and Shamanic and Indigenous Sacred Sexuality with Riziki Zafira. She is currently a student of the Institute of Authentic Tantra where she will go through a year-long Tibetan Buddhist Tantra training program, and become a Certified Sexologist through the American College of Sexology.

Oh my goodness, where to start about this week’s episode?! We’re talking with the effervescent and endlessly riveting Jessa Zimmerman who you may remember her from episode . Well, she’s just dropped her AMAZING new book for couples who have a good relationship but are avoiding sex called  Sex without stress; a couple’s guide to overcoming disappointment, avoidance, and pressure.” Jessa shares a snapshot of her 9 step process with us.

 

In this podversation:

• 1:23 - Let’s learn about Jessa
• 3:08 - Why this book?
• 5:28 - The catalyst of grief and the two sides of sex
• 8:46 - Excuses, excuses, excuses.
• 11:29 - Let’s talk about sex baby.
• 13:20 - The traps of desire discrepancy
• 16:50 - The butterflies
• 17:25 - Enjoy the ride ;)
• 20:02 - Being right here
• 22:14 - The alchemy of “No.”
• 24:47 - BE A LITTLE SELFISH!
• 28:47 - Advanced eroticism
• 31:53 - Taking pleasure personally
• 33:57 - Exploration, play, and gentle acceptance in the bedroom.

 

Meet Jessa Zimmerman

Jessa Zimmerman is a licensed sex therapist and couples’ counselor. She specializes in helping couples who have a good relationship but who are avoiding sex because it’s become stressful, negative, disappointing, or pressured. She educates, coaches, and supports people as they go through her 9-phase experiential process that allows them real world practice in changing their relationship and their sex life. She does this work through in person therapy in her office in Seattle, online therapy for Washington residents, her Better Sex podcast, and her soon to be published book aimed at helping couples who are avoiding sex.

 

We're talking about surprise DNA results in this week’s episode of Sacred Psychology! Meet Jody, a therapist leading the in finding healing for individuals who come face to face with complicated origin stories if you will. Hear her personal journey through her own lineage lies and how she was able to make lemonade out of some sour fruit.

In this podversation:

• 2:35 - Getting to know Jody
• 3:57 - EMDR - what the heck is it?!
• 6:17 - 23andme rocked her world… and not in the way she expected.
• 13:09 - He lives 40 minutes away?!
• 15:33 - Meeting her dad
• 17:20 - So, fill me in Dad. How could this happen
• 19:55 - Saying goodbye, saying hello.
• 22:20 - Grief, EMDR, and getting to know The New ‘Me’.
• 24:25 - Making lemonade
• 28:40 - The spectrum of NPEs
• 30:06 - The podcast: Sex, Lies and The Truth
• 34:20 - Don’t whole-d back.
• 39:25 - Your mess becomes your message
• 41:41 - Family matters…

Meet Jodi Klugman-Rabb

Jodi is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in California who discovered she was an NPE after taking a Commerical dna test. Discovering her father was not her biological father rocked her sense of identity and inspired her to use the experience to help others navigate the grief and family dynamics.

She hosts her own podcast on the subject (Sex, Lies & The Truth) and writes a blog on Psychology Today to help others find their voice in the NPE topic (Finding Family: A Modern Guide to Family with Parental Identity Discovery and Non-Paternal Events)

On this week’s episode we’re meeting Heather Vickery! She is so many amazing things: a business and success coach, a fellow podcaster, a mom, an advocate, an ally, and a master boundary-setter.

We take a look at some tricky topics like divorcing in friendship, coming out to our kids, and how we said hello to our sexuality even when it was scary.

In this podversation:

• 3:20: Getting to know Heather
• 4:57: The Un-Conversations - what are they and why do we need to have them?
• 7:19: “I’m gonna do it scared.”
• 8:05: Eating frogs
• 9:20: There are no wrong choices
• 10:50: How Heather realized she couldn’t continue living a heternormative life
• 14:44 Respecting others journey even when it’s not easy
• 17:54: Don’t live life with THOSE kinds of regrets
• 19:58: What do you tell the afraid people?
• 24:52: Solidarity my sisters and brothers!
• 25:24: Boundaries and balance
• 29:03: That’s my superpower
• 31:50: How to own the room!
• 37:50: The rainbow spectrum and language
• 40:37: But what about the children?!

