Real Genius Life Podcast

I love the opportunity and the possibility of today’s interview. I also wholeheartedly love the humans with whom I am sharing space in this episode. It is a privilege and a joy to introduce you to two of my dearest friends and members of my spiritual family: Rev. Michael Everett Davis and Ed Trout. They are both incredibly multifaceted and brilliantly artistic individuals who partner with each other both in life and in creative endeavors. In our conversation, we get to the heart of surrender and trust; the spiritual toolkit of improv; the power of saying ‘yes, and..’; accepting what is; receiving and acknowledging the gift and the love that is here for us right now; compassionate presence and communication; transforming creative insecurity, and the necessity of failure. Michael is a singer, actor, Interfaith Minister, improvisor and mystic. Ed is a founding member, co-owner, and Artistic Director of CSz Indianapolis, the home of ComedySportz. Ed is an experienced improvisational theatre actor, director and teacher. Beyond their formal professional roles, they also live their lives as a heartfelt spiritual practice and endeavor to be a presence of Love in the world, no matter what. For more information, go to http://realgeniuslife.com/podcast.

Today I have something really special to share with you… My guest, Alyssa Pfennig, is a yoga therapist, wild wisdom encourager, and soulful retreat facilitator. We dive into the depths of the body, mind and wild soul as we discuss her journey, the healing power of horses, becoming heart-centered, the brilliance and languages of the body, understanding dysregulation and imbalance, taking time to listen, the necessity of release, and the potency of (re)connecting to our root wisdom. Alyssa is the founder and owner of Embarque Yoga Studio and Wellness Spa in Indianapolis. She is passionate about sharing the therapeutic wisdom of yoga and is an advocate for self-care -- sharing yoga, meditation and self-care rituals as therapies to empower women to be healthy, stay sane and feel good again. When she is not speaking, teaching or leading retreats, you can find her with her feet in the grass, hiking with her beloved dog, Ellie, or spending time with horses at a ranch. For more information, go to http://realgeniuslife.com/podcast.

I am so happy to share today’s interview! I invited back my dear friend, Karma Aja Daigle, who you may remember from a previous episode of the podcast. Karma is an oracle, energy healer and spiritual teacher living suburban bliss in Fairfield County Connecticut with her favorite spiritual guides - three charismatic kids, two charming chihuahuas and a kindhearted husband. Karma is an incredibly gifted healer and teacher who can expand the awareness and expression - really, the consciousness - of just about any topic from physical health to leadership. In today’s interview, we discuss honoring our seasons, learning from the wisdom and heart of the earth, creating space through forgiveness and letting go, the embodiment of healing, trusting the loving presence of life, and how healing ourselves heals everyone else too. If you want to learn more about Karma and perhaps even learn what an oracle is exactly, definitely check out Episode 007: How to Be in Loving Relationship with Your Business (or Anyone/thing) and Embodying the Love Your Body Deserves… For more information, go to http://realgeniuslife.com/podcast.

I am flying solo in today’s episode… I wanted to hold some space and offer some guidance for connecting with and deepening our relationship with the body as well as understanding the languages of the body. It is actually a powerful guidance system and wisdom-holder. It is meant to be a partner and resource and threshold for experience in our lives, but very rarely is that the common reality. So take a deep breath and tune in… -- Karen Kirchman is a wholeness coach, integrative healer, and soulful enterprise maven. She serves her clients by supporting them in expressing their best and highest flourishing in the world. She believes in the potency of loving kindness; the necessity of revolutionary self-care; and the brilliance of the body, mind and soul. For more information, go to http://realgeniuslife.com/podcast.

