The Karena Virginia Podcast

Karena welcomes author, activist, model, and friend Carre Otis for an open conversation on sisterhood, finding your voice, and the courage to shake the tree. Carre reflects on how her experiences shaped her relationship with boundaries, self-trust, and speaking openly about what she sees, while Karena draws connections to her own experiences and the ways their stories intersect.

Together, they explore the connections between trauma, the nervous system, self-expression, and healing, along with why women need community and the freedom to say no. Through candid stories of survival, motherhood, and personal growth, they consider what it means to stop making yourself smaller, speak your truth, and recognize that sometimes saying the hard things is an act of love.

Content warning: This episode includes references to sexual abuse and related trauma. 

📖 MY NEW BOOK! 📖 

Breathe With Me: Affirmations to Restore Calm, Heal the Heart and Return to Love

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Karena welcomes back her friend and co-author of “Essential Kundalini Yoga,” Dharm Khalsa, for a conversation about why caring for your energy is just as important as caring for your physical body. Together they explore how breath, awareness, and simple daily practices can help you return to a calm, centered state even when the world feels overwhelming.

Through reflections on the nervous system, emotional overwhelm, and the concept of the radiant energy field, Dharm shares practical ways to come back to your “home base” when you feel scattered, drained, or stuck. Their conversation is a gentle reminder that the tools to feel better, think more clearly, and move through life with steadiness may be much simpler than we believe.

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What if the reason you feel stuck, reactive, or overwhelmed has less to do with your thoughts and more to do with your nervous system? In this solo episode from Puerto Rico, Karena explores why we cannot think our way into peace and how stored childhood experiences continue to shape our emotional reactions today. She shares how inner child wounds, unconscious patterns, and nervous system dysregulation often sit beneath habits like distraction, anxiety, addiction, and emotional reactivity.

Karena offers simple, practical tools for bringing the body back into balance, including breathwork, humming to stimulate the vagus nerve, mantra, community, and time in nature. Through personal stories and vivid examples, she explains how making the unconscious conscious allows us to stop creating stories from old triggers and begin responding from a regulated, grounded place.

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What does it mean to stay spiritually awake when the world feels intense and uncertain? Karena explores how moments of disruption can surface deep emotional triggers and challenge the ways we look for guidance, control, and certainty. She reflects on how these moments can become invitations to slow down, question old patterns, and reconnect with what is truly guiding us.

Speaking from a retreat in Costa Rica, she reflects on sovereignty, emotional integration, and the courage it takes to feel rather than suppress what is arising. Through personal stories and unexpected encounters in nature, this episode invites us to reconnect with our inner authority and trust the deeper intelligence moving through our lives.

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In this candid and deeply personal episode, Karena is joined by her husband of 25 years, Charles, for a conversation about how the inner child shapes marriage. During a difficult season in their relationship, they turned to Imago Relationship Therapy, the couples therapy approach behind Harville Hendrix’s Getting the Love You Want, and began learning how to see the wounded child within each other rather than just reacting to the surface conflict.

From grief and fear to everyday misunderstandings, they reflect on how criticism often masks unmet needs and why emotional safety matters more than being right. This episode is an invitation to listen differently, respond with greater awareness, and begin relating to the inner child beneath the reactions in the relationships that matter most.

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Karena welcomes back her friend and co-author of Essential Kundalini Yoga, Dharm Khalsa, for a thoughtful conversation about staying centered in an increasingly chaotic world. Drawing from their shared history and years of spiritual practice, they reflect on why grounding matters more than ever and how simple, embodied tools can help us steady the nervous system and reconnect with inner wisdom.

Together, they explore lessons from teaching and living Kundalini Yoga, along with honest reflections on discernment, humility, and self-trust on the spiritual path. The conversation also touches on how fear, media noise, and external pressure can pull us out of alignment, and what becomes possible when we return to presence.

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In Part 2, Karena and Christian continue their conversation with author Joshua Medcalf as they explore themes of legacy, perseverance, and intentional living. The discussion reflects on what it means to stay committed to a path that isn’t always visible or immediately rewarded.

Joshua shares perspective on mentorship, initiative, and the value of showing up with humility and consistency. Together, they touch on the quiet work behind influence, the role of discipline and responsibility, and why meaningful growth often happens away from the spotlight.

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In Part 1 of this conversation, Karena welcomes back author and mentor Joshua Medcalf alongside her son Christian for an honest discussion about following your inner compass rather than the path laid out by expectation. Christian reflects on how Joshua’s work helped him step away from a traditional trajectory and choose a direction rooted in purpose, healing, and self-directed learning.

Joshua shares his philosophy on learning from lived experience rather than instruction alone, the importance of seeking out true experts in the territory, and why forging a nontraditional path often comes with resistance. Together, they explore themes of intuition, rebellion, discipline, competence, and leadership, offering a grounded look at what it means to build a life guided by wisdom, responsibility, and the courage to think independently.

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Karena welcomes her friend and co-writer of Essential Kundalini Yoga, Dharm Khalsa, for a thoughtful conversation about what modern Kundalini Yoga truly offers. Together, they explore how working with energy, breath, and awareness can support nervous system regulation, emotional healing, and a deeper connection to inner wisdom.

Dharm shares five essential practices from the book that can be integrated into daily life as a steady foundation for greater clarity, vitality, and balance. He also guides listeners through the Miracle Breath, a simple technique that calms the nervous system and supports regulation in moments of overwhelm. Drawing from ancient yogic wisdom and lived experience, they reflect on why teachings once dismissed as “woo-woo” are now being validated through science, and how simple, consistent practices can quietly transform the way we feel, think, and move through the world.

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Karena speaks to the profound collective shift so many of us are feeling right now. She explores why old systems are breaking down, why our nervous systems feel overwhelmed, and why anxiety, exhaustion, doubt, and the urge to numb out have become so common. 

Through the lens of nature, ancient yogic wisdom, and her own spiritual insight, she offers grounding tools to help us regulate and reconnect. Karena discusses the deeper rewiring happening on both personal and global levels, the importance of community, the power of early sleep and conscious breathing, and how to protect our energy when the world feels loud. If you’re sensing change but aren’t sure what it means, these insights offer steady reassurance and a reminder that you’re not moving through this transformation alone.

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