The Mind Bod Adventure Pod (Jeff Warren & Tasha Schumann)

Today’s episode we’re joined by Buddhist minister and social activist Lama Rod Owens, author of Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation through Anger. Our subject is anger, something Lama Rod once had to suppress in order to survive as “a Black queer body in America.” He writes: “My fear of death and policing has translated into a self-policing of my anger, to such an extent that if it weren’t for my meditation practice, I wouldn’t know how to find my anger.”

How do we work with the energies of anger in this intense cultural moment? Do we need our anger to keep us motivated in the face of injustice and oppression? For Lama Rod, anger can start us off, but only love will sustain the work. This is the basis of his guided meditation – we connect to love and care as a way to hold both our anger and the “broken-heartedness” that’s often found underneath. A deep practice and a very raw conversation with one of the leaders of the next generation of dharma teachers.

Lama Rod’s 15 minute guided practice on care and anger starts at 11:50 and ends at 27:26.

Links
• Lama Rod’s website: https://www.lamarod.com 

Today we meet Erik Davis, award-winning journalist and author, most recently, of High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies.

Erik guides us in an imagination-based open awareness practice that for him is about cultivating a very specific kind of watchful attention. This turns out to be the perfect setup to discuss one of Erik’s specialities: the defiantly unclassifiable weirdness of psychedelic experience.

We explore the ins and outs of the current psychedelic revival, the heretical nature of psychedelics as “practice,” even the possibility of the Buddha himself being a psychonaut. Can we scale-up psychedelic use for the mainstream? Do we even want to? And down we go, into a highly entertaining rabbit hole.

Erik’s immersive 16 minute practice begins at 8:36 and ends at 24:20. 

Links:
• Erik’s website: https://techgnosis.com
• Erik’s substack
• High Weirdness Book
• Psychedelic Sangha: https://psychedelicsangha.org
• Erik’s Guided Psychedelic Meditation Music Album Experience

Meet meditation teacher Willa Blythe Baker. Willa is an authorized Lama in the Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism, and author of our new favorite book: The Wakeful Body: Somatic Mindfulness as a Path to Freedom.

She guides us in a practice called GROUND – an acronym that describes progressively more subtle and expansive "layers" of somatic experience. We drop from the physical body, to the subtle body, and finally into the causal or nondual “body” of awareness itself. 

For Willa, the whole process is about “waking down” – in her words, “metabolizing, not transcending.” We also explore how to work with trauma in our body, and what it means to genuinely “befriend” our experience. 

Willa’s 15 minute GROUND practice starts at 7:57 and ends at 23:12. 

Links:
• Willa’s book: https://www.shambhala.com/the-wakeful-body.html 

Today our explorer-in-residence is Tracee Stanley, a longtime student and teacher of Yoga and Tantra, and author of Radiant Rest: Yoga Nidra for Deep Relaxation and Awakened Clarity. We’ve explored rest before on this pod, but not quite like this! When we sit and attempt to let go, what gets in the way? What messages about safety and worthiness are hiding in our nervous system?

For Tracee, rest is about sanity, empowerment, and resistance. Resistance to our own self judgements and the pressures of dominant culture. We talk about all of this from a place of rest. 

To prepare for this week's practice, prep a space where you can get cozy. There is also a short journaling practice, so have a notebook and pen on hand.

Tracee’s 20 minute deep rest practice begins at 4:03 and ends at 24:03 with lots of juicy, insightful discussion after!

Just an extra note: our ambition with the “Mind Bod Adventure Pod,” as Tasha calls it, is to become part of your daily or weekly practice regimen. It is a place to explore a broad understanding of practice – from quieter meditation and movement practices, to more engaged life and work and communication practices. To do this in real-time, together. And then, after, we talk honestly about our own experience, as a way to help you get clearer about yours. In this way, we both connect to helpful practice resources, and we develop more confidence around being our own teachers and mental authorities.

The other part of this is exploring what kind of conversation emerges after we do a practice – when we're still influenced by the practice itself, when it is still in our nervous systems, as it were. That’s one reason it's important to actually do the practices. They help us see what else might be important. They can change the way we live and relate and listen and communicate.

So let’s party! And by "party," we mean close our eyes and do practically nothing.

Links:
• Tracee’s website: www.traceeyoga.com
• Tracee’s Deep Relaxation Course on Commune
• Tracee’s Yoga Nidra Training

If you live in the US or Canada, you may have noticed a movement to acknowledge local indigenous groups who've historically lived in a particular territory. For example, Tasha and I live in Toronto, Ontario, which is also where our nonprofit meditation community group –  The Consciousness Explorers Club or "CEC" – operates. These days, at the beginning of every CEC retreats and meditation sits, even our virtual events, we say some version of "The CEC operates on the traditional territory of the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca, and the Mississaugas of the Credit, and is covered by Treaty 13." We say this as a way to situate us in an actual physical place. And we say it because we support the movement of truth, justice and reconciliation for Indigenous peoples in this country. It's been too long in coming.

In today's episode, we explore the inner practice of territory and ancestor acknowledgement. 

Our guide, Warren Hooley, comes from a mixed indigenous and western background. He lives in the Syilx (Okanagan) Territory in Penticton, British Columbia, where he runs workshops on Facilitation, Indigenous Allyship, and Compassionate Communication. He also teaches at the Consciousness Explorers Club. Warren has really wrestled with this question of why territory acknowledgment matters, and how to engage with it in a way that is real and meaningful for the practitioner. 

His beautiful guided practice is really a ceremony, complete with drum and singing. It has three parts: an acknowledgment of local indigenous groups, an exploration of our own ancestral roots, and finally connecting in a personal way with our own local landscape.

Warren’s 21-minute practice starts at 7:00 and ends at 28:00.

Links:
• Warren’s bio: http://cecmeditate.com/faculty/warren-hooley/

Today we’re joined by Jeff’s good friend Therese Jornlin, teacher of meditation, yoga, and qi gong. Much happens in this episode! Therese re-introduces us to our breath as both medicine and guide. We learn how the specific way each of us breathes reflects our particular mental patterns and habits. The breath can show us where we’re stuck, and it can show us how to find a way through. 

This is really an exploration of the wisdom of cycles: the inhale and the exhale, the up and the down, even life and death. We learn how Therese helped Jeff manage his bipolar symptoms, and how an appreciation for nature’s cycles can help all of us better manage life’s highs and lows.

There are actually two practices in today’s episode, one long and one short. Therese’s primary 17 minute practice begins at 6:03 and ends at 23:37. Her shorter two minute “whisper breath” practice begins at 47:11 and ends at 49:27.

Links:
• Therese’s website
• Therese's TED Talk: Reclaiming the Wisdom of Female Intelligence
• Therese's courses

Today we’re joined by Stanford psychiatry professor Dr. David Spiegel, an expert in the clinical use of hypnosis. David is co-author, along with his late father Herbert Spiegel, of Trance and Treatment, a classic work on hypnosis published by the American Psychiatric Association. And therein lies a story … almost 20 years ago, Jeff interviewed David’s 92-year old father Herbert Spiegel. Not just interviewed – Dr Spiegel managed to hypnotize Jeff, demonstrating to him first-hand the strange persuasive power of this mind-body intervention.

Now listeners can get their own taste. David’s first practice is a guided hypnosis session – essentially, he tries to hypnotize you. Then, depending on your suggestibility, he offers a specific therapeutic strategy for working with anxiety. David’s second short guided practice is an exploration of our innate hypnotic capacity. Hilarity ensues, as Jeff and Tasha observe their own dissociated arms tingle and float.

Our conversation explores the nature and neurobiology of hypnosis, how it is different from meditation, and the under-appreciated potential of hypnosis to help with all kinds of health conditions, from addiction to chronic pain to anxiety. As David says, “all hypnosis is self-hypnosis.” This is a safe, internally-directed healing modality that ultimately does not depend on experts, or medication, or anything except a willingness to open yourself to experience.

The first 10-minute hypnosis session begins at 8:05 and finishes at 17:51. The second eye-roll / arm floating test begins at 25:05 and finishes at 31:00.

To use the Eye Roll Test to figure out your own innate hypnotic capacity, check out this illustration from Jeff’s book, The Head Trip.

Links

• David’s Self-Hypnosis App, “Reveri”: https://www.reveri.com 
• His Stanford Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences webpage: https://profiles.stanford.edu/david-spiegel
• David's clinician page: https://stanfordhealthcare.org/doctors/s/david-spiegel.html
• David and his father Herbert Spiegel's classic book: Trance and Treatment: Clinical Uses of Hypnosis: www.appi.org/Products/Psychotherapy/Trance-and-Treatment-Second-Edition
• The Eye Roll Test: https://jeffwarren.org/everythingelse/illustrations/the-spiegel-eye-roll/

Today we’re joined by Dr Baron Short, an Interventional Psychiatrist at the Medical University of South Carolina, and co-founder of Zendo, an electronic device that purports to enhance both the experience and the long-term benefits of meditation.

How might a direct current of electricity to the brain affect our meditation? This is not a hypothetical question. All three of us – two hosts and one guide – wire up, select the highest possible setting, and ride out the hum. Tasha and Baron go to Bliss-land. Jeff goes... somewhere else!

Baron’s guidance is lovely and supportive and useful for everyone  – you do not need electronic pads to get something out of this meditation. In fact, his 14-minute practice is a kind of guided tour of meditative landmarks many of us experience, from “the body drop” to the “stickiness of thoughts” and more.

After the practice, we get into an animated discussion about the pros and cons of technologically-enhanced meditation. Do we need it? Why or why not? Have we always been enhanced, and what might a more enhanced evolutionary future look like? Much ensues from the Zendo tingle!

To go straight to Baron’s 14-minute guided meditation, it begins at 14:00 and ends at 28:00.

Links

• Zendo website: ​​https://zendomeditation.com
• Dr Short’s clinician page at the Medical University of South Carolina: https://providers.muschealth.org/sc/mount-pleasant/edward-baron-short-md-mscr

Today we’re joined by the UK-based Valerie Mason-John, also known as  Vimalasara, a leader in the field of mindfulness for addiction and trauma.