I am lit up from the inside-out with deepest joy and heartfelt appreciation to share today’s interview. My guest today is one of my favorite mutual admiration society members: Alyson Morgan. Her expression in the world is nothing short of soulful magic, and I get to invite you into that space as we discuss all things sustainability; coming to understand our depth of relationship with the earth and our food; how small decisions lead to greater awareness; the ways that our conscious choices reconnect us to our roots; healing the hole of disconnection; the potency of the moon to invite us back into ourselves; the capacity of herbs and plant allies; and the necessity of honoring our shadows and cycles. Yeah… it’s all the things. Alyson is a (self-proclaimed) work in progress. An ecofeminist, mother, wild woman, herbalist in training, yogi, moon lover, homesteader, finding healing through connecting to the earth, it’s cycles + creating sacred spaces. She’s interested in spiritual alchemy, transforming deep pain into healing, for the self and the collective. She created the ecocollective + blog Maia Terra as a safe space for connection + honest dialogue around climate change. She believes as stewards of the earth, we can build resilience + adapt to climate change through intentional living. When we connect to our inner knowing, to the plants and our ancestors we can access ways to live more sustainably. For more information, go to http://realgeniuslife.com/podcast.

I’m so grateful to share this moment of expression with today’s guest, Whitney Miller. Whitney is a transformational health and running coach and the founder and owner of Transcend Health and Wellness. In addition to being a wonderful coach, she is in a brilliant moment of blooming in her business and life; and we get the opportunity to be both witness and supporter. In today’s episode, we dive into her journey; owning where, when and why we’ve become complacent over pursuing our own thriving; the tenderness and necessity of compassion; the heart of reconnecting to ourselves and healing; how wellness is a community sport; and the power of celebrating together. She also shares about a special launch party happening next weekend (10/27). The event will be fantastic and includes a special celebrity raffle with proceeds to benefit the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Whitney helps women and men transform into their best bodies and selves, so they can look and feel fabulous. Through her life journey, she has been committed to her health and wellness and strives to share that passion with others. Through health coaching she has learned that you CAN have the body, health, and life you want! It is her vision to coach her clients how to uncover what’s been stopping them, slowing them down, and keeping them from having the body and life they want so they can transcend to their best self! For more information, go to http://realgeniuslife.com/podcast.

Today is a deliciously deep dive into some intrinsic and yet often unexamined aspects of our human culture and ecosystem. My guest today is David Ranalli, a renowned magician and a philosopher of nature, media, and communication. Together, we discuss our personal relationships and identities with nature and our food systems; the revolutionary brilliance of permaculture; the interplay between nature and technology; the power of our choices; the organism of our planet; and how to reconnect to ourselves and our environment. David has traveled the country performing for top tier venues and audiences for almost 20 years. You might recognize his work from on TV in various talk shows and commercials, or in online spheres like TedX, Creative Mornings, and Entrepreneur magazine. Armed with his unique skills and experiences, David is on a mission to use his knowledge to inspire the world at a time where magic is needed most. Seeing the effects of climate change happening across the world, he realized that it would be up to each and every person to make a difference to restore our ecosystems, and to save ourselves from civil unrest, rising oceans, and technology run-amok. The mind blowing ramblings of David Ranalli will be sure to inspire you to see life differently, and to achieve more good than you ever thought you could. For more information, go to http://realgeniuslife.com/podcast.

