When it comes to “getting to know ourselves,” we talk about mindfulness, creativity, career… basically everything except sex. But as Dr. Juliana Hauser argues, sexuality might be the most direct doorway into who we really are. In this episode, she takes us past the performance of “being sexy” into the raw territory of authenticity, agency, and connection.

Dr. Juliana has spent over two decades helping people claim their own sexual agency. She’s a counselor and family therapist with a PhD in Counseling Education, a TEDx speaker on agency, and creator of the Revealed course on holistic sexuality. Her work shows up in therapy rooms, media outlets, and classrooms… and as of today (🥳) in her brand new book: A New Position on Sex: A Guide to Greater Sexual Confidence, Pleasure, and Authenticity

In this Episode, We talk about:

* Why so many of us are trapped in “performative sexy” mode

* How to tell the difference between a “yuck” and a “yum” in your body

* How sexuality is central to self-awareness, agency, and connection

* How shame and culture block authentic sexual expression and what it takes to unlearn them

The adventure

Dr. Juliana guides us through a simple touch practice: four different kinds of touch on your own forearm. With each one, notice: does your body say yuck or yum? It’s a playful way to start tuning in to your own signals of agency and authenticity.

We make this show with love, lols, and sweat. If it lights you up, help us keep it going with a paid subscription!

Talking about sex can feel taboo, but Dr. Juliana makes it curious, light, and doable. This episode is an invitation to stop performing, start listening, and discover that your body already knows more than you think.

Let us know in the comments how this practice goes :)

Thanks for practicing with us,

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️

Dr Juliana’s Links

* The Nine Pillars: dr-juliana.com/holistic-sexuality/

* Revealed Course: therevealedlife.com

* Book: A New Position on Sex

* Personal Website: dr-juliana.com

What’s the biggest mistake you’ve made as a creative? Chelene Knight answers without hesitation: “I think the biggest mistake was just not being me.”

This week, we sit down with acclaimed poet, novelist, memoirist, and Tasha’s own writing mentor, Chelene Knight, to talk about what it means to build a creative life. Not the tidy, “professionalized” version, but the messy, alive, human one that actually feels good.

Chelene’s most recent book, Safekeeping: A Writer's Guided Journal for Launching a Book with Love, is part guided journal, part treasure map through the writing life. It also, as she puts it, “contains all of my mistakes as a writer and all the things that I’ve learned.” Listening to her is like being handed a permission slip to go slower, trust yourself, reread the same book forever, throw out the pressure to finish, snack on a single poem and call it a meal.

We talk about:

* Why “there is no reading, only rereading”

* The mistake of ignoring your instincts and how to recover.

* Poetry as the foundation for all writing.

* What happens when writers trust the reader enough to leave space.

* How slowing down turns reading into a kind of prayer.

The adventure

Chelene guides us through two delicious reading practices: one with Julia Bouwsma’s Dear Ghosts, I Pick the List, and another from Patricia Smith’s Blood Dazzler. They’re haunting and beautiful.

The exercise is simple but radical: Hear a poem once, notice the phrase that hooks you, then hear it again. The second time through, the text has changed… and so have you.

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We make this show with love, laughter, and absolutely no corporate overlords. If it lights you up, help us keep it going with a paid subscription!

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What stayed with us most from this practice is how a poem can feel like a hurricane one moment and a whisper the next, depending on how you let it in.

Reading, in Chelene’s hands, is more than consumption. It’s a meditation, a prayer, a slow fire that lights us from within.

Let us know in the comments how this practice goes :)

Thanks for practicing with us,

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️

Chelene’s Links:

* The Say No with Love Letters

* Safekeeping: A Writer's Guided Journal for Launching a Book with Love

* Cheleneknight.com

This is an exciting one, friends!

Stephen Porges is the visionary scientist who gave us polyvagal theory—a framework that’s reshaped how the world understands trauma, safety, and human connection. His work has influenced everyone from therapists to meditation teachers to parents trying to soothe a colicky baby. And now he’s here with us, alongside his brilliant co-author Karen Onderko, to talk about their new book and the Safe and Sound Protocol.

This episode is part science, part storytelling, and part live experiment.

In this conversation, we talk about:

* The origins of polyvagal theory and why it changed the trauma world forever

* How the Safe and Sound Protocol helps bodies shift out of defense and into connection

* Wild stories of teens, adults, and even toddlers in a sound cube discovering safety for the first time

* Why “safety” can sometimes feel scary (and what to do about it)

* The nervous system’s three favorite things: context, choice, and connection

And then, because we’re all about real-time practice over here, Jeff guides Stephen and Karen in a short meditation. Afterwards, Stephen deconstructs it through a polyvagal lens, showing us how context, choice, and connection are the nervous system’s love language.

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We make this show with love, laughter, and absolutely no corporate overlords. If it lights you up, help us keep it going with a paid subscription!

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This is one of those conversations we’ll be talking about for a long time. It’s science, but it’s also about how to be human together. How to tune our bodies toward safety and open the doors to connection.

✨ Know someone who’s been geeking out on the nervous system, or just trying to figure out how to feel safe in their own skin? Share this episode with them!

Thanks for practicing with us,

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️

Links

* Stephen Porges

* Karen Onderko @ The Polyvagal Institute

* Book: Safe and Sound: A Polyvagal Approach for Connection, Change, and Healing

This week on the Pod, we’re joined by the luminous Sherri Mitchell: Indigenous rights attorney, activist, ceremonial leader, and the author of Sacred Instructions.

We dive into the birth canal of this moment — a world in transition, contracting and expanding as it labors to bring something new into being. Sherri doesn’t shy away from the pain, confusion, or cultural clusterf*ck of our times and she also doesn’t wallow. Instead, she offers radical clarity, vision, and a deeply embodied path forward.

