The Permission Slip

By Matt KostermanAlternative Health Health & Fitness Religion & Spirituality Education Self-Improvement Spirituality

The Permission Slip episodes

January 01S1 | E15 Janell Riedl - Pilates Instructor & Intuitive
Join me as I sit down with someone who has been a beautiful and powerful force in my healing journey — my Pilates instructor and friend, Janell Riedl.
After resisting the call of Pilates for a long time, three years ago I found Janell. She has been guiding me unwinding my twisted fascia, waking up dormant muscles, getting overactive muscles to calm down and helping me release decades of stored tension and trauma. She is not your typical Pilates instructor; Janell is also an intuitive, an energy worker, and a teacher in the truest sense — someone who learned the hard way, followed her intuition, and kept leaning into the deeper layers of her own evolution.
We talk about her path from theater major to bartender and aspiring rock star, to leaving a toxic relationship, to living with an energy intuitive in Oregon who cracked her open to her real gifts. We chat about how the body stores emotion and how shaking can reprogram the nervous system. Our talk ventures into why letting go is harder than holding on, and how intuition guides her work with clients.
We also dive into spiritual openings, core unwinding, fear conditioning, ego, and why you can’t heal a body you’re judging. This episode is a small window into the magic that happens when someone merges technical mastery with intuitive knowing.
This is a conversation about healing, trusting your path, and remembering that the journey is the point.
Special Guest: Janell Riedl.
Support The Permission Slip
Links:
Elite Integrated Pilates
1 hr 16 min
December 25, 2025S1 | E14 Dominica Fisher - Director of Meditative & Creative Exploration at Bîan
In this episode of The Permission Slip, I sit down with Dominica Fisher, Director of Meditative & Creative Exploration at BÎAN, the wellness club in Chicago where she and I originally met. Dominica and I dive into her extraordinary journey which began as the daughter to single mother who was also Polish immigrant. Our discussion runs the gamut - her early intuitive visions, to discovering meditation, shamanic journeying, and eventually mastering the mechanics of manifestation.
She & I break down what it actually means to create reality — not as a platitude, but as a lived, moment-by-moment mechanics-of-consciousness experience. Dominica shares the stories that cracked her open, the visions she tried to suppress as a child, the ways she learned to work with her intuitive abilities, and how she now teaches others to consciously create their lives.
We also get into the Bengston Method, the intensity and power of desire lists, the traps of “victim consciousness,” the importance of regulating emotional states, and what it really takes to direct your reality without bypassing your humanity.
If you’ve ever wondered how intuition, manifestation, meditation, and reality-creation really function beneath the surface, this episode is a doorway.
Special Guest: Dominica Fisher.
Support The Permission Slip
Links:
BÎAN Website
59 min
December 18, 2025S1 | E13 Jessica Brown - Author, Clinical Nutritionist, Compassion Teacher
In this episode, I sit down with Clinical Nutritionist, Author and Noetic Gield Practitioner Jessica Brown for a powerful exploration of the emotional, energetic, and spiritual roots of healing.
Jessica shares her remarkable story — from growing up between two very different parents, to experiencing depersonalization/derealization after marijuana use, to finding an energy healer who helped her rebuild her inner world. Her journey opened the door to noetic field therapy, compassionate inquiry, and the innovative work she now does at the intersection of trauma, belief systems, energy, nutrition, and chronic health conditions.
We discuss:
How childhood fragmentation becomes unconscious belief structures
What sits in one's auric field and how it influences behavior
The mechanics of noetic field therapy
Why the heart — not the mind — is what clears deep-rooted patterns
The emotional origins of food struggles
How GLP-1 medications create psychological spaciousness
How trauma echoes through the nervous system, the emotions, and the body
Why “spiritual growth” doesn’t mean bypassing human fear
Re-inhabiting the body and returning to one’s own wholeness
This is a rich, grounded conversation for anyone interested in inner work, trauma healing, consciousness, and especially the relationship between food and emotional safety.
About Jessica Brown
Jessica Brown is a Stanford-certified compassion teacher, functional medicine clinical nutritionist, and author with over 25 years of experience helping people heal physically and emotionally. With more than ten years of specialized clinical practice in self-compassion-based reparenting and mindset work, she has guided thousands toward lasting transformation.
