This episode is a replay of a conversation I had with Sean Hershey on his podcast, Mind-Body Medicine for Chronic Pain. It was a great way to recap te experience of the talk that I did with colleague Amy Schere. From Sean's perspective our talk created a bit of a stir, but as many of you know, the science is out there about the mental + physical impacts of weight stigma, we're just the first ones to talk about it in relationship with neuroplastic symptoms and recovery. We'll be talking more about the research and materials so stay tuned but enjoy this conversation with Sean. And if you're looking for a therapist, he has room in his practice.

This episode is a chat with my bestie Amber Karnes, a yoga teacher, rukus maker and body empowerment experience maker. We talk about how to safely create engaging exposure experiences to help our brains and bodies update our understanding of what's possible in our today bodies. She's one of my treasured inner circle humans and I hope that you are as inspired by her as I am. She's someone makes imaginations into reality both for her students and for other business owners who are stepping into their own visibility. Have a listen and notice what feels like the empowered embodiment invitation for you!

This podcast I take you on a journey into my own health stuff as I notice and map my stress triggers and work with fear, shame and curiosity to help my mindbody system navigate the unknown. One of the most important practices we can build is to start to decrease our sense of threat by using trauma empowering exercises like Trigger Mapping. I first learned this activity in my Somatica Coaching Training, and of course noticed the similarities with other somatic practices like somatic tracking in Pain Reprocessing Therapy. All of this work has a similar foundation of cultivating non-judgmental awareness, a loving witness, curiosity and a felt sense of safety while doing exposure activities. They might use slightly different language but there's a lot of overlaps. One of the foundations of Somatica that I appreciate most is the radical acceptance of emotions and also the prioritization of pleasure. I have found adding an emphasis on pleasure in my own somatic practices have made them, well a whole lot more pleasurable to do. Have a listen and start to explore your own Triggers in this way. Where can you start to notice the edges and boundaries of your stress and/or trauma responses?

Dr. Lilia Graue is a treasured colleague and friend who is both an experienced Mindbody Medicine Practitioner and someone I found as an ally in the unique challenges that people of size face in accessing supportive care on their journey with pain. This episode she shares her personal pain recovery story as well as some research on weight stigma, dieting, threat physiology and how to approach creating corrective experiences in healing. Dr. Lilia Graue is a physician, psychotherapist, and mindbody healing mentor. After living with chronic pain for more than a decade, she found freedom through an integrative mindbody approach grounded in neuroscience, mindfulness, and compassion. Today, she supports people living with chronic pain, fatigue, long COVID, and other persistent symptoms to reconnect with safety, vitality, and agency. She also mentors fellow practitioners—therapists, coaches, and clinicians—to create trauma-integrative, relational, and sustainable healing spaces. With over 25 years of experience in medicine and psychotherapy, Dr. Graue’s work prioritizes consent, curiosity, and co-creation, honoring individual context, systemic influences, and the power of genuine relationship in supporting long-term change and healing. She works with people globally in both English and Spanish. Originally from Mexico City, she currently lives in London with her husband and the two adorable rescue cats who own them, Ziggy and Lupito. In addition to her work, she loves spending time in nature, baking, reading, traveling, and enjoying live music.

In this episode I share some advice I gave to a client today about moving themselves away from creating a ritual or a rigid response to a new symptoms that's showing up for them. When we "thingify" anything, we are teaching the brain a heuristic, a pattern that it will subconsconciously learn and uphold. Since this client and I have worked together for awhile and they've relieved the majority of their symptoms, they were able to catch their pattern of creating safety by controlling and ritualizing their response to symptoms. At the heart of mindbody work we are always working with increasing safety and dialing down fear, cultivating a sense of curiosity and self kindness when difficult thoughts, feelings + sensations arise. I share a bit of my own health journey, my book writing and the most recent retreat I went on. Check it out and find those aha tidbits that help you feel even more brave, more clear on your mindbody healing path. I'm always happy for you to reach out and book a curiosity call!