 

This week I’ve teamed up with Dr. Stacey Shelby, the enigmatic author of "Tracking the Wild Woman Archetype: A Guide to Becoming a Whole, In-Divisible Woman" to talk about sacred sexuality and how women in society can reacquaint themselves with their Wild Woman.

We dish DEEP on how self-identity takes a major shift later in life and how making space for what some might consider “hippy BS” could teach your heart to orgasm too.

In this podversation:

• 3:50: Making learning more accessible to women of all backgrounds
• 5:45: Her book: Tracking the Wild Woman Archetype: A Guide to Becoming a Whole Indivisible Woman
• 6:00: What is the Wild Woman Archetype?
• 9:09: Grounding our Wild Woman into our physical bodies and what that means
• 10:38: Can we as women fully connect with our Wild Woman in today’s society?
• 12:45: Embracing the tension of the search for the Wild Woman within us
• 13:49: Important shit!
• 16:02: How to navigate our autonomy and our connection to something bigger
• 20:15: The quintessential paradox of love
• 21:32: Sacred Sexuality and Conscious Relationships of the Wild Woman Archetype
• 27:40: Not loving by default
• 31:16: Making space for the best sex
• 34:44: All sex as sacred and finding ecstasy in the heart and genitals
• 37:05: The importance of the profane
• 38:37: Challenges of polyamory and conscious non-monogamy
• 42:53: Possessiveness vs. Jealousy
• 45:51: Chasing the high vs. sinking into the soul
• 49:26: The common denominator of successful relationships
• 50:57: “If we’re wanting to live a soulful, purposeful, rich life follow love. Soul will always follow love.”

Meet Dr. Stacey Shelby:

Stacey Shelby, Ph.D., is an author, speaker and depth psychotherapist. She is also a Registered Clinical Counselor (RCC) in Canada, a certified clinical dream tender, and she has studied in Indigenous medicines and yoga traditions.

She holds a masters and Ph.D. in Depth Psychology with a specialization in Jungian and Archetypal Studies. Dr. Shelby has a thriving clinical practice in Squamish, British Columbia, where she works with adults in various stages of personal transformation in person and via internet.

She is gifted at working with the symbolic language of the soul and she is dedicated to honoring the soul as it presents in the lived experience of daily life.

Connect with her further at: DrStaceyShelby.com

In this podversation:

I teamed back up with the incomparable LCDR Jamie Sorenson whom you might remember from Season 3 Episode 1- Why You Tried to Kill Yourself, to answer some really common relationship questions collected from listeners.

Two mental health practitioners for the price of one! And since we don't always agree, you're getting a pluralistic perspective on issues many are afraid to ask about.

1. 2:52 - How do I know if someone is into me?
2. 7:03 - What do I do about my partners jealousy?
3. 13:04 - I want to have kids she does not. Can the relationship work?
4. 19:10 - We just started dating and she already wants to spend less time together. What does that mean?
5. 23:49 - How do we stop fighting over religion?
6. 33:33 - Do you believe in soulmates?
7. 38:58 - Am I ever going to meet someone?
8. 43:54 - Do you have premonitions about a partner? Like the song …"I knew I loved you before I met you."
9. 45:29 - What level of privacy is OK in relationships?
10. 50:23 - I feel like I can't do things spontaneously like have a friend over or go out. I feel like I have to ask permission first and when do have people over or go out, I feel like I have to tip-toe around telling him this is what I'm planning. If we don't talk about it before hand he grumbles and then I feel like I have to tip-toe even more. How can I better approach this?
11. 56:30 - "How to know when a partner’s request for photographic "material" becomes concerning. Is it ever normal, or is it a definite sign of sexual addiction?"
12. 1:07:20 - "How do you best handle intimacy after taking a loving look at and un-packing trauma, when your ideas around it transform and change?"
13. 1:13:09 - "My wife wants an open relationship and I want to complete fidelity. Should we get a divorce?"
14. 1:24:30 - "I am poly curious (did I just make that up?), and husband says hell no and now I feel ashamed for even suggesting it. What now?"
15. 1:25:50 - "Navigating your partner's jealousy and possessiveness as someone with a lot of muchness, who likes to share herself with others and have the freedom to share and receive unlabeled affection and intimacy with many people, not just one."

