The Mind Bod Adventure Pod

Today our explorer-in-residence is Tracee Stanley, a longtime student and teacher of Yoga and Tantra, and author of Radiant Rest: Yoga Nidra for Deep Relaxation and Awakened Clarity. We’ve explored rest before on this pod, but not quite like this! When we sit and attempt to let go, what gets in the way? What messages about safety and worthiness are hiding in our nervous system?For Tracee, rest is about sanity, empowerment, and resistance. Resistance to our own self judgements and the pressures of dominant culture. We talk about all of this from a place of rest. To prepare for this week's practice, prep a space where you can get cozy. There is also a short journaling practice, so have a notebook and pen on hand.Tracee’s 20 minute deep rest practice begins at 4:03 and ends at 24:03 with lots of juicy, insightful discussion after!Just an extra note: our ambition with the “Mind Bod Adventure Pod,” as Tasha calls it, is to become part of your daily or weekly practice regimen. It is a place to explore a broad understanding of practice – from quieter meditation and movement practices, to more engaged life and work and communication practices. To do this in real-time, together. And then, after, we talk honestly about our own experience, as a way to help you get clearer about yours. In this way, we both connect to helpful practice resources, and we develop more confidence around being our own teachers and mental authorities.The other part of this is exploring what kind of conversation emerges after we do a practice – when we're still influenced by the practice itself, when it is still in our nervous systems, as it were. That’s one reason it's important to actually do the practices. They help us see what else might be important. They can change the way we live and relate and listen and communicate.So let’s party! And by "party," we mean close our eyes and do practically nothing.Links:• Tracee’s website: www.traceeyoga.com• Tracee’s Deep Relaxation Course on Commune• Tracee’s Yoga Nidra TrainingSupport the show Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

Today we meet Erik Davis, award-winning journalist and author, most recently, of High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies.Erik guides us in an imagination-based open awareness practice that for him is about cultivating a very specific kind of watchful attention. This turns out to be the perfect setup to discuss one of Erik’s specialities: the defiantly unclassifiable weirdness of psychedelic experience.We explore the ins and outs of the current psychedelic revival, the heretical nature of psychedelics as “practice,” even the possibility of the Buddha himself being a psychonaut. Can we scale-up psychedelic use for the mainstream? Do we even want to? And down we go, into a highly entertaining rabbit hole. Erik’s immersive 16 minute practice begins at 8:36 and ends at 24:20.  Links:• Erik’s website: https://techgnosis.com • Erik’s substack• High Weirdness Book• Psychedelic Sangha: https://psychedelicsangha.org • Erik’s Guided Psychedelic Meditation Music Album ExperienceSupport the show Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

Today’s episode we’re joined by Buddhist minister and social activist Lama Rod Owens, author of Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation through Anger. Our subject is anger, something Lama Rod once had to suppress in order to survive as “a Black queer body in America.” He writes: “My fear of death and policing has translated into a self-policing of my anger, to such an extent that if it weren’t for my meditation practice, I wouldn’t know how to find my anger.”How do we work with the energies of anger in this intense cultural moment? Do we need our anger to keep us motivated in the face of injustice and oppression? For Lama Rod, anger can start us off, but only love will sustain the work. This is the basis of his guided meditation – we connect to love and care as a way to hold both our anger and the “broken-heartedness” that’s often found underneath. A deep practice and a very raw conversation with one of the leaders of the next generation of dharma teachers.Lama Rod’s 15 minute guided practice on care and anger starts at 11:50 and ends at 27:26.Links• Lama Rod’s website: https://www.lamarod.com Support the show Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

In today’s episode we’re joined by the delightful voice coach and kundalini teacher Debora Joy. Debora guides us through an array of voice exercises, all of them meant to free us from the shackles of bodily restriction. We learn how the way we speak reflects our conditioning, and how opening up our voice can change who we are.This episode is much more interactive than usual, almost all of it a practice. We left this one feeling exhilarated, full of energy and – yes – joy.If you want to go straight to her first meditation to “clear out the garbage” it starts at 6:33 and ends at 10:03. If you want to go straight to the voice exercises they start at 23:34 and continue in various forms till the end of the episode!Links:• Debora’s website: https://www.deborajoy.com Support the show Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

