Sex Birth Trauma with Kimberly Ann Johnson

Jennifer Block is an award winning journalist, an advocate for women's health care, and the author of books including "Pushed: the Painful Truth about Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care" and "Everything Below the Waist: Why Health Care Needs a Feminist Revolution." She writes frequently about health, gender, and conflict of interest in medicine. What She Shares: Insight into the recent Madison Breech Birth Conference Working for 5 years to get publishers to take her first book seriously Why viewing birth through a human rights lens is so important How feminism's relationship with the medical establishment has changed What You'll Hear: How the lack of professional birth education creates 'birth refugees' How practitioners organized the Madison Breech Birth Conference to take education back into their own hands The importance of human rights in birth Taking an active role in your birth and changing the trauma response The correspondence of the rise in maternal mortality and the rise in c-sections The discrepancy of C-section rates between different communities Translating birth research into the birth room practices Understanding the actual birth potential of a breech baby Holding your power during birth Examining the health effects of hormonal birth control Separating politics from health care choices Knowing that choosing to end your cycle is not a physiologically 'neutral' choice The benefits of monthly hormone cycling Taking a long-term view of fertility Undoing the "father-doctor-god" complex and believing in your own knowledge and power The intersection of race and health care

Jenelle Marie Pierce is the Executive Director of The STI Project, the founder of the Herpes Activist Network, and is the spokesperson for Positive Singles. As an STI + Sexual Health Educator and content creator, Jenelle is dismantling STI stigma through awareness, education, and acceptance. What She Shares: The definitions of STI and STD, and how they differ Safe sex vs safer sex How many sexually active people contract STIs in their lifetime Her own journey with untangling STI stigma What You'll Hear: Understanding that you are not alone with an STI diagnosis The majority of people living with STIs are unaware of their status Untangling the stigma around genital herpes Understanding that STI stigma originated with stigma around sex How different cultures view herpes Removing the differentiation between HSV1 and HSV2 Examining your own views on promiscuity and what it means to be 'good' Understanding the impacts of a positive STI status and learning to communicate about it Identifying the reasons why we engage in sex so we can have full agency over our choices Determining how and when to disclose your STI status How having an STI can increase the authenticity of relational communication Giving yourself time and space to determine if you want to move forward in a sexual relationship with a positive partner Remembering to embrace the pleasure of sex Holding personal agency in sexual decisions Finding an STI educator that fits your needs and style

Three women share how the Activate Your Inner Jaguar course changed their lives. magamama.com/jaguar

What She Shares: What is Jing, how it is developed, and how it affects us The Three Golden Opportunities available to menstruating people Kris's personal journey as a mother of two children with autism, the effect it had on her health, and how she restored her wellness What You'll Hear: Building on the Jing or Essence you're born with Matching ancient Eastern philosophies with modern research Recognizing the key times in a menstruating person's life when they can positively affect how their health manifests Menstrual blood as the physical manifestation of Jing loss, and safeguarding your energy and Essence Menstruation as a vital sign of your health Allowing variation within the menstrual cycle based on life events and stressors Approaching your health from a felt sense Positively influencing your health through Jing restoration during menstruation and postpartum Stopping "Doing," and embracing Rest Approaching healing practices through the lens of energy management Strengthening your health in your late 30's to build reserves for menopause Removing the negative cultural connotation around 'perimenopause' and 'postpartum' Using the three Golden Opportunities to fortify your health Harvesting your newly allocated energy in menopause Embracing aging Looking at your health from a broader perspective Prioritizing the foundational parts of our health such as sleep, nutrition, and community Teaching our daughters about the magic and wisdom available in knowing their menstrual cycles Developing an intimate relationship with yourself

