This episode with Spring Washam explores the transformative powers of Ayahuasca and the wisdom of the Buddha, diving into the feminine expression of liberation, spiritual awakening and connection with the earth.

Natalie is a wisdom seeker, storyteller, movement and meditation teacher. She offers workshops and courses on ritual, earth based wisdom and embodied practice. 

Her lifelong love of natural rhythms has led to an intimate relationship with bodily movement and the exploration of our environmental influences. 

The dance of seasonal reverence, yogic practice, ancestral wisdom, home herbalism and personal ritual are all embodied within her approach to guiding and mentoring.

Enjoy ♡

Michelle Coutinho is a healer, songstress, and empowerment coach who helps spiritually conscious women and men attune to a deeper resonance with their voice, presence, and own their personal power. She is the creator of Vocal Alchemy + Embodiment, a process that rewires the energetic nervous system using the voice as a gateway to the subtle body to create a sense of lightness and expansion that releases stored trauma from the mental and emotional body and heals the psyche on a multi-dimensional level.

Dive into this episode hosted by my new associate at Wise Body Counselling, Carmen Davies!

Kate Leiper's body of work is anchored in actively exploring feminine depth, self-intimacy and devotion, catalysed by motherhood and sustained by embodied experiences of returning home to self, earth and spirit.

Through meeting and honouring grief and loss stored in the body, Kate guides mothers and nurturers into deeper relationship with personal expressions of sensuality and creativity; increasing capacity for building and sustaining wildly prosperous and pleasure-filled lives.

Bridging the realms of psychology and spirituality through the artful practice of feminine embodiment, Kate’s ‘unsMothered’ principles and Diamond Mother Archetype framework are underpinned by a Graduate Degree in Drama & Education, a Master of Counselling & Psychotherapy, internationally recognised Feminine Embodiment Coaching Certification and current teachings around somatics and trauma healing.

Holding great reverence for the fumbling, messy process of personal unravelling within a larger committment to dismantling internalised patriarchal indoctrination, Kate is committed to life-long inquiry and reclamation of bodily safety, consent, self-sovereignty, and social justice for those identifying as women, specifically in the domains of sex, birth and mothering.

Born in India and living in England, Jonita D’souza is a Feminine Lifestylist and Creatress of Exploring Femininity Ltd., assisting modern day busy women who struggle with burn-out, overwhelm and body love to reconnect with their feminine and sensual energy using the ancient Taoist and Tantric arts, so that they can create a lifestyle that is fulfilling, nurturing and pleasurable. 

Jonita believes that it is the responsibility of the 21st century women to explore their femininity, so that they can create a sustainable life for themselves, for their loved ones and for generations to come.

In this episode, we discuss:

~ What is traditional Tantra? It's not just crazy sex positions and multiple orgasms.

~ 3 golden elixirs - sound, breath and movement.

~ doing the inner work to feel beautiful.

~ I ask how she feels about me using the term Shakti as a woman of Western European decent.

Lena Dolter is an Initiatory Guide to the Feminine Mysteries, and Embodiment Expert. She specializes in guiding women to truly know who they are, to love, honor, and respect themselves, through understanding their body and the energy of their menstrual cycle. Through her work, women learn what it means to embody their inner feminine (intuitive) energy and heal the overly expressed wounded masculine (doing) energy so they know who they really are and feel empowered to express their uniqueness in the world, with deep self trust and intuitive guidance.

In this episode, we discuss:

~ Energy management vs. time management

~ Using your cycle to make empowered decisions

~ Discover what you need and when during the 4 phases of your cycle, what they represent, and how they can support you.

After a lifetime of devotion to the ways of Mystery, Earth, Soul and Eros, her extraordinary path of Feminine Initiation has brought her to the edge of the long lost mysteries of the wild.

Here Kate serves as a guide to the mysteries of Soul by facilitating the remembrance of the Lost Arts of the Feminine. Our modern culture has banished and demonised the primordial power held within our Feminine Eros and its creative expression. We are at a time on the planet where this reclamation is not only possible, but necessary.

Kate believes that our creative life force energy, once fully embodied, is the revolutionary force that will change the world. She is devoted to creating alchemical journeys that catalyze the unfurling of the tender and powerful essence of each soul to come forth in service of re-imagining a culture rooted in true love and mythical wildness.

At essence, Kate is an Activist, Artist and Alchemist of Eros. She believes the reclamation of our feminine eros – our sexual and creative life force – IS the catalyst for our imminent cultural renaissance. She has created The Dancing Serpent Mystery School as a temple for this revolution of individual and collective awakening.

