A very special and personal conversation around rituals & celebrations with my Mom - Paula Rochelle. This Season 2 teaser episode is a special release we wanted to share before the Holidays. We hope this episode inspires you to create simple, easy and personal traditions with your own family, in your very unique way.

Have a wonderful, warm, and ritualized Holiday season.

See you in 2022 for Season 2 of TRANSFORMED.

“The body just keeps talking louder and louder because it’s trying to get us to listen to a more fundamental message.” - Kimberly Ann Johnson

We're wrapping up the first season of TRANSFORMED with Kimberly Ann Johnson aka MAGAMAMA. Her book, The Fourth Trimester, should be required reading for most birthing women. Her courses guide participants to an embodied understanding of the nervous system and how this body wisdom matters for those of us pursuing a well-lived life. In this episode, Kimberly shares personal stories as well as deep wisdom, starting with her experience and knowledge of the postpartum period and taking us through parenting teenagers, big life changes, and fundamental nervous system know-how.

In this episode, Kimberly  and I discuss:

Some of Kimberly’s offerings:

“Systemic racism is attached to every aspect of our society.” - Kimberly Durdin

Allegra Hill & Kimberly Durdin are two black midwives who have embarked on the journey of starting their own birth center. In this episode, they share what called each of them to midwifery as well as what inspired them to the arduous task of starting a birth center. They help us understand the need for Black owned and operated birthing centers and the racial inequities faced by BIPOC birthing people, especially Black birthing parents and babies. Systemic racism impacts every industry. We have an open discussion about how it affects the birth world.

Today's wisdom comes from:

Kimberly Durdin IBCLC, Doula & Senior Student Midwife

Allegra Hill LM, CPM, Doula/Monitrice & IBCLC

Read all about my guests on their website.

Topics we discuss on this episode:

Episode Resources:

Episode Mentions:

Episode Credits:

Today I share a conversation about the soul journey of menopause with the remarkable Dr. Christine Downing. Christine is a powerhouse in the academic fields of mythology and religion, but also she’s a powerhouse in life! She was a beloved professor of mine during grad school and served as the chair of my dissertation committee. Dr. Downing is 88-years-old and full of vitality, wisdom, and perspective about all phases women traverse in a lifetime.

In this episode, Christine and I discuss:

“It’s scary to let go of who you’ve been. To feel like you didn’t choose to be where you are. ” - Christine Downing

More about Christine:

Christine is a core faculty member in the Mythological Studies Department at Pacifica University. She has made extensive scholarly contributions to the fields of Religious Studies, Mythology, and Gender Studies. She is Professor Emeritus in Religious Studies from San Diego State University where she taught for almost twenty years. In 1974, Dr. Downing became the president of the American Academy of Religion, making her the first woman to do so. She has also taught concurrently at the San Diego campus of the California School of Professional Psychology, and at the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich. She lectures frequently to Jungian groups both here and abroad. Christine Downing has forged a career in the academy and in the evolution of feminist thought through the unique blending of rigorous scholarly work with the personal voice of biographical writing and self reflection.

Dr. Downing is the author of numerous scholarly essays and important books in the field such as:

This episode is different. I don’t have a guest to talk with, it’s just me sharing my thoughts about racism. This episode is mostly for white folks or at least non-black people. Anyone is welcome to listen, but in this episode, I am a white woman speaking to other white people about racism. There are experts on the lived experience of being Black in the U.S. (pretty much all Black people living in the U.S.) and there are white people who specialize in talking to other white people about racism. I’m not either of these. I’m an imperfect white woman learning and growing along the messy path of becoming anti-racist and that’s exactly what I want to share with you in this episode.

“What we need to do is understand that internalized racism exists in each of us, it’s been cooked into the tissue of my being from the reality of living in a country BUILT on racism—and as a white woman, it’s my job to unpack what’s been put there while I may have been sleeping.”

Topics we cover include:

Episode Resources:

Favorite Chart of Resources for Anti-Racism Work.

Want to buy your books from Black owned bookstores? Here’s a list.