Jessica is the author of "The Loving Diet," which pioneered mind-body approaches for autoimmune conditions, and served as visiting faculty at the Institute of Integrative Nutrition, where she helped create their Mindful Eating program. She maintains a thriving practice as a consultant to practitioners and clients nationwide and continues to influence the health community through her innovative approaches to healing.
Her work bridges the gap between medical treatment and emotional healing, offering practical tools for those ready to transform their relationship with food, body, and self from the inside out.
Learn more at www.thelovingdiet.com or www.glp1nutritionacademy.com
Book: Beyond the Shot
Inner Work for Lasting Success on Weight-Loss Medications
By Jessica Brown
About the Book
With millions turning to GLP-1 medications like Ozempic®, Wegovy®, Mounjaro®, and Zepbound™, one question looms large: What happens after the prescription?
Beyond the Shot is the first book written for patients themselves navigating life on GLP-1s. Clinical nutritionist and compassion educator Jessica Brown blends the science of GLP-1s with the psychology of eating, showing readers how to quiet food noise, stop self-sabotage, and create lasting change.
Highlights
The first book for GLP-1 users, filling a major gap in obesity care.
Blends science with psychology: medication, mindset, and self-compassion.
Case stories illustrate real transformations beyond weight loss.
Practical anchors: protein, fiber, hydration, sleep, and structure.
Supports the urgent call from the American Society for Nutrition for multidisciplinary care alongside GLP-1 therapy.
About the Author
Jessica Brown is a clinical nutritionist, author of The Loving Diet, and founder of Inner Well Press, the GLP-1 Nutrition Academy, and the Menopause Heart Project. She is a sought-after speaker and educator, known for combining warmth, practicality, and compassion in helping people transform their relationship with food and body image.
Support The Permission Slip
Links:
Jessica Brown's Instagram
Jessica Brown's GLP 1 Education Website
Jessica Brown's Primary Website
Jessica Brown's YouTube
Jessica Brown's TikTok
Jessica Brown's TikTok
50 min
December 12, 2025S1 | E12 Laura O’Malley
This is the first episode I've created that has video. You may wish to watch it to see how Laura's entire countenance changes when she channels the other beings.
Link - https://youtu.be/xo72vAcW6-k
I'm really excited about this follow-up conversation with Conscious Channel Laura O’Malley and even more excited that we got to communicate directly with the beings that have been coming through her for years with powerful information for the rapidly expanding consciousness and shifting reality we are presently experiencing. We dive straight into one of my favorite topics: Kundalini energy and what’s actually happening during spiritual awakening. My own experiences with powerful energy experiences, plant medicine, and meditation led me into this conversation — and Laura’s Guides wasted no time stepping in to speak directly.
The episode is an exploration of consciousness:
What kundalini really is
Why it releases only when the body is vibrationally ready
Why more people are experiencing spontaneous awakenings now
Why many of these openings have been misdiagnosed as breakdowns
How thoughts, vibration, and free will shape reality
How to tell the difference between ego and higher self
Why “fighting darkness” only feeds it
How to shift your vibration through attention
What Christ Consciousness actually means
How plant medicines give temporary access to higher dimensions
The nature of soul fractals and multidimensional existence
The Collective speaks bluntly about fear, news addiction, collective expansion, and why love is the only real frequency beneath it all. Their message is clear: we’re in a massive vibrational shift, and more people are waking up to their true nature while still in the body — something that used to be rare.
We also talk about embodiment practices, emotional processing, why suppressing feelings creates suffering, and the mechanics of raising your vibration intentionally (without spiritual bypassing).
This episode is raw, real, and a direct hit for anyone navigating awakening, expansion, or the feeling that the world is changing in ways they can’t ignore.
Video of the session is available on my YouTube channel - @ThePermissionSlip.
Special Guest: Laura O'Malley.
Support The Permission Slip
Links:
Laura O'Malley's Website
1 hr 33 min
November 11, 2025S1 | E11 Shweta Shyamani - Mind Body Therapist
In this episode of The Permission Slip, I sit down with Shweta Shyamani, a clinical hypnotherapist, energy intuitive, and co-leader of Rewilding Retreats for Women. Shweta shares her powerful journey from corporate success to soul-centered healing—walking away from an MBA-driven marketing career just days before 9/11 and eventually finding her calling in energy medicine and Rapid Transformational Therapy (RTT).
