The Mind Bod Adventure Pod

This week we’re hanging with Ivan Bercholz, co-owner of Shambhala Publications, publisher of Bala Kids, and co-author (with illustrator Lasha Mutual) of My Friend Tara, a children’s book that introduces kids to Tara, the Buddhist archetype of compassion.Ivan set out to create a book that gets straight to the heart of practice: how can kids actually relate to an archetypal quality? How do you help them imagine compassion as something fun, alive, and embodied? How do you make an ancient practice feel natural for modern kiddos?When Jeff’s rambunctious six-year-old Eden stumbled on the book, he flipped through, chose his favorite of the colorful Taras and, while playing with the visualization, had a profound, whole-body shift.Jeff describes it as a “rainbow-candy version of internal regulation” that honors children’s natural inclination towards imagination. Kids are naturals at this stuff. Ask them to picture beams of warmth radiating from the heart and they just do it, while adults tie themselves in knots worrying about doing it “right”.That might be the core thread of our conversation: practice is really about getting open enough to let what’s naturally here come through. Kids, wild lil portals that they are, let that wisdom stream through all the time. Books like this can give them language for what they already know.We talk about:* Visualization as a practice playground for kids and adults* The 5 Taras and their different archetypal qualities (white for calm, green for protection, blue for difficult emotions...)* Why mantra might be our oldest human practice* How books can become spiritual oases when teachers aren’t accessible-------------We make this show with love, lols, and a lot of curiosity. If it lights you up, help us keep it going with a paid subscription 🌿-------------The Adventure:Ivan walks us through a Green Tara visualization and mantra practice.We breathe, settle, imagine Tara’s smile and the rays of warmth coming toward us, and repeat her mantra: Om Tare Tu Tare Ture Soha. Then we let those qualities dissolve into us and send them back out to others.Ivan calls it the workout before the Savasana: the color, sound, imagery build up the energy… and then you release and relax, held in the felt sense of deep meaning.This is medicine for all of us - not just the kiddos!Let us know in the comments how the practice lands - is it your first time doing mantra or visualization?Till next time,🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️-------------Know a parent (or a kid at heart) who might dig this? Pass it along 💫-------------Ivan’s Links:* Book: My Friend Tara: And Her Rainbow of Compassion* Shambhala Publications: shambhala.com* Bala Kids: shambhala.com/balakids Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

This week we're hanging with wandering Celtic teacher John Philip Newell and Earth & Soul Director Cami Twilling to talk about what it means to connect to the sacred when you're living outside the bounds of formal religious tradition.John Philip is an ordained-minister-turned-spiritual-exile who spent years with one foot in the church and one foot out in the wilderness, before finally giving back his ordination. He couldn’t reconcile his experience of the sacredness of humans and nature with Christianity’s history of getting “into bed with empire.”His book The Great Search asks: What are millions of spiritual seekers actually searching for? And how can we nurture those yearnings?John Philip talks about philosopher Simone Weil's idea of 'the efficacy of desire': that getting in touch with our deepest longings actually helps bring about what we're yearning for. When we name our hungers with clarity, we become better able to serve them.We talk about:* Why the wilderness and the temple need each other* The 8 yearnings at the heart of spiritual searching* What happens when you "pray until the tears come" and tap into primal flow* Why regular retreat matters more than occasional long stints------------------------------------We make this show with love, lols, and a lot of curiosity. If it lights you up, help us keep it going with a paid subscription 🌿------------------------------------The Adventure:This one’s subtle and luminous. Cami and John Philip drop us into a contemplative space where the main practice is reconnecting with the light that exists at the heart of all things. We watch how the light moves, and in this simplicity, let our awareness touch eternity.------------------------------------Let us know in the comments: what does your “great search” look like right now?Till next time!🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️ Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