In this episode, we discuss:

~Where is our Holy Yes: How every desire is ushering ourselves closer to ourselves.

~Coming into relationship from a place of deep fulfillment.

~Feeding and tending the transpersonal in relationship.

Trixie is a Registered Therapist and SoulStrong Intuitive Coach and mentor. Trixie is well respected in the field of eating disorders and known for her work with grief. She has received post Masters training in Neurosequential Therapy, Narrative Therapy and Emotion Focused Family Therapy and her clinical training has been focused on evidence-based attachment and interpersonal neurobiology techniques. Trixie is also a certified End-of-Life Doula. 

She brings huge passion and leadership to SoulStrong and is lit up by helping others turn their soul’s mission into a movement that leads them directly to the best versions of themselves. ❤️ 

In this episode, we talk about how grieving gives us the opportunity to slow down in order to release any shame we have held in the past about our pain and to heal through holding ourselves, and each other, tenderly.

Jessica Austin is a powerful woman and doula, living with metastatic cancer and mothering her 1-year-old. She is a carrier of so much community medicine and she is basically a magical unicorn. 

If you love the authenticity in her sharing here, you might also listen to her podcast "If I'm Not Here To Tell You" which she has created so her kid can always hear her stories in her voice. She explains in this conversation how she decided to share it with the world to promote the idea of community learning as we can all learn through listening to a real human share their truth, even (and especially) when it holds the pain and the beauty of life and death.

In this episode, we discuss women as storytellers and explore the importance of sharing around birth and birthing. 

She shares in this Shakti conversation around how:

~ Birth is a wild mammal having a completely spontaneous process (5 mins)

~ Birth is traditionally a community experience - until it got put behind closed doors and how we started viewing the body and the baby as an object (8 mins)

~ We're glorified "scientific knowledge" and kicked community learning to the side (10 mins)

~ If we don't share our stories, they die with us... sometimes social media can be a way to share our true stories and document our personal legacy (20 mins)

~ Your Story Matters! (40 mins)

Chameli Ardagh is a yogini and women’s wisdom keeper. Her love of decoding and experimenting with ancient wisdom teachings through her own practice in yogini circles all over the world has crystallized maps of spiritual awakening and leadership that are accessible, practical and honoring of women today. Rooted in earth honoring, devotional women’s spirituality and goddess centered tantric yoga, she is especially appreciated for her love of mythology and storytelling as a key to spiritual awakening and embodiment. 

What she shares: 

~ Where therapy work meets spiritual wisdoms. 

~ Looking from the attachment lens to bridge psychology and Goddess wisdom 

~ How we all have attachment disorders with our environments and earth. 

~ Women’s circle's & physical body as portal to ancient feminine wisdom. 

~ How to toss everything up in the air so all can reclaim freedom if we don’t fit into the boxes our society has focused on. 

~ And, for those who identify as women to celebrate so not to have more erasure of the feminine! She says how the focus on women wouldn’t be relevant to have women’s spirituality unless it’s been repressed it has! 

~ Therapist as Priestess beating the drum while you enter the unknown like the Goddess Inanna.

Jillian Lawrence is a female leader in business, who is passionate about making the world a better place. She loves leading purpose-driven female entrepreneurs to create their impact by understanding social marketing and what role feminine energy plays in the new advertising space. 

Spending most of her life living in what she calls "Default-Mode", this mother of two is no stranger to anxiety, depression, and lack of self-expression. After a cancer scare in early 2019, Jillian discovered her Purpose and has been driven to empower other women to take control of their life and live in what she calls "Dream-Mode"; choosing to consciously live life by dreaming the future and taking inspired action to create it. 

Timestamps : 

She describes what she means by "Default-Mode" - feeling like life was happening to her - anxiety, depression, passionless, questioning the purpose of life (3:00) 

She describes "Dream-Mode" - more conscious of mind and body, expression, freedom, passion, enjoyment (4:20) 

How Perfectionism can mask anxiety (11:20) 

For women who are out of touch (no pun intended) with their sexuality: Jill talks about how seeds need to be planted early on when it comes to Sexuality. What do we need to know about pleasure and how to pleasure ourselves? And how can these knowings help when our bodies and minds are going through something tough? (30 mins)

I am delighted to share this fun conversation that I had with a new friend, Claire de Haas, about decision-making, intuition & embodying more of the feminine.

Claire de Haas is a Feminine Embodiment Coach guiding women to own their feminine worth by cultivating more depth and sensual power. With this work we are developing a new system of relationship and value with the senses of your body.