I am so filled-to-overflowing with joy to share this episode with you all. I have a sincere love and presence of appreciation for my guest, Laurie McCracken. Laurie is an incredibly gifted coach and healer and we had the opportunity to explore the substance of seemingly simple things that actually have the capacity to create massive shift in our lives. We discussed the importance and medicine of pleasure; the power of pausing and creating space; inviting curiosity and joy and compassion in meeting our needs; and finding the wisdom in the experiences that crack us open. And through that thread, we ended up opening the conversation to understanding the trauma we experience from growing up in a society that conditions us to separate our bodies and our sexuality from our spirituality and humanity. Laurie invites us to heal that disconnect and come back into connection with our wholeness. She invites us to honor our bodies and our sexuality in this conversation from a space of sacred consciousness. Depending on where you are in your relationship to your body and your spiritual nature, this conversation might bring a lot up for you. Know that you are respected wherever you are and that you can take or leave anything that serves you. Laurie is a gentle yet definite Revolutionary! She practices and teaches “Pleasure as Medicine”. In her experience, cultivating compassion and kindness, first of all towards ourselves, leads to deep healing of body, heart and mind. Healing is all about revealing what is hidden. Underneath our pretty much non-stop judgmental mind is an amazing human being, so worth connecting with! To support her clients on their healing journey, Laurie uses her Experiential Life Credentials, along with her many mastered skills. She is an Authentic Tantra™ Practitioner (a trauma informed holistic healing modality), a Certified Emotion Code and Body Code Practitioner, a Nurse, a former Nun, an Energy Medicine Practitioner and a BodySex Workshop Leader (using the Betty Dodson Method). Her passion is empowering, educating and inspiring men and women to reconnect with their authentic self- including their sexuality- in a sacred, joyful and deeply meaningful way. She believes re-uniting Sexuality with Spirituality is how we tap into our wholeness. Her intention and wish for you is that you experience first-hand the amazingness you discover that YOU are! That you are inspired by your own life, is her deepest desire for you! For more information, go to http://realgeniuslife.com/podcast.

*Spoiler Alert* There will be crude language and queef jokes in this episode. There will also be a whole lotta heart, wisdom and substance. I’m diving deep in this episode with my dear friend and yogi mermaid, Shannon Brasovan. In this interview, we explore what it means to live your yoga in ever-widening circles of impact - examining our personal lives as well as our capacity and impact in our communities and beyond to the global stage. As we follow that thread, we touch on a number of important and pertinent themes in this moment of our life and culture like understanding the karmic ripples of our choices, examining our privilege and complicity in racism, the gifts within our shadows, and the necessity of gratitude. Shannon is the CYO (Chief Yoga Officer) for Practice Indie Yoga, a local Indianapolis yoga studio who is a part of NapTown Fitness- a fitness network helping people challenge the body, inspire the mind and entertain the soul through wellness. She is also the partner of the most adorable Serbian man on the planet, the daughter/sister of some pretty awesome Southerners and the mother of two of the cutest kids on the planet. She is an avid yoga practitioner, life lover, novice urban farmer, jaded CrossFitter, curiosity curator, cuss word aficionado and goal setter/seeker. For more information, go to http://realgeniuslife.com/podcast.

Welcome to this nourishing episode of the Real Genius Life Podcast! Today’s guest is Jaime Combatti - a mindset coach, author, speaker, and spiritual mentor. Jaime’s brilliance is igniting the power of positive mindset by cultivating consistent, easy practices to transform our challenges and lives. In today’s episode, we dive into the foundation and sacred moments of a mindset practice, having the courage to reach out when things are hard, the potency of laughter, and how Love transforms everything. After years of silently struggling with anxiety and OCD, Jaime began sharing her story to the world through blogging and live events. She was amazed by the overwhelming amount of connections she made with women who shared parallel experiences that she was inspired to start her own coaching business. Jaime is the She-EO of Lotus Mind Coaching and has been helping countless people change their mindset with her very simple, yet effective formula. Her formula has 3 key ingredients: mindset + action + love and is the key component in her signature program, Reset Your Mindset. For more information, go to http://realgeniuslife.com/podcast.

I am lit up from the inside-out with excitement to share today’s interview and guest, Karma Aja Daigle. In her words, Karma is an oracle, energy healer and spiritual teacher living suburban bliss in Fairfield County Connecticut with her favorite spiritual guides - three charismatic kids, two charming chihuahuas and a kindhearted husband. Now, you may be asking yourself what is an oracle? -- Or perhaps just what it is in the context of our healing journey as this podcast is intended to be focused. In fact, her titles and the beginning part of our interview may bring up a host of questions, because the spiritual side of healing is a broad and non-linear topic that can be difficult to nail down. Don’t worry… we’ve got you covered. Once we lay the framework in our discussion, we ground each piece so that deep understanding can be cultivated. Karma is an incredibly gifted healer and teacher that can expand the awareness and expression - really, the consciousness - of just about any topic from physical health to leadership. In today’s interview, we discuss the cornerstone of loving relationships, how to be in right relationship with big parts of our identity, and embodying the love that our bodies deserve. For more information, go to http://realgeniuslife.com/podcast.