This episode is about the ways we get disconnected from our bodies and our lives, and the role self-compassion can play in bringing us home. We explore this in the context of our addictions – even addictions we don’t realize are addictions, like, in Vimalasara’s words, “stinking thinking” and technology. And we explore it in the context of contemporary challenges like coronavirus, and the institutional racism and violence directed to Black bodies.

For Vimalasara, the medicine is self-compassion – delivered with fierceness and strength. She guides us into a 16-minute meditation she calls the “five basic needs of the heart.” And then at the end of our time together, she guides a sobering inquiry into what she calls the “five questions of the shaman.” One of them – “when did you stop dancing?” – kind of drops a bomb into your brain!

To go straight to the “five basic needs of the heart” practice, it begins at 3:35 and ends at 19:33.

Links
• Valerie’s website, where you can also find all our resources on recovery and addiction https://www.valeriemason-john.com

Meet psychotherapist and Feldenkrais teacher Donna Ray. In this episode, she makes us move! Ok, more like she makes us sit in chairs and roll our eyes and turn our heads a bit and suddenly everything feels better. Welcome to the subtle art of micro-movement. Donna shows us how small physical adjustments in the way we hold ourselves can change both our experience and our body’s overall functioning. She’s a true adept – Donna has been teaching this method for over 40 years, ever since Moshe Feldenkrais first brought his system to North America.

Like much of what we explore at CEP, the radical nature of Feldenkrais is hard to capture in words. Not a problem – your body doesn’t need words, it learns for itself by doing, and, in the doing, awareness expands. This is about repatterning the nervous system so that all parts can function in a more vital and free and integrated way. Ultimately it’s an exploration of pleasure as the basis for how to live inside our bodies. Thus we end our conversation with a few PG remarks on Tantric sex, and call it a day. 

Donna’s 16 minute Feldenkrais practice begins at 9:02 and ends at 25:20.

Links:

• Donna’s website: http://donnaray.com
• The main resource for Feldenkrais: https://feldenkrais.com/

Today’s episode: Peter Russell. Peter started out as a theoretical physicist, a student of Stephen Hawking’s, until sometime in the early 70s he made his way to India and had his brain blown open. He became one of the West’s early proponents of meditation, and in the 80s wrote several seminal books on consciousness and technology. He’s had a big influence on the culture of meditation in general and on Jeff in particular – Jeff tells the story of meeting Peter in San Francisco back in 2008 and afterwards getting “let go” tattooed on his forearm.

Appropriate then, that Peter’s new book is called Letting Go of Nothing. What does “letting go” actually mean, and why do so many meditation teachers go on about it? We explore this in real-time, as Peter guides us in a wonderfully simple and accessible “effortless meditation” practice. Afterwards, very relaxed, we lazily discuss whether all this effortlessness is really just cheating and won’t actually get us anywhere. “Thinking you need to get somewhere is exactly the problem!” says Peter, or something like that. And on we go, a deep dive into the ordinary perfection that is already right here. This is good medicine.

Peter’s 12 minute effortless meditation practice begins at 7:55 and ends at 19:58.

Apologies for the rustles and muffles – sound improves after the first ten minutes.

Links:

• Peter’s Website
• Peter's Book: Letting Go of Nothing 
• Peter's Youtube Channel

Today we hang out with the incomparable Tatianna Morales – aka @tatiannatarot – a Brooklyn-born spiritualist, priestess, and Tarot diviner! Together, we plunge into the imagination, learning how the age-old tradition of reading Tarot cards can give us insight into our personalities and our life situations. 

It turns out we’re meeting Tatianna at the very moment her own relationship to Tarot is changing. And not only hers: there’s a revolution happening out in the culture – artists and enthusiasts are creating their own tarot decks, imagining new archetypes to better reflect the realities of 21st century life. As we discuss, this is one way that culture and consciousness change and evolve.

So how do we give listeners their own personal Tarot reading? Tatianna starts by asking listeners to think of a question or theme they want to explore. Then all of us – Jeff and Tasha too – choose a number between one and three. Tatianna pulls a card for each number and does a reading for each. Listen closely to the reading for the number you choose! All the readings are fascinating, as examples of how Tarot works and the kinds of dynamics they help us explore.

Much goodness here and a wonderful animated discussion afterwards. Enjoy!

Practice begins at 8:52 with Tatianna’s readings from 10:30-19:36; Jeff and Tasha get a personal reading from 20:17 – 32:38, and finally our general discussion begins at 32:38.

 

Links:
- Tatianna’s website: https://www.tatiannatarot.com
- Tatianna’s instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tatiannatarot/ 

Meet Shinzen Young, a long-time instructor of mindfulness, author of The Science of Enlightenment, and now co-director of the “Science Enhanced Mindful Awareness” or “SEMA” Lab at the University of Arizona. Shinzen is Jeff’s OG meditation teacher. He is both a scholar of comparative mysticism, and a highly creative designer of strange and beautiful (and practical) meditation techniques.

In this episode, instead of trying to banish thoughts, we drop into a "global unfixated state," and allow creative images and words and associations to spontaneously unfold. Both Shinzen’s exposition and his guided practice are quite precise – so much so that Tasha kind of bristles against them, which makes for a lively discussion afterwards. But if you’re patient, and able to trust what Shinzen is pointing to, it can lead to genuine insight. Thinking can shift from something rigid and constrained, to something more free-flowing and intuitive and even wise.

This matters. For Shinzen, the best of humanity comes through via our creativity and intuition. In his words, we can train ourselves to “let nature take over.” Shinzen himself demonstrates this at the end, when he comes apart during an emotional discussion of Japanese Noh theater. Much good stuff on the “deep mind,” subconscious processing, and the better angels of our nature.

So: here we go … like “seaweed in a tide poodle”!

Links:

• Shinzen’s website: https://www.shinzen.org/
• His YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/expandcontract
• His original “Science of Enlightenment” audio series from the 90s. In Jeff’s opinion, this series – NOT his more recent book of the same title – is one of the smartest things ever created on the subject of meditation.
• Shinzen’s “Unified Mindfulness” training program: https://unifiedmindfulness.com/
• His “Science Enhanced Mindful Awareness” Sema Lab at the University of Arizona: https://semalab.arizona.edu/

Today we’re joined by Rima Dib, a good friend of Tasha and Jeff’s who also happens to be an expert in unconscious bias and anti-oppression education. Rima teaches workshops about difference – race, age, gender, sexual preference, ability – to people around the planet. She makes it fun. Is this possible? Yes, it turns out. We laughed our asses off. In Rima’s words, “If it gets too heavy, we’re gonna want to put it down. By keeping it light, we can carry it longer.”

Fun doesn’t necessarily mean comfortable. Her acting and word association practices are very revealing. We go with our first flash or gesture, before we have time to edit our responses for popular consumption. Gulp. Thus Jeff squirms in his seat as various juvenile biases are uncovered. Fortunately, we also learn how our unconscious biases are NOT the same as our chosen values. So there's a lot of healthy normalization here. For Rima, everyone has biases; healing and change begin by bringing them into our awareness.

Our conversation is very lively! We explore everything from “cancel culture” to Mr Clean to educating your kids about bias and dealing with racist babies. This is good medicine my friends. Thank you Rima, we love you.

The first practice of identifying our embodied biases begins at 10:50 and ends at 19:25. The second practice, where we visit “the attic of our imaginations,” begins at 32:53 and ends at 37:56.

Links
• Rima Dib’s "Harmony at Work" website: https://harmonyatwork.ca/team/rima/
• The Harvard Implicit Bias Test: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html

In today’s episode, we’re joined by author and embodiment expert Philip Shepherd. Philip is also an actor, and thus a wonderfully entertaining tour guide. He takes us into the body’s “grounded sensitivity” – really the perfect phrase for it, a place both of exquisite intelligence and dependable common sense. Under Philip’s careful guidance, we explore how to move past the mind’s imaginary constraints, softening and merging with the world around us.

It’s an ambitious itinerary with many practical take-aways. Come feel reality beyond the head!

To go straight to Philip’s grounded sensitivity practice, it begins at 3:59 and ends at 18:03.

Links:
• Philip’s website: https://embodiedpresent.com/
• Philip’s online courses: https://embodiedpresent.com/experience/online-learning/

Our guest today is Angelo DiLullo, a medical doctor and author of a fine book called Awake: It's Your Turn. Angelo points directly to the true nature of self / consciousness / or whatever you want to call this bizarre ululating mystery we all seem to be living inside. He probably wouldn’t even say he “teaches” this, since all he really does for his guided practice is describe his own experience of operating in a world without a sense of a panicked separate self running around going “I gotta get more stuff!”

In fact, the whole conversation is a direct pointing. And what is Angelo pointing Tasha, Jeff, and  our listeners to? His term for it is “unfiltered reality.” Which turns out to be right here, right now, only we overlook it, on account of our enthralment to thinking and the organizing structures that lie below thinking.

This s**t is so fun. That’s why we do it. We like the existential shivers, the shiver-me-timbers, the sense of beautiful ordinary that settles all around as we get wide and full of Being (beans!), trembling righhhht at the threshold of …. of what? Of almost getting it? – but getting what? If it can’t be got, if it’s already right here? Etcetera etcetera and so on and so forth. 

What pleasurable times we had conversing about perceptual distortions and the need for emotional work and metabolizing energies and the twitchy “sphincter of the mind” and the tragic way Jeff has reified awareness and thus will probably never get enlightened and that’s fine at least he still has most of his hair (not for long Dad!).

 The End

Angelo's 12.5 minute nondual "direct pointing" begins at 9:28 and ends at 21:52.

Links:

• Angelo’s book: Awake It’s Your Turn https://books.simplyalwaysawake.com/#
• Angelo’s youtube channel, Simply Always Awake: https://www.youtube.com/c/SimplyAlwaysAwake

In today’s episode (the Season 1 finale!) we get slow and personal with Ev’Yan Whitney, sexuality doula, podcast host, and author of Sensual Self. “Sensuality” often gets lumped in with sexuality… Ev’Yan wants to change that, to tease apart these two aspects of being human and demonstrate how everyone can connect with a more sensual version of themselves.

Ev’Yan’s 19-minute practice is a tour of the senses. Take your time. The pacing of Ev’Yan’s guidance – the way she encourages us to pause and savor each sense – is part of its sensual magic.