Today’s episode is an energetic dive into the healing potential of the nighttime mind with Charlie Morley. Charlie is the author of several much-loved books on lucid dreaming, including his newest: Wake Up to Sleep: 5 Practices to Transform Trauma and Stress for Peaceful Sleep. Charlie guides us in two practices: a powerful protection practice inspired by the Bön tradition of Dream Yoga, and a simple Yoga Nidra practice, meant to help reset the nervous system. Both help create a safe and supporting space for overcoming insomnia and getting a good night’s rest. We also explore what he’s learned about supporting veterans – and regular folks – with PTSD, how to renegotiate our nightmares, and the role lucid dreaming can play in all of this. These are fascinating practices; we had an animated and wide-ranging discussion.To go straight to Charlie’s 7 minute sleep protection practice, it starts at 21:30 and ends at 28:20. Links:• Charlie’s website: https://www.charliemorley.com • Charlie’s book Wake Up to SleepSupport the show Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

Today we’re joined by Sharon Salzberg, one of the pioneers of Western Buddhism. She’s the author of a new book: Real Change: Mindfulness to Heal Ourselves and the World.This episode is all about what’s possible when we bring a little (or a lot) more love into our lives.  We explore her take on loving kindness, and learn in real-time how loving kindness can be an antidote to fear. We explore how the practice both synchronizes and conflicts with activism, and how to avoid the "Disney-ification" of loving kindness, among many other topics.To go straight to Sharon’s 10 minute loving kindness practice, it begins at 06:26, and ends at 16:22.  Links:• Sharon’s website: https://www.sharonsalzberg.com • Sharon’s book, Real Change: https://www.sharonsalzberg.com/realchange/ Support the show Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

In today’s episode: psychotherapist and meditation teacher John Prendergast.John is the author of The Deep Heart: Our Portal to Presence, a book that explores “the convergence of psychological healing and spiritual awakening.” For John, this happens most clearly and powerfully in the depths of the heart. How do we sensitize ourselves to this subtle space?  This is our guide's expertise. John shows us how to rest in the heart as a way to appreciate and embody a different way of knowing and relating. We ask our hearts about our core limiting beliefs, and what it might mean to no longer believe them.It’s an emotional journey – sincere and raw and often quite beautiful.To go straight to John’s 11 minute heart practice, it begins at 8:42 and ends at 20:03.  Links:• John’s website: http://listeningfromsilence.comSupport the show Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

Today’s episode: Sebene Selassie.Sebene is a meditation teacher, integral coach, Indigenous Focusing Oriented Therapy (IFOT) practitioner and author of You Belong: A Call for Connection. She’s also one of the most popular teachers on the Ten Percent Happier meditation app.Sebene guides us through the four elements of earth, fire, water, and air. This practice is both powerful and practical. Sebene shows us how to harness the elements to balance our minds and bodies, and how the elements help us understand different aspects of who we are and how we connect to the world around us. A grounding journey into, in Sebene's words, "our own indigeneity."To go straight to Sebene's (12 minute) four elements practice, it starts at 3:00 and ends at 15:22. Links:• Sebene’s Website• Sebene’s book: You Belong: A Call for Connection Support the show Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

Meet Jennifer Dumpert. Jennifer is a San Francisco-based dreamer and lecturer, author of Liminal Dreaming: Exploring Consciousness at the Edge of Sleep. And the edge of sleep is where we go today! We drop like stones into the weird space between dreams and ordinary waking consciousness, and then attempt to recombobulate afterwards into coherent human beings.We find out what liminal dreaming is, why it’s such a good practice, and how it can be used to great effect at the opera and with the in-laws. We also get a taste of Jennifer’s boundary-mixing personal practice of embedding dreams into the urban landscape, threading the liminal into the lived.To go straight to the 14 minute liminal dreaming practice, it starts at 04:45 and ends at 18:21.Enjoy! Links:• Jennifer’s Website: https://jenniferdumpert.com• Jennifer's Liminal Dreaming Website: https://www.liminaldreaming.com and guided Yoga Nidra practices https://www.liminaldreaming.com/practices/  • Join her community and cultivate the wild and visionary experience of the dream: https://urbandreamscape.comSupport the show Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe

Welcome to our trailer, where we venture into what this pod's about, how it came to be, and most importantly, how to nerd out at a rave...The Consciousness Explorers Podcast (CEP) is an experiential sandbox for mind and body hosted by Tasha Schumann and Jeff Warren. Each episode is a real-time adventure, where a different guide takes us through a short meditation or personal growth practice. (That means you’re coming too!)Don't forget to hit subscribe and if you want to be notified for each new episode then sign up to our newsletter or follow us on Instagram! New episodes released every Thursday.Support the show Get full access to The Mind Bod Adventure Pod at www.mindbodpod.com/subscribe