Jennifer Lang recently published an open letter as an OB-GYN who supports women who seek alternative, holistic, and awakened care. She has authored two books, "Consent: The New Rules for Sex Education" and "The Whole 9 Months: A Week-by-week Pregnancy Nutrition Guide." Jennifer Today she speaks on her journey from 'surgical cowboy' to an advocate for bodily autonomy, discovering embodiment through birth, empowering low income communities to screen for and treat cervical cancer, and supporting women in building personal agency within a medical system. Bio: Jennifer Lang is a gynecological oncologist, the author of two books, the mother of three children, and a passionate force for women's health and wellbeing. She has served women in a hospital setting, founded a non-profit to reduce cervical cancer rates, and is creating a tech start-up to assist young people in recognizing when they are too incapacitated to consent. "We don't have to turn over our bodily autonomy every time we walk into a doctor's office and get up on an exam table. In fact, we should not, ever." "We have to remember that doctors are just people, with all their perversions, fallacies, all of it. They're just people. We can never just put our bodies and our lives, blindly and unquestioningly, into someone else's hands." Resources: https://consentthebook.com and @drjenniferlang on IG What She Shares: Her pathway through medical school and into a more connected, embodied form of care eventually leaving her surgery practice How her nonprofit, Cure Cervical Cancer, empowers low-income communities to prevent cervical cancer Her path as a wife, mother, and now through an expansion in her family and coming out to her family What You'll Hear: Becoming intimately educated in birth through living it Choosing homebirth after working as a hospital OB-GYN The challenges of maintaining your own health as a med student and practicing doctor Finding ways to bring embodied learning and reverence into anatomy education Experiencing paradigm shift through daily HypnoBirthing meditations From planning for a hospital birth to having a blissed-out water birth Recognizing the need for quiet, dark, supported birth and offering this in a surgical setting Understanding the developmental timeline of HPV to cervical cancer Preventing cervical cancer through extremely low cost means, without surgery Finding comfort and power while finding your cervix Knowing that you are the expert on your own body Working with other practitioners to offer patients a full spectrum of care Supporting patients in their empowered medical choices Working towards a single payer medical system in order to offer patients true comprehensive care Choosing to leave a medical practice because of the environmental toxins it produces Addressing the root cause of disease rather than treating personal symptoms Recognizing personal experiences within a medical opinion The transition from being re-awakened and exiting the old paradigm Moving through fear of change in order to live fully in your awakening Being a fully embodied parent as a way to support your children Developing a tech tool to assist teens in recognizing when they may be too incapacitated to consent Knowing your desires, limits, and boundaries, and being able to honor those during intimate encounters

Keli Garza, Steamy Chick, and Kimberly Johnson, Magamama discuss the results of The Fourth Trimester Vaginal Steam Study results. We are defining what postpartum recovery looks like. In this podcast we will walk you through the study design- what we did, how we did it, what the results are and what we think the groundbreaking implications of those results mean for future postpartum health and future studies.

Cece joins us fresh out of her 6 th grade Sex Education curriculum and offers insight and feedback on ways to make the process more comfortable, effective, and accurate. We also talk about the challenges of body image and learning to embrace both our flaws and strengths. Cece opens up about her experience as a bi-racial individual navigating school, life, and the current political climate. What She Shares: The good, the bad, and the lovely of having a sex educator for a mom What Sex Ed is like in a modern 6 th grade classroom What it's like being the student with accurate information Her journey with body image Growing up bi-racially with a white mother What You'll Hear: Making sex education more comfortable through authentic connection Calling for curriculum updates that meet kids at their level Learning about puberty from a 1980's film Untangling the bits of truth from the ball of misinformation in sex ed curriculum Sex ed still does not cover the days in a woman's cycle when she's actually fertile The lack of discussion around period products