Happy New Year!One week into 2026 and we’re already firing on all cylinders. So let’s kick it off with some destress tools to keep us all cool as cucumbers when things get spicy. 🥒😅🌶️This week we sit down with Dr. Aditi Nerurkar, physician, Harvard Medical School faculty member, and author of The 5 Resets: Rewire Your Brain for Less Stress and More Resilience. We talk about what stress actually is, why it gets so dismissed in medicine, and what to do when your diamond finally cracks.Dr. Aditi knows stress from both sides. As a medical resident working 80-hour weeks in the cardiac ICU, she was taught that "pressure makes diamonds." Then she experienced a stampede of wild horses across her chest that turned out to be... stress! Not a heart attack or low blood sugar. It was her nervous system completely losing it.When her doctor said "just relax," she realized there was a massive gap between how common stress is (60-80% of doctor visits) and how little support exists for it (only 3% of doctors counsel for stress). So she became the doctor she needed.We talk about:* Why calling it “just” stress is medical gaslighting* How doomscrolling is the modern way to scan for danger* The “popcorn brain” effect of having too much screen time* Why breathing is one of the few things you can control (and how to use it)--------We make this show with love, lols, and a lot of curiosity. If it lights you up, help us keep it going with a paid subscription 🫶 --> www.mindbodpod.com--------The adventure:Dr. Aditi walks us through three of her Five Resets, including “Stop, Breathe, Be”, a simple practice she did 30-40 times a day as a resident.It’s a pause and reset you can use every time you turn a doorknob, before Zoom calls, picking up your kids, or brushing your teeth. Any moment works.Know someone who would appreciate a few new destress tools in their kit? Pass it on!Let us know how these practices work for you!Till next time,🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️ Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

This week we’re hanging with our friend Chela Davison — facilitator, sacred mischief maker, former master coach, and writer of the Substack, Wisdotainment.She brings her trademark mix of depth and irreverence to the question of what it means to live a “regenerative calling”, a purposeful life that actually feeds you instead of wringing you dry.Chela walks us through 4 dimensions of personal calling:1. Interiority – the pulse of what’s meaningful inside you.2. Aptitude – the weird mix of things you’re naturally good at and the skills you might still need.3. Contribution – how your doing lands in the world and loops back as feedback.4. Regeneration – how you stay resourced, supported, and non-crispy while doing all that.It’s a conversation about vocation, yes, but also about capacity, cycles, and what it means to build a life that keeps you sparkly and invigorated.-------------We talk about:* Why “purpose” culture leaves so many of us exhausted* How to work with your capacities instead of against them* The difference between extraction and regeneration* How to know when your calling needs composting-------------We make this show with love, lols, and a lot of curiosity. If it lights you up, help us keep it going with a paid subscription 🌿-------------The Adventure:Chela invites us to feel into our own calling through these four lenses: what’s pulsing with meaning, what capacities are growing, where your gifts want to land, and what actually keeps you resourced. A full-body check-in with your life!Know someone rethinking their “calling”? Pass this episode along 💫Till next time,🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️ Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

We chase healing in all directions: therapy, breathwork, cold plunges, maybe a lil microdosing… but what if all your nervous system is asking for is a safe place to land?This week, psychiatrist and neuroscientist Dr. David Rabin joins us to talk about how safety is the foundation of healing. His research explores how vibration, touch, and rhythm can retrain the body for calm. He’s the creator of Apollo Neuro, a wearable (and app) that uses subtle vibrations to signal safety to the nervous system and help the body unlearn chronic stress.We talk about:* How trauma is the body’s stress response that never shuts off* Why safety (not control) is the real foundation of healing* Why top-down thinking can’t fix bottom-up stress* How tech can help retrain the body----------We make this show with love, lols, and a lot of curiosity. If it lights you up, help us keep it going with a paid subscription 🌿----------The adventureDr. David guides us through a two-minute vibration meditation. A body-based practice for retraining your nervous system toward calm. If you want to try it, download the free app, set your phone on your chest, and feel what some good vibes can do!Let us know how it goes!Till next time,🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️----------Dr. David’s Links* Wearable tech: Apollo Neuroscience* Apollo App: IPhone App | Android App* Instagram: @drdavidrabin* Website: drdave.io Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

How do we stay aware in a world designed to steal our attention?This week, we sit down with Jay Vidyarthi — designer, tech founder, meditation teacher, and author of Reclaim Your Mind: Seven Strategies to Enjoy Tech Mindfully — to explore what it means to live mindfully with technology instead of fighting against it.We look at how our phones, apps, and algorithms are constantly training our nervous systems, and how awareness itself can change the relationship. Jay calls this attention activism: a way of reclaiming choice and joy in a tech-infused world.----------------------------“Freedom of attention is a fundamental right. It’s a natural resource… and it’s being exploited.”- Jay Vidyarthi----------------------------In this Episode, We talk about:* The invisible pull of notifications and how to stay present in real time* How to turn tech boundaries into rituals of pleasure* What false urgency does to our nervous systems and how to step out of it* How our conversations with AI can become mirrors for awareness* Why we need mindful, creative people shaping the future of technology!The Adventure:Jay guides us through a real-time experiment to feel the physical and psychological pull of our devices. Then transform that into presence!This episode is an invitation to stay grounded, curious, and capable of wonder in the midst of the digital age.----------------------------Know someone who loves tech but wants their mind back?! 🤪 Share this episode!----------------------------Thanks for hanging with us. See you next time.🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️We make this show with love, lols, and sweat. If it lights you up, help us keep it going with a paid subscription: www.mindbodpod.com---------------------------- Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