Afterwards we have a wide-ranging conversation, from issues of sensuality and consent, to how sex changes over time in relationships, to the fundamental right of pleasure. Many of us feel guilty talking about pleasure, as though it were somehow frivolous or self-indulgent. For Ev’Yan, in a world that is continually forcing us out of our bodies, out of safety, out of softness … “Pleasure in such a world is an act of resistance.”

“When we feel good, we do good … so feel good!” It’s the perfect way to finish our season.

Season 1 Finale Message from Tasha & Jeff:

Thank you so much to all our listeners for an incredible 1st season! We’ve had so much fun this past year, creating these 23 episodes of mind-body adventure. 

We (and our awesome producer Timmy) will be back in the fall with a BRAND NEW SEASON of exploration and consciousness-expanding guests! In the meantime, drop us a note if there’s a guide or a subject you’re keen to explore with us.

And of course, if you’d like to support our time-and-resource-intense labor of love, consider contributing to our Patreon! Have a wonderful summer ❤️

Ev'Yan's Links :
• Sensual Self podcast
• Sensual Self book
• Ev'Yan's website
• Ev’Yan’s instagram

Meet Jennifer Dumpert. Jennifer is a San Francisco-based dreamer and lecturer, author of Liminal Dreaming: Exploring Consciousness at the Edge of Sleep.

And the edge of sleep is where we go today! We drop like stones into the weird space between dreams and ordinary waking consciousness, and then attempt to recombobulate afterwards into coherent human beings.

We find out what liminal dreaming is, why it’s such a good practice, and how it can be used to great effect at the opera and with the in-laws. We also get a taste of Jennifer’s boundary-mixing personal practice of embedding dreams into the urban landscape, threading the liminal into the lived.

To go straight to the 14 minute liminal dreaming practice, it starts at 04:45 and ends at 18:21.

Enjoy!

Links:
• Jennifer’s Website: https://jenniferdumpert.com
• Jennifer's Liminal Dreaming Website: https://www.liminaldreaming.com and guided Yoga Nidra practices https://www.liminaldreaming.com/practices/ 
• Join her community and cultivate the wild and visionary experience of the dream: https://urbandreamscape.com

Today’s episode: Sebene Selassie.

Sebene is a meditation teacher, integral coach, Indigenous Focusing Oriented Therapy (IFOT) practitioner and author of You Belong: A Call for Connection. She’s also one of the most popular teachers on the Ten Percent Happier meditation app.

Sebene guides us through the four elements of earth, fire, water, and air. This practice is both powerful and practical. Sebene shows us how to harness the elements to balance our minds and bodies, and how the elements help us understand different aspects of who we are and how we connect to the world around us. A grounding journey into, in Sebene's words, "our own indigeneity."

To go straight to Sebene's (12 minute) four elements practice, it starts at 3:00 and ends at 15:22. 

Links:
• Sebene’s Website
• Sebene’s book: You Belong: A Call for Connection 

In today’s episode: psychotherapist and meditation teacher John Prendergast.

John is the author of The Deep Heart: Our Portal to Presence, a book that explores “the convergence of psychological healing and spiritual awakening.” For John, this happens most clearly and powerfully in the depths of the heart. How do we sensitize ourselves to this subtle space?  This is our guide's expertise. John shows us how to rest in the heart as a way to appreciate and embody a different way of knowing and relating. We ask our hearts about our core limiting beliefs, and what it might mean to no longer believe them.

It’s an emotional journey – sincere and raw and often quite beautiful.

To go straight to John’s 11 minute heart practice, it begins at 8:42 and ends at 20:03. 

Links:
• John’s website: http://listeningfromsilence.com

Today we’re joined by Sharon Salzberg, one of the pioneers of Western Buddhism. She’s the author of a new book: Real Change: Mindfulness to Heal Ourselves and the World.

This episode is all about what’s possible when we bring a little (or a lot) more love into our lives.  We explore her take on loving kindness, and learn in real-time how loving kindness can be an antidote to fear. We explore how the practice both synchronizes and conflicts with activism, and how to avoid the "Disney-ification" of loving kindness, among many other topics.

To go straight to Sharon’s 10 minute loving kindness practice, it begins at 06:26, and ends at 16:22. 

Links:
• Sharon’s website: https://www.sharonsalzberg.com
• Sharon’s book, Real Change: https://www.sharonsalzberg.com/realchange/ 

Today’s episode is an energetic dive into the healing potential of the nighttime mind with Charlie Morley. Charlie is the author of several much-loved books on lucid dreaming, including his newest: Wake Up to Sleep: 5 Practices to Transform Trauma and Stress for Peaceful Sleep. 

Charlie guides us in two practices: a powerful protection practice inspired by the Bön tradition of Dream Yoga, and a simple Yoga Nidra practice, meant to help reset the nervous system. Both help create a safe and supporting space for overcoming insomnia and getting a good night’s rest. We also explore what he’s learned about supporting veterans – and regular folks – with PTSD, how to renegotiate our nightmares, and the role lucid dreaming can play in all of this. 

These are fascinating practices; we had an animated and wide-ranging discussion.

To go straight to Charlie’s 7 minute sleep protection practice, it starts at 21:30 and ends at 28:20. 

Links:
• Charlie’s website: https://www.charliemorley.com
• Charlie’s book Wake Up to Sleep

In today’s episode we’re joined by the delightful voice coach and kundalini teacher Debora Joy. Debora guides us through an array of voice exercises, all of them meant to free us from the shackles of bodily restriction. We learn how the way we speak reflects our conditioning, and how opening up our voice can change who we are.

This episode is much more interactive than usual, almost all of it a practice. We left this one feeling exhilarated, full of energy and – yes – joy.

If you want to go straight to her first meditation to “clear out the garbage” it starts at 6:33 and ends at 10:03. If you want to go straight to the voice exercises they start at 23:34 and continue in various forms till the end of the episode!

Links:
• Debora’s website: https://www.deborajoy.com 

Welcome to our trailer, where we venture into what this pod's about, how it came to be, and most importantly, how to nerd out at a rave...

The Consciousness Explorers Podcast (CEP) is an experiential sandbox for mind and body hosted by Tasha Schumann and Jeff Warren. Each episode is a real-time adventure, where a different guide takes us through a short meditation or personal growth practice. (That means you’re coming too!)

Don't forget to hit subscribe and if you want to be notified for each new episode then sign up to our newsletter or follow us on Instagram! 

New episodes released every Thursday.

In this episode, we chat with Nadia Bolz-Weber, a Lutheran pastor and public theologian celebrated (justly - excellent Christian word) for her edgy, honest, and sometimes hilarious approach to spirituality. The titles of her three bestselling memoirs say it well: Pastrix, Accidental Saints, and Shameless. Nadia also writes the popular Substack, The Corners – in fact, as you’ll learn at the end of the episode, Nadia is the one who convinced us to move our pod to Substack in the first place – thank you, Nadia!

Nadia shares about her falling out with Christianity, and how she came back to it on her own terms. And then, for 10 minutes … we practice!

What practice, ye unbelievers? Nothing less than the “Lectio Divina,” a traditional Christian monastic practice of slowly reading a passage of scripture, and then rereading it, and then … rereading it one more time! KAPOW! Prepare to be humanistically enriched, for such is the nature of poetry. With each pass, we invite new themes and provocations to rise in awareness.

By the end of this episode, there’s lots of big belly laughter as we explore the nature of insight and healing, what it means to lead “from your scars, not your wounds,” who the heck GOD is, and more.

Let us know in the comments how this practice lands for you!

Thanks, Nadia, and thank you, friends, for adventuring with us. Now join us over at www.mindbodpod.com to check out our bouncy Afterparty!

Love always,

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️

This week’s guest is Casper ter Kuile, author of the excellent The Power of Ritual: Turning Everyday Rituals into Soulful Practices. Casper is passionate about spreading the goodness of ritual. Ritual? Isn’t that a religious thing?! HELL NO! For Casper (“Gay atheist goes to divinity school!”) a ritual is anything we do with “intention, attention and repetition.” Our rituals are a basic human need, found in a great many surprising places, from CrossFit classes to Harry Potter books.

If you like these adventures in consciousness, consider supporting our work with a paid subscription!

In this practice (or ritual), we read a line from the first Harry Potter book, and then respond from four different layers: the literal, the allegorical, the personal, and finally the active, where we ask “what action wants to emerge?” This is the practice of using text as a mirror, a way to explore who and how we are. From here we move into a conversation on practice, the sacred, and community.

Let us know in the comments how this week’s practice was for you! (And tell us which is your favorite Harry Potter book too ;)

The Afterparty

Don’t miss the Afterparty, where we talk candidly about whatever didn't get said in this week's episode!

The Afterparty video will eventually move behind ye olde paywall, but for now, it’s free :)

Find Casper online:

* Website: caspertk.com

* The Nearness: 10-week program designed to foster deep connection and reflection through curated conversations and practices.

* Harry Potter and the Sacred Text

Thanks for tuning in! See you next week.

Love always,

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️

Hello Friends!

Jeff Warren & Tasha Schumann here with some exciting news for 2024 and beyond! The Consciousness Explorers Podcast has evolved into … *drumroll* …

🚀 The Mind Bod Adventure Pod! 🚀

Starting January 30, we’re coming at you with new weekly practice episodes, amazing guests, and rampant tomfoolery. In your inbox (and on Substack) every Tuesday.

Here’s what’s new:

* The Pod is now in VIDEO!! Audio-only is still available on all podcast platforms, but if you wanna see us hang out in Tasha’s living room every week, come over to www.mindbodpod.com

* Paid subscriptions for those who want to support our work: In addition to the weekly episode (which is free for everyone), paid subs will get access to our Afterparty videos, where we get weird and extra animated and talk about everything that didn’t get said in that week’s official episode.

* Community Space!: Thanks to this move to Substack, we now have a space to chat with you - the Mind Bod Pod Squad! Hop into the comment section and let us know your thoughts about the practice and the discussion. We’ll be lurking in there, waiting to nerd out and make friends.

- Tasha and Jeff

In this episode of the Mind Bod Adventure Pod, we take a deep dive into the dynamics of giving, receiving, taking, and allowing with guest Betty Martin.

