In this episode, Kimberly Ann Johnson is joined by journalist and fellow Jaguar, Kristin Butler, to discuss the case of Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman: a celebrity couple who are currently both facing charges around Gaiman’s ongoing sexual misconduct. Kimberly and Kristin share their own personal reactions to the case, as well as the way the reporting on the story reveals common challenges for women dealing with fallout from sexual boundary rupture, particularly fawning. They explore the complexities of boundary violations, the impact of the #BelieveSurvivors movement on men, and the psychological responses for women searching for agency and empowerment post boundary rupture. The conversation touches on the broader implications of sexual abuse, the role of social media, and the importance of Activate Your Inner Jaguar work in empowering individuals to recognize and assert their boundaries. They discuss the power of embodied consent and the challenges of navigating gray areas in sexual interactions, as well as circumstances where structural power and interpersonal power fluctuate in relationships between men and women.

What They Discuss?

• Trigger warnings and disclaimers in journalism

• Fawning between young women and older men who abuse their power

• What is the journalistic responsibilities of storytelling and reporting around sexual boundaries

• An in depth consideration of Tortoise Media’s podcast series Master: the allegations against Neil Gaiman

• Fawning when the threat is not front of you

• What happens when your flight response doesn’t activate?

• How does our nervous system respond to a boundary rupture?

• Tendencies to blame oneself after a sexual boundary rupture

• Self-Gaslighting

• What’s a trauma loop?

• What is compelling me to enter certain sexual situations?

• How does activate your inner jaguar empower women?

• What is the responsibility women have to their own nervous systems and for their behavior?

• The complexity of #BelieveSurvivors

• What is too overprotective for a parent?

• Is it safe to be a sex positive parent?

• What does it mean to have the extreme of sleeping with 900 people in 24 hours?

• How do highly publicized extremes impact sexual norms?

• How does virtual socialization impact our in person interactions?

• How does emotional support from AI impact our relationships

• It’s become normalized to for men and women to degrade/insult men

• The quieter forms of anti-male bias

• How does structural power and relative power play out between men and women?

• How does power play out in everyday relationships?

• The power of embodied boundaries

Links

Sign up for Activate Your Inner Jaguar: Movement, Meditation, and The Female Nervous System here - Early Bird price ends May 2nd

In this deep dive into menopause and elderhood, Kimberly and Kate Codrington discuss how they see their inter-generational work with women around self-care and cultural work. Kate’s book The Second Spring: The Self-Care Guide to Menopause and her more recent The Perimenopause Journal have made an indelible impact as Kimberly transitioned to the other side of the menopause hill. Two women, in their second spring, consider their responsibilities to women in various cycles of womanhood. They explore the impact of teachers, trauma, and the digital age on women, highlighting the need for resilience, play, and the ability to hold paradoxes. The discussion also touches on the importance of role models, the ever-changing dynamics of female elders, and the significance of embodied compassion in doing work in the women’s wellness and healthcare fields.

Bio

Kate’s mission is to change the way we regard menopause and show how we can relax into our own, inner authority through our cyclical nature, deep body intelligence and menopause process. Life around and within is always communicating with us and her passion is for the ‘soft animal body’, the magic of the liminal, and the potential of emergent processes. Kate refuses to take herself too seriously and tries to never take on anything that is not pleasurable and delicious. She is a menstrual and menopause mentor, speaker, workshop facilitator, writer, podcaster and have been a therapist for more than 30 years. She is also an artist currently weaving textiles, words, story and stitch. She’s in her second spring, which means post-menopause, and has deep gratitude for the education that the menopause process has gifted her. The Perimenopause Journal is now available at your favourite booksellers and my first book Second Spring: the self-care guide to menopause was published by HarperCollins 2022.

What You’ll Hear

• The responsibility of female elders

• Accountability, compassion and intention Setting around the journey to menopause

• How does post-perimenopause impact mother/daughter relationships

• What is the purpose of elders?

• The power of some worldly detachment

• Michael Mead’s “Growing Downwards”

• Embracing different styles and adornments as we age, reflecting on the changes in the body and preferences.

• The importance of being playful and expressive in one's choices, regardless of age or societal expectations.

• The intersection of joy and pleasure with healing

• Competition between women in the wellness and healthcare field

Links

Website: https://www.katecodrington.co.uk/

IG: @kate_codrington

The Perimenopause Journal

Activate Your Inner Jaguar: Sex Edition - Get on the Waitlist here

In this episode, Kimberly and return guest Sophie Strand celebrate publishing week for Sophie’s extraordinary new book The Body is a Doorway: A Memoir: A Journey Beyond Healing, Hope, and the Human. They discuss where Sophie currently finds herself in a post-diagnosis reality and what writing the book taught her about the mysteries of illness. She emphasizes the complex power of doctor relationships and medical information on the body through the nocebo effect. Kimberly and Sophie talk through what it looks like to support someone dealing with illness day to day. Sophie shares her personal and social experiences with chronic illness, as well as the contemporary cultural pressures to intertwine identity with labels. She also highlights the role of community, creativity and bad story on diagnoses and treatments. This open-hearted conversation touches on the broader implications of health, identity, and the need for a more open and relational approach to care and self-understanding.