Books mentioned:

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo

Me and White Supremacy by Layla F. Saad

Movie: 

13th Streaming on Netflix

Course on race and the nervous system with Sabia Wade and Kimberly Johnson

A Lifetime in Quarantine 

Episode Credits:

Produced by Aleksa Mara

Edited by Veronica Gruba

Hosted & Created by Britta Bushnell, PHD

In this episode I speak with author and physician Dr. Lewis Mehl-Madrona about how he brings storytelling and narrative into his healing processes. A teacher in many respects, Lewis believes that telling a story (or “sharing a case-study” in doctor talk), is the most effective way to teach. 

This conversation is helpful in shifting the way you look at your life and the stories you tell yourself that not only affect your neurological and mental health, but your physical health as well. What are the biological consequences of the stories that we tell ourselves? Can we rewrite our stories to better our lives? 

“We are the swarm of stories that surround our physical body.” - Lewis Mehl-Madrona 

Topics we cover include:

Lewis currently teaches with the family medicine residency at Eastern Maine Medical Center (EMMC) in Bangor, where he does inpatient medicine, outpatient precepting, and obstetrics. He works in consultation-liaison psychiatry at EMMC and also at Acadia Hospital. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Coyote Institute for Studies of Change and Transformation. Lewis has been studying traditional healing and healers since his early days and has written about their work and the process of healing. His goal is to bring the wisdom of indigenous peoples about healing back into mainstream medicine and to transform medicine and psychology through this wisdom coupled with more European derived narrative traditions. 

Read more about Lewis Mehl-Madrona on his website. 

Episode Resources:

In this episode, you get to enjoy an intimate conversation between mother and son about living with type one diabetes. Kaden was diagnosed at the young age of 2-years-old and thanks his early diagnosis for being his greatest teacher through his 18 years of navigating life with a chronic disease.

This episode breeds empathy for all children living with disease, can be helpful for parents navigating a child with disease, and inspire anyone to hold space for their broken parts, no matter what they may be.

Kaden and I discuss:

“Some peoples vulnerabilities and insecurities are more out in the world than mine, and some are buried and hidden. Having diabetes taught me how to be open and vulnerable about my broken parts at a really early stage in life, and have compassion for others knowing for a fact that their insecurities exist, too.” - Kaden Kessel, 20 years old

More about our featured guest: 

Kaden Kessel was diagnosed with type one diabetes just before his third birthday. As long as he can remember, diabetes has been a part of his life. Kaden made a pledge to himself early in his journey that he would not let diabetes prevent him from doing anything that really mattered to him. He has followed his passions relentlessly and with purpose. He has served as a JDRF Children’s Congress Delegate speaking to congressional members about the needs of the type one community at the age of seven, spoke to diabetes medical equipment maker Medtronic, and served as Walk Youth Ambassador to the One Walk in Los Angeles. Now, at age twenty, Kaden recently finished his sophomore year at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and continues to follow his dreams while living with type one diabetes.

Kaden is passionate about foreign policy, specifically in the Middle East and is eager to work in public service with the goal to help others.

To become involved with the fight to end Type One Diabetes, or for more support while living with diabetes, visit www.jdrf.org

Episode Credits:

Produced by Aleksa Mara

Edited by Veronica Gruba

Hosted & Created by Britta Bushnell, PHD

“I can’t know the light unless I know the shadow. And, I certainly can’t know patience and compassion without also understanding resistance or even judgment. And the more that I can normalize the human experience. That’s when I can develop empathy and empathy is what will change this world.”

- Seane Corn

Seane Corn is an internationally acclaimed yoga teacher and public speaker known for her social activism, impassioned style of teaching, and raw, honest, and inspired self-expression. Her first book Revolution of the Soul was published in Fall 2019.

In this episode, Seane and I have a raw conversation about:

At the end of the episode, Seane leads us through a powerful prayer.

We’ve come a long way from when I hired her at YogaWorks 26 years ago!

More about Seane: Over her 25-year teaching career, Seane has created many instructional DVDs, including her groundbreaking series The Yoga of Awakening with Sounds True. Featured on over 40 magazine covers and countless media outlets, Seane has chosen to use her platform to bring awareness to global issues including social justice, sex trafficking, HIV/AIDS awareness, generational poverty, and animal rights. In 2005, she was named “National Yoga Ambassador” for YouthAIDS, and in 2013 received both the Global Green International Environmental Leadership Award and the Humanitarian Award by the Smithsonian Institute. Since 2007, she has been training leaders of activism through her co-founded organization Off the Mat, Into the World®. Seane also co-founded the Global Seva Challenge, which has raised over $3.5 million by activating communities of yoga and wellness in fund and awareness-raising efforts.