Why does Jeff gush that Betty is the next Buddha? Because Jeff is overly-excitable! And because Betty’s Wheel of Consent is about much more than just sex and touch. It’s about how we’re human with each other. Her model of consent is now taught in dozens of communities around the world. Among other things, the practice teaches communication and boundaries, integrity and self-awareness, generosity and gratitude, vulnerability and connection.

You don’t need a partner – or even to be into sex – in order to benefit from the understandings here. We practice with an inanimate object – a pen, a jar, a piece of wood – “waking up” our hands to receive pleasure from the world. Easy to talk about, but for many, surprisingly hard to do. That’s why this is a practice with implications for understanding ourselves and how we relate to everyone in our lives.

Let us know in the comments how this episode lands for you:

And now: Join us for The Afterparty… 👇

The Afterparty

Wherein we talk candidly about knowing what you want, patriarchy, vulnerability, play, control, mystery, and a few other things we didn’t get to say during the episode. [WATCH]

The Afterparty will eventually move behind ye olde paywall, but for now, it’s free for all :)

If this episode tickled your adventure-loving fancy, consider sharing it with a friend

Thanks for tuning in! See you next week.

Love always,

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️

Although we recorded this interview back in September 2023, it could not be more timely. It is, in fact, about the times, about the news of the world as it comes in via our screen and newspapers, and whether there are practices that can support a more healthy relationship to that news. Our guest is Jay Michealson, writer of , who is both an excellent journalist (he appears regularly on CNN and other media outlets) and a fine meditation teacher and director of programming at New York Insight Meditation Centre.

Jay guides a practice to first notice how we’re being impacted by the news – not trying to change how we feel – and then backing up into a place of compassionate not-knowing, a place of humility about what might happen in the future, about what’s going on inside other people’s minds, even about our own certainties.

Such a good conversation! We talk about the balance of internal care and external service, environmental activism and inaction, about realism grounded in science, and much more. Thank you Rabbi Jay!

Let us know in the comments how Jay’s practice connects with you.

And now: Join us on Substack for The Afterparty…

Thanks for tuning in! See you next week.

Love always,

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️

This episode is a rocket launcher for enabling all the weird ways you already half-know stuff, ie … intuition! The way we get into the subject is curious and open and “non-expert-y” – we hope it will create an opening for you to consider the possibilities of intuition in your own life. Via the gut, via empathy, via dreams – and via a bunch of other deliciously unsanctioned ways of knowing that certain guardians of scientific respectability can’t see, can’t handle, and also have no sense of humor about. KA-POW!

Our guide in this rollicking convo is the delightful Sebene Selassie, meditation teacher, author of You Belong, and creator of the terrific Substack, Ancestors to Elements.

As artists and soulful humans, both Tasha and Sebene are already quite comfortable with their turbo-charged intuitive capacities. Jeff is a little slower on the uptake – you can literally see his (er, my) perspective expand in real-time. So thank you, Sebene, for your beautiful practice and also for your friendship!

Sebene, Jeff, and Dan Harris (and maybe Tasha too - stay tuned…) also teach a fun Omega retreat called “Meditation Party,” for those who want some in-person good vibes.

Let us know in the comments how Sebene’s guided practice lands for you!

And then join us over at MindBodPod.com for The Afterparty, where we talk about skepticism, science, art, spirituality, and everything else that didn't get said in this week's episode!

Thanks for tuning in!

~ Tasha & Jeff

DISCLAIMER: we talk about smoking weed while meditating in this episode, and then we actually do it (its legal here in Canada) to see what it’s like. Our guide thinks there’s value in this practice, and so do we - FOR SOME PEOPLE. For others, particularly younger folks whose brains are not fully developed, cannabis can negatively affect mental health. It can also be addictive. As always, we are not endorsing; we’re exploring. You do not need to ingest marijuana in order to benefit from Will’s beautiful embodied meditation.

If you like these adventures in consciousness, consider supporting our work with a paid subscription!

So who is this deviant hippy meditation guide, you ask? His name is Will Johnson, and he really is an old hippy, a beloved teacher who has been doing it his way since the 60s. In our very fun conversation, we cover the changing nature of Buddhism and its current adaption to the West, the essence of breath meditation as an invitation to breathe through the whole body, the felt “shimmer” of increased body sensitivity, and how this can train us to open at ever-deeper layers – including the layers that have us convinced we’re separate from the rest of life. So: in Will’s view, there’s definitely a path of awakening with cannabis as a support.

Are we all just … high? Decide for yourself friends! Let us know in the comments!

Check out Will’s website, along with info about his “Shimmering Seahorse Sangha”:

https://www.embodiment.net/

And now: Join us for The Afterparty… 👇

The Afterparty

In this here Afterparty, we consider the potentially deluding nature of cannabis and whether there is something a bit suspect about needing a drug to get you to someplace more “real.” On the other hand, we are always looking at reality through our own filtered experience, so maybe deliberately choosing a fun filter is Ok!

The Afterparty will eventually move behind ye olde paywall, but for now, it’s free for all :)

If this episode tickled your adventure-loving fancy, consider sharing it with a friend

Thanks for tuning in! See you next week.

Love always,

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️

What do struggle and resistance look like as spiritual practices? What does it take to push for change in a violent and antagonistic world?

Our guest in this week’s episode (which was recorded last summer) is Lama Rod Owens, in his words, “a fugitive” – disobedient and on the run in a culture where it’s not safe to be Black, not safe to be Queer, not safe to be an activist speaking truth to power. Sometimes, not even meditation spaces feel safe, especially where meditation is touted as a way to get comfortable and tune out the world.

But Lama Rod is not interested in comfort. He’s interested in disruption. This is the real Dharma, the real “Work” – awakening from the status quo in order to become a brave force for collective freedom.

If you like these adventures in consciousness, consider supporting our work with a paid subscription!

Lama Rod offers a beautiful meditation on connecting to our sources of support and love and, from that place, exploring a personal memory of discomfort. How exactly were we uncomfortable? Were we really unsafe, or was that our trauma speaking, or our confusion, or our conformity – our desire not to rock the boat?

There’s an important link here: the clearer we can be about our own discomfort, the less it will influence us, and the better able we’ll be to stand up to injustice.

Lama Rod is a brilliant writer and thinker, part of the next generation of Buddhist teachers and leaders. His most recent book is The New Saints. Good to be connected.

Even though we recorded this episode in the summer of 2023, it continues to be powerful medicine now. Share in the comments how Lama Rod’s practice connects with you!

And now: Join us for The Afterparty… 👇

The Afterparty

In this one, we have a lively chat about escapism vs practice, art as protest, figuring out your ecological service niche, and how Tasha alchemizes her fear and discomfort before performing in front of 10,000 screaming fans.

The Afterparty will eventually move behind ye olde paywall, but for now, it’s free for all :)

If this episode tickled your adventure-loving fancy, consider sharing it with a friend

Thanks for tuning in! See you next week.

Love always,

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️

Do you love yourself and the world enough to risk making moves for other people’s freedom? For guest adrienne maree brown, any such movement has to be rooted in love. And that’s her practice: finding what and where we love, placing it deliberately in the centre of our lives, and then asking: what action wants to arise naturally from that? Not based on other people’s ideas of what’s right, but from our own natural capacities and passions and connections. “What would love have me do today? What would love have me risk today?” “What would love have me be today?”

Some very inventive practice exploration today, friends! We’re joined by dharma teacher and Buddhist Geeks founder Vince Fakhoury Horn, who leads us in a smorgasbord of short “social” practices, all designed to tap into the goodness of meditation in a bouncy, fun and interactive way. We explore Kenneth Folk’s social noting, try out a microdose-sized practice of loving kindness, and finally, an imagination-rich social “MindCraft,” where we build a world together.

If you like these adventures in consciousness, consider supporting our work with a paid subscription!

Our wide-ranging conversation includes Vince’s experience of meditators “drafting” off each other, how social practice can create a center of community gravity, the nature of wisdom and transmission, meditating with AI, and finally Vince’s helpful taxonomy of different meditation styles and their results.

We’re so interested to hear how this practice was for you - Let us know in the comments! And then join us for The Afterparty…

The Afterparty

In this one, we… talk smack.

The Afterparty will eventually move behind ye olde paywall, but for now, it’s free for all :)

If this episode tickled your adventure-loving fancy, consider sharing it with a friend.

Thanks for tuning in! See you next week.

Love always,

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️

Watch the video episode here: https://www.mindbodpod.com/p/loch-kelly-glimpses-into-freedom

“The issue of suffering is a simple case of mistaken identity,” says our guest Loch Kelly. By this, he means the you that is thinking about you, is not the real you! Then who is it, you ask? His name is Percy, he lives on a riverboat, and makes a fine fish fillet. 😅 Just kidding! That’s not true at all.

This episode – a delicious tongue-twister of the mind – really should be watched on video, since Loch’s gestures and body language are part of his teaching. Get thee to our Substack channel to watch the video, slackers, for it may point you to “the most intense bliss you’ve ever felt, spread out thin throughout the universe.”

Oh, Lochy Loch. He moves us through “direct pointing” exercises to familiarize us with the mystery of our true nature, which, of course, defies language. Loch specializes in offering glimpses into different kinds of minds and bodies: kinaesthetic ones, visual ones, conceptual ones... You only need to find the right door for you.

Plunge with us through the layers of mind and reality to a place / non-place that is “so close you can’t see it, so simple you can’t believe it, so wordless you can’t know it and so f*****g good you can’t accept it.” Except with less swearing.

PLUS! Loch has offered us Mind Bod Squadders some free resources to deepen our experiential explorations! Get them here: lochkelly.org/mind-bod-adventure-pod

K That’s all for now! See you next week.

Love always,

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️

Tracee is the rock solid – and radiant! – author of Radiant Rest and The Luminous Self, both syncretic works that combine yoga nidra, self-inquiry, ancestor and nature practices, and much more. Tracee is truly a gem!

We jump right into a practice that starts with a fresh take on alternate nostril breathing and then flows into a beautifully supportive practice that connects to gratitude, community, and the larger community of nature.

If you like these adventures in consciousness, consider supporting our work with a paid subscription at www.mindbodpod.com

Thanks for tuning in! See you next week.

