Sex Birth Trauma with Kimberly Ann Johnson

What She Shares: How the birth of her son was a psycho-spiritual death experience The rich depth of her postpartum experiences Practicing as a Zen Monk AND parenting About her new course "Write to the Heart of Motherhood" What You'll Hear: Recognizing when you need to surrender, and when you need to stand in your strength Expanding your boundaries to build resiliency Feeling the pain of childbirth as power Pushing yourself out of love, not punishment Birth and postpartum as a rite of passage, and incorporating afterward Re-integrating with society at a new level after a rite of passage Sharing your learning with your community Viewing the interruptions of life as life itself Committing to what resources you Allowing space for creativity and inspiration to come organically Finding ways to interrupt your habits and inner critic Harvesting what is already happening in your mothering Brooke McNamara is a professor at Naropa University, the author of "Feed Your Vow: Poems for Falling into Fullness", and creates dance theater performances through her company Eunice Embodiment. She's a poet, a performer, a zen monk, mother of two, a movement educator, and a mindfulness coach.

What Dr. Claudia Shares: Why the title of her book is actually backwards Her "aha!" moment when she was studying hormones The difference between sex hormones and stress hormones How our spiritual and emotional choices reverberate through our physical bodies What You'll Hear: Understanding that your hormones don't become imbalanced in a vacuum How Western and Eastern medicines support each other to better understand our hormones Viewing hormonal functions through the lens of duality Hormones govern extremes in the body Understanding why imbalances between sex and stress hormones occur Learning how to decrease stress hormones through lifestyle changes Striving for the sweet spot of balance between yin and yang Learning your own body to understand when it needs more rest versus stimulation Why women in their late 30's and beyond require more rest Becoming hormonally rearranged in menopause Learning to balance external stressors to support your health Determining what your version of 'having it all' is, and subtracting what you don't need The interweaving effects of emotion, thought, biology, action, and spirituality on our hormonal balance Embracing the medicine of subtraction and internal wisdom to find balance Why saying no takes so much courage Further resources for learning about hormone balancing and preparing for pregnancy Respecting the hormonal differences between male and female bodied people

What Christine Shares: Her activism centered around the bodylessness present in our culture Translating your physical experience to your social interactions How embracing inquiry and challenges can support your well being How her understanding of the immune system impacted how she runs her psychotherapy practice What You'll Hear: Incorporating somatic work in your daily life for nervous system health Coming to a practice from pressure, pleasure, or inquiry, and how those may affect your practice How a practice changes when you come with some form of self-regulation Integrating mental and physical processes Respecting the 12 different systems in the body as inherently important in their own right Learning to listen to all systems in the body so that you get a fuller picture of your self and your health Approaching the body from a community organizing standpoint with a non-hierarchical approach Creating space for range and nuance rather than a stark dichotomy Approaching your body from a lens of curiosity rather than control Using physical, mental, and cognitive challenges to promote optimal health The immune system learns and becomes toned when it faces challenges The universe of experiences available when you learn to really be in your body The connection between being bodyful and social awareness and ethics Understanding your body from both a physical sense and a poetic sense Using your sense of power to relax into the unknown or uncontrollable

What Lisa Shares: Her journey to understanding female fertility more fully after receiving incorrect information in school How to determine when you're actually fertile The biology of the menstrual cycle and how different birth controls alter this The importance of male fertility in conception and how to boost male fertility What You'll Hear: The recent expansion of scientific literature to more fully include the female body Learning about the biology and physiology of the female body and basing health decisions on science The hormonal cycle is intertwined with the rest of your biology Embracing your body through the lens of pleasure rather than fear Developing personal agency around your fertility decisions The difference between the rhythm method and fertility awareness The importance of familiarizing yourself with cervical mucus, basal body temperature, and cervical positioning The difference between pre-ovulatory and post-ovulatory mucus When practiced *properly,* the efficacy of fertility awareness is up to 99.4% The importance of learning and practicing the method, especially when coming off the pill Understanding the importance of male fertility for natural conception Average count and mobility of sperm has declined in the last century, and ways to improve sperm health Why you might lose your period and the importance of balancing health in order to bring it back Why the menstrual cycle is an important vital sign about your health How vaginal steaming might interact with fertility awareness The long-term health implications of hormonal birth control Being familiar enough with your cycle to notice when more systemic issues are at play How stress affects your menstrual cycle How relating to your body in this way can empower you

What Bari Shares: Her journey into perimenopause Learning to lose her shame around money Living through the ebbs and flows of income The phases she guides you through in her year-long money school What You'll Hear: Responding to the body's needs through intuitive eating and nourishing movement Respecting the natural ebbs and flows of energy Allowing yourself to expand your financial goals and comfort Moving beyond your current money ceilings Riding the wave of change in life Allowing for financial lulls in order to attend to other important needs Applying the principle of ebbs and flows to money Balancing parenting with earning, and understanding your worth Allowing parenting young children to be the transition it is Working through money koans Feelings of fight, flight, and freeze during financial stress Defining your version of financial sustainability Including future financial needs in your vision The importance of money healing and understanding your patterns Learning to be exceptionally loving during your process of money healing Respecting and cherishing your own pacing