Bio

Sophie Strand is a poet and writer with a focus on the intersection of spirituality, storytelling, and ecology. Her poems and essays have appeared in numerous projects and publications, including Spirituality & Health, Atmos, Braided Way, and Art PAPERS. She is the author of The Flowering Wand and The Madonna Secret, and the creator of the popular Substack “Make Me Good Soil.” She lives in the Hudson Valley of New York.

What They Share

• The impact of a long-awaited diagnosis
• The No-Cebo Effect
• What we pay attention to we pray towards
• The Mystery of Illness
• Bad Story in Myth and Psychotherapeutic fields
• Self-Diagnosis
• How to tell a different stories about chronic illness
• Performing Sickness to have invisible illness be more visible
• How to check in with friends having a hard time/facing health challenges
• End of the addiction line
• Chronic Sickness as it relates to sobriety
• Eco-cidal culture wants to turn everything into product
• Somatic Protest
• Body can’t work
• The miracle of GoFund Me alongside an unaffordable health care system
• History of oral culture
• Orality and Literature by anthropologist Walter Ong
• What is an individual?
• Monotheism of Psychology
• The impulse to classify is about control and fear
• Prayer is another energy that might have a better idea of what I need
• Vending Machine Prayer
• Finding book endings that aren’t fantasies
• How to separate negative from worse
• How to operate with one spoon

Links

IG @cosmogyny

Substack https://sophiestrand.substack.com/

Sophie's New Book: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/sophie-strand/the-body-is-a-doorway-a-memoir/9780762487417/?lens=running-press

The Body is A Doorway Amazon Review page: https://www.amazon.com/review/create-review/?ie=UTF8&channel=glance-detail&asin=0762487410

Money and The Nervous System Sign-Up: https://kimberlyannjohnson.com/money-the-nervous-system/

This is a special re-release of an episode featuring guest host Jackson Kroopf speaking with the incomparable Kimberly Ann Johnson and Stephen Jenkinson. We’re bringing this conversation back to let you know about something special happening this weekend from Stephen Jenkinson and the Orphan Wisdom School: Sanity and Soul: Die Wise 10 Years.

Taking place on March 15th and 16th at 10am Pacific, this 6-part online event is a deep dive into the wisdom of death, grief, and the soul, 10 years after the publication of Stephen's transformative book Die Wise. You’ll get to experience the depth of Stephen’s work in a pretty unique way: through 4 recorded grief counsel sessions with dying people, hearing Stephen practice, in 2025, the kind of work described in Die Wise. Plus, he’ll be joined by two brilliant colleagues—a neuroscientist studying human consciousness and a filmmaker exploring the afterlife—to discuss the lasting impact of Die Wise on grief counseling, death doulas, and the way these ideas continue to shape our world.

If you want to learn more and register, visit orphanwisdom.com/events. But now, enjoy this conversation from March 2023, following Reckoning at Mt. Madonna. Please do consider gifting yourself or a loved one this upcoming offering, Sanity & Soul that promises to provide some ceremony in these troubled times in ways only Stephen and the Orphan Wisdom School can.

Link: https://orphanwisdom.com/event/die-wise-sanity-and-soul-ten-years-on/

What You’ll Here in this Episode:

Reflections on witness from retired birth and death workers

The value of disillusionment

The power of loneliness

The proliferation of self pathologizing

The complex politics of feelings

The religion of western psychology

Adolescents grabbing for pop psychology labels

The respect in not offering solutions

The eagerness to escape from pain while grieving

Is love dead?

Blessing not as approval but the emergence of something new

Marriage as both celebration and loss

Matrimony between cultures

An only child and single parent inviting in a new husband

Building an escape route as you enter a union

The no-go zone of contemporary western marriage

15 minute weddings, 15 minute funerals, 15 minute births

The cultural casualties of uniformity

Being healthy enough to tend to home and neighbor

Links

ig @reckoning live

Sanity & Soul Sign-Up https://orphanwisdom.com/event/die-wise-sanity-and-soul-ten-years-on/

In this episode, return guest Joelle Hann and Kimberly discuss the complexities of publishing, including traditional, self, and hybrid publishing. Joelle walks us through the importance of a book proposal, which serves as a roadmap for authors and a calling card for agents and publishers. Kimberly weighs in on her own experience in navigating the book publishing world and the incredible value she has found in working with Joelle. Joelle highlights the need for authors to understand their audience and market, and the potential pitfalls of self-publishing without an existing audience. Joelle's Book Proposal Academy is enrolling now and starts March 14th. This is the only cohort for 2025. Apply now! To be eligible to save up to $500 and get other early-bird bonuses, mention Sex, Birth, Trauma podcast in your application.

