Episode 210: Restore Your Core, Healing Journeys, and Mothering Teens with Lauren Ohayon

In this episode, Kimberly and Chris dive deep into the impact of travel on their lives and the consequences of tourism in places they call home. As two world travelers, who have each spent a decade living abroad, Kimberly and Chris consider what they have learned about home, hospitality, and culture from places far from the lands they were raised. They discuss how the pandemic impacted travel to where Chris resides in Mexico, one of two countries that kept its borders open? How Air BnB’s, second homes, and passive income have changed the real estate landscape for future generations? They wonder what it would look like to re-imagine the set of relationships and responsibilities one has if they “belong” to their neighborhood? They ask what if we imagined both our “leisure” and our “work” as connected to the place we live? And how does the question of confinement to home, so relevant to new mothers, show up in the “post-pandemic” summer of 2024?   Bio Chris Christou is a writer, educational curator, and activist. Born and raised in Toronto, Canada, he moved to Oaxaca, Mexico in 2015 after a decade of delirious wanderlust. In 2016, Chris began concurrently working in and writing about the tourism industry, founding Oaxaca Profundo, a deep learning organization focused on food culture and radical hospitality. In 2021, alongside friends and strangers, he organized and launched the End of Tourism Podcast. He is the author of a book of poetry entitled the Black Braid of Memory, as well as forthcoming books on the psychedelic culture, the unauthorized history of tourism, and radical hospitality. Finally, he is a student of all things chocolate and cacao-related.   What You’ll Here Being at home in other places Are places “back to normal”? Are we “post-pandemic”? Mexico as an escape route for coping with Covid culture How is a sense of home impacted by tourism? What does it mean to be forced to stay at home and the response is to get as far away as fast as possible? Wanderlust - wanting to be everywhere and by virtue of that not wanting to be anywhere How much of tourism an unwillingness to be where one is? What does it mean to consider what the place you call home needs? And what you can offer that place? I don’t think you can be responsible to a place if you’re elsewhere The history of mobility in north American Culture How to re-neighbor Seeing places as temporary makes them disposable How the pandemic led to lots of profit-driven real estate aquisitions The impact of Air Bnbs in tourist destinations Do we make our homes for ourselves or for our parents and others we want to welcome people How do locals become second class servants or mascot for Instagram world views? Dehumanization is a two way street in the tourist industry Leaving one expensive city for a less expensive city you bring the landlords with you. The un-sustainability of second homes Hospitality is complex - learning a culture to invoke hospitality with the stranger How difficult staying at home is for a new mother? Feeling confined when trying to make home with a baby Having family in and of two cultures Travel vegans vs. living it up Resources https://www.chrischristou.net/ chrischristou.substack.com IG - @zajorino / @theendoftourism / @oaxacaprofundo 

In this episode, Kimberly and Lauren discuss her teaching journey, which led to the restorative exercise techniques Lauren offers in the women’s health field. As a lifelong mover, Lauren went through several different yoga trainings and anatomical frameworks to arrive at a simple truth: there isn’t a right or wrong, good or bad when it comes to understanding your body’s needs. They discuss re-writing injury stories, and consider what leads women to medically intervene at different phases of life. In addition, Kimberly and Lauren talk about raising teenage girls. In this open hearted conversation, two somatic experiencing practitioners talk through their way of practicing what they teach.   Bio Lauren Ohayon isan internationally recognized yoga + Pilates teacher specializing in core and pelvic floor issues. She has been teaching for the past two decades. Lauren creates online exercise programs that are challenging, unique, safe, sustainable and life-changing. In addition to yoga and Pilates, she is certified as a Restorative Exercise Specialist™, in Neurokinetic Therapy® and in Anatomy in Motion. The web site Holy Shift yoga was her first online baby and has since become this web site under her own name. Nothing has changed but the name. Learn more at www.laurenohayon.com   What You’ll Hear Supporting women in training their bodies The intersection of Anatomy and the Nervous system The pelvic floor world Movement as soothing Injuries as a yoga teacher Needing to dig less healing wells, instead dig one deep well Set one on a path of a more mindful way of moving Re-writing the stories of our injuries Distinguishing anatomy and biomechanics Somatic nervous system approach to exercise Feldenkrais technique was a big influence Letting your body teach you What leads us to try and intervene in our bodies as women at different life phases Good filters for not entertaining the cult/“you should” mindset Diet and protein Being sensory following nature and desire for warmth Parenting teens A mother who was a very experimental/exploratory teen Consent communication and safety Restoring your core- a central support system that receives and transmits To be restorative is to not approach the body through good/bad right/wrong anatomical frameworks Accepting the body’s changes with aging   Resources IG: @thelaurenohayon Website: www.laurenohayon.com

With fellow educator and Orphan Wisdom Scholar Johannah Reimer, Kimberly discusses Johannah’s long cultivated journey with Girl Groups that work on collective rites of passage. They explore the difference between weekend and longer form rites of passage processes for girls crossing the threshold to adolescence and womanhood, as well as ways to de-emphasize soul work that doesn't center "the self." Johannah emphasizes the impact she has seen guiding Girls Groups and their families into relationships that reflect boundaries, values, and connection. Johannah talks through her passionate approach to the Matricarchical archetype, as well as their shared thoughts on being a single parent. Johanna describes her upcoming 9-month Girl Group facilitator training  “Pathways to Womanhood” where she shares her elemental curriculum, which has been honed over 10 years of work with girls of all ages. Links to a free workshop and the facilitator training below.   Bio Johannah Reimer is a soulcentric educator, ceremonialist, teen mentor, and an artist of many trades. Trained as a Waldorf teacher, Johannah has been working with children of all ages for over 20 years and holds a particular passion for tweens/teens striving to meet their developmental needs for mentorship and initiation in a culture that has forgotten how to do so. An apprentice of visionaries: Sage Hamilton and Melissa Michaels of SOMA Source, Johannah has worked for many years as a Waldorf teacher under the guidance of her elder Sage, and as an embodied leader for international youth in movement based Rites of Passage with Golden Bridge & Golden Girls Global. What She Shares Initiatory rites for girls crossing the threshold into adolescence Village mindedness in a Culture without village norms Severance - a death happening in rites of passage Stepping into a threshold, into a new phase of being What does it mean when girls go on a quest to leave childhood behind and then return back to their parents and community? Parents also cross a threshold when their children go on such a quest. A year long process that she does with 5th graders The conflation of big experiences with rites of passage Distinguishing between a rite of passage vs. a threshold How short-term retreats are often not living up to the term rites of passage Girls Groups are designed for a longer-term structure within a collective The power of collective work vs. over-emphasis on the self Working with teens you sometimes need an iron fist and a velvet glove The power of improvisation when working with teens The power of parents letting go of control Parents fear of their own children: important to assert boundaries/values and stay connected Parents: “Stay true. Stay the course.” As a child of divorce, the challenge of being a single parent Gathering the men around the son of a single mother She describes her upcoming free class for anyone who feels the call to be a village auntie, as well as her intimate 9-month Girl Group facilitator training. The power of the Matricarchical archetype and Village Aunties.   Resources Pathways to Womanhood - Girls Group Facilitator Training Becoming a Village Auntie (Free Training) www.wakefulnature.com

In this episode, Kimberly discusses wild mothering, elder mothers, and mothering from our centers with Tami Lynn Kent, returned special guest, women’s health healer, elder mother, and teacher of previous Jaguar classes. We discuss how to remain in true relationship with the feminine, unlearning how we’ve embodied patriarchy, and living and mothering from our feminine centers. She also discusses the challenges of mothering during these times, especially for mothers of teens and young adults. Ultimately, she offers deep wisdom and medicine for staying true to our centers during these fractured times.   Bio Tami Lynn Kent is a women’s health physical therapist, founder of the original method of Holistic Pelvic Care™ for women, and author of “Wild Feminine: Finding Power, Spirit & Joy in the Female Body,” “Wild Creative,” and “Wild Mothering.” She is passionate about the potential in our female bodies and cultivating this vibrant energy that’s meant to run through all aspects of a woman’s life. She draws upon hers daily in mothering three sons now all young adults themselves. Her previous book, “Mothering from Your Center,” is being re-released as “Wild Mothering,” which includes new elder mother wisdom.   What She Shares: –Deep relationship with the feminine –Undoing internalization of patriarchy –Mothering teens during challenges –Embodied mothering during fractured times   What You’ll Hear: –Walking in deep relationship with the true feminine –Boundaries around values and work –Unlearning embodied patterns of patriarchy within us –Overcompensation in business –Bodies giving out from overcompensation –Women giving up space instead of centering –Coming into truth of where energy and body are –Over-extending out of perfectionism and wanting safety –Helping children find their centers gradually –Mothering young adults with internet, pandemic, polarization, etc. –Information is not wisdom –Importance of listening to embodied wisdom and those with it –Mothering as a wild journey –Prioritizing the body and face-to-face –Embodied presence important to mothering –Weekly family facetime meetings –Going through the pandemic with males –Strain on mothers and families feels higher now –Lack of safety webs and social supports –Trends of delaying independence from youth –Determine of pandemic on isolation and young adults –Assessing nervous systems after isolating during pandemic –Embodied care versus smoothing discomfort –Creative, inspired, moving towards passion, tracking health, connection –Increase of body images issues in boys –Getting boys out of looking and more of feeling/felt sense –Fear of interacting in world –Tracking and noticing people around us is embodied mothering –Lost art of tending to home and those around us with presence –Monitoring screen time for young adults –Playing online with real peers –Encouraging children to verbalize online interactions –Rules as child-specific and season-dependent –Building trust bridges –Checking in and checking on –Creating daily embodied moments with children –Embodied mothering as the tether –Presence with children creates more presence within themselves –Stories we tell our children, stories they hear –Balancing heavy times as parents –Lack of deep containers taking toll –Energetic force pulsing through life –Reaction versus resonance –Always new medicine and new hope in true feminine –Not disassociating from deeper problems –Living in deep relationship to feminine field –Tending to our parts of the field is the mending –Using connection to mystery to do our part –Repairing a fractured web –May 11th Mini Mother’s Day Retreat!   Resources Website: https://www.wildfeminine.com/ IG: @tamilynnkent  

In this episode, Kimerberly interviews Ajaye, the founder of The Project PT, a fitness center creating major social change in the community of Oxford, England. They discuss Kimberly’s experience at the gym, similarities of fitness culture in the U.S. and U.K. and how it is intimidating to many kinds of people interested in exercise. They also discuss the decrease of physical movement in schools and how that motivated The Project PT’s mission of supporting teen girls in health and fitness. They also discuss other community outreach programs that The Project PT runs as well as the importance and business model of ethical bonds and balancing service-related businesses with motherhood.   Bio Ajaye is the driving force behind The Project PT, a fitness center committed to ethical business standards, social justice, and community outreach. Ajaye has over 18 years of experience in the fitness industry and is a fully qualified personal trainer, crossfit coach, Olympic weightlifting coach, and a sports therapist. The Project studio runs several social work programs in the Oxford community and continues to expand.   What She Shares: –Intense gym culture and The Project PT –Diversity and inclusion in fitness spaces –Supporting youth in fitness –Community outreach –Balancing business & motherhood   What You’ll Hear: –Different physical needs after motherhood –Intense gym culture –Diversity at Project PT Gym –17% in UK attend gyms, 83% do not –Forming community for Project PT –Representation and informed professional development –Limited physical movement in schools –Working with fitness and teenage girls –Skateboarding, boxing, and weight-lifting for girls –Focusing on enjoyment in fitness –Long-term goals for Project PT –Forming a blueprint for other fitness centers –Policy change needed –Working with vulnerable young people –Providing confidence and skills for young people –Crime prevention program working with police –Run social impact reports to study findings –Importance of studies and representation –Fitness, business, and motherhood of 3 children –Struggling to find balance in business and parenting –Kimberly navigating perimenopause and physical/emotional changes –Accepting limitations and being open to change –Adopting children and business thriving –Ethical Bond –Ethical Exchange supporting business bonds and shares –Offering employee shares –Collaboration and community with other businesses –Ethics platform for housing, energy efficiency, etc.   Resources Website: https://www.theprojectpt.com/ IG: @theprojectpt  