Hello my feelers + healers! I went on an almost 3 week trip that involved 4 flights, 7 train rides, a few metro rides, 3 countries, 6 cities. And a lot of walking. And some boat rides. I was definitely nervous before this trip. I was remembering last year's Galapagos trip which yes was a lot more "adventure travel" than this one. But yanno part of the brain's job is to try to predict + problem solve the future so that you can be safe. So I had some prep work mentally and emotionally to do. Mostly to remind myself that whatever happens on this trip I'll be ok. It can be a complete disaster and while I might be disappointed I'll be ok. It's so funny when I was on my trip I had so much to say. Now that I've been home for a month, I can't remember. But I can remember how I feel now and I think that's important because it's tied into how I helped myself on the trip and how that subconscious programming has continued to be metabolized and integrated into my beliefs about my body, what it's capable of and how to continue on the journey of expanding my physical and emotional capacity, while decreasing a sense of fear, threat or danger. Traveling is definitely a place where I see fear arise for myself and my clients. There's SO MUCH unknown. And there's so much that's out of our control and out of our routine. AND that's what makes it perfect for creating corrective experiences and new predictive coding for our brain, body + nervous system. Listen well and think about how you can create those corrective experiences for yourself.

I was inspired by my friend and fellow coach Maggie Reyes after listening to a podcast of hers on emotional leadership. I felt like the topic resonated for me personally and for my clients. I am always thinking of how to shift into a state of self connective empowerment no matter what is happening in your body and your life. As Vanessa Blackstone said in episode 47, mindbody work is akin to relationship coaching and I know no one better to talk about relationships than Maggie. Please enjoy and listen with the mindset of a what resonates with me and how can I apply these ideas for my highest benefit and deepest self connection. Maggie Reyes is a Master Certified Life Coach & Marriage Mentor who helps high-achieving women excel in both their relationships and leadership roles without burning out or sacrificing connection. Maggie brings a practical, down-to-earth feminist, and compassionate approach to relationship transformation and personal development. Through her signature approaches like Soul-Centered Communication and the 5 Relationship Powers framework, Maggie guides women to transform resentment into connection and overwhelm into clarity. Her clients report remarkable results - from feeling happier around their partners and resolving conflicts more quickly, to developing stronger communication skills that transfer directly to their leadership roles. Her clients are typically executives, business owners, and professionals who read both Harvard Business Review and Brené Brown, and who value both strategic solutions and soulful approaches. What makes Maggie's approach unique is that she works with women individually to transform their relationships - even when their partners aren't participating in the process. Through a unique blend of cognitive coaching and somatic practices, she helps clients question limiting beliefs and create new patterns that serve them better. The same skills that create extraordinary marriages translate directly to leadership effectiveness, helping her clients become more influential and impactful in all areas of life. She's committed to helping women lead from their power, not their exhaustion, both at home and at work. Her signature concept of becoming "Sexy Besties" with your partner describes that perfect balance of deep friendship and passionate connection that characterizes thriving relationships. Maggie met her husband on Christmas Day and has been married for over 17 years. Her Marriage Life Coach Podcast ranks in the top 2% globally, and she's the author of the bestselling Questions for Couples Journal with over 3,000 positive reviews. With more than 2,000 hours of coaching experience, Maggie makes complex concepts delightfully simple while honoring their depth.

Gather around as I share a story of fear and anxiety and how it showed up in my body and how I met the moment through a mindbody lens. I can be an anxious bunny, with big feelings but I don’t normally have fear like this. Soooooooo not fun but I got to see the opportunity in it to practice self compassion, self connection and collaborating with self through the fear. In the world in which we cannot and do not control everything, collaboration, connection and trust are essential skills to develop and we all have our own experiences both personally, generationally and historically with these ideas. Learning how to increase your somatic curiosity can help you walk back from panic into security, from fear and flares into self trust and nervous system settling. The mind and the body are gateways into your whole being and opportunities for healing are ever present. And we never stop being human. So please enjoy a peek into a part of my life in which I again am my own client, soothing my own fears and witnessing with so much love my own 💩. If you know that you want judgement free support for your own exploration, please book a call and let’s talk about how this work can help you.