When it comes to “getting to know ourselves,” we talk about mindfulness, creativity, career… basically everything except sex. But as Dr. Juliana Hauser argues, sexuality might be the most direct doorway into who we really are. In this episode, she takes us past the performance of “being sexy” into the raw territory of authenticity, agency, and connection.Dr. Juliana has spent over two decades helping people claim their own sexual agency. She’s a counselor and family therapist with a PhD in Counseling Education, a TEDx speaker on agency, and creator of the Revealed course on holistic sexuality. Her work shows up in therapy rooms, media outlets, and classrooms… and as of today (🥳) in her brand new book: A New Position on Sex: A Guide to Greater Sexual Confidence, Pleasure, and AuthenticityIn this Episode, We talk about:* Why so many of us are trapped in “performative sexy” mode* How to tell the difference between a “yuck” and a “yum” in your body* How sexuality is central to self-awareness, agency, and connection* How shame and culture block authentic sexual expression and what it takes to unlearn themThe adventureDr. Juliana guides us through a simple touch practice: four different kinds of touch on your own forearm. With each one, notice: does your body say yuck or yum? It’s a playful way to start tuning in to your own signals of agency and authenticity.We make this show with love, lols, and sweat. If it lights you up, help us keep it going with a paid subscription!Talking about sex can feel taboo, but Dr. Juliana makes it curious, light, and doable. This episode is an invitation to stop performing, start listening, and discover that your body already knows more than you think.Let us know in the comments how this practice goes :)Thanks for practicing with us,🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️Dr Juliana’s Links* The Nine Pillars: dr-juliana.com/holistic-sexuality/* Revealed Course: therevealedlife.com* Book: A New Position on Sex* Personal Website: dr-juliana.com Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

What’s the biggest mistake you’ve made as a creative? Chelene Knight answers without hesitation: “I think the biggest mistake was just not being me.”This week, we sit down with acclaimed poet, novelist, memoirist, and Tasha’s own writing mentor, Chelene Knight, to talk about what it means to build a creative life. Not the tidy, “professionalized” version, but the messy, alive, human one that actually feels good.Chelene’s most recent book, Safekeeping: A Writer's Guided Journal for Launching a Book with Love, is part guided journal, part treasure map through the writing life. It also, as she puts it, “contains all of my mistakes as a writer and all the things that I’ve learned.” Listening to her is like being handed a permission slip to go slower, trust yourself, reread the same book forever, throw out the pressure to finish, snack on a single poem and call it a meal.We talk about:* Why “there is no reading, only rereading”* The mistake of ignoring your instincts and how to recover.* Poetry as the foundation for all writing.* What happens when writers trust the reader enough to leave space.* How slowing down turns reading into a kind of prayer.The adventureChelene guides us through two delicious reading practices: one with Julia Bouwsma’s Dear Ghosts, I Pick the List, and another from Patricia Smith’s Blood Dazzler. They’re haunting and beautiful.The exercise is simple but radical: Hear a poem once, notice the phrase that hooks you, then hear it again. The second time through, the text has changed… and so have you.----------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!----------What stayed with us most from this practice is how a poem can feel like a hurricane one moment and a whisper the next, depending on how you let it in.Reading, in Chelene’s hands, is more than consumption. It’s a meditation, a prayer, a slow fire that lights us from within.Let us know in the comments how this practice goes :)Thanks for practicing with us,🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️Chelene’s Links:* The Say No with Love Letters* Safekeeping: A Writer's Guided Journal for Launching a Book with Love* Cheleneknight.com Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