Steve Hoskinson was one of my Somatic Experiencing teachers and has since gone on to found Organic Intelligence. He hosts The End of Trauma podcast and has made democratizing nervous system information his mission. What Steve Shares: Seeing our humanness through the map of complexity science The importance of joy and pleasure in growth Information on his End of Trauma course The difference between Somatic Experiencing and Organic Intelligence What You'll Hear: Discerning between 'natural' and 'moral' in our decision making Being empowered in your choices through knowledge Understanding that your physical body may perceive experiences differently than your thinking brain Respecting your intensity thresholds at any given time Using Complexity Science to understand the three phases of complex systems, such as our nervous system The nature of our biology requires us to build resiliency through pleasure and safety Orienting to your surroundings catalyzes self-organization of the nervous system Self-growth through the pleasure of engagement, safety, trust, and positive feedback Recognizing the intelligence already present in your being Noticing if you're being driven forward through internal impulses or external pressure Ending trauma through returning to biological synchrony SIBAMing your thought process to obtain more insight Reframing 'trauma' as 'un-integrated resource' and knowing that your system wants to self-regulate Increasing your 'bandwidth' to comfortably and safely hold more feeling and information Finding trauma resolution through orienting to pleasure Our systems grow through orienting to our environments and experiencing pleasure The nature of humanity is compassion and connection The importance of understanding systems processes through nature and embodiment Moving beyond 'self development' and finding real growth through pleasure and joy Moving your attention and awareness to the present moment of your external environment

Katie Silcox is a yoga instructor and Ayurveda instructor who studied with world renowned teachers and became disillusioned by some of what she experienced in the yoga world. Her experiences allowed her to become more discerning and offer her students safety and freedom in their own practice. What Katie Shares: When the yoga she was doing wasn't working anymore [9:25] She wanted to break up with yoga the same month she was featured on the cover of Yoga Journal [11:08] How she learned balance the horizontal vs. vertical relationships of teacher to student by holding space and owning leadership [18:25] Yoga as having your worldview superimposed through a yoga practice [22:00] Shakti needs a structure for which to flow [24:00] How to trust your body to naturally go where it wants to be [33:38] Her current form of practice [34:20] What happens when women abdicate power to a male authority [39:06] What You'll Hear: First level of Polyvagal theory: belonging and safety vs. herd mentality The Me Too movement in the yoga world "Waking the Tiger" and how somatic experiencing resets the nervous system The stages of Chaos The role of the "core" in yoga and cultural perception Conversation about the cultural and internal patriarch What it looks like to truly inhabit and incarnate our body Katie is the New York Times Best-Selling author of the book Healthy, Happy, Sexy - Ayurveda Wisdom for Modern Women and Founder and CEO of Shakti School. Holding a Master's Degree in the Ayurveda Sciences, Katie is an internationally-recognized teacher, mentor to women and inspirer of hearts and minds. Together we talk about our paths as young female yoga teachers, how to navigate the yoga world, and what the nervous system has to do with it.

Summary:. Levina and Caleb have been journaling together about their sex life for nearly a year. They quickly discovered that creating this intimate and authentic space allowed them to learn more about themselves and each other, both within and outside of sex. They've been able to unearth and heal old dynamics, foster curiosity and communication, and continue building an electric sex life. Resources: https://asexjournal.com @asexjournal What They Share: Their dating history and how they created their sex journal How journaling allowed them to uncover new knowledge about themselves How journaling has impacted other couples What You'll Hear: Journaling and documenting in times of joy and connection Building a space to curious and communicative with both yourself and your partner Creating space in your partnership for ongoing conversations and evolution Recognizing that shared experiences can be different for each person Building a foundation of understanding and communication to enable creativity Allowing someone else's experience to not be a personal reflection on you Assessing what level of safety and trust you may require when deciding to sex journal together Starting the path of self-discovery wherever you are Relationships can continue to deepen and grow when there's genuine connection Developing great sex by practicing communication Unearthing and healing relationship dynamics Delving into the curiosity, learning, and pleasure of sex Being less busy so that you can connect with both yourself and a potential partner Prioritizing an erotic component in your life is important for full-life satisfaction Sex is where we get to step out of urgency and into life-force connection The importance of engaging in relationship in order to expand self growth Consciously choosing your languaging around relationship and sex to foster the experience you want Creating long-term resilience in your sex life through exploration and variety Finding comfort and joy in all the parts of being human