Love always,

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️

Welcome Paula Scatoloni, a wise somatic experiencing practitioner (she’s been doing this for 30 years!). Paula uses Stephen Porges’ “Safe and Sound Protocol” as a tool to soothe and heal our frazzled nervous systems.

We start by exploring how sound can be healing—in particular, how to train our systems to move out of fight-and-flight and into safety-and-connection. The more our body finds this safety, the better able we are to access and process our trauma and attachment challenges.

If you like these adventures in consciousness, consider supporting our work with a paid subscription!

At least, that’s the theory. What’s the practice? We practice through our ears – twice! Paula’s first guided meditation is about yielding to the support of the earth; her second is “naval radiation breathing,” a practice developed by movement super-genius Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen. (We’d love to get Bonnie on the pod!)

And so it goes, a wide-ranging exploration into the nature of trauma and regulation and co-regulation and healthy boundaries and real connection and so much more.

The Afterparty

And now: Tune Ye into the Afterparty of champions! This week, we talk about the evolving role of healers in the 21st century, what sound does to our fried nervous systems, and finally, the extreme importance of a solid signature sign-off phrase.

The Afterparty video will eventually move behind ye olde paywall, but for now, it’s free :)

K That’s all for now! See you next week.

Love always,

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️

* PaulaScatoloni.com

* Safe and Sound Protocol

* Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen

Arch-Trickster Caroline Casey is our guest today, rapping on the subject of astrology and participatory magic. For Caroline, astrology - like all divination - is an outward expression of an inner state. We don’t need to know astrology, it’s in us. The practice here is to participate - to actively engage with Caroline’s wild flood of words and let the language of interrelatedness provoke insights, protests, and new possibilities.

If you like these adventures in consciousness, consider supporting our work with a paid subscription at www.mindbodpod.com

Love always,

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️

Welcome JF Martel, filmmaker, writer, and cohost of the superb podcast, Weird Studies. Sometimes, we have a guest who really gets the spirit of what we’re up to here at the Mind Bod Pod… JF is one such guest. He full-on designed a practice for us based on his love of old-school, Dungeons-and-Dragons-style role-playing games… the kind that (in JF’s words) “usually happen in dank basements.”

That’s right, in this week’s episode, JF is our Dungeon Master!

**Watch this podcast and our fun-filled afterparty in VIDEO over at www.mindbodpod.com where you can comment and let us know how the practice landed for you!

As we follow JF’s guidance, our inner vision opens, and we trek into the dark underbelly of our imaginations.

* What is the practice of surrendering to a story, especially in speculative fiction like fantasy, horror, and science fiction?

* What exactly IS imagination, anyway?

* Is there a reality here beyond our own subconscious?

* …and what happens when we take it seriously?

Join us for a discussion of dream yoga, Jungian archetypes, shadow selves, disaster scenarios, and the imagination as a sense organ. Bwwhahahahahahahahahahaha!!

The Afterparty Video (visit www.mindbodpod.com)

This week, we discuss surrendering to a story as a kind of meditation, what happens when we move towards the scary and the uncomfortable, and how we can use our existential ambition to elevate Dungeons and Dragons into a transformative spiritual practice.

That’s all for now! Thanks for tuning in & see you next week.

Love always,

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️

www.mindbodpod.com

Last summer, we interviewed Ross Ellenhorn and Dimitri Mugianis, founders of Cardea, a psychedelic-assisted care organization based in NYC. This week, we’re finally posting that conversation! Made up of therapists, space holders, artists, and musicians, Cardea focuses on cultivating what they call “aliveness”: the sense that you are vital, fully engaged in your life, and connected to the world around you.

Something we find refreshing about the Cardea crew is their playful approach to psychedelics. A lot of people are so serious about psychedelics lately, obsessing over how they might use them to “fix” what’s “wrong” with themselves. It’s a view that risks turning psychedelics into just another cog in the Western medical model. But psychedelics have always been far more interesting than that. They are, by nature, creative, and have the potential to plunge us into a direct and dynamic relationship with life. This is what we get into with Ross and Dimitri!

In this conversation, we talk about Cardea’s unique model of practice, where they engage practitioners in a specific kind of dialogue before each session. We also talk about:

* set and setting,

* the club scene

* and what a “modern” – even poetic – use of psychedelics could look like, where the practitioner doesn’t give their power away.

The conversation continues in the Q&A, so please check out our Afterparty video at https://www.mindbodpod.com. In the Q&A, we chat with the audience about:

* The use of mushrooms in palliative and supportive care.

* How to support someone who is freaking out.

* The role of intention setting before a psychedelic experience

* “Radical hospitality”

* Experiences with iboga and other psychedelics, including their effects on cravings, life review, and spiritual exploration.

* Practical considerations for individuals interested in this work, including the availability of ketamine-assisted psychotherapy and the importance of support afterwards.And much more!

That’s all for now! Thanks for tuning in & see you next week.

Love always,

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️

PS - Tasha and Jeff recently partook in a totally mind-blowing ketamine ceremony at Cardea’s beautiful New York space and - for posterity - recorded the whole damn thing! Stay tuned for some extra audio and visual treats coming soon ;)

CARDEA LINKS:

* Cardea.net

* Ross's essay in Time magazine, “What Psychedelics Can Teach Us About Play”

Welcome Mudita Nisker and Dan Clurman, authors of Let's Talk, An Essential Guide to Skillful Communication. Mudita and Dan have been teaching people how to communicate effectively for over 40 years, so there is serious wisdom in this episode. As Mudita points out, changing how you communicate can change your entire way of perceiving and relating to others. It is a profound practice, and it’s one each of us is already involved in, so we may as well get better at it!

With that in mind, the entire episode is really one long practice of communication, with Mudita and Dan reflecting back our own questions and habits. They skillfully unpack these key principles:

* how to give feedback

* loop communication and the art of becoming more aware of how we affect the other person

* how to avoid “flooding” other people, and instead “chunk” your delivery

* the life-changing skill of reflective listening as a way to understand another’s perspective and foster connection

* positive intentions and the way this brings caring into the mix

* the importance of “provisionality,” ie, using language that acknowledges the possibility of change

* the skill of framing and how to work with emotionally triggering subjects

* understanding whether to talk or listen in the first place!

Communication shapes how we get along with others, how we achieve our goals, and ultimately is core way to add more peace and compassion into the world.

Such a fun and bouncy conversation, like improvising with two jazz pianists.

Thank you Mudita and Dan!

-----------------------------

Then join us at www.mindbodpod.com for The Afterparty:

Communication is what we do, and it’s something many of us also do very poorly! In this Afterparty, we talk about the various unconscious crutches we use while hanging out with others and what it might look like to connect in a more open-ended way. We also riff on the way good conversation is a kind of agreement, a world we construct that we then get to play inside! This is very different than seeing language as a route to discovering what is objectively true.

*In an effort to sustain our antics and continue paying our producer Timmy, the Afterparty will move behind ye old paywall…soon. Please join us if you can!

That’s all for now! Thanks for tuning in & see you next week.

Love always,

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️

Welcome Sah D'Simone - a former “condescending spiritual c**t” (his words not ours!) who’s since grown into one of the best humans we’ve ever met. Sah is hilarious, fresh, wise and so loveable! You’ll feel all of that immediately, as we explore themes from his new book, Spiritually, We.

**Watch this podcast and our fun-filled afterparty in VIDEO over at www.mindbodpod.com where you can comment and let us know how the practice landed for you!

What themes you ask? Juicy goodies like:

* What makes a great teacher

* Understanding past traumas (Sah says: “if it’s hysterical, its historical”)

* Integrating your “darkness”* Fearlessly celebrating your own imperfections

What’s the practice? Sah guides us in an exploration of how the past might be living in our bodies right now, and helps us welcome it in (“hello old friend!”) to be loved, cared for, and seen with fresh eyes.

And it works! Jeff cries, Tasha sees her head from her heart as a weird wooden mask (yup, that happened), Sah says more delightful stuff, and twenty minutes later we’re all BFFs for life. WEEEEEEEE! 😍🥳

The Afterparty

In this week's Afterparty video (www.mindbodpod.com), we reflect with great maturity on the next generation of spiritual practitioners, make mouth sounds, and then sing a very beautiful song about becoming a low-level superhero of love and saving the s**t out of all beings. Kapow!

If this episode tickled your adventure-loving fancy, consider sharing it with a friend.

Thanks for tuning in! See you next week.

Love always,

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️

Find Sah Online:

* Web: practice.sahdsimone.com* IG: @sahdsimone* TikTok: @sahdsimone

Pádraig Ó Tuama is a poet, theologian, and the host of The On Being Project's Poetry Unbound podcast. He is interested in story and storytelling, in the practice of reading ourselves into stories, and sometimes in reading our lives as stories. All of which can shake us us up in surprising ways.

**If you like these adventures in consciousness, consider supporting our work with a paid subscription! at www.mindbodpod.com**

In today’s episode, he reads from a sequence of poems he wrote called “Seven Deadly Songs” – sonic booms of verse that recreate some of the impossibly hard things that happened to Ó Tuama growing up gay in Ireland.

Maybe we can feel ourselves into these poems too, feel the sounds of the words inside us, feel something – anger, sacrilege, indifference, recognition. We growl at God, because sometimes, in Ó Tuama’s words “the God character of our narrative needs to be undone in order for something new to open.”

We talk The Lord of the Rings, N.K. Jemisin and world-building, about Tasha’s deep childhood desire to be Batman, and Ó Tuama’s deep childhood desire to be Wonder Woman!

What questions can we ask of our stories that will take us deeper into them?

Let us know in the comments!

--------------

Then join us for the Afterparty video: In which Jeff says he feels dumb, and poetry is hard, and Tasha says reading a poem is like watching a gas cloud condense into a planet. We talk about the practice of finding yourself in the landscape of a story, and also of finding story in the landscape of your life. Then, we talk about prayer. Tasha recites a childhood prayer in German, and Jeff exclaims, “Ezekiel comes through with $10,000!” 😄

That’s all for now! Thanks for tuning in & see you next week.

Love always,

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️

You don’t want to miss this one! A deep dive into “the heart of healing,” as we explore how medicines like cannabis and ketamine can amplify trauma therapy. Our guest is Saj Razvi, Director of Education at the Psychedelic Somatic Institute, and one of the original MAPS researchers and clinicians responsible for bringing MDMA-assisted therapy into the world.