This is an exciting one, friends!Stephen Porges is the visionary scientist who gave us polyvagal theory—a framework that’s reshaped how the world understands trauma, safety, and human connection. His work has influenced everyone from therapists to meditation teachers to parents trying to soothe a colicky baby. And now he’s here with us, alongside his brilliant co-author Karen Onderko, to talk about their new book and the Safe and Sound Protocol.This episode is part science, part storytelling, and part live experiment.In this conversation, we talk about:* The origins of polyvagal theory and why it changed the trauma world forever* How the Safe and Sound Protocol helps bodies shift out of defense and into connection* Wild stories of teens, adults, and even toddlers in a sound cube discovering safety for the first time* Why “safety” can sometimes feel scary (and what to do about it)* The nervous system’s three favorite things: context, choice, and connectionAnd then, because we’re all about real-time practice over here, Jeff guides Stephen and Karen in a short meditation. Afterwards, Stephen deconstructs it through a polyvagal lens, showing us how context, choice, and connection are the nervous system’s love language.-------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!-------This is one of those conversations we’ll be talking about for a long time. It’s science, but it’s also about how to be human together. How to tune our bodies toward safety and open the doors to connection.✨ Know someone who’s been geeking out on the nervous system, or just trying to figure out how to feel safe in their own skin? Share this episode with them!Thanks for practicing with us,🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️Links* Stephen Porges* Karen Onderko @ The Polyvagal Institute* Book: Safe and Sound: A Polyvagal Approach for Connection, Change, and Healing Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

This week on the Pod, we’re joined by the luminous Sherri Mitchell: Indigenous rights attorney, activist, ceremonial leader, and the author of Sacred Instructions.We dive into the birth canal of this moment — a world in transition, contracting and expanding as it labors to bring something new into being. Sherri doesn’t shy away from the pain, confusion, or cultural clusterf*ck of our times and she also doesn’t wallow. Instead, she offers radical clarity, vision, and a deeply embodied path forward.Together, we explore:* What it means to live through a species-wide rite of passage* The vibrational power of oral traditions and why sound is sacred science* Why “triggered” might just be the most misused word of our generation* How to move beyond naming the water we’re drowning in, and start swimming toward land* The 80/10/10 rule for building the world we actually wantAnd then Sherri guides us in a practice of remembering, of dreaming the world we want into being, and dreaming ourselves into the kind of people who can live there.As Jeff put it: “You can dream a better world. But you have to dream yourself into it too.”This conversation is a balm, a fire, and a wake-up call. If you’ve been overwhelmed, heartbroken, or teetering on the edge of despair, listen in. It’s about metabolizing this moment into wisdom, vision, and action.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 at mindbodpod.comKnow someone who’s been thinking hard about how to show up in these strange times? Share this with them too!Thanks for practicing with us,🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️ Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

This week on the pod, we’re joined by writer and teacher Sarah Selecky for a beautiful, funny, and surprisingly deep exploration of writing as a contemplative practice.Sarah teaches writing as presence. As a way of being and noticing. She helps writers get out of their own way so that something real and alive can come through the page (or the google doc 😅).Together, we explore:* the overlap between writing and meditation* how honesty transmits (and why you can feel when a writer is lying)* the difference between trying to write and being a clear channel* creative shadow work and what we’re most afraid to say* the value of plain, unadorned descriptionShe guides us through three simple exercises that can unlock creative flow.By the end, we were lol’ing, moved, and filled with the kind of wonder that has no agenda. Just a pen, a page, and the shimmer of real presence.-------------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.-------------This is a great episode to write along with! Grab a notebook and come join us.You can also watch the full video over at MindBodPod.com.Know someone who could use these exercises to shake some creative goodies loose? Pass it along!Thanks for practicing with us,🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️ Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

This week on the pod, we’re joined by Chan teacher and sociologist Rebecca Li for a luminous practice session in Silent Illumination, a deceptively simple, deeply transformative form of open awareness meditation.Rebecca guides us through a full-body relaxation and easefully invites us into the “method of no method,” offering a living glimpse into this subtle and powerful practice. As we settle into presence together, she shares insights from her lineage, her own experience, and her new book Illumination.We talk about:* Why relaxation isn’t the goal, but the doorway* How even trying not to try can become a subtle trap* What happens when presence meets real-life loss and grief* The radical possibility of not fixing anything, just being-------------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!-------------This one is full of practical wisdom, unexpected laughter, and real-life Dharma. Whether you’re new to open awareness or have been sitting for decades, Rebecca’s gentle clarity and precision will meet you right where you are. 🫠Pop into the comments to share your reflections: Did the “method of no method” shift anything? Did it feel natural? Impossible? Familiar?Thanks for practicing with us! See you next week.🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️ Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

