LaidOPEN Podcast
Charna Cassell
Welcome to the LaidOPEN Podcast hosted by Charna Cassell. Charna is a Trauma-Trained Psychotherapist and Sexuality Coach with over 20 years of experience. Every day, Charna helps clients heal from trauma and access more bodily joy, emotional regulation, vitality, and hope.
Now she’s bringing her expertise to podcasting with interviews from post-trauma thrivers who share creative resources to support living an authentic, passionate, mindful existence.
Together they explore how to have a more pleasure-filled, peaceful life while reducing self-sabotaging behaviors and gaining control over reactive behaviors. Charna’s mission is to help people like you understand the impact of trauma on their nervous system and therefore their relationships with an emphasis on ways to heal.
In every episode, Charna explores how to build our physical and emotional capacity to be with all that moves through us and around us to ultimately feel more liberated on the other side. Join our community as we embark on this transformative journey by reaccessing our connection to aliveness.
Now she’s bringing her expertise to podcasting with interviews from post-trauma thrivers who share creative resources to support living an authentic, passionate, mindful existence.
Together they explore how to have a more pleasure-filled, peaceful life while reducing self-sabotaging behaviors and gaining control over reactive behaviors. Charna’s mission is to help people like you understand the impact of trauma on their nervous system and therefore their relationships with an emphasis on ways to heal.
In every episode, Charna explores how to build our physical and emotional capacity to be with all that moves through us and around us to ultimately feel more liberated on the other side. Join our community as we embark on this transformative journey by reaccessing our connection to aliveness.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Jul 26, 2022 • 1h 7min
Sensual Intelligence & Our Lost IQ with Shawnrey Notto
Our guest this week is sensual intelligence educator and author of The Lost IQ, Shawnrey Notto. She has created a set of sensuality archetypes for you to self-reflect and discover your own style of relating. We discuss a variety of topics centering around sensuality including how dance and embodiment have been a path of healing for us. Additionally, we cover everything from how to deepen sensual awareness, the gendered challenges implicit in our conditioning, healing sexual shame and abuse, and the importance of community in healing. As always, we end the episode with an exercise from me on attuning into our own sensuality.
Jul 19, 2022 • 1h 4min
Making Peace With Your Pussy with Jessica Pin
Please welcome activist Jessica Pin as our guest on this week’s episode of LaidOPEN Podcast. She’s an activist and a biomedical engineer, whose life work is advocating for the inclusion of detailed clitoral anatomy in medical literature and curricula, training standards for vulvar procedures, and correction of medical misinformation about vulvas. Together we discuss what contributes to the shame women feel about their larger vulva and the misinformation distributed by the medical field about the reality of how 50% of the population has “outties”. Jessica came to this cause because of her personal experience with a labiaplasty gone wrong, which resulted in her clitoral hood and entire inner lips being removed, and total loss of sensation in her clitoris. Charna leads an exercise in becoming familiar with your vulva to reduce genital shame and lead to more ease and embracing of your body.
Jul 12, 2022 • 40min
Sexual Healing and Opening to Orgasms with Paloma De La Hoz aka MoM
Meet Paloma De La Hoz, aka “MoMa” @awaremoma, she’s a sex educator from the Dominican Republic, who uses her experiences to help people reconnect with their sexuality. Her passion is helping women have their first orgasms, whether it’s alone or with their partners. MoMa works internationally and sees clients from around the globe through intimate 1:1 coaching and group programs. Primarily, she helps her clients explore how to connect to their bodies, emotions, and desires, whether in or out of the bedroom. In this episode, we talk about her course on sexual healing she created, how her own sexuality evolved after being raised Catholic and what sexual freedom means to her at this juncture in her life.
Jul 5, 2022 • 59min
Ep. 31 The Art Of Surrender with Author Kate Sloan
You may have heard of this week’s guest from her two podcasts, blog, or books. Kate Sloan is a writer and podcaster specializing in sex, kink, and relationships. We talk about her books '101 Kinky Things Even You Can Do' and '200 Words to Help You Talk About Sexuality & Gender,' the latter of which was recently released. Plus, we do a round robbin covering her two podcasts (The Dildorks and Question Box), sex-ed, and the perks of the daddy-little girl dynamic. We also chat about the fine art of surrendering to pain, as well as, pain as a tool for healing. If you've ever wanted to know the ins and outs of being a sex columnist, this episode is for you.