Today’s interview is a special one. I have the privilege to share with you the heart-and-soul voice of one of my favorite yoga teachers, Lisa Daugherty. She shares her experience of saying yes to the callings of her wild soul; growing through life and love; not being afraid to have breath and sound behind her voice; the medicine of yoga; and the courage to trust with a compassionate heart. This is a very human-to-human, heart-to-heart conversation. Lisa has enjoyed practicing and teaching yoga in and around central Indiana since 2002. Grounded in a deep connection to the earth, her teachings are rooted in creativity, wisdom and grace, earned over the years, by mothering four daughters, discipline, hard work, good friends, patience, and years of working as a doula to empower women through pregnancy and birth. She has contributed to numerous 200 hour yoga teacher training programs; and was twice the technical editor and video model for Yoga for Dummies, by Larry Payne. She can often be found in the woods, or on her bike, and hanging out with friends and family, laughing, singing, playing, planning, creating and sitting. She teaches many weekly yoga classes and workshops throughout the Indianapolis area; and also does private yoga instruction and Thai massage. In her classes, you can expect to hear a story or poem, maybe sing or be sung to, practice in a focused environment for the sincere cultivation of conscious breathing, mindful movements, rooted in yoga poses and somatic movement practices that strengthen and stabilize the body and mind, with deep respect for her students well being. For more information, go to http://realgeniuslife.com/podcast.

I’m so grateful for the opportunity to share today’s guest, Kelli Jenkins, with you. She is one of my favorite magical humans. Together, we jam on the magic of manifesting and the radical reality of tarot - what it is, why it’s a brilliant tool for insight, and how to approach it for meaningful results. For anyone who’s already into either or both of those things, you’re gonna love this episode. For anyone who’s skeptical or unsure about those things, I invite you to keep an open mind and dive in anyway. We speak of both in very grounded, pragmatic terms. While she and I can go way out into the woo, we wanted this offering to be open to all no matter your background or comfort level. Kelli is a freelance designer and the owner of Spellsisters, a group of badass women who read tarot together to help bring clarity to people’s lives. Spellsisters aims to make “witchiness” approachable for people who are new to tarot, astrology, and all things metaphysical. Kelli is passionate about creating a community where it’s okay to be at square one. She aims to cultivate a space where it’s safe to seek healing through the ancient practices that many of us intuitively know deep down, but have forgotten after generations of hiding our strengths in the shadows and keeping them quiet. For fun, Kelli likes to stretch her creative energy by making potions, concocting tea blends, and infusing candles with reiki and intention, which you can find of her website. You can also find information about how to book some time with her and the other Spellsisters, and they hope to see you soon. For more information, go to http://realgeniuslife.com/podcast.