This week, we’re in conversation with therapist and longtime Focusing teacher Serge Prengel about the transformative power of slowing down and listening from the body.Serge is one of those rare people who seem to live from a deeper layer of presence. His work blends Focusing, Somatic Experiencing, Core Energetics, and Polyvagal Theory to support real, embodied change.What stood out for us was how relational this practice is. It brought us into a slower, softer place of deep listening, where we could fully meet each other’s nervous systems.We explore:* What Focusing actually is (and isn’t)* How to feel into what’s “not fully formed yet”* The role of safety and vulnerability in a therapeutic or relational container* Why this is a two-way street: the listener is as active as the talker* How to turn everyday conversations into profound practices of connectionWe also talk about what it means to be in right relationship: with yourself, with others, and with the felt sense of a moment that’s still unfolding.-------Wanna watch this as a video pod? Check us out at www.mindbodpod.com------* Learn more about Serge and his work* Check out the Active Pause Podcast* Explore the Proactive Twelve Steps------This one’s relational, tender, and surprisingly intimate. Drop in and tell us what moved in you:Thanks for tuning in. Love always,🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️ Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

This week on the Mind Bod Adventure Pod, we get our somatic groove on with tapping wizard and trauma therapist Mirjam Paninski. Miriam guides us into the world of Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)—a deceptively simple practice where tapping acupressure points while speaking truth can open up big shifts in the body, mind, and heart.It’s part therapy, part ritual, part emotional plumbing.In this episode, we explore:* Why EFT is becoming a popular trauma modality (and how it stacks up to EMDR)* How tapping calms the nervous system and gives stored emotion somewhere to go* Ancestral trauma (your body might be carrying Grandma’s fears!)* What happens when you stop bracing and start releasing------------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!------------Also: find out why EFT works so well with kids, how it can be used in war zones and post-shooting trauma support, and why tapping might be the pre-meditation dimmer switch you didn’t know you needed.🎯 Practice highlight: Miriam guides us through a powerful tapping sequence that opens into inner child healing. The result is some surprising nervous system release in real time (spoiler: Tasha’s jaw melts, Jeff yawns like a lion).Check out Mirjam’s Group Work: The Conscious Tapping Tribe- For $100 off 6-month membership: use code MINDBOD100- For 20% off yearly membership: use code MINDBOD20This one’s playful, poignant, and weirdly effective. Tap along with us and let us know how it lands in your nervous system!Thanks for tuning in. Love always,🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️ Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

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 CounselingNow 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 🧘🏼‍♂️ Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

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 🧘🏼‍♂️ Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

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------------------------------------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/appWhat’s your most happiness-inducing memory? Let us know in the comments!------------------------------------The AfterpartyThe 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 🧘🏼‍♂️ Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

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!--------The AfterpartyPS… 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 🧘🏼‍♂️ Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

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 🧘🏼‍♂️ Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

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 🧘🏼‍♂️ Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

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 directionCara’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.comThe AfterpartyWhere 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 HEREK, That’s all for this week. Thanks for tuning in!Love always,🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️ Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

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 🧘🏼‍♂️ Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

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.comThe 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 🧘🏼‍♂️ Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

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 NetworkThe AfterpartyIn 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 🧘🏼‍♂️ Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

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 🧘🏼‍♂️ Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

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 🧘🏼‍♂️ Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

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 Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

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 🧘🏼‍♂️ Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

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 🧘🏼‍♂️ Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

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 🧘🏼‍♂️ Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

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.comThat’s all for now! Thanks for tuning in & see you next week.Love always,🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️ Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

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 moreShare your Zentangly thoughts with us in the comments! Then watch The Afterparty over at www.mindbodpod.comThat’s all for now! Thanks for tuning in & see you next week.Love always,🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️ Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

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 🧘🏼‍♂️ Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

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 🧘🏼‍♂️ Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

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 🧘🏼‍♂️ Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

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 connectionA 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.comIn 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.comThat’s all for now! Thanks for tuning in & see you next week.Love always,🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️ Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

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” Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

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 🧘🏼‍♂️ Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

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.comThat’s all for now! Thanks for tuning in & see you next week.Love always,🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️ Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

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 Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

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 imperfectionsWhat’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 AfterpartyIn 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 Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

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 AfterpartyAnd 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 Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

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.comLove always,🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️ Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

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-podK That’s all for now! See you next week.Love always,🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️ Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

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 AfterpartyDon’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 TextThanks for tuning in! See you next week.Love always,🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️ Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

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.comThanks for tuning in! See you next week.Love always,🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️ Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

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 AfterpartyIn 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 🧘🏼‍♂️ Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

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?” Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

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 AfterpartyIn 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 friendThanks for tuning in! See you next week.Love always,🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️ Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

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 🧘🏼‍♂️ Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe