The Mind Bod Adventure Pod

Although we recorded this interview back in September 2023, it could not be more timely. It is, in fact, about the times, about the news of the world as it comes in via our screen and newspapers, and whether there are practices that can support a more healthy relationship to that news. Our guest is Jay Michealson, writer of , who is both an excellent journalist (he appears regularly on CNN and oth...

In this episode of the Mind Bod Adventure Pod, we take a deep dive into the dynamics of giving, receiving, taking, and allowing with guest Betty Martin . Why does Jeff gush that Betty is the next Buddha? Because Jeff is overly-excitable! And because Betty’s Wheel of Consent is about much more than just sex and touch. It’s about how we’re human with each other. Her model of consent is now taught in...

What do struggle and resistance look like as spiritual practices? What does it take to push for change in a violent and antagonistic world? Our guest in this week’s episode (which was recorded last summer) is Lama Rod Owens , in his words, “a fugitive” – disobedient and on the run in a culture where it’s not safe to be Black, not safe to be Queer, not safe to be an activist speaking truth to power...

This episode is a rocket launcher for enabling all the weird ways you already half-know stuff, ie … intuition! The way we get into the subject is curious and open and “non-expert-y” – we hope it will create an opening for you to consider the possibilities of intuition in your own life. Via the gut, via empathy, via dreams – and via a bunch of other deliciously unsanctioned ways of knowing that cer...

In this episode, we chat with Nadia Bolz-Weber, a Lutheran pastor and public theologian celebrated (justly - excellent Christian word) for her edgy, honest, and sometimes hilarious approach to spirituality. The titles of her three bestselling memoirs say it well: Pastrix , Accidental Saints , and Shameless . Nadia also writes the popular Substack, The Corners – in fact, as you’ll learn at the end...

Hello Friends! Jeff Warren & Tasha Schumann here with some exciting news for 2024 and beyond! The Consciousness Explorers Podcast has evolved into … *drumroll* … 🚀 The Mind Bod Adventure Pod! 🚀 Starting January 30, we’re coming at you with new weekly practice episodes, amazing guests, and rampant tomfoolery. In your inbox (and on Substack) every Tuesday. Here’s what’s new: * The Pod is now in VI...

In today’s episode (the Season 1 finale!) we get slow and personal with Ev’Yan Whitney , sexuality doula, podcast host, and author of Sensual Self . “Sensuality” often gets lumped in with sexuality… Ev’Yan wants to change that, to tease apart these two aspects of being human and demonstrate how everyone can connect with a more sensual version of themselves . Ev’Yan’s 19-minute practice is a tour o...

Our guest today is Angelo DiLullo, a medical doctor and author of a fine book called Awake: It's Your Turn . Angelo points directly to the true nature of self / consciousness / or whatever you want to call this bizarre ululating mystery we all seem to be living inside. He probably wouldn’t even say he “teaches” this, since all he really does for his guided practice is describe his own experie...

In today’s episode, we’re joined by author and embodiment expert Philip Shepherd. Philip is also an actor, and thus a wonderfully entertaining tour guide. He takes us into the body’s “grounded sensitivity” – really the perfect phrase for it, a place both of exquisite intelligence and dependable common sense. Under Philip’s careful guidance, we explore how to move past the mind’s imaginary constrai...

Today we’re joined by Rima Dib, a good friend of Tasha and Jeff’s who also happens to be an expert in unconscious bias and anti-oppression education. Rima teaches workshops about difference – race, age, gender, sexual preference, ability – to people around the planet. She makes it fun . Is this possible? Yes, it turns out. We laughed our asses off. In Rima’s words, “If it gets too heavy, we’re gon...

Meet Shinzen Young, a long-time instructor of mindfulness, author of The Science of Enlightenmen t, and now co-director of the “Science Enhanced Mindful Awareness” or “SEMA” Lab at the University of Arizona. Shinzen is Jeff’s OG meditation teacher. He is both a scholar of comparative mysticism, and a highly creative designer of strange and beautiful (and practical) meditation techniques. In this e...

Today we hang out with the incomparable Tatianna Morales – aka @tatiannatarot – a Brooklyn-born spiritualist, priestess, and Tarot diviner! Together, we plunge into the imagination, learning how the age-old tradition of reading Tarot cards can give us insight into our personalities and our life situations.  It turns out we’re meeting Tatianna at the very moment her own relationship to Tarot is cha...

Today’s episode: Peter Russell. Peter started out as a theoretical physicist, a student of Stephen Hawking’s, until sometime in the early 70s he made his way to India and had his brain blown open. He became one of the West’s early proponents of meditation, and in the 80s wrote several seminal books on consciousness and technology. He’s had a big influence on the culture of meditation in general an...

Meet psychotherapist and Feldenkrais teacher Donna Ray. In this episode, she makes us move! Ok, more like she makes us sit in chairs and roll our eyes and turn our heads a bit and suddenly everything feels better. Welcome to the subtle art of micro-movement. Donna shows us how small physical adjustments in the way we hold ourselves can change both our experience and our body’s overall functioning....

Today we’re joined by the UK-based Valerie Mason-John, also known as  Vimalasara, a leader in the field of mindfulness for addiction and trauma. This episode is about the ways we get disconnected from our bodies and our lives, and the role self-compassion can play in bringing us home. We explore this in the context of our addictions – even addictions we don’t realize are addictions, like, in Vimal...

Today we’re joined by Dr Baron Short, an Interventional Psychiatrist at the Medical University of South Carolina, and co-founder of Zendo, an electronic device that purports to enhance both the experience and the long-term benefits of meditation. How might a direct current of electricity to the brain affect our meditation? This is not a hypothetical question. All three of us – two hosts and one gu...

Today we’re joined by Stanford psychiatry professor Dr. David Spiegel, an expert in the clinical use of hypnosis. David is co-author, along with his late father Herbert Spiegel, of Trance and Treatment , a classic work on hypnosis published by the American Psychiatric Association. And therein lies a story … almost 20 years ago, Jeff interviewed David’s 92-year old father Herbert Spiegel. Not just...

Today we’re joined by Jeff’s good friend Therese Jornlin, teacher of meditation, yoga, and qi gong. Much happens in this episode! Therese re-introduces us to our breath as both medicine and guide. We learn how the specific way each of us breathes reflects our particular mental patterns and habits. The breath can show us where we’re stuck, and it can show us how to find a way through.  This is real...

If you live in the US or Canada, you may have noticed a movement to acknowledge local indigenous groups who've historically lived in a particular territory. For example, Tasha and I live in Toronto, Ontario, which is also where our nonprofit meditation community group –  The Consciousness Explorers Club or "CEC" – operates. These days, at the beginning of every CEC retreats and medi...

Meet meditation teacher Willa Blythe Baker. Willa is an authorized Lama in the Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism, and author of our new favorite book: The Wakeful Body: Somatic Mindfulness as a Path to Freedom. She guides us in a practice called GROUND – an acronym that describes progressively more subtle and expansive "layers" of somatic experience. We drop from the physical body, to th...

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 i...

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 unclassi...

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...

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 pr...

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 s...