Jun 28, 2022 • 1h 10min
Ep. 30 Curious Girl and the Making of a Sexual Explorer with Layla London
On LaidOPEN podcast this week, we’re welcoming Layla London, better known by her podcast moniker, Curious Girl Diaries, a podcast dedicated to her sexual awakening and adventures. However, she wasn’t always a podcast host. Layla started as a high-powered businesswoman married to her job. After a 3.5-year dry spell from sex, she decided to reprioritize sex by way of a sex bucket list. Layla documents all the cumming and going in her podcast. Together we talked about the unexpected benefits and openings her sex bucket list has delivered. Plus, we talk about how her project became a 6-year podcast, how she offers her Sex Bucket List Challenge to listeners and the way she manages unwanted advances, and when men lie about their single status. You’ll find all this and more in this tantalizing conversation.
Jun 21, 2022 • 1h 21min
Ep. 29 Finding Peace When You've Been Cheated On with Stephanie Ragazzo
Recently my friend Stephanie Ragazzo had a TikTok go viral where she was expressing grief and rage at having been cheated on. Join us for an exploratory conversation about why people cheat, what happens when you're cheated on, and what a holistic view of cheating might be. Our conversation also covers what to do when lines get crossed, how to recover after your partner has had an affair, the experience of being the cheater and then being cheated on, and the emotions that arise and need to be processed afterward. We also explore complicated topics like how attachment styles play into creating relationship dynamics, gaining clarity after betrayal, and how to be discerning in your next relationship. Plus, Charna guides us through an exercise in deepening intuition and responding to your gut. If you're working through having cheated or being cheated on, don't miss this eye-opening episode featuring TikTok's own @gorizzo90
Jun 14, 2022 • 1h 17min
Ep. 28. Untying The Knot with Mark Tanaka
I am so happy to introduce you to Mark Tanaka, a teacher, and coach that specializes in helping people with nervous system regulation, somatic attachment/developmental trauma repair, and inner child work. Mark is a beloved friend and colleague whom I met during a 2-year shamanic energy bodywork training. He has a background in teaching Qi Gong and Yoga, which he applies to his somatic attachment and development trauma repair practices. Through his process of helping people unwind the physical body, he discovered that relationship trauma patterns left an imprint. This made him dive deeper into techniques that can help create more security and safety in relationships of all kinds. In this episode, Mark guides a beautiful exercise on how to return to and regulate yourself when confronted with a hard conversation. I highly recommend you try it out.
Jun 7, 2022 • 1h 4min
Ep 27. The Evolution of the Love Languages with Anne Hodder-Shipp
This week Anne Hodder-Shipp, a renowned sexuality educator, joins me to discuss her new book "Speaking From the Heart: 18 Languages for Modern Love." Her book offers an alternative perspective and response to what we have come to accept as the 5 Love Languages, which is focused on heteronormative monogamous relationships. Anne’s book offers a refreshing new take on intimacy and safety building in all types of relationships. In this episode, she invites you into creating additional love languages of your own while recognizing hers is based on 6 years of research with clients but not exhaustive. Plus, she offers up a dreamwork exercise to navigate our subconscious emotions and symbols. That you can easily do on your own.
May 31, 2022 • 1h 20min
Ep. 26 Undoing 8 Minutes in the Backseat Of A Car with Lauren Dollie Duke
Lauren Dollie Duke is a yoga teacher and author of a compelling memoir, "Sh!thouse." It tells a story of healing from developmental trauma, PTSD, sexual trauma, and addiction. Lauren and I have shared childhood experiences of growing up in an addicted household, with an incarcerated father and a mom who chose toxic relationships. Her story is incredibly honest and human and she eventually finds liberation through somatic therapy, mind-body connection, and yoga. All that and Lauren also shares some practices for managing fear and anxiety in this episode of LaidOPEN Podcast.
May 24, 2022 • 1h 29min
Ep. 25 The Body Holds The Answers with Gail Blair
Today’s guest, Gail Blair, is a remarkable being whom I am incredibly grateful to call my mentor. A near-death experience led to her seeing the energy fields of everything. She synthesizes what she’s discovered through her own awakening process and helps teach this to others. She leads us in a grounding practice and discusses different kinds of love, celibacy, child sexual abuse, and evolution with Charna. We’re so lucky to have her share her story and gifts with us in this episode.