She nourishes women in their journey to appreciate their feminine qualities and tap into their feminine power. Many women repress their feminine energy and constantly walk the fine line to ‘fit in’ this masculine dominated world, either in their professional or personal life.

She views the body as the key to liberation and during my sessions makes use of the 4 pillars of Embodiment: Sound, Breath, Awareness, and Movement.

I am so thrilled to share this special interview with you with the brilliant Sally Kempton. Sally is a powerful teacher of applied spiritual wisdom, known for her capacity to kindle meditative states in others and help students work with meditative experience as a framework for practical life-change. She's the author of the best-selling books, "Awakening Shakti: The Transformative Power of the Yoga Goddesses" and "Meditation for the Love of It.” A former swami in the Vedic tradition, Sally has been practicing and teaching for over four decades. Her teachings combine profound knowledge of the texts of yoga and tantra with practical wisdom from contemporary psychology and integral thought.

In this episode: 

-Sally gives us the traditional Tantric definition of Shakti. 

-She explains why devotional practice relating to Shakti is considered absolutely necessary for spiritual progress in this tradition. 

-She describes how the traditional practice of kundalini yoga as Sally learned it from her teacher, Swami Muktananda, show you how to recognize your true self and liberate yourself from suffering. 

-She shares how she shifted from the usual way of yoga the value of  if you want to make progress in your life, if you want to experience relief from emotional pain, if you want to work with your suffering in  really skillful ways. 

-She also answers my questions about the erotic Goddess Lalitha Tripura Sundari, known for opening this thousand petal chakra, she explained: “Sex models Eros. Eros is really the life force itself. It’s why we’re alive.”

Tami Lynn Kent is the founder of Holistic Pelvic Care for women and author of Wild Feminine: Finding Power, Spirit & Joy in the Female Body, Mothering From Your Center, and Wild Creative. She is an international teacher and TEDx speaker. Her books have been published in Mandarin, French, and Dutch. She is also a mother to three beautiful sons. Tami is passionate about empowering women in health & teaching them how to cultivate their creative energy in all stages of life through her practitioner training programs and personal sessions.  In this episode we discuss: - What is The feminine? It's very rare to find! Marion Woodman said "the feminine is the bridge between God and humankind" (5 min) - Tami shares about her personal journey of discovering the feminine through her perinatal time and how slowing down to baby time was awkward at first (9 mins) - The current invitation to sit with yourself and clearing out old patterns and how that process opens space for connection to the mystery (11mins) - Working with our masculine in this phase through body, structure and developing a stable internal system as the external structures break down (20 mins) - I ask Tami about shifting from shame to honouring (33 mins) - The true empowerment of The Feminine vs. The feminist movement & what was achieved within the broken model (36 mins) - Not apologizing for pre-menstrual feelings, the need for rest, and the desire to cocoon (38 mins) - What is our capacity for "downloading?" (41 mins)

Zoe Helene is an artist and cultural activist best known for coining and popularizing the term Psychedelic Feminism and founding the environmental feminism group Cosmic Sister (@CosmicSister). She believes a true balance of power across the gender spectrum—globally—is the only way humans (and non-humans) will survive, and she sees Psychedelic Feminism as a realistic, practical yet hopeful approach to a much-needed shift of global consciousness.

Zoe believes that ultimately, psychedelics are about kindness—to ourselves and to others, including non-human life forms, the world’s soil and air and waterways. It’s about doing our best to become the highest version of ourselves, first as individuals, then as larger socioeconomic communities, then as a species that’s over-running the planet. The journey starts with ourselves, then moves ever outwards. It’s our responsibility, as apex predators, to be in a healthy relationship with each other and with the Earth.

Zoe's work  has been featured in Forbes, BBC Travel, Outside Magazine, DoubleBlind Magazine, Bust Magazine, Playboy, VICE, Broadly, Tonic, LA Yoga, New York Magazine, Boston Magazine, ABC Australia, Radio New Zealand, and many other top-tier media venues.

In this episode we discuss: 

- the gifts of the goddess archetype Artemis. 

- the need for wilderness and wildlife to be more core in our politics and news. 

- why she advocates for our right to journey with sacred plants and funghi as a way to jump-start rapid cultural evolution.

- she explains what she means when she emphasizes our responsibility as Earth’s apex predator!