According to Saj, there’s a self-corrective homeostatic healing mechanism available in the body that gets amplified during altered states. The key intervention he uses with clients is called “selective inhibition.” Normally, when stressed, we calm ourselves with coping strategies like deep breathing, moving, rationalizing, dissociating, and more. These tools give us short-term relief, but the downside is they inhibit the long-term healing of trauma, which Saj says our biology “is organically trying to achieve.”

In his 10-minute guided practice, we do something different: we find a mildly stressful memory, and instead of avoiding it, we slow the whole thing down to move through the discomfort into something else.

What’s this like? We experience the full spectrum - Tasha’s pretty accustomed to emotionally triggering practices like this, while Jeff feels like a homunculus riding the bucking bronco of his nervous system! Meditation vs therapy vs psychedelics – we get right into it!

Saj also talks about:

- the amazing ability of cannabis and ketamine to heal dissociative tendencies

- how human relational wounding requires human relational healing,

- the role of the therapist as “a player in the psychedelic reality of the person.”

- A thrilling exploration into the cutting-edge of mental health – join us!

Then join us at www.mindbodpod.com for This week's Afterparty: The world premiere of our new chart-topping single, “Trauma Song”, which we unveil at the end of the video and which has already secured us a 3-album deal and is set to eclipse the entirety of Tasha’s career as a recording artist in one fell swoop.

Plus: a fun discussion on the perils of meditative dissociation and the unique power of meditation to create more permanent states of extraordinary mental health. We talk about the spiritual preferences of male-identified vs female-identified practitioners, about sitting meditation vs body-focused disciplines like yoga, and other weird noises.

Leave us a comment and let us know how you much you like our new song :)

That’s all for now! Thanks for tuning in & see you next week.

Love always,

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️

Welcome Lama Liz Monson, spiritual co-director of the Natural Dharma Fellowship, and author of a new book on “crazy wisdom,” Tales of a Mad Yogi. Contrary to its controversial reputation, crazy wisdom is more than a spiritual shock technique – of, say, covering oneself in feces (to use a classic example), or staggering drunkenly around the Tibetan countryside. It is, in fact, a powerful and time-tested way to cut through our habitual patterns and engage with how reality actually is, as opposed to how we want it to be.

How do we practice this? By starting simple!

Liz guides us in a 10-minute meditation on the breath, the body, and the larger bandwidth of awareness. Can we allow our experience to be exactly what it is, without trying to control it? Yes, maybe, no, yes… we do our best! This doesn’t seem crazy, although it can seem impossible. And yet, the implications are radical.

Such a fun and provocative conversation on:

* the nature of trust and spontaneity

* the neutrality of things

* our own “basic goodness” (Liz tells a wonderful story about 9/11 and New Yorkers’ initial response of compassion and care)

* the free-flow of creativity

* and much more!

Let us know in the comments how this practice went for you!

Watch the Afterparty video at: https://www.mindbodpod.com

That’s all for now! Thanks for tuning in & see you next week.

Love always,

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️

We’re joined by Jamie Pabst, founder and CEO of Spiritune, a music therapy app that supports people’s mental health. Spiritune makes explicit what most of us know implicitly: music can shift our emotional and cognitive state.

What does “clinical-grade music” sound like? We listen to two 3-minute tracks, the first designed to move us from anxious to peaceful and the second from lethargic to victorious.

Along the way, Jamie points out the different music therapy principles at work:

* the “iso-principle” of meeting people where they are

* rhythm and neural entrainment

* the power of tone to create connection

A true exploration of consciousness! We talk about emotional literacy, how music can help both shift and evoke emotions, what it means to be “genre-agnostic,” the potential role of generative AI in shaping the technology, and much more.

The Afterparty (Watch the Video at www.mindbodpod.com

In this here Afterparty, Tasha puts on her music producer hat, which leads to a fascinating discussion on the cultural specificity of musical preferences, the true nature of musical complexity and human preferences, and various other tasty morsels.

Also! Tasha’s Substack & practice community, Bodhisavage, kicks off this Thursday! Monthly live Zoom sessions start June 21, with the good vibes of the Full Moon.

Subscribe at: Bodhisavage.com

That’s all for now! Thanks for tuning in & see you next week.

Love always,

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️

This week, we welcome the multi-talented Ofosu Jones-Quartey, a meditation teacher, author, and hip-hop artist. This discussion is so fun! It starts with how to share meditation and mindfulness with young people – how to stay real and relatable. Then gets into the role of the artist, creativity, and what it means to connect to your actual voice.

We do 2 practices: the first is a self-compassion practice that ends with Ofosu singing! And that leads to a second practice: an actual song - a beautiful (it made Jeff cry) hip-hop track called “Avalo” that features the voices of Ofosu’s wife and daughter. Ofosu plays the full music video for us. Definitely worth checking out the whole video episode!

How do we make being kind to ourselves an accessible practice, while also acknowledging (in Ofosu’s own words) “how stupid it can sometimes feel”?! Good to figure this out, since we’re talking to ourselves all the time anyway.

Relatedly, how can you integrate meditation into your art practice without it coming off as corny or performative? We explore the challenges and rewards of being both a meditation teacher and an artist and how both Ofosu and Tasha negotiate these roles in public.

Then join us for the Afterparty over on www.Mindbodpod.com!

In this Afterparty your hosts, Tasha the Amazon and Jeff the Non-Amazonian, continue to discuss navigating being both an artist and a meditation practitioner. We talk high-brow/low-brow, spiritual materialism, and authentic artistic expression. Then we say these phrases, not in this order: “You don’t talk about Tantra - you do it!” “Take your demon and stick it in someone else’s nut sack!” and “Tank-top, nice shirt, put in the work!”

That’s all for now! Thanks for tuning in & see you next week.

Love always,

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️

OK friends, enough with the talky talky. Grab some paper and a pencil: in this episode, we’re waking up our inner artists and making Zentangle magic!

Martha Huggins and Molly Hollinbough are our sister guides. Many years ago, their romantic parents – Maria and Rick – figured out the Zentangle method together. Ever since, they’ve been teaching it to people around the world as a way to slip into a fulfilling artistic flow and create beautiful works of pattern, shape, and color.

Then we chat about:

* how nothing is a mistake

* the equanimity training of going with the flow

* the balance of freedom vs constraints in art

* the therapeutic and healing benefits of “tangling,”

* and much more

Share your Zentangly thoughts with us in the comments! Then watch The Afterparty over at www.mindbodpod.com

That’s all for now! Thanks for tuning in & see you next week.

Love always,

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️

This week, we welcome Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, world-renowned meditation teacher, author, and lineage holder in the Bön tradition of Tibet, one of the oldest spiritual traditions on the planet. Today, we take three protective imaginary “pills” – a white pill, a red pill, and a blue pill. “Because in the West everybody loves to eat pills!”

Each pill is both a syllable that we voice out loud and a mini-meditation that addresses a specific challenge. The white pill – “Ah” – is awareness of stillness in our body, which can protect us against unskilful physical action. The red pill – “Om” – is awareness of silence, which can protect us against saying something stupid. And the blue pill – “Hung” – is awareness of spaciousness in the heart, which can protect us from making decisions out of anger or urgency.

For eight ethereal minutes, Wangyal Rinpoche sings these three syllables to us again and again. You can let them wash through you as you sit with us or sing along.

“Ah…”

“Om…”

“Hung…”

The audio isn’t perfect, but who cares?! Can you feel each vibration? Can you feel each blessing? Jeff cries, as usual. It’s an honor to experience such venerable medicine.

Let us know how the pills went to work on you and tune into the video afterparty over at www.mindbodpod.com

That’s all for now! Thanks for tuning in & see you next week.

Love always,

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️

Welcome Kaira Jewel Lingo, author of We Were Made for These Times and coauthor of Healing Our Way Home. Kyra shares her journey from a communal upbringing and monastic life with Thich Nhat Hanh, her work in nurturing community, and her exploration of racial identity in spiritual practice.

Her gentle guided practice is beautiful and completely original. We notice the experience of our skin - its age, its protective and permeable nature, its colour, and its history. Afterwards, Tasha shares how profound this was for her, feeling her mixed white and Black heritage, which at times can feel like a battlefield playing out on her own skin.

Our conversation afterward is frank and open: on race and ancestry, on how every person - regardless of skin color - has a role to play in healing the collective trauma of racism and colonialism. We talk about the larger “skin” of community - the role community has to play in offering support and safety, and yet also how hard that can be to find in a culture whose values so often separate and isolate. Is this changing? There are signs it may be. As Thich Nhat Hanh used to say, there is no more noble task than true community building.

Hopefully, this podcast can be a place of community for our listeners - a place where we can explore together the many different ways of being human.

Let us know in the comments how this practice was for you!

Then join us over at www.mindbodpod.com for our riveting afterparty!

That’s all for now! Thanks for tuning in & see you next week.

Love always,

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️

Welcome, Frank Yang – we love you! Frank is an “Infinite Brah” – a true bodybuilder of consciousness who shares his “journey, insights and practices for accessing the highest states of consciousness, awakening and beyond” to quote his fresh and wildly kinetic YouTube channel.

So, there’s lots of talk about the experience (and health benefits!) of non-duality and awakening, whether it shows up in different ways for people in different cultures, the value and traps of using a map to find your way, the primordial mistake of separation (what Tasha’s teacher Lama Lena calls “the original oops”), and other excellent topics for consciousness nerds.

Then, 30 minutes in, he takes us to Frank Yang Land — a WONDERFUL and very impactful guided practice that merges mindful noting with surrendering to effortlessness. We hit the sweet spot between doing and non-doing.

Then, join us at www.mindbodpod.com for The Afterparty, where we discuss what percentage of our suffering has actually been reduced through practice. Is it 99%, like Frank says for himself, or some other number? How does this change with external intensities (like having kids)? Would the Buddha have gotten his ass kicked if he had to raise two kids in our 21st-century urban insanity? Probably!

Let us know your thoughts in the comments!

That’s all for now! Thanks for tuning in & see you next week.

Love always,

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️

Toby Sola is founder of the Brightmind Meditation app and an old friend of Jeff’s. In this episode, we chew on some tasty mini-meditation snacks – yum yum!