This is a fun conversation about a not fun topic, healing from chronic pelvic pain. Rachel and I are mindbody besties, our work is deeply rooted in learning and teaching these skills of body trust and always believing the recovery is available for everyone in any body. I hope you listen with wide open ears, catching any themes that might resonate for you. And with any of my interviews, I invite you to imagine applying these concepts to you in your life. How can you start to view your symptoms and your life differently? To me, Rachel is a hero of self determination, someone willing to step through fear, pain, discomfort and trauma with such passion and self compassion. It's not an easy path as you will discover, but she and I share the sentiment that once you understand neuroplastic pain it's hard to view our human experience through a different lens. Rachel is a Doctor of Physical Therapy and pelvic pain coach who specializes in guiding women with chronic pelvic pain to heal through a holistic mind-body approach. Her own journey of healing from chronic pelvic pain inspired her to pursue this work, and she now dedicates her career to guiding and supporting others through their own paths to recovery. With years of experience in both clinical practice and coaching, Rachel empowers her clients to not only heal their pain but also to create full and empowered lives rooted in connection and intention as they heal. Her unique approach combines expert knowledge with compassionate coaching, providing women with the tools to feel safe in their bodies, live freely, and foster deeper, more meaningful connections with themselves and others as they heal.

Heads up people, in this episode I'm speaking with PRT therapist Caryn Sherbet about their pain + symptom recovery journey as well as their work with Exposure both in their clinical practice of ERP as well as in their private life with BDSM. We don't go into detail (so get your mind out of the gutter *wink*) but they speak about how the concepts of pain on purpose aka using exposure can decrease threat, fear + change the meaning of the symptoms. One of the incredible pieces of knowledge they drop is that anxiety is not an emotion, it's a coping mechanism. It's a strategy of the brain to keep us safe. We talk about all the various entry points to risk, there is in life and how pursuing freedom and our desires can lead us to creating more and more of a felt sense of safety using these tools. I hope this podcast helps you discover your embodied pathways to expansion, exposure and the ability to turn down the danger alarm bell and turn up freedom and fearlessness. Caryn is a Brooklyn-based psychotherapist who specializes in treating the intersection of OCD, chronic pain, and sexual trauma. They are trained in Exposure & Response Prevention (ERP) and in Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT), which they use to help clients create safety in moments of physical and emotional pain alike. Caryn is especially passionate about working with members of the LGBTQ+ community to heal from interpersonal and structural trauma.

This episode was inspired by the conversation I had with therapist Caryn Sherbet, which will be my next podcast. They're a new PRT therapist and we chatted about the gifts of exposure response therapy for all kinds of situations we encounter that trigger our avoidance response. In this episode, I take you through two experiences that are more aligned with emotional pain but hey you all know that can often be a trigger for physical pain, or go hand in hand with it (hey that's a great podcast idea). But I walk you through the avoidance/approach process that I used to help me transform two tender emotional experiences I was having that was causing me to avoid taking aligned actions. In the process I was able to further neutralize two stories that I've been carrying around for years, "I don't get things done" and "Being fat means I'm not worthy of love (and not currently being in a relationship is proof)." As I say in the episode, I'm in a fierce transformation phase of my life, having finished the majority of heavy lifting of activities around my Dad's passing as well as the coming of Spring. As I get more friendly with what triggers avoidance, I'm able to gently use my tools of neuroplasticity and psychophysiological recoding processes to rewire those habitual responses from a place of self compassion and strength vs. secretly reinforcing my old belief systems. Having a self connecting intention is the key to this approach. I'm opening my doors for working with new clients. Please book a curiosity call and let's chat about how working together can help you feel more better more of the time. Or all of the time, don't let me create any limitations on how good it can get!

