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
May 17, 2022 • 1h 2min
Ep. 24 Mr Domestic and The Arts and Crafts of Self-Soothing and Discovery
This week’s episode was a joy to record and features crafting expert Matthew Boudreaux, better known as Mr. Domestic. He’s committed to creating an inclusive online community that bridges cultural gaps through quilting and crafting. Matthew shares his journey to rediscover his love of crafting and how it helped him manage his anxiety, panic attacks and how he even uses it to self-soothe. Plus, we speak about how having a child helped him understand what had been lost when his family asked him to reject a core part of his identity. And how the experience led him to rediscover crafting and helped him embrace a part of himself that had been dormant.
May 10, 2022 • 1h 2min
Ep. 23 Feminism, Sexology and the Eco-Sex Movement with Annie Sprinkle
This week’s guest is a great one, I’m speaking with sexologist Annie Sprinkle, who has had an epic career as a sex-positive and feminist porn star, a performance artist, filmmaker, eco-sex activist, and most recently the co-author of Assuming the Ecosexual Position—Earth as Lover. With her wife Beth Stephens, she launched an eco-sex movement, in addition to working with the founder of Sexological Body Work founder Joseph Kramer. I can’t wait for you to hear Annie speak about her incredible body of work.
May 3, 2022 • 54min
Ep. 22 Mindful Porn Use & How It Can Be Healing with Sexologist Joseph Kramer
Sexologist and ex-Jesuit, Joseph Kramer, Ph.D. is the founder of Body Electric School for Massage as well as Sexological Bodywork. Over the years, Joseph’s ushered in the next wave of Sexological Bodywork practitioners who offer sexual healing, such as Jaiya from Sex, Love, and Goop fame. He also created a variety of educational videos with Annie Sprinkle that teaches the practice of erotic massage. It’s this technique that led him to create the Body Electric School burning the onset of the AIDS epidemic. Plus, Joseph is a well of knowledge on the topic of mindful porn use and there’s so much to learn from him and his story this week on LadiOPEN Podcast.
Apr 26, 2022 • 54min
Ep. 21 Accepting All Our Parts with Janel Vitale
Welcome back to Season 2 of LaidOPEN Podcast. I am elated to kick off the season with sex and relationship coach, Janel Vitale. Janel specializes in relationship design, which is the concept that you and whoever you're with can build a mutually-fulfilling intimate life around your authentic needs and desires, even if unconventional. She leads an exercise on core erotic themes, that I participate in and you can too. We explore Janel’s journey to helping people discover a relationship design that works for them, plus so much more including somatics, sexual healing, and living authentically.
Mar 8, 2022 • 1h 23min
Ep. 20 Liberatory Love, Liberatory Spaces featuring Carvell Wallace
This week’s episode of LaidOPEN Podcast is the season finale and one of my favorites that I’ve recorded so far. Please welcome Carvell Wallace, a New York Times Bestselling author, memoirist, and award-winning podcaster who covers race, arts, culture, film, and music for a wide variety of news outlets. During our chat Carvell shared his journey navigating dissociation in a cis-male body, not feeling he had a right to say “No”, experiencing fear in anticipation of sex, and the lack of training around consent offered to men, and consent as an ongoing collaboration versus a contract. There is so much to learn from our conversation, which I hope inspires you on your journey until we meet again next season.
Mar 1, 2022 • 1h 6min
19. Lyvonne Briggs And The Divine Design Of Pleasure
I am really excited for you to hear this week’s episode of LaidOPEN Podcast. It features the remarkable Lyvonne Briggs, better known as “Pastor Baé,” who is an Emmy Award-winning, body and sex-positive womanist spiritualist. She’s also a writer, pastor, preacher, spiritual life coach, and highly sought-after transformational speaker and seminar leader. We sit down and talk about her experiences working in the church as an advocate of pleasure as its connection to resiliency, as well as, the divine design of pleasure. There’s so much to learn and grow from in this conversation for all of us.
Feb 22, 2022 • 1h 9min
18. Sexual and Spiritual Awakenings with Jessica Graham
Sexual and Spiritual paths are often intertwined, which is the case with this week’s guest Jessica Graham. They are a mindfulness teacher and author of “Good Sex: Getting Off Without Checking Out.” Join us as we discover we’re both proponents of somatic therapy and the journey of a spiritual awakening. Additionally, we talk about shifting identity, connecting more in and expressing anger, and using sex and romance as an escape. I loved speaking with Jessica and hope it’s as engaging and uplifting for you as it was for me.
Feb 15, 2022 • 1h 2min
17. The Comedic Life of a Queer Ex-Youth Pastor with Steve Hernandez
This week on LaidOPEN Podcast Charna welcomes ex-youth pastor, podcaster, and comedian Steve Hernandez. Steve takes us on a journey through his awakening from working in the church to finding the comedy community and the realization that he’s poly and queer. We also talk about being an artist, connected sober sex, emotionally connected gay sex, machismo in Mexican culture, and finding the humor in it all. Tune in to learn more about Steve and his hilarious stories about life, love, and sexual freedom.
Feb 8, 2022 • 1h
16. Stepping into Erotic Wholeness with Darshana Avila
In this episode of LaidOPEN Podcast we welcome Darshana Avila, an Erotic Wholeness Coach you may have seen on this past season of Goop. She believes we are erotic by nature and is dedicated to helping people feel truly at home in their bodies. We also talk about what an Erotic Wholeness Coach is and what it entails. You’re not gonna want to miss this. Especially, if you’re looking to learn more about intimacy and the hard work of healing.
Feb 1, 2022 • 1h 2min
15. TRANSforming & Living More Authentically with Raj Bandyopadhy
On the latest episode of LaidOPEN Podcast, Charna invites former Data Scientist & current photographer and Sex and Relationship Coach, Raj Bandyopadhy onto the podcast. Raj defines himself as a straight man in a queer poly marriage with his partner Andy. Together, Charna and Raj discuss a variety of topics related to this experience including: identity, authentic creative expression, the rigidity of marriage in a heteronormative culture, poly relationships vs ethical nonmonogamy & creating your own rules.