If you'd like to consider the roots of the Sanskrit word Shakti a little deeper, Abneet Sandhar starts this conversation off with a grounding practice of rooting energetically into the earth with the help of Durga, the earth goddess of protection. She speaks about the Fire of Shakti meeting the cool water of Shiva and talks about how she believes that the world is coming into balance with masculine and feminine. "Our embodiment work is one of the most important things we can do right now for the collective", she suggests: "When the world is crumbling, it is the fire of our joy that is most needed, as this is what heals the split we've created between mind and body". She talks about how we decolonize yoga through paying homage to origins and by anchoring the breath inside the body. She says we can keep it simple by remembering that yoga is about landing in the body. We spoke about honouring our lineages through asking ourselves:  "Where do my roots go?" and Abneet says we might ask: "How do I bring my flavour of lineage? Not to create division, but to bring more multi-facited, multi-cultural vibrancy to the world". We also discuss getting to know we we really are through connecting with parents to bridge those gaps in understanding where our parents come from and seeing if they have some unexpected wisdom that we might open to.

After suffering injury to her spine as a teenager, Seraphina Capranos was declared by the conventional medical system to lead a life of suffering in chronic pain. Determined to heal herself, she returned to her roots and began a professional study of natural medicine at Emerson College of Herbology (1998) leading her to study with renowned herbalist Susun S. Weed at The Wise Woman Center in NY (1999) and then soon after healers in the desert of New Mexico. She is passionate about educating and empowering people in the wisdom of natural medicine. Seraphina is a graduate  of the Vancouver Homeopathic Academy (2005) and in addition to offering empowering, heart-centered classes in herbalism and homeopathy, she loves teaching mystical earth-based tools for living a fullfilled and vital life.  I ask Seraphina here about how to weave women’s ancient wisdom to bridge heaven and earth when we as women face the pain that may accompany women's experiences such as miscarriage and hysterectomy. I love her reflections around the benefit of sisterhood and community during difficult times and how emotion being held and shared among those circling up can be an essentially part of the healing 💐 

It reminds me how women are the medicine and how pain and suffering can expand into a greater capacity to love when held in truth and tenderness.

Emmy Chahal is an international yoga teacher, intuitive healer & workshop facilitator specializing in corporate wellness. In this episode we discuss systemic racism, privilege and trusting your intuition.

Suzanne Rickards Raja has been in the personal development industry for over two decades and teaches empowerment with her husband through their company Warrior Sage. 

She talks about how the world is feeling a lot of pain right now - how the pandemic has sent us to our rooms to consider what we haven't been doing well as a collective!

She talks about how there is a masculine and feminine side within us all. We've all got that desire for freedom but we've also got that need for flow. She says that right now "we are feeling stopped in our tracks and the feminine within all of us is feeling that".

She's here to share her wisdom with us about how to work with some of the challenges we may be facing as the pain of members of our global family continue to rise the surface and how to hold that place within ourselves of compassion and self-compassion. 

Timestamps: 

-Suzanne describes The Masculine and The Feminine as she has come to understand them (2:30). 

-There is always hope - Suzanne explains this through the metaphor of the day after the night and the spring that follows winter (6:25). 

-Take a Breath (9:20).

-The Feminine is suffering. She needs to be restored through self-resourcing (15:20).

-Action Step #1: Let's breathe wider together (20)

-Let's talk about privilege - why would someone resist the term and how can they feel their defensiveness or whatever feeling is truly arising in order to then find curiousity (26).

In this Shakti Story I ask Blaire Lindsay how she defines The Feminine. Blaire is a Feminine embodiment coach who helps women go from doubting themselves to feeling confident and sexy. In her online programs and in-person trainings, Blaire draws from a background in classical and neo-Tantra, yoga, dance and trauma resolution to help women access full-body presence and inner to outer radiance. 

In this episode of Shakti Stories we are talking about:

~ What is The Feminine?

~ Why the focus on pleasure matters now more than ever!

~ Healing trauma through finding our inner resources and leaning into what feels good.

~ What if you aren’t in the mood for sex?

~ How boundaries have been a teacher for Blaire.

Timestamps:

Blaire says “forget everything you think you know about The Feminine”. But what does The Feminine means to her? She offers her definition (2:00).

She speaks about how pleasure is the medicine for patriarchal wounds (19:30).

Trauma from the Somatic Experiencing perspective - finding our inner strength, power and resilience (24:00).

Not feeling sexual? Blaire describes how to process that by being with what’s present with what you need and also remembering that turn on is medicine (37:30).

The importance of boundaries and taking care of our energetic hygiene in order to prevent depression and collapse (42:00).

The importance of boundaries and taking care of our energetic hygiene in order to prevent depression and collapse (42:00).

See the full video on my website!