We talk about how unresolved emotions and energy imbalances can manifest as physical illness, why traditional talk therapy often keeps us looping in old stories, and how techniques like RTT, EFT tapping, and hypnotherapy help people access deeper layers of healing. Shweta also opens up about her mother’s decades-long illness, which became the catalyst for her path as a healer, and about her retreats that help women reconnect with their feminine essence, emotional truth, and sense of belonging.
It’s a rich, heartfelt conversation about courage, intuition, and what happens when we finally choose alignment over achievement.
Special Guest: Shweta Shyamani.
Support The Permission Slip
Links:
Shweta's Website
59 min
November 03, 2025S1 | E10 Rich Priddis - Conscious Connection and Intimacy Guide
CONTENT WARNING - in this episode there is some graphic sexual language that may be triggering.
In this intimate and eye-opening conversation, I sit down with Rich Priddis, a Conscious Connection and Intimacy Guide and long-time ISTA (International School of Temple Arts) facilitator. Rich shares his remarkable journey from a strict Mormon upbringing—steeped in sexual shame and repression—to becoming a global teacher of sacred sexuality and embodied healing. I met Rich in the summer of 2023 where he was a lead facilitator of an ISTA retreat I attended in Lake Atitlan, Guatemala. It was one of the more powerful and healing experiences I've had in my life.
We explore how early religious conditioning shaped his relationship with his body, the liberation that came through tantra, cuddle parties, and sex-positive communities, and the transformative power of consent, communication, and embodiment. Rich explains concepts like the Wheel of Consent, the Body SMART model for conscious relating, and how sexual energy can be used for healing, self-acceptance, and creative awakening. We discuss shadow work, shame release, and reclaiming authentic connection to self and others through presence, truth, and love.
Rich's website - https://www.richpriddis.com
Special Guest: Rich Priddis.
Support The Permission Slip
Links:
Rich Priddis' Website
1 hr 10 min
October 04, 2025S1 | E9 Ben Goldberger - Breathworking Psychotherapist
In this intimate and wide-ranging conversation, I sit down with licensed psychotherapist Ben Goldberger, LCSW—founder of We Are Medicine. Ben shares his personal journey from depression, disconnection, and rebellion in his 20s to finding healing through men’s work, psychotherapy, and holotropic-style breathwork.
They explore how non-ordinary states of consciousness can open pathways to integration and wholeness, what it means to reclaim personal agency in healing, and why deep breathwork can be as transformative as psychedelics—without the pharmacology.
The episode also weaves in themes of trauma release, body-based therapy, spiritual awakening, meditation, and miracles, offering listeners both inspiration and grounded tools for inner work.
** Ben's Bio **
Ben Goldberger is a breathwork facilitator and trauma-focused psychotherapist practicing in the Chicago area since 2010. He is passionate about helping others access their innate abilities to heal and change through the use of intuitive, somatic methods, combined with more conventional analytical approaches. Ben offers monthly breathwork workshops, private breathwork and a variety of talk and somatic therapy modalities meant for all ages including EMDR, Jungian-informed psychotherapy, and family therapy of all kinds.
Website: https://wearemedicine.net
Special Guest: Ben Goldberger.
Support The Permission Slip
Links:
Ben Goldberger's Website
1 hr 14 min
August 15, 2025S1 | E8 Dr. Therese Rowley - Skilled Intuitive
I had the pleasure of experiencing not one, but TWO sessions with Therese at the very start of my transformational healing journey back in 2019. I was so f-ing excited to sit down with her and talk about her work earlier this week, especially with the vocabulary and understanding I have gleaned about the nature of this work in the intervening years.
In this expansive and deeply personal conversation, I sit down and chat with Dr. Therese Rowley — skilled intuitive, author, and organizational change agent — whose life has woven together mystical experience, Fortune 500 consulting, and groundbreaking work in the realms of healing and multisensory intelligence. Therese shares her journey from a childhood immersed in Catholic mysticism to becoming a sought-after intuitive for individuals, leaders, and businesses. Along the way, she recounts her own dark night of the soul, lessons from chronic fatigue syndrome, and the path that led her to help others navigate spiritual, emotional, and energetic transformation.