We get all Jedi-mind and try splitting our attention between chatting and meditating. Finally, we explore an inventive and beautiful practice of nurturing our own sense of trustworthiness.

All of these are ways of highlighting the basic creativity of meditation, how we can mix and match the core skills to build practices that work for us.

We chat about so much more! Like:

* What’s the minimum amount of meditation for stress relief vs more enduring transformation?

* How is one view of meditation and practice limiting?

* How do we work with cringe moments?

* And so on, and so forth, unto infinity!!!!

Take these practices for a spin in your own nervous system, then join us for the official Afterparty, and tell us how it went!

K, That’s all for now! Thanks for tuning in & see you next week.

Love always,

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️

Welcome Eileen Laird, author of Healing Mindset. This episode, we target autoimmune disease and the role that the mind-body connection can play in reducing pain, increasing resilience, and living a more vital life.

There are over a hundred different autoimmune conditions — from rheumatoid arthritis to lupus to Grave’s disease to multiple sclerosis and more — one in ten people have an autoimmune condition worldwide. Stress makes the condition worse… fortunately, this also works in the other direction! In moments of overwhelm, we can learn to send an anti-inflammatory cascade back through the nervous system.

And that’s what we practice today! Eileen guides us in a soothing meditation of self-compassion, both working with pain and befriending the body.

In our discussion afterwards we explore:

* how to work with pain and find safe places in the body

* the relationship between sensitivity and autoimmune conditions

* how to notice early warning signals

* how Eileen supports herself via daily routines

* and much more…

Take the practice for a spin and tell us in the comments how it went!

Eileen, thank you for writing your book and for supporting so many people through your incredible podcast.

LINKS:

* Healing Mindset Book

* The Phoenix Helix Podcast

This episode is a transmission, no doubt about. Our guest wandered out of the Ontario forest and is here to challenge how we think about ourselves and meditation and nature and agriculture and the old crafts and a lot more. Welcome, Steven Martyn, founder of The Sacred Gardener School.

While living alone in the bush - mediating, surviving - Steven came to understand meditation as a form of hunting for the origin of thoughts, looking for the “I within the I.” His relationship to nature changed. More intimate, more connected to nature’s gifts. He found the old ways of agriculture, of grafting, of building – all of them sacred practices. And now he teaches this in his forest mystery school.

For our first guided exercise, we go back to being little kids and receive blessings from our elders, our ancestors. “There’s so much animosity and stress out there these days, we need to take care of our little child,” says Steven.

For the second exercise — near the end of the episode — we practice seeing the natural world in a way that may push us out of our idea of being a small, separate self.

We talk leadership, authority, hierarchy. Steven describes the power of the group at his school and how he helps participants move deeper into their relationship with nature.

Lots of good stuff – maybe life-changing if you let it in!

Then join us for The Afterparty (at www.mindbodpod.com), where your hosts discuss the natural world and plunging nondual fuckery unto infinity. Then we talk about losing connection to the blissful interconnectivity of nature, talking to plants, Jeff’s discarded book ideas, and Kurt Vonnegut.

Let us know in the comments how your bond with nature’s going these days!

K, That’s all for now! Thanks for tuning in & see you next week.

Love always,

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️

Welcome Tim Hwang, an occupational therapist in New York City's public school system. Tim’s specialty is teaching mindfulness to young people with “disabilities classifications” - Autism, ADHD, and so on. Some of these teens are into the practice, some are bored by it, and some are highly resistant to it. And that’s what we get into!

Tim, Tasha, and Jeff all have experience teaching meditation to young people, so there’s much insight-sharing and general tomfoolery. Unsurprisingly, Tasha and Jeff revert to their rebellious teen selves when Tim starts guiding them in his GROW practice - an acronym that means Ground, Relax, Open, Warm (the heart).

Good times! This episode is for anyone interested in supporting young people - whether you’re an educator, a parent, or a teen yourself.

We get into:

* emotional regulation

* customizing meditation for neurodiversity & ADHD

* how to use “five-finger breathing” to calm down

* the role of community,

* and how teens can find their own unique pathways to practice.

Tim - thank you, friend! And to all teens: feel free to ignore everything we say and do it your own way 😅 One-finger breathing!

Then join us for The Afterparty video! And let us know in the comments at www.mindbodpod.com how you liked the GROW practice!

K, That’s all for now! Thanks for tuning in & see you next week.

Love always,

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️

Well, this one is cool. It may change your meditation practice and – if you stay with the inquiry – your life. You’d hardly know how ambitious it is though, from our guest Kevin Schanilec’s humble, deadpan delivery.

Kevin is a long-time Buddhist practitioner from Seattle who has formalized a process for seeing through what Buddhists call “The Ten Fetters.” The fetters are fundamental (mis)beliefs we hold about how the self and world exist. Most of us don’t even realize they are beliefs – we are unconsciously inside them, which causes us to suffer in all the usual human ways.

What’s wild is that we don’t have to live according to these beliefs. With practice and commitment, we can learn to let go of each one and experience a corresponding drop in suffering and an increase in fulfillment. And Kevin shows us how…

For the purposes of this episode, we focus on the 4th and 5th fetters: desire and ill will – aka, our human compulsion to act on our various likes and dislikes. Kevin’s guided practice tries to show us that in our present experience, there is actually no inevitable reason to react to anyone, or anything.

If we are quiet and open and curious, we can follow the chain of reactivity back, and find out, as weird as it may sound, that nothing in our direct experience actually kicked it all off. We don’t have to react to anything. For Kevin, this is a freedom worth cultivating. In his words, “we get off that rollercoaster of extreme highs and extreme lows,” and start to respond to life in a more sane, effective, and compassionate way.

We get into all this and so much more! Kevin has such a refreshing perspective on the normalcy of the whole self-realization process.

Jeff says: “I now do this practice all the time – maybe more than any other Mind Bod Pod practice – and it works for me, every time. I have less reactivity in my life in general, and I consider this practice central to that.”

So give it a shot! You can also find other inquiries on Kevin’s website.

LINKS:

* Kevin’s site: simplytheseen.com* liberationunleashed.com

The Afterparty (go to www.mindbodpod.com to watch!)

In this Afterparty, Tasha and Jeff talk about how Kevin’s logical style of spiritual inquiry can be a great fit for the Western mind. They also talk about how there are many other ways and paths. And then they talk about what it means to be your own teacher: How we need the traditions and experienced guides to go deeper, but ultimately we are the ones taking care of ourselves and directing our path.

Then, to quote the AI they asked to summarize this Afterparty, “Tasha and Jeff conclude with a lighthearted reflection on the elusive and omnipresent nature of enlightenment.” 😅

Let us know in the comments how the fetters practice landed for you!

K, That’s all for now. Thanks for tuning in!

Love always,

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️

Today we head off the rails and into the spiritual undergrowth, where the wild things are. Our guest is Diana Piruzevska, aka Neon Dreamer – psychic, medium, healer. Yup – all that! Not her choice - at least not at first…

Skeptics might scoff at these intuitions, experiences, and capacities, but that doesn’t change the fact that they kept happening to Diana and have always happened to some of her older family members. After years of battling it, she’s come out the other side and embraced her witchy Macedonian heritage. Diana now shares her talents with others via her radio show and her professional healing practice.

For her guided meditation, Diana takes us through a grounding and opening breath practice that she uses with clients before a session. Then, to demo what her psychic process is like, she does a reading for Tasha, sharing out loud what she’s noticing about Tasha’s neat and orderly brain.

Diana talks about what it feels like to lock into a client, to get an embodied feeling for their experience. Sometimes it’s very visual, other times more kinaesthetic – she unpacks the whole creative thing for us, leading to a lively discussion on doing magic on creepy dudes, trauma and disembodiment, and how others can navigate the stormy waters between mental illness and spiritual insight.

Enjoy!

LINKS:

* neondreamer.com

* IG: @neonandroid

* Substack: Neon Dreamer

* Spiritual Emergence Network

The Afterparty

In this here Après le Part-AY, your hosts discuss why women and people of colour have higher incidences of empathy and intuition, how hyper-masculinity shuts the whole thing down, and then … a bunch about neurodiversity, since that’s their thing right now.

Let us know in the comments how your witchy psychic vibes are doing these days!

K, That’s all for now. Thanks for tuning in & see you again in 2 weeks (we’re still doing biweekly episodes until life slows down a bit!)

Love always,

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️

In this episode we welcome Caverly Morgan, former Zen monk and author of The Heart of Who We Are. Caverly is also the founder of Peace in Schools, a teen-centered mindfulness curriculum for teens.

We jump right into it with a discussion of how teens very naturally want to challenge many of the culture’s bogus assumptions – in her words, teens “are on fire with wanting to dismantle what’s not real.”

We start with a beautiful breath practice that Caverly uses in high school classrooms. “Dental-mental floss”: back and forth through the center, expanding and grounding.

From there, we discuss goodies like:

* the primacy of subjective experience* letting go of the need to find the “right way”* shifting towards what works for your situation and what helps you suffer less* the role of lineages and teachers* the joys of many practices … and how none of them may even be going anywhere!

The Afterparty (Watch at www.mindbodbpod.com)

In this week’s party time, we wax excitedly about concerns that are close to our hearts, which is to say WEIRD SPIRITUAL S**T. We discuss whether there is a universal direction in the contemplative path, one true in all cultures (if so, what might that be?). We talk about how different practices are designed to address different problems or needs, and how these change from culture to culture, person to person, and even - within each person - week to week and moment to moment!

NB: there’s a lot of thumbs up emojis in this… Tasha’s macbook was going berserk and apparently fervently agreeing with everythign we said 👍🎉 Enjoy!

*The Afterparty will move behind the paywall in January! For real this time! Become a paid subscriber to continue being privy to these strange discussions…

Let us know in the comments how these practices landed for you!

K, That’s all for now. Thanks for tuning in!

Love always,

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️

Cara Lai is awesome. That’s the first thing to say. She is humble and real and willing to explore a heated topic without having any easy prepared answers. Backtrack! Cara is a dharma teacher, artist, Mom and former therapist. These days she mostly teaches meditation retreats and a fun online drop-in class called “Meditate Your Face Off!” (Jeff: Be still my heart.)

