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
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.
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.