Today is part two of our interview with Mary-Margaret Sweeney, founder of seek&summon. We dove in deep from the moment we sat down together. We explored a number of soulful and necessary topics like owning our individual expression, demystifying trauma, honoring shame, being mindful of our own privilege and holding space for others, and unfolding our own healing path. And in fact, we spoke at such length that we are splitting the conversation into two episodes. Let’s get all up in Part 2 which focuses on finding wholeheartedness in our human expression, de-mystifying trauma and the permission to be yourself. We breakdown common myths and perceptions around trauma, shame, and the human experience. We discuss the power of self-disclosing with intention and give light to the grace of healing and growth. If you want to catch up on Part 1 of our interview, we introduced Mary-Margaret and shared a lot about who she is and her scope of business and expertise. We explored the many layers of our sexualness, personal power and expression, and the necessity and potency of being witnessed and connected in community. If you haven’t had the chance to join in on that convo, check out Episode 002 - The Potency of Authenticity & Necessity of Being Witnessed in Community. Mary-Margaret has a masters in social work, is a certified yoga teacher, and is a member of my #BAGG (my bad-ass girl gang for those of you not up on current cultural slang). seek&summon's mission is to seek evolution, integrity, and wholeness at the community level by summoning our inner teacher at the personal level. An experienced trainer and facilitator with over a decade of experience, Mary-Margaret creates trainings concerning sexuality and healthy relationship education, the influence of trauma on our continued lived experiences, self-care and trauma stewardship, cultural competency, and she facilitates retreats. Her yoga classes range from all levels vinyasa flow to introspective yin yoga to meditation and breath work. Mary-Margaret also works as a consultant to entities seeking to assess the culture, morale, and self-care of their employees, and provides guidance and assessment to those launching or revamping a sexual health curriculum. In short, she’s a counselor and sexual health and self-care educator who believes in the value of connection, authenticity, and providing safe space to unpack and heal our own stories. For more information, go to http://realgeniuslife.com/podcast.

In this potent discussion with spiritual belief and mindset coach, Stephanie Goudreault, we dive into the real roots of anxiety, the stakes of change and expanding your mindset, and the untapped potency of millenials. Stephanie also shares a simple yet powerful tool for resolving anxiety and honoring who we are and how we feel. In short, this conversation offers a deep and resonant ‘why’ for how we change the world simply by choosing to be ourselves - and why it is a necessary choice. Stephanie is a brilliant coach. She believes that anxious thoughts, limiting beliefs and irrational fears are not life sentences. She is transforming the millennial generation’s mindsets by giving the right tools and the right steps to help them let go of old disempowering belief patterns. For more information, go to http://realgeniuslife.com/podcast.

Today’s interview is with Mary-Margaret Sweeney, founder of seek&summon. We dove in deep from the moment we sat down together. We explored a number of soulful and necessary topics like owning our individual expression, demystifying trauma, honoring shame, being mindful of our own privilege and holding space for others, and unfolding our own healing path. And in fact, we spoke at such length that we are splitting the conversation into two episodes. In Part 1 of our interview, we explored the many layers of our sexualness, personal power and expression, and the necessity and potency of being witnessed and connected in community. Stay tuned for Part 2 which will focus on trauma and shame. We breakdown common myths and perceptions and give light to the grace of healing and growth. Mary-Margaret has a masters in social work, is a certified yoga teacher, and is a member of my #BAGG (my bad-ass girl gang for those of you not up on current cultural slang). seek&summon's mission is to seek evolution, integrity, and wholeness at the community level by summoning our inner teacher at the personal level. An experienced trainer and facilitator with over a decade of experience, Mary-Margaret creates trainings concerning sexuality and healthy relationship education, the influence of trauma on our continued lived experiences, self-care and trauma stewardship, cultural competency, and she facilitates retreats. Her yoga classes range from all levels vinyasa flow to introspective yin yoga to meditation and breath work. Mary-Margaret also works as a consultant to entities seeking to assess the culture, morale, and self-care of their employees, and provides guidance and assessment to those launching or revamping a sexual health curriculum. In short, she’s a counselor and sexual health and self-care educator who believes in the value of connection, authenticity, and providing safe space to unpack and heal our own stories. For more information, go to http://realgeniuslife.com/podcast.

Welcome to the first episode of the Real Genius Life Podcast! Let’s dive in… This show is an offering to tap into the potency of your intention and purpose. Find your deep resonant ‘why’. You’ll learn from host Karen Kirchman about how to use these tools as a foundation for your life as well as what to expect, anticipate, and tune into with this podcast. Finally, there is a grounding meditation as a gift to you. For more information, go to http://realgeniuslife.com/podcast.