This episode I share two embodied experiences I had of meeting a moment of high arousal emotion, of frustration and anger. High arousal doesn't mean sexual, it mean how much energy is behind it. Here's a great visual describing arousal + valence as a map for emotions. https://neurodivergentinsights.com/arousal-valence-model/ When I was able to witness and meet my emotional need in the moment my body really allowed me to stay present in a positive way and I was able to stay on task and reach my desired goal. It was a really beautiful experience of witnessing and working the mindbody tools. I hope that this episode helps you feel witnessed and validated and given permission to feel whatever you're feeling and feel empowered by that.

This episode has been inspired by my own process of moving from stuckness + fear into action and loving self connection. It seems like wherever I am in my process, these principles are essential for change, noticing, curiosity, and consent. Recovery from neuroplastic symptoms is a dance of intimacy, intimacy with ourselves. And being on board with doing this work takes bravery, stubborness in the best way, stubborn for our future selves. And it also takes getting into the heart of love. In this podcast I share some ideas I've been using for myself to help shift my physical and emotional energy. I imagine there's at least one idea I offer here that might inspire you. I have openings in my schedule for new clients. Have you wanted a coach to ride alongside you on your healing journey? Do you hate the words, healing journey? No problem, I can help you find just the right way for you to conceptualize these ideas and move you forward in your unique to you process. I'm kind of like one of those sleep mattress number beds, soft when you want and more firm when you need. Book a free curiosity call and let's talk.

I'm so honored to be talking to Vanessa Blackstone, the Executive Director of The Pain Psychology Center and co-author of The Pain Reprocessing Therapy Workbook. While we don't necessarily go through the workbook on this podcast, I really recommend you get it. Instead I was inspired by how Vanessa spoke about the idea of safety during a workshop I attended. I noticed that she didn't just lead with the idea of experiencing your symptoms through a lens of safety, but instead asked what does safety mean. And I wanted to bring in her voice both as a woman of color who works with people who have experienced trauma and might have lived experiences of marginalization from the mainstream. Safety is a feeling that can be cultivated but she suggests an empowered approach of self inquiry and curiosity, and beginning to embrace the belief, "I am not as fragile as I fear I am." She views PRT foundations as understand, practice, integrate, we explore how psychoeducation around neuroplastic pain, self compassionate witnessing and exposure to sensations, discomfort and stressors can become opportunities for building or rebuilding self trust. She shares so many fantastic client stories as well as her own growth and learning. I cannot wait to have her back on the podcast to share more of what will be coming from her work and The Pain Psychology Center. I emplore you to listen, relisten and take notes on what ideas you can start to practice now. And don't forget to pick up her book! Bio - Vanessa M. Blackstone, MSW, citizen of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians Nation, is executive director of the Pain Psychology Center. She earned her MS in social work from the University of Southern California. Following her own personal recovery from chronic pain, Vanessa began her career as a therapist in 2018. She was one of the first clinical consultants at the Pain Reprocessing Therapy Center and has helped train hundreds of practitioners in pain reprocessing therapy (PRT). In addition to chronic pain treatment, she specializes in sex therapy, substance use and recovery, mindfulness-based relapse prevention, and works on film sets as an onset wellness professional. Outside of her professional roles, Vanessa is a former foster youth who advocates for current and former foster youth by sharing her personal experiences in public speaking events. She lives in Los Angeles, CA.

My colleague and friend Phil de la Haye is back on the podcast to share a personal experience with his mind-body tools, particularly IFS (internal family systems) to address his body’s response to the anti-transgender political actions enacted after the inauguration. We speak of the ways to think of safety both intrinsic and extrinsic to help regulate the nervous system and quiet the pain alarm even while real threats to safety are unfolding daily. We discuss how anger helps us to move out of a shut down state and motivates action. We deserve to feel better and cannot wait until the next election or whatever comes next. We are the ones who are young parts have been waiting for.