In this episode, Kimberly and Joelle discuss the joys, challenges, and complexities of writing a book and publishing. They met when Kimberly was pitching “The Fourth Trimester” and have connected ever since. Kimberly discusses her journey as an author in relation to her other work previous three books. They also discuss self-publishing, traditional publishing, how the publishing industry has changed because of social media, and the importance of book proposals. Joelle is currently enrolling for the Book Proposal Academy, a six month, robust course and mentorship program that supports new authors through the book proposal process. Register through the link below!   Bio Joelle Hann is an award-winning writer whose essays and poems explore the nature of our deepest relationships, and whose articles have covered the highs and lows of yoga culture, as well as food, film, books and travel. She’s worked in-house as a Senior Development Editor at Bedford/St. Martin’s. A decade later she jumped ship to freelance as a book doctor and collaborator. Since then, she’s developed and written many acclaimed books for authors in the realm of self-transformation, activism, spirituality, health, finance and business. Joelle is also a seasoned yoga teacher and practitioner. Her journalism has appeared in The New York Times, TimeOut New York, Poets & Writers, Yoga Journal, Yoga International, and other publications. Her essays have appeared on NPR, YourTango, Geist, and others. Joelle is also an award-winning poet with an MFA (poetry) and an MA (English Literature) from New York University’s top-ranked program, and many publications in journals and anthologies including McSweeney’s, Matrix, Painted Bride Quarterly, Drunken Boat, Breathing Fire: Canada’s New Poets, Broken Land: Poems of Brooklyn and more.   What She Shares: –Traditional versus self-publishing –Pitching your book idea –Tending to the voice within –Book Proposal Academy with Joelle begins April 17th! What You’ll Hear: –Kimberly’s process of book writing –Experiences with various kinds of publishers –Self-publishing process –Kimberly’s upcoming book deal –Five main publishing houses and politics –Differences between first-time proposing versus fourth –Lack of confidence in initial stage of process –Small advances versus large advances –The Fourth Trimester best selling back-listed book –Publicity and marketing during proposals –Making the case for your book –Author versus writer –BookTok as powerful engine for making authors –Power of readers to make best-sellers from BookTok –Hybrid publishing on the rise –Challenges of self-publishing –University publishing –Trauma angles need hope, tools, and resilience –Shorter and easy to digest are book preferences –Literary agent burnout –Soul calling towards writing –Tending to the voice within –Following and engagement from audience –Quality and marketability –Proposal is key in not getting lost in process –Proposal is a map for book –Artistry and practical vision –Joelle’s Book Proposal Academy begins April 17th! –Runs for six months through 5 phases –Early bird sign-up begins April 3rd   Resources Website: https://brooklynbookdoctor.com/bpa/ IG: @@brooklynbookdoctor Book Proposal Academy Application: https://brooklynbookdoctor.com/bpa  

Summary In this episode, friends Kimberly and Kendra share their experiences and insights around mothering and the complex webs of care in non-traditional family structures. They discuss the beauty and challenges of single parenting, parenting young children while dating, forming new care structures, and navigating professional roles while mothering children of all ages. They also discuss their co-led upcoming retreat Apprenticing the Web taking place in Booneville, California this September 2024!   Bio Kendra Cunov has been studying, facilitating, and practicing Authentic Relating, Embodiment Practices & Deep Intimacy Work for over fifteen years. Kendra has worked with thousands of men, women & couples in the areas of embodiment, intimacy, communication & full self-expression. She co-founded “Authentic World & Fierce Grace,” as well as “The Embodied Relationship Training Salon” (with John Wineland), and pioneered some of the most cutting edge relation work on the planet. Kendra has consulted for companies such as Genentech & been on staff for 4PC, an elite mastermind for the top 4% of coaches in the world. She works with organizations & leaders, as well as men, women & couples, who know that embodied presence, truth, connection & integrity are our truest access points to success – in business & in love.   What She Shares: –Non-traditional family structures –Co-parenting with young children –Love as a guiding compass –Mothering and professions –Upcoming retreat with Kimberly and Kendra in September   What You’ll Hear: –Apprenticing the Web Retreat September 2024 –Blended families, partnership, and parenting non-traditionally –Mothering and marriage traditionally and non-traditionally –Ease as a compass in hard situations –Kimberly’s pregnant in Brazil –Making partnerships for co-parenting –Feeling alone in single parenting –Mothering alone in marriage –Centering the child/children –Facilitating opportunities for children to connect with fathers –Inquiring in co-parenting –Love as an invitation to the co-parent –Dating while single parenting young children –Work changes through mothering –Love as a compass –Managing finances while single parenting –Wanting to be in the world sooner while parenting young children –Older children needing more mothering than younger –Traveling and working while mothering young children –Creating community as single parents and living abroad –Benefits of single parenting –Not wanting to be a buffer while co-parenting –Unpacking child at the center –Mothering the culture –Maiden-Mother-Crone transitions –Something to “keep up” with while mothering –Mothering through menopause –Accepting missing out in mothering –Responding to life in the moment –Cultivating capacity for discomfort and the unknown –Trusting self to respond in the moment –Being willing to fail relationally –Curiosity over shaming –Upcoming retreat in September, California! –Kendra buying land near Mt. Shasta –Stewarding the land before building   Resources Website: https://kendracunov.com/ IG: @kendra_cunov Retreat Details: https://kendracunov.com/apprenticing-the-web/  

