Bodyful Episode #19: Laura Khoudari on Healing Trauma through Movement, One Rep at a Time

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By Valerie Martin

Each year, there are just a few books that make it onto my all-time favorites roster, and this year, one of those is called Lifting Heavy Things: Healing Trauma One Rep at a Time.

I highlighted damn-near half the book because there was so much that resonated personally and professionally. A few chapters in, I knew I wanted to try to get the author Laura Khoudari on the podcast.

Fortunately for me, she quickly responded and was down for it— after all, Bodyful is kind of a perfect fit for all the topics she wrote about in the book! And as a fellow Health at Every Size-aligned practitioner, Laura approaches fitness and training from a weight-neutral perspective (which, I don’t have to tell you, is unfortunately a rare thing in that industry).

This was such a rich conversation, and I can’t wait for y’all to hear it. Whether you’re a trauma survivor, work with trauma, love fitness, are repelled by working out— you’ll gain something from listening to this one.

To listen to the episode, stream from the podcast player below, or search & subscribe to Bodyful on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

About Laura Khoudari

A trauma practitioner, and certified personal trainer, Laura Khoudari is passionate about giving people the tools they need to heal from trauma and cultivate mental health and wellness. She is the author of the book Lifing Heavy Things: Healing Trauma One Rep at a Time. Her work has been widely recognized by the trauma and fitness community, and she has been featured on Buzzfeed, UpWorthy, Outside Online, Medium, Tonic, Nike, and Girls Gone Strong. She lives in New York City with her family and two cats.

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Bodyful Episode #07: Tara Galeano on Women Rediscovering Their Bodies

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by Valerie Martin

The more I learn in my clinical sexology doctoral program, the more I’m blown away by the field of sexology in general and the highly skilled sex therapists, coaches, and educators like this episode’s guest, Tara Galeano.

Tara got into sex therapy initially because her therapy clients were walking to talk about their sexual challenges and longings, so she committed to deepening her knowledge and expertise to be able to better support them. Later in her career, she had an awakening of her own, in which she recognized just how much she had been falling into the cultural trap of minimizing her needs and desires.

In Tara’s case, that reckoning coincided with the end of her 25 year marriage (due to layered issues that you’ll hear about in the interview)— and the beginning of a deeper commitment to herself and the fulfillment of her needs, desires, and pleasure in ALL capacities.

Tara also developed a specialty in working with women in treatment for cancer, which led to the creation of her book, Rediscovering My Body— first written for women with cancer, and then revised and re-released for ALL women longing to reconnect with their sexuality. It’s in a beautiful interactive journaling/coloring format with guided exercises— I got a copy since we initially recorded our conversation, and have started working through it. It will definitely be one I recommend to many of my clients!

As I mention in the intro of this episode, we had a technical glitch where we lost the last 15 minutes of Tara’s side of the conversation— so the episode ends more abruptly than we intended, but there’s still a lot of goodness in this one. I hope you enjoy it!

To listen to the episode, stream from the podcast player below, or search & subscribe to Bodyful on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

About Tara Galeano (she/her)

Tara is the founder of Rediscovering My Body and Boulder Sex Therapy, and is an author, speaker, retreat host, and  sexual empowerment coach. She has worked with women for over two decades to get their sexy back. Tara knows that there is pleasure in the body, beyond our wildest dreams, and every woman can access it. In “Rediscovering My Body”, she teaches women how to show up for pleasure in their lives. Tara rediscovered her own body after leaving her twenty-five-year marriage. Realizing that she had given so much of herself away, she knew that she needed to come back to the inherent wisdom of the body. Now Tara has embodied this path and is moving forward to share this with women everywhere with her book, her online courses, and community, and her retreats. She lives in San Francisco with her soul sister and is learning how to live more fully in her nomadic heart.

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Bodyful Episode #02: Deirdre Fay on Becoming Safely Embodied

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Deirdre Fay Bodyful Podcast

I could start with listing Deirdre Fay’s accomplishments (which, believe me, are MANY)— but that would miss the most impactful element of my interaction with her.

Deirdre is that magical and rare combination of kind, warm, smart, and powerful as hell. She’s the one with decades of experience working alongside some of the top leaders in mental health and yoga (uh, she is one of them), but when I was talking with her, she made ME feel important.

Damn, y’all.

Since having this converastion a couple weeks ago, her phrase “unshakeable core” has come up in many of my client sessions, and I know it (among others) will be a concept I return to again and again with my clients and with myself.

I know you’re going to love this conversation with Deirdre Fay— and make sure to check out her bio and links below.

To listen to the episode, stream from the podcast player below, or search & subscribe to Bodyful on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

About Deirdre Fay

Deirdre Fay, MSW has decades of experience exploring the intersection of trauma, attachment, yoga and meditation, and teaches “a radically positive approach to healing trauma.” Deirdre founded the Becoming Safely Embodied skills, the basis for this book, a manual of the same name, and is the author of Attachment-Based Yoga & Meditation for Trauma Recovery and co-author of Attachment Disturbances for Adults, as well as the co-author of chapters in Neurobiological Treatments of Traumatic Dissociation.

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Bodyful Episode #01: Melissa Walker on Whole-Body Sex & Reclaiming the Language of the Body

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Melissa Walker Bodyful podcast.jpeg

Bodyful is my 5th podcast to produce, and I’ve never been this excited or proud to share anything I’ve created.

Already, just with this first interview and the future guests I have lined up so far, I know this is going to be something really special.

When I was recently scouring through Amazon’s catalog of somatic psychotherapy books, I came across a recent release called Whole Body Sex and was immediately intrigued. Even just reading the book’s description, I knew I had to speak with author (and Colorado-based therapist) Melissa Walker for this podcast.

In this lively, deep conversation, Melissa shares with us about the model she created (Somatic Concentric Sex Therapy), the importance of expanding our definition of erotic, and what it looks like to approach embodiment work from an inclusive, liberation-oriented perspective.

To listen to the episode, stream from the podcast player below, or search & subscribe to Bodyful on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

About Melissa Walker

Melissa is a somatic sex and relationtionship therapist, author, educator, and author of Whole-Body Sex: Somatic Sex Therapy and the Lost Language of the Erotic Body. She offers somatic counseling for individuals, couples, and conscious nonmonogamous relationships, as well as online workshops for those wanting to refine skills of relational and erotic embodiment. Melissa facilitates integrous learning experiences about bodyful eroticism and intimacy as a source of increased vitality, inspiring relationships, and healing of the whole self. Fundamentally, these offerings support allyship with sexuality as a transformative force within us all. 

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