What He Shares: Some of the golden rules of healthy relating The important ingredients to a flourishing relationship How to reduce drama in your relationship, regardless of structure His shift from 'doing' to 'being' What You'll Hear: Moving into authenticity and vulnerability to allow a genuine unfolding within a relationship Discerning when to be vulnerable and when to respect your communication boundaries Finding the living sweet spot of authenticity, vulnerability, and being transparent within each relationship Having ruthless self-awareness toward yourself and your conditioning Following the truth of your heart in your relationship structure Discovering alignment, or not, with your partner Ways to proceed with changes in your relationship dynamic Celebrating your partner in their fullness Healing your attachment styles, wounding, and imprints to have less drama in a relationship Expanding beyond the paradigm of dichotomy Showing up from a deeper conscious commitment to self, to source, and to each other Finding full comfort in who you are and what you want Living the fully embodied wholeness that you're here to live Loosening your scripts while maintaining togetherness Finding a way to embody and transmit an experience of safety for you partner Being based in love and integrity, not in impulses of conditioning Recognizing the energetic shift post MeToo, and embracing the role of initiator as a woman Meeting your partner at their emotional and communication belt levels

Brigit is a licensed massage therapist, craniosacral practitioner, a trauma resolution therapist, and believes deeply in the magic of life and the wild wisdom of the body. She especially loves to work with people on boundary repair and stabilization. What She Shares: Sensing your own boundaries for invasions and working towards repair Working with imprints from our own conception and birth to find systemic healing Embracing your family dynamic to foster personal expansion Offering safe attachment with others through secure attachment with one's self What You'll Hear: Discovering what in your system is an imprint from trauma or overwhelming experiences Your individual blueprint and its potential for growth Healing imprints so that you can flourish Physical imprints from our own births and how they continue to manifest How relational ruptures with your parent can imprint into your core Honoring lost infants to help create closure and healing for other children Re-wilding ourselves to build resilience to traumatic experiences Embracing the spirit and magic of life for a better sense of embodiment Building capacity in order to witness and sequence through relationship ruptures Using intellectual knowledge to find comfort in your body's flow Recognizing the return of the divine feminine and reclaiming your power of creating Finding a practitioner that can show up for your animal body Living life at a pace that is digestible in the moment and creating conditions for presence When an injury is multifaceted, including sexual abuse by a faith leader, it is important for the repair to also be multifaceted Staying open to see what's already healthy, working, and stable

What She Shares: Her varied birth and postpartum experiences Learning about nourishing food from her family Becoming a single mom of three and reweaving herself What You'll Hear: The importance of practicing receiving and recognizing when we're depleted Ways to slow down and reflect on your feelings so they don't accumulate and overwhelm Approaching life from a point of maintaining vitality and attending to yourself Embracing the simplicity of care Respecting the true pace of the body and nervous system to truly be resourced How different postpartum experiences affect your health Caring for yourself during your menstrual cycle can help fortify your health Finding her medicine and following it Reconfiguring the meaning of 'family' Embracing passions outside of our jobs to bring fulfillment Recognizing that we cannot attend to every need or desire Allowing space and flow in postpartum, and knowing that re-opening takes time and patience All our stories are unique, but many of the feelings are similar

What He Shares: How he came into the path of intentional, sexual healing What a session in NeuroAffective Touch looks like Discovering your own preferences and those of your partner through Full Body Active Consent Working with his own mother to repair rupture in her nervous system How pleasure factors into his work What You'll Hear: How the lack of sovereignty in our body as an adolescent shows up in our adult embodiment The opportunity to repair ruptures with male authority figure through working with male practitioners Integrating unsequenced emotions somatically Bodies often become guarded when an outside agenda is opposed on them, and ways to put the body back in charge Listening to the body to inform a loving, effective way forward The importance of pausing and finding the information there Resolving trauma so that we can reclaim the body's sovereignty Respecting the body's intelligence Addressing listlessness by integrating our emotional landscape Freeing unsequenced emotion through bodywork Changing patterns in real-time through emotional repair The power of what can shift in your life when things shift somatically in your body Downloading a new software in your body Changing our embodiment, creativity, and confidence through sexual energy De-armoring the body to release stored emotion and to access greater life force Following the body's lead to safely use catharsis alongside titration work. Finding a practitioner that can aid you in translating the body's needs

Dan Doty is the founder of Evryman, a father, and a husband. He's constantly delving into new depths with himself, his wife, and the men in his life. Dan has found incredible liberation through his work helping men connect with each other. What he shares: The core mission of Evryman His ongoing process of opening and exploration, and the feelings that arise Changes he sees every day in men who develop awareness of others and the self The power of the simplicity of what he offers His journey learning to support a partner with a history of sexual trauma What you'll hear: How to effectively invite your partner on your journey of personal growth Addressing the fear that embracing something deeper or more connective will 'feminize' men The deep importance of recognizing both the external and internal perspective of being human How learning to be aware can lead to increased satisfaction and fulfillment, and bring connection into life The importance of slowing down The powerful experience of being a part of a men's group and feeling safe Relational communication skills take practice, and it's ok to be clumsy when you start The need for reparative work to have healthy, forward thinking interactions Learning to trust others and yourself through connection Supporting a partner with a history of sexual trauma Working towards cultural healing by stepping out of the paradigm of duality The ebbs and flows of sexuality The healing that happened for Dan's partner after Kimberly's Jaguar course Steps to build your own support system Acknowledging the deep work it takes to have a healthy relationship The journey into fatherhood requires support and care The need for physical contact and support, especially when raising children