Together, we explore:

* What it means to live through a species-wide rite of passage* The vibrational power of oral traditions and why sound is sacred science* Why “triggered” might just be the most misused word of our generation* How to move beyond naming the water we’re drowning in, and start swimming toward land* The 80/10/10 rule for building the world we actually want

And then Sherri guides us in a practice of remembering, of dreaming the world we want into being, and dreaming ourselves into the kind of people who can live there.

As Jeff put it: “You can dream a better world. But you have to dream yourself into it too.”

This conversation is a balm, a fire, and a wake-up call. If you’ve been overwhelmed, heartbroken, or teetering on the edge of despair, listen in. It’s about metabolizing this moment into wisdom, vision, and action.

We make this show with love, laughter, and absolutely no corporate overlords. If it lights you up, help us keep it going with a paid subscription at mindbodpod.com

Know someone who’s been thinking hard about how to show up in these strange times? Share this with them too!

Thanks for practicing with us,

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️

This week on the pod, we’re joined by writer and teacher Sarah Selecky for a beautiful, funny, and surprisingly deep exploration of writing as a contemplative practice.

Sarah teaches writing as presence. As a way of being and noticing. She helps writers get out of their own way so that something real and alive can come through the page (or the google doc 😅).

Together, we explore:

* the overlap between writing and meditation

* how honesty transmits (and why you can feel when a writer is lying)

* the difference between trying to write and being a clear channel

* creative shadow work and what we’re most afraid to say

* the value of plain, unadorned description

She guides us through three simple exercises that can unlock creative flow.

By the end, we were lol’ing, moved, and filled with the kind of wonder that has no agenda. Just a pen, a page, and the shimmer of real presence.

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We make this show with love, laughter, and absolutely no corporate overlords. If it lights you up, help us keep it going with a paid subscription.

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This is a great episode to write along with! Grab a notebook and come join us.You can also watch the full video over at MindBodPod.com.

Know someone who could use these exercises to shake some creative goodies loose? Pass it along!

Thanks for practicing with us,

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️

This week on the pod, we’re joined by Chan teacher and sociologist Rebecca Li for a luminous practice session in Silent Illumination, a deceptively simple, deeply transformative form of open awareness meditation.

Rebecca guides us through a full-body relaxation and easefully invites us into the “method of no method,” offering a living glimpse into this subtle and powerful practice. As we settle into presence together, she shares insights from her lineage, her own experience, and her new book Illumination.

We talk about:

* Why relaxation isn’t the goal, but the doorway

* How even trying not to try can become a subtle trap

* What happens when presence meets real-life loss and grief

* The radical possibility of not fixing anything, just being

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We make this show with love, laughter, and absolutely no corporate overlords. If it lights you up, help us keep it going with a paid subscription!

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This one is full of practical wisdom, unexpected laughter, and real-life Dharma. Whether you’re new to open awareness or have been sitting for decades, Rebecca’s gentle clarity and precision will meet you right where you are. 🫠

Pop into the comments to share your reflections: Did the “method of no method” shift anything? Did it feel natural? Impossible? Familiar?

Thanks for practicing with us! See you next week.

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️

This week, we’re in conversation with therapist and longtime Focusing teacher Serge Prengel about the transformative power of slowing down and listening from the body.

Serge is one of those rare people who seem to live from a deeper layer of presence. His work blends Focusing, Somatic Experiencing, Core Energetics, and Polyvagal Theory to support real, embodied change.

What stood out for us was how relational this practice is. It brought us into a slower, softer place of deep listening, where we could fully meet each other’s nervous systems.

We explore:

* What Focusing actually is (and isn’t)

* How to feel into what’s “not fully formed yet”

* The role of safety and vulnerability in a therapeutic or relational container

* Why this is a two-way street: the listener is as active as the talker

* How to turn everyday conversations into profound practices of connection

We also talk about what it means to be in right relationship: with yourself, with others, and with the felt sense of a moment that’s still unfolding.

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Wanna watch this as a video pod? Check us out at www.mindbodpod.com

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* Learn more about Serge and his work

* Check out the Active Pause Podcast

* Explore the Proactive Twelve Steps

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This one’s relational, tender, and surprisingly intimate. Drop in and tell us what moved in you:

Thanks for tuning in. Love always,

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️

This week on the Mind Bod Adventure Pod, we get our somatic groove on with tapping wizard and trauma therapist Mirjam Paninski. Miriam guides us into the world of Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)—a deceptively simple practice where tapping acupressure points while speaking truth can open up big shifts in the body, mind, and heart.

It’s part therapy, part ritual, part emotional plumbing.

In this episode, we explore:

* Why EFT is becoming a popular trauma modality (and how it stacks up to EMDR)

* How tapping calms the nervous system and gives stored emotion somewhere to go

* Ancestral trauma (your body might be carrying Grandma’s fears!)

* What happens when you stop bracing and start releasing

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We make this show with love, laughter, and absolutely no corporate overlords. If it lights you up, help us keep it going with a paid subscription!

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Also: find out why EFT works so well with kids, how it can be used in war zones and post-shooting trauma support, and why tapping might be the pre-meditation dimmer switch you didn’t know you needed.

🎯 Practice highlight: Miriam guides us through a powerful tapping sequence that opens into inner child healing. The result is some surprising nervous system release in real time (spoiler: Tasha’s jaw melts, Jeff yawns like a lion).

Check out Mirjam’s Group Work: The Conscious Tapping Tribe- For $100 off 6-month membership: use code MINDBOD100- For 20% off yearly membership: use code MINDBOD20

This one’s playful, poignant, and weirdly effective. Tap along with us and let us know how it lands in your nervous system!

Thanks for tuning in. Love always,

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️