Episode Resources:

Off the Mat Into the World

Download a free yoga practice with Seane.

Purchase Seane Corn’s book, Revolution of the Soul.

Join Seane’s Instagram Live class: Sundays at 9:00 AM @seanecorn

Episode Credits:

Produced by Aleksa Mara

Edited by Veronica Gruba

Hosted & Created by Britta Bushnell, PHD

Loss is something that happens all the time in our lives, in various ways and to different degrees. On the third episode of TRANSFORMED, join Amy Wright Glenn and I as we sit down and have an open discussion of the parallels between birth and death; both necessary parts of life, both guaranteed to awaken us to our senses.

Podcast Guest and Bio:

Amy Wright Glenn earned her MA in Religion and Education from Teachers College, Columbia University. She taught for eleven years in The Religion and Philosophy Department at The Lawrenceville School in New Jersey earning the Dunbar Abston Jr. Chair for Teaching Excellence. Amy is a Kripalu Yoga teacher, (CD)DONA birth doula, hospital chaplain, Birthing Mama® Prenatal Yoga and  Wellness Teacher Trainer and a regular contributor to PhillyVoice wherein she writes on mindfulness, spirituality, parenting, ethics, birthing, and dying.

Amy is the founder of the Institute for the Study of Birth, Breath, and Death and the author of Birth, Breath, and Death: Meditations on Motherhood, Chaplaincy, and Life as a Doula and Holding Space: On Loving, Dying, and Letting Go.

“Being present with someone’s birth or death brings a sense of sacredness and mystery” - Amy Wright Glenn

To Connect with Amy and her work:

www.birthbreathanddeath.com

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/birthbreathanddeath/

https://www.instagram.com/amy_wright_glenn/

https://www.facebook.com/AmyWrightGlenn

https://www.facebook.com/birthbreathanddeath

Episode Resources:

Companioning Center for Loss and LIfe Transitions -- Dr. Wolfelt

Holding Space -- Heather Plett

Clinical Pastoral Education

Laura Markham -- Aha! Parenting

Donate and/or participate in Amy’s response to this global pandemic: Holding Space + COVID-19

TRANSFORMED the podcast is

Produced by Aleksa Mara

Edited by Veronica Gruba

Hosted & Created by Britta Bushnell, PHD

“You are in the wilderness when you have left who you were and there is no turning back.” - Jean Shinoda Bolen

Jean Shinoda Bolen, MD is a psychiatrist, Jungian analyst, speaker, activist and author of 13 books including Artemis: The Indomitable Spirit in Everywoman.

In this podcast, I sat down with Jean to discuss freedom of choice, breaking through society’s expectations, and the unique journey of discovering your wants and desires. Paving your own road is not a simple task. Defining your own happiness requires leaving some things that are familiar to you, behind.

More about Jean: Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D., is a psychiatrist, Jungian analyst and an internationally known author and speaker. She is a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and a Diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, a former clinical professor of psychiatry at Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute, University of California Medical Center and a past board member of the Ms. Foundation for Women, the International Transpersonal Association, and the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco. She is the author of thirteen books in over one hundred foreign editions.  She is a NGO Permanent Representative to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women from the Women’s World Summit Foundation (Geneva), also represents Pathways To Peace, The Millionth Circle, Earthchild Institute, Women’s Perspective, and the International Public Policy Institute. She is in three acclaimed documentaries: the Academy-Award winning anti-nuclear proliferation film “Women – For America, For the World,” the Canadian Film Board’s “Goddess Remembered,” and “Femme: Women Healing the World.

Episode Resources:

Goddesses in Everywoman - Powerful Archetypes in Women’s Lives by Jean Shinoda Bolen

Close to the Bone: Life-Threatening Illness as a Soul Journey by Jean Shinoda Bolen

Artemis - The Indomitable Spirit in Everywoman by Jean Shinoda Bolen

Gods in Everyman - Archetypes That Shape Men’s Lives by Jean Shinoda Bolen

Crossing to Avalon: A Woman’s Midlife Quest for Sacred Feminine by Jean Shinoda Bolen

Learn more about Dr. Bolen: https://www.jeanbolen.com/

Produced by Aleksa Mara

Edited by Veronica Gruba

Hosted & Created by Britta Bushnell, PHD