Additional Resources Mentioned:

• “The Jealousy Workbook: Exercises and Insights for Managing Open Relationships” by Kathy Labriola
• “Mating in Captivity” by Esther Perel
• “The Relationship Cure: A 5 Step Guide to Strengthening Your Marriage, Family, and Friendships” by Dr. John Gottman & Joan DeClaire
• "When God Winks at You: How God Speaks Directly to You Through the Power of Coincidence" by Squire Rushnell
• “The Flight from Intimacy: Healing Your Relationship of Counter-Dependency – the Other Side of Co-Dependency” by Drs. Janae & Barry Weinhold
• "Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill
• “Love in Abundance: a Counselor’s Advice on Open Relationships” by Kathy Labriola
• “Rewriting the Rules: an Integrative Guide to Love, Sex, and Relationships” by Meg Barker

Meet LCDR Jamie Sorenson

Jamie is a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner who is currently serving as the embedded Mental Health Provider at Command Submarine Squadron 11 out in San Diego CA, providing mental health treatment, education, consultation and much more to all the of sailors and submariners attached to that division.

Her awards include the Navy-Marine Corp Commendation Medal, Joint Service Achievement Medal, & the Navy Achievement Medal with one gold star. She also was also honored as the Psychiatric Advanced Practice Mental Health Nurse of the Year in 2013 by San Diego Psychiatric Nursing Society.

She wrote & published the book “Why You Tried to Kill Yourself” in 2017. Her newest book, "Single, Pitiful and Unlovable...Yeah Right!" is available on Amazon.

As if that weren’t enough, Jamie has completed over 80 whole/half marathons! She’s an avid traveler and animal lover.

Tracing the red thread all the way into social justice issues to break the supposed curse of menstruation with feminist holistic nutritionist, Amanda Laird

In this podversation:

• How Amanda got into the field of reproductive health and menstruation more specifically
• Tracing the red thread all the way into social justice
• Toronto's inaugural Menstrual Hygiene Day and some of the shocking pushback
• The far reaching implications and effects of not having access to menstrual supplies
• Nevada's seeking to abolish sales tax on menstrual products
• Where does the shame and stigma around menstruation even start?
• Why are menstrual supplies not included in required list of public restroom supplies
• Sex education needs to go beyond "Don't get pregnant" and "Don't get AIDS."
• Explaining some of the changes like mood swings in a normal menstrual cycle
• Breaking the curse of menstruation in part through agency
• Culture's devaluing of body literacy (the gyno ghetto)
• Should our first go-to for menstrual issues be hormonal birth control pills etc.?
• Post Birth Control Syndrome
• "Sweetening the Pill or How We Got Hooked on the Pill" by Holly Grigg-Spall
• Exploring nutrition for hormonal health, especially anything that causes inflammation
• The role stress plays in menstrual issues
• Going beyond the cisgender binary
• "Is it your period that makes you a woman??"

Meet Amanda Laird

Amanda Laird is a feminist holistic nutritionist specializing in menstrual health. She helps people understand their menstrual cycles and have better periods without defaulting to hormonal birth control.

Amanda is also the host of the Heavy Flow Podcast and author of Heavy Flow: Breaking the Curse of Menstruation, which comes out really soon so you’re gonna want to get on the list for pre-orders.

She says her mission is to break the supposed curse of menstruation so you can:

• Have a shame-free, painless period

• Understand your menstrual cycle and have agency over your own body

• Make truly informed decisions about sex, birth control and your health

Connect with Amanda further: www.amandalaird.ca www.instagram.com/amandalaird