With special guest host Stephen Jenkinson, Kimberly and Stephen consult with three engaged couples and an unmarried woman to wonder aloud about the institution of marriage.  Stephen describes his experience, when he was asked to marry several couples, how he did his homework.  What does it mean to approach matrimony as something other than a predictable, foreseen conclusion?  Are weddings overly performative? Is it possible for a wedding to feel authentic?  Kimberly describes what she learned from having a wedding in the working terreiros culture of Bahia, Brazil.  Stephen describes why a ceremony has no audience - it only has witnesses and participants. Stephen and Kimberly contend with how contemporary couples, longing for ceremony in their matrimony, strive for integrity in their union. This episode is just the tip of iceberg.    Starting February 25th, Stephen and Kimberly will start their 5-part Online Series "Forgotten Pillars: Patrimony, Matrimony, Kinship, Ancestors & Ceremony."   They will dive much deeper into the lessons gleaned from working cultures of the past to inform meaningful ways for couples, families, and communities to come together for experiences that linger long past the "big day."    Find out more or join us: https://kimberlyannjohnson.com/forgotten-pillars/

In this episode, you hear reflections on Kimberly’s wedding, just weeks out from the event in Salvador, Brazil. With guest host/podcast producer/cousin, Jackson Kroopf, you will hear Kimberly sit with all of the proceedings: from spiritual preparation to rehearsal to ceremony to celebration. What does it mean to be married in the traditions of a spouse’s culture? Who is a wedding for? What role do children play in their parent’s ceremony? How do we understand the relationship between matrimony and contemporary weddings? In this open hearted conversation, you will hear family reckon, reflect, and bask, in real time, on their expanding family.

In this episode, Kimberly and Bodhi discuss his work as a death doula at Doorway Into Light, Hawaii’s only nonprofit green funeral home and educational resource center, The Death Store. They discuss what green burials and ocean burials are and how they are more generous and sustainable to the planet than modern burial practices. They also discuss how dominant culture fears death, responds to death, and death traditions across cultures. In light of all of the ways that people, and even babies, die, Bodhi asks us to deeply reflect on the question, “What is a full life?” P.S. His nonprofit is still taking donations for those displaced by the Maui fires; find the link below to donate!   Bio Bodhi is an ordained interfaith minister and teacher in the Sufi lineage of Sufi Sam and Hazrat Inayat Khan. He is the founder and executive director of Doorway Into Light, a nonprofit organization on Maui, which provides conscious and compassionate care for the dying, their families and the grieving, and has been offering community presentations and trainings since 2006 in the fields of awakened living and dying and the care of the dying. Bodhi is a bereavement counselor and educator; a hospice volunteer; a home funeral guide; a teacher and trainer of death doulas; a speaker and workshop leader and a ceremonial guide. He hosts a weekly streaming radio show, ‘Death Tracks’, on a Maui station. Bodhi guides memorials and funerals and leads grief rituals. He facilitates grief support groups for teenagers. He has trained hundreds of doctors, nurses, hospice staff, social workers, ministers, chaplains, therapists, artists and lay people in the spiritual, psychological, emotional and logistical care of the dying and the care of the dead, and for 4 years has taken dozens through a certification program to be death doulas. Bodhi has written a column called “Ask the Death Professor” for a local Maui magazine. He is a notary public, a coffin maker and a Reiki practitioner. Bodhi and his wife Leilah lead spiritual retreats in Hawaii and around the world.For many years Bodhi collaborated with Ram Dass, a neighbor and friend, who served on Doorway Into Light’s Board of Directors. Bodhi is continuing the work Ram Dass helped birth, in the fields of conscious dying in America.   What He Shares: –Death doula work –Green burials and ocean burials –Running a nonprofit funeral home and resource center –What you do (literally) when someone dies –Legalities of keeping a body with you –Generational stories of death What You’ll Hear: –How he was led to death work and spiritual counseling –Working with Ram Das –Starting the death doula movement and a ministry of death –Running a non-profit funeral home –Culture pushing away death –Green burials –Hazards of embalming –Biodegradable graves –Death and burial as another practice removed from traditions –Cultural differences around death and burial –Ocean body burial –Being with bodies after death –Generational stories after death –Lingering with the body to witness death –Healthy life includes its death –Mothers of stillborns fighting for baby body –Giving families time and space with death beyond laws –Outlaw moves –Medical rules around bodies and placentas –Navigating baby and child death –What is a full life? –Entitlement around death –Death doula trainings –Facing Death, Nourishing Life course –Showing up for life and death   Resources Website: https://www.doorwayintolight.org/ IG: @thedeathstoremaui