In this episode Nyle and I talk about his pain recovery journey from Burning Mouth Syndrome. We talk about evidence that pain is correlated with marginalization and how we can apply mindbody work for our body sense of wellness especially for times like these. He shares his work with transgender + queer clients and his expansion to pain recovery and leads me through an activity. Nyle Biondi, MS LMFT, is a therapist and coach, specializing in mind-body healing for chronic pain and trauma. With a deep commitment to the trans and queer communities, he helps clients break free from the physical and emotional toll of oppression, stress, and past wounds. His work integrates neuroplasticity, attachment healing, and nervous system regulation to support lasting transformation. Through therapy, workshops, and educational resources, he empowers people to reconnect with their bodies, reclaim their worth, and heal from chronic conditions at the root level. Attached to the notes is also my friend Adrian's resistance poetry which is a wonderful example of self expression and self connection inspired by this political moment. Links are found in the episode notes.

Sean Hershey, LCSW is a therapist who helps people use mind-body work to end chronic pain and truly learn to be themselves. In this episode, he and I are talking about growing up queer, navigating symptoms, symptom recovery and meeting this moment in time in history. You might be having amplified physical + emotional pain right now in response to the onslaught of political shenanigans that have been happening this month and also might have been growing for you since the election or even before then. You aren't alone and we've hoping this conversation helps you understand a little bit more the links between your physical sensations and what's happening in the world. Acknowledging and befriending fear is one part of creating spaciousness and safety. And being rebelliously self affirming, knowing that your life is valid and even exquisite, regardless of any opinions of governments, institutions, family or anyone is another way to begin to reclaim a sense of self efficacy, subconscious security and build life sustaining connections. Stay tuned for more conversations with The Curiosity Cure podcast.

Hello my feelers and healers. I recorded this last week and then stuck my head in the sand with some family stuff and getting my taxes done and so since I've recorded it I've cracked open the seal on managing my mind + helping my body feel more safe with what's happening. But first what I suggest here, starting with radically naming what you're feeling is a powerful step towards lowering the distress that comes with fear, uncertainty and overwhelm which are very much part of the shock and awe tactics we are being bombarded with during these first few weeks of the new administration. I've started using 5 Calls to make phone calls to my elected officials to tell them that I don't agree with what's happening. It's a very helpful app that gives you a script to read if you don't like making phone calls. Phone calls are rated much higher in as far as impact over emails or letters apparently. And I've seen statistics that Republicans call more than 4-11 times more than Democrats on issues they care about. Geting our voices heard and practicing speaking out for what we want is a part of creating increased safety and a sense of empowered actions. It's not the only thing but feeling helpless and trapped is often a subconscious trigger for pain and we are all about working with our nervous system to help quiet the pain response and lead us to see our mind body survival strategies with more clarity. So while this podcast is mostly me talking about me, I have heard from so many that this helps you feel not alone in your experiences and you are not alone at all. I promise you. If you're hurting or scared, it's understandable. Wishing you continued ease even in these scary times. I'll keep sharing and speaking and sharing recovery stories and more. Sometimes these life altering moments are the ones that can kick our healing into gear, because it's a not normal kind of moment and anything that changes our patterns can be used for good. Please book a curiosity call if you would like individual support in dealing with this moment.

It will not surprise any of my long time listeners to know that I was getting coached regarding feeling frustrated that editing THIS podcast wasn't easy. So ding ding ding if you are stuck in the spiral of frustration of things not feeling easy you are not alone. Let's unpack how that feels in our body and why pursuing easy actually makes things harder. Ease is a learnable skill we can practice and apply to any situation. And once I got over laughing at myself for my very meta and oh so human experience, I was able to ask myself, what are the thoughts, feelings and actions that will help bring ease to this process. I'm very happy to be bringing this essential and underrated skill to share with you.

Content note - in this episode I share with you details about my father's + mother's deaths. Please take good care of yourself while you're listening if listening to someone speak about death is difficult for you. I'm back with a personal story of how mindbody wellbeing skills have helped me through the difficult time of my father's recent passing. Milton was almost 98 1/2 years old when he died earlier this month. He will be missed greatly. May his memory be a blessing for all who knew him. It's been a full circle experience for me, navigating elder care, covid life changes and the ongoing care of a loved on with dementia. In this episode I share my experiences of how I used my understanding of mind, body, nervous system along with memory reconsolidation and trauma empowerment to help support me during this difficult time.