We also explore Therese’s visionary reframing of neurodiversity, particularly in children, as “multisensory intelligence” — a paradigm shift that moves beyond pathology to possibility. She explains how so-called “symptoms” may actually be signs of quantum perception and untapped human potential, and how parents, educators, and society can better support these gifts. This episode is a fascinating blend of personal story, spiritual insight, and forward-thinking ideas that challenge the boundaries between mysticism, science, and education.
If you enjoy this episode, please like, subscribe, and share to help spread the word.
**Dr. Rowley's Bio
**
A visionary intuitive with over two decades of experience working with neurodiverse youth and their parents.
Therese Rowley, CEO of Accelerated Alignment and Multisensory Intelligence, is a business consultant, intuitive expert, and advocate for multisensory youth. With a PhD in Business Transformation and an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, she combines a sharp business acumen with over three decades of experience guiding corporate leaders through strategic and organizational transformations. Her consulting work includes partnering with leaders at organizations like AT&T, Kearney, Inc., and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and transforming legacy institutions, such as the YWCA-Chicago, into thriving enterprises. She has been adjunct faculty at the University of San Francisco, the University of Chicago Graham School, the Booth School’s LEAD Institute, and Northwestern University School of Continuing Studies. She founded the Conscious Business Network of Chicago in 2008 to bring together feisty, leading-edge leaders to stimulate business imagination, advancing a more conscious marketplace.
A skilled intuitive with a focus on transformation, Dr. Rowley has conducted over 12,000 intuitive readings and healings, supporting leaders and others to balance and align their inner and outer worlds. She teaches clients to access and trust their intuition through courses, webinars, and articles, as well as through her book, Mapping a New Reality: Discovering Intuitive Intelligence.
Dr. Rowley also brings expertise in neurodiversity, supporting parents of gifted and intuitive children through intuitive guidance and advocacy. She has long recognized that youth diagnosed as neurodiverse are uncommonly gifted. Her work gives voice to the child’s inner world, offering their parents a deeper understanding of their child’s purpose as well as practical strategies to help families appreciate, communicate with, and support them more effectively. As Executive Producer of The Misdiagnosis of Gifted Children, she sheds light on how gifted children are often misdiagnosed and medicated because the behaviors of profoundly gifted youth and the behaviors defined as ‘neurodiverse” are often identical.
Parent Community Website: The Wonder Children: Transforming the Neurodiverse Experience -http://multisensoryintelligence.ai/
Facebook: The Wonder Children - https://www.facebook.com/groups/thewonderchildren
Intuitive Business Website: Accelerated Alignment - https://thereserowley.com
Facebook: Dr. Rowley's Conscious Business Network - https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100066454075257
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thereserowleyphd/
Support The Permission Slip
Links:
Parent Community Website: The Wonder Children: Transforming the Neurodiverse Experience
Facebook: The Wonder Children
Intuitive Business Website: Accelerated Alignment
Facebook: Dr. Rowley's Conscious Business Network
There's LinkedIn
1 hr 22 min
August 06, 2025S1 | E7 Lizzi Cutler - Intuitive
In this episode, I reconnect with Lizzi Cutler, an intuitive and transformational energy worker who once guided me through a powerful healing process that helped clear energetic blocks around abundance—blocks I didn’t even uncover during years of therapy or plant medicine journeys. Lizzi shares her story of growing up in suburban Chicago, always feeling like an outsider and spiritually aware from a young age. Her path led her through yoga, meditation, and eventually discovering her unique intuitive gifts, which she now uses to help clients identify and clear deeply embedded energetic patterns.
Lizzi describes her work as communicating soul-to-soul, often receiving playful, grounded messages in her own language. Her approach is part energetic scanning, part intuitive guidance, and part energetic “cleaning lady,” as she calls it—helping people release energetic blockages that manifest as chronic scarcity, emotional pain, or confusion. We discuss the importance of listening to the body for intuitive yes/no responses, the trap of trying to manifest from a place of resistance, and the need for more play in our adult lives. Lizzi’s clients range from spiritual seekers to medical professionals, all seeking clarity, healing, and permission to live in alignment with their higher selves.