Our subject is the shitstorm happening on planet earth – in the Middle East, the Ukraine, the US, and other hot spots – and whether everyone should be speaking out. We recorded the episode back in May 2024; things are no less urgent today, seven months later. People have very strong opinions on these issues, and very strong opinions both about what should be said, and who should be saying it.

We talk about things like:

* How we can approach polarizing conversations

* What role anger and shame play in how we relate to each other

* How mindfulness and compassion might move us in a different direction

Cara’s guided mindfulness practice comes late in the episode, at 34 minutes. It’s a compassionate inquiry into what’s happening for us – in this moment – that we feel we can’t bear. “It’s hard to have a heart,” she says. In learning to stay present with our own experience, we also learn to stay present with others, even those we disagree with. The episode ends with a conversation about belonging, trust, and sharing our unique gifts with the world.

Thank you Cara!

LINKS

* Cara’s website: caralai.org

* Cara’s Podcast: adventuresinmeditating.com

The Afterparty

Where Tasha and Jeff chat about global culture, neurodiversity, and the privilege of living in this time. What new creative responses to the world’s challenges are waiting to emerge? That, friends, is the true promise, which Jeff immediately degrades in the final two minutes, when he curses and asks for money and then gargle-chokes on some grapefruit LaCroix bubbly water. The whole denouement is exceedingly stupid and immature and should have been cut – but! –well, it made Tasha laugh very hard. And that’s what matters.

AND NOW: SOME EXCITING NEWS!

We’re stoked to announce our first Mind Bod Adventure Squad Retreat. It’s an opportunity to get wild and embodied and very present with us.

It’s going down at the Omega Institute, June 8-13, 2025. We love our community and want to practice with you IN PERSON. Come explore!

REGISTER HERE

K, That’s all for this week. Thanks for tuning in!

Love always,

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️

This week, we go deep into the spiritual heart of psychedelics with Celina de Leon, founder of the Circle of Sacred Nature Church, and adjunct faculty at the Graduate Theological Union. Celina has spent 20 years working with ayahuasca – or yagé, as it’s known in the Kamentsa indigenous community of Colombia, her root lineage.

We talk about the contemplative practice of yagé, its unique characteristics, and how it opens us up to benefits beyond individual mental health. So much goodness!

The main thing is we go into ceremony – we experience how the deliberateness and care of ceremony takes us into the sacred present.

In Celina’s guided practice, we feel into the mystery of this and try to articulate the remembering that happens… although, of course, no words can ever be adequate.

So friends, come experience it with us :)

The Afterparty (watch at mindbodpod.com)

Tasha and Jeff get personal about some of the benefits of exploring psychedelics over the long-term, but also some of the ways they can be destabilizing. No one needs to do psychedelics, but if you do, be responsible: Find an experienced community that understands how to hold a safe container, and …. pace yourself!

We also get into a great discussion about how to think about teachers and communities of practice at a time when there are not enough deeply experienced teachers to go around.

Let us know in the comments how this practice was for you!

K, That’s all for this week. Thanks for tuning in!

Love always,

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️

In this episode, we remix therapy and healing with Angela Ai, a syncretic teacher practitioner of Core Energetics, Radical Aliveness, and Human Design.

What the heck are these modalities? Good question!

In a nutshell: they’re different ways to get insight into — and intuitive contact with— the human experience. Into our internal patterns, our relationships, and the ways we meet the world.

This is an adventure for the taxonomy nerds among us. Enjoy!

The Mind Bod Pod is a community-supported project. If you like these adventures, consider helping us keep the lights on with a paid subscription! ❤️

Watch The Afterparty (available at www.mindbodpod.com):

In this here After Party, Tasha and Jeff talk about how they are in relationship with each other, cause it’s fun to talk about friendship and our patterns and all that. Then they blab more generally about “maps of consciousness” like the Enneagram, the Zodiac, Tarot, Human Design and so on, whether they are objectively “true,” or more like subjective psychological tools, or some mystical combo of all that.

Let us know what you think in the comments!

K, That’s all for this week. Thanks for tuning in!

Love always,

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️

What if the secret sauce to navigating the world isn’t hustling harder, fixing yourself, or achieving inner peace like it’s an item on your to-do list—but something way simpler and right under your nose?

This week on the Mind Bod Pod, we sit down with Oren Jay Sofer, a meditation teacher, communication wizard, and all-around wise human, to talk about his book, Your Heart Was Made for This.

We dig into the deep but wildly practical ways we can meet life’s chaos with more presence—and fewer panic spirals:

* Why patience and courage might actually be magic powers

* The giant, thorny question—should we even have kids?? (Yup, we go there)

* Why the “I don’t have time for practice” excuse is a lie (and what to do instead)

* How self-care, spirituality, and social action are actually the same weird beast

--------The Mind Bod Adventure Pod is a community-supported project. If you like these adventures, consider helping us keep the lights on with a paid subscription! ❤️--------

This episode isn’t about adding more stuff to do—it’s about seeing that your life, exactly as it is, is already the practice.

Oren has a way of making wisdom feel like a quiet ‘of course!” you forgot you knew—the kind that lands gently, like a deep breath or a long walk in the park.

Let us know in the comments what thoughts, feels & practice revelations wiggled loose for you during this episode!

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The Afterparty

PS… Big Afterparty Upgrade Incoming! 🚀

The Pod is about to get way weirder… Instead of just lil Afterparty snippets tacked onto episodes, we’re turning these sessions into full bi-weekly episodes.

That means just the two of us, showing up candidly—diving into the questions, quandaries, and delightful existential messes arising in our own lives.

We’ll talk, unpack, guide short practices, sing, dance—who knows what else—all in the spirit of bringing you deeper into our weird worlds as practitioners, teachers, and friends. Coming very soon - Stay tuned! 🎉

K, That’s all for this week. Thanks for tuning in!

Love always,

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️

What if happiness wasn’t just a feeling but something you could train and reinforce?

This week on MindBod AdventurePod, we sit down with Dr. Axel Bouchon, a neuroscientist and biotech entrepreneur who spent 20 years searching for a cure for depression—only to realize he’d been asking the wrong question. Instead of curing sadness, he discovered the source code for happiness—a set of six neurotransmitters that shape our emotional landscape.

In this episode, Axel takes us on a guided tour of our own brains, revealing:

* Why depression can’t be erased—but happiness can be cultivated

* The six neurotransmitters behind different flavors of happiness (it’s not just dopamine!)

* How to “train” yourself for more joy, resilience, and long-term well-being

* Why laughter, nature, music, and even bass drops all play a role in happiness

* How our best memories act as anchors—and why taking photos might actually make us happier

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The Mind Bod Adventure Pod is a community-supported project. If you like these adventures, consider helping us keep the lights on with a paid subscription! ❤️

------------------------------------

We also dive into Matter, Axel’s innovative app that helps reinforce positive neural pathways by engaging with your own peak memories—those moments that spark deep joy, connection, and meaning. It’s a fascinating look at how we can actively shape our emotional landscape for greater balance and well-being.

This episode is part neuroscience, part meditation, and part mind-expanding happiness experiment—so get ready to light up your brain in real time.

------------------------------------

LINKS

* Learn more at: Matter.xyz

* Download the Matter app: matter.xyz/app

What’s your most happiness-inducing memory? Let us know in the comments!

------------------------------------

The Afterparty

The Pod is about to get way weirder… we’re turning these Afterparty sessions into full bi-weekly episodes! We’ll talk, unpack, guide short practices, sing, dance—who knows what else—all in the spirit of bringing you deeper into our weird worlds as practitioners, teachers, and friends. Coming in APRIL! 🎉

------------------------------------

K, That’s all for this week. Thanks for tuning in!

Love always,

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️

This week, we sit down with relational facilitator James-Olivia Chu Hillman, whose teachings on radical responsibility, integrity, and unconditional positive regard are already shifting how Jeff shows up in relationship… and how Tasha tries not to ghost people who annoy her. 😅

Together, we explore:

* The four core skills of relating well

* why being “right” isn’t the same as being relational

* Why saying “I agree” can be the most disorienting move in a conversation

* What it really means to take responsibility—without shame, and without blame

--------

The Mind Bod Adventure Pod is a community-supported project. If you like these adventures, consider helping us keep the lights on with a paid subscription! ❤️

--------

And we wrestle with the tension between compassion and boundaries, support and self-abandonment, and the paradox of allowing versus control in both meditation and relationships.

✨ “Integrity has a cost,” James-Olivia reminds us. “But so does losing it.”

Whether you’re conflict-avoidant, righteousness-prone, or deeply tired of your own relational fuckery—this episode offers a compassionate (and funny) mirror.

--------

The Afterparty (watch at www.mindbodpod.com)

Jeff breaks and Tasha explores why setting boundaries and advocating for oneself can be both challenging and powerful.

Let us know in the comments what this episode shook loose for you.

K, That’s all for this week. Thanks for tuning in!

Love always,

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️

This week on the Mind Bod Adventure Pod, we sit down with Dr. Joel Schwartz, a psychologist and one of the early architects of the Neurodiversity-Affirming Therapy movement.

Joel is known for speaking truth to systems that pathologize difference — and for offering a way of working with our minds that’s healing, joyful, and radically humane.

In this episode, we explore:

* Why the “pathology model” of ADHD and autism misses the point

* The emotional toll of masking and code-switching to survive

* What actually helps when someone is overstimulated (spoiler: not deep breathing)

* Reclaiming movement, joy, and the right to stim without shame

* An unexpected practice that ends in synchronized swaying and yodel-singing!

Joel brings brilliance, humor, and zero tolerance for the rigid norms that ask neurodivergent folks to contort themselves into “acceptable” versions of humanity.

Along the way, Tasha reflects on late-diagnosed spectrum-y traits, Jeff gets real about rejection sensitivity, and we all momentarily dissolve into giggles about somatic intelligence and… mosh pits.

✨This episode is both a call to arms and a warm hug — a guide to seeing difference not as deficit, but as creative, embodied, meaningful expression.

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! ❤️

Connect with Joel’s Practice: Total Spectrum Counseling

Now it’s your turn! Let us know what this episode and practice shook loose for you:

That’s all for this week. Thanks for tuning in.

Love always,

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️