Feb 16

Feb 16 Podcasts for Mind & Body | February Edit

“I used to think healing meant ridding the body and the heart of anything that hurt. It meant putting your pain behind you, leaving it in the past. But I’m learning that’s not how it works. Healing is figuring out how to coexist with the pain that will always live inside of you, without pretending it isn’t there or allowing it to hijack your day. It is learning to confront ghosts and to carry what lingers.”

— Suleika Jaouad, Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted

We recently heard the term ‘serendipitous curation’ and that reflects our process of discovering this month’s Podcasts for the Mind & Body Connection. Our selections below cover everything from sexual wellness to what self-care means today, from some of our favorite listens (we’d really press play on anything from Pandora Sykes) to some new-to-us series like New York Magazine’s Cover Story: Power Trip. We hope you find some helpful new ways of thinking about your mind and your body and how they might relate to each other in your life.

Featured

Yogaland | Episode 250: Cultural Appropriation and Healing the World with Kindness with Reema Datta

In this episode host Andrea Ferreti talks to Reema Datta, an Indian-American teacher, speaker, humanitarian, musician and author about developing a yoga practice founded on our emotional health and healing. They also discuss how to act when something doesn’t resonate and the cultural appropriation of yoga that Datta recently discussed in her Elephant Journal essay. Gives a holistic view of yoga sometimes missed.

The Guilty Feminist | Power through Movement with Jessica Fostekew, Lexy Seedhouse, Greer Forde-MacNaughton, Roxy Coervers and Vivian Chandra

This episode of The Guilty Feminist focuses on how movement can help with our emotional and mental wellbeing. Hosts Deborah Frances-White and Jessica Fostekew talk to two New Zealand-based organizations, the Shift Foundation and Kia Haumaura on how ideas of movement impact women, girls, and members of the LGBTQIA+ community and how it can be the thing that ultimately brings them a sense of confidence, safety, and belonging.

The Next Big Idea | Bookbite #16: How would you react to a life-changing diagnosis

Suleika Jaouad talks about the main takeaways from her memoir Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted, which covers the 15,000 miles she traveled across the US meeting people touched by her New York Times column about her Leukemia diagnosis. About how we rethink our relationship with our bodies and recovery and full of inspirational advice about moving through and on.

Doing it right | Re-thinking Self-care with Pooja Lakshmin

Host Pandora Sykes talks to Pooja Lakshmin MD, writer, psychiatrist and founder of the women's health platform Gemma, about all things self-care. In this episode, they cover how the idea of self-care has been co-opted by Wellness Inc, how it can put pressure on individuals to fix something, its origins in the voices of black women, and the difference between burnout and despair. We particularly appreciated the discussion about how wellness, self care and mental health are interrelated but different (that a practice is not necessarily a treatment). Ultimately though it’s about how to make space for yourself in ways that work for you.

Cover Story | Power Trip

More a series recommendation, than a single episode, this podcast from New York Magazine unravels some of the hidden practices around psychedelic healing and how some of our understanding of the mind/body connection is shifting. Hosted by iO Tillett Wright, with collaborator Lily Kay Ross, who uses her own experience of learning to be a healer as a framework, Power Trip is less about efficacy and more about ethics. A fascinating expose into a world we’re just coming to understand, even as it’s fast catching our attention.

Not Perfect Podcast | How anxiety affects your sex life with Kate Moyle

Host Poppy Jamie talks to Kate Moyle, one of the UK’s leading psychosexual and relationship therapists about how anxiety impacts our sex lives and how our stressful modern lives might be affecting us in ways we’re not yet naming. Full of understanding, and honesty, about what can be a tricky subject, this episode makes sure that sexual wellness is something we’re talking about too. Pair with Kate’s own podcast The Sexual Wellness Sessions.

“In the moments when we can offer suggestions to improve something in another or in the world, we can make those suggestions with kindness, tenderness, and affection, knowing that everyone is fighting their own battles and knowing that the hardest and most important things we’ll ever change for the better are our own hearts and minds. ”

— Reema Datta

All of our February selections can be found in our Spotify playlist for Mind & Body Connection. You can listen here:

Let us know what you’ve been listening to this month to help you think about your own Mind/Body Connection. What are your go-to’s on exercise, health, nutrition, self-care and healing?

To seek out more resources for your mind-body take a look at our guide.

Main image attribution: Photo by Jozsef Hocza on Unsplash