Lizzi's Bio
Lizzi Cutler is a transformational coach with a proven track record of helping high achievers and individuals seeking deeper personal growth overcome stress, remove emotional and energetic blockages, and elevate both their personal and professional lives. Known for delivering lasting results, Lizzi uses a variety of techniques, including energy work, guided visualization, and emotional clearing, to empower her clients to release tension, realign their focus, and unlock their full potential. Her approach is infused with hope and optimism, creating an environment where clients can break through limitations and see new possibilities. Whether you're aiming for peak performance or seeking balance in your everyday life, Lizzi’s holistic, results-driven methods offer a path to breakthrough achievements, renewed confidence, and sustained success. Her mission is to equip high performers with the tools for self-awareness, balance, and long-term personal and professional growth, while fostering a sense of hope for a brighter future.
https://lizzicutler.com
IG: https://www.instagram.com/lizzicutler/
Support The Permission Slip
Links:
Lizzi Cutler's Website
1 hr 14 min
July 11, 2025S1 | E6 Laura O'Malley
It turns out I had two connections to Laura (at least that I know of) in the 3D. We were first introduced in the summer of 2022. I had my first intuitive reading with her in September of that year. Laura is an absolute gem of a human - probably the happiest person you will ever meet. She and the guidance she brings through from beyond the veil has been absolutely instrumental in keeping me grounded and assisting in my integration of several very powerful psychedelic experiences.
Laura is a former schoolteacher who followed the call of her soul into the realm of conscious channeling and intuitive healing. In this installment of The Permission Slip Laura shares the raw, beautiful story of her awakening—how she moved from burnout and people-pleasing into alignment with her deepest truth. Her journey is one of radical trust: leaving the known, shedding the "good girl" identity, and allowing a completely different kind of intelligence to lead.
We talk about what it means to receive guidance from beyond the veil, how to discern divine truth from fear, and why so many of us are being called to live and lead in new ways. Laura shares how the channeling process works for her, how she holds space for others in their own expansion, and why accessing your multidimensional self doesn’t require escaping the human experience—it deepens it. This episode is an invitation to step into your own intuitive power, remember who you really are, and allow the unseen world to guide the seen.
Laura's Bio
An elementary school teacher, a nanny, an energy healer and a happiness coach! Laura navigates this world in an attempt to help, to heal, and to guide us to MORE- more happiness, more self love, more confidence, more success, more self-awareness, more understanding of the truth of your power here!
She began her career as an elementary school teacher, has her MA in Curriculum and Instruction, and worked with preschool - 8th graders. With the help of her husband, she has passionately survived guiding her four boys into adulthood! Her spiritual journey began in the fall of 2014 when she found herself living the picture perfect life, but never feeling worse. “I was sad, depressed, feeling utterly hopeless, not to mention completely stressed out, and I truly had no idea why.” She had been experiencing severe physical dizziness and had spent over a year searching for answers within the medical community. The cause was never determined. It was in her surrender that Divine intervention provided a book suggesting meditation, and she fell onto this path hard and fast overcome by a sense of peace.
Continuing this journey, she became a Level III Reiki Master, and found the connection to her inner-voice. She began to really listen, not with her ears but with her her whole self, and what followed was PEACE, CLARITY and understanding of her purpose. Guidance came through loud and clear as she began communicating with her spirit guides (we ALL have them!) and then with other aspects of Source Energy (the nonphysical realm).
Laura is a teacher, a coach, and a source of information for anyone searching for truth and happiness. She loves what she does, and believes this path will lead anyone to what they truly desire, which is HAPPINESS! She connects and COMMUNICATES with Source Energy daily, and uses this connection to teach, inspire and help others understand their own connection. Laura works with individuals and groups, channeling instruction on the Law of Attraction, the Importance of Self Love, Stepping into Your POWER, and understanding the connection you have and the guidance you are receiving RIGHT NOW with and from the nonphysical realm, and how this impacts your happiness.
She is grateful for every experience, every connection she makes with the individuals who seek her guidance. And she knows that each connection is intentional for her learning, as well. She is committed to bringing enlightenment to all those who find her and help each discover his or her own path to peace, love, joy, and the truth of this existence.
Website https://www.getintothelight.com
Instagram @get.into.the.light
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@lauraomalley-inthelight9321
Special Guest: Laura O'Malley.
Support The Permission Slip
Links:
Laura O'Malley's Website
1 hr 30 min

About The Permission Slip

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I love everything to do with consciousness - personal growth books, meditation, psychedelics, bodywork, Tantric retreats, chakras, Human Design, channeled works, you name it! For the past fifteen…

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The Permission Slip

The Permission Slip episodes

About The Permission Slip