Bio

Joelle Hann is an award-winning writer with a history of developing high-level book projects for major American publishers. Subject areas have included wellness and transformation, women’s health, leadership and spirituality, as well as conscious business, personal finance and memoir. She has worked with top CEOs and humanitarian activists,visionary coaches and thought-leaders, spiritual teachers, scholars, moms, midwives, entrepreneurs, and many others. She founded Brooklyn Book Doctor to help people write transformational books to help change the world.

Links

IG @brooklynbookdoctor

Learn More & Apply to Book Proposal Academy 2025: https://brooklynbookdoctor.com/bpa

Learn More about Sanity & Soul: Die Wise Ten Years On with Stephen Jenkinson here: https://orphanwisdom.com/event/die-wise-sanity-and-soul-ten-years-on/

In this episode, Kimberly dives deep into guest author Catherine Simone Gray's book Proud Flesh: A Memoir of Motherhood, Intimate Violence, and Reclaiming Pleasure. With tenderness, Kimberly and Catherine share their mutual appreciation for each other’s writing and the deep impact Kimberly’s work has had on the journey that led to Catherine’s book. Catherine guides us through her journey of healing from a vaginal tear postpartum, which led to the discovery of proud flesh, a term for hypergranulation tissue. She describes the emotional and physical challenges she faced across two births (one hospital/C-Section, one home/natural), including silver nitrate treatments and the support of her husband; recounting the story of how the couple’s relationships to one another’s bodies changed when she invited him to draw her vulva daily. Catherine and Kimberly both emphasize the importance of language and writing in redefining sexuality and eroticism, and how this process can support women in reconnecting with their body. If you enjoyed this conversation be sure to sign up for their online gathering Writing as a Pathway to Pleasure on Sunday, February 23rd at https://kimberlyannjohnson.com/writing-pathway-to-pleasure/

Bio

Catherine Gray is the writer and creator of Unsilenced Woman, a blog where she explores modern motherhood, sexuality, and healing after trauma. Catherine’s writings have captivated audiences globally of up to 2.5 million, and she’s devoted almost a decade to helping writers mine the stories of their lives for self-knowledge and growth.

Her writings have been featured by respected organizations for new mothers, such as La Leche League USA, International Cesarean Awareness Network, and ImprovingBirth. She has been a guest on The Birth Hour, the #1 podcast in iTunes Kids & Family, and her essays have been acclaimed by The Bitter Southerner in its Top 10 reader favorites for two consecutive years. A charismatic speaker, Catherine has delivered two addresses at the Mississippi Women’s March. Her first memoir Proud Flesh: A Memoir of Motherhood, Intimate Violence, and Reclaiming Pleasur was published in 2025 by Penguin Random House.Today, Catherine lives happily (and mostly healed) in Jackson, Mississippi, with her husband and their two young sons.

What You’ll Hear

• Kimberly’s deep appreciation for the writing craft found in Catherine’s book and is moved by the way their work has intersected

• Catherine has been a Jaguar since 2017 and shares the way many baths listening, reading and sitting with Kimberly’s work influenced Proud Flesh

• Catherine recalls key moments with her doctor in making a healing plan for a natural birth injury

• Catherine describes how the scientific term Proud Flesh took on poetic meaning in her life

• Catherine discusses the difference in healing from the numbing disconnect of C-Section to the embodied pain of a natural birth.

• Catherine describes a profound confrontation with how her and her husband relate to each other’s bodies, which led to a durational art project in which he drew her vulva over time.

• Catherine and Kimberly reflect on erotic writing that doesn’t reify centering the male gaze

• Kimberly and Catherine talk about their own evolving relationships to their bodies and the craft of writing

Links

IG - @unsilencedwoman

Website - www.unsilencedwoman.com

Book - https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/771427/proud-flesh-by-catherine-simone-gray/

Online Gathering - https://kimberlyannjohnson

In this episode, Kimberly and Pānquetzani discuss her new book Thriving Postpartum: Embracing the Indigenous Wisdom of La Cuarentena and the thirteen year process of navigating that creative act. Pānquetzani reflects on the ways her relationships with partners and her four children have impacted the journey of making a business and writing a book. Pānquetzani’s writing is inextricably linked directly to the work she has done in and for her community around postpartum care, as well as the lessons she learned around mental health and partner agreements along the way. A deep meditation on personal healing and learning how to make and hold boundaries. The episode lovingly asks: how do you listen to your intuition, your womb, and your baby?

Bio

Pānquetzani comes from a matriarchal family of folk healers from the valley of Mexico (Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlaxcala), La Comarca Lagunera (Durango and Coahuila), and Zacatecas. As a traditional herbalist, healer, and birthkeeper, Pānquetzani has touched over 3,000 wombs and bellies. Through her platform, Indigemama: Ancestral Healing, she has taught over 100 live, in-person intensives and trainings on womb wellness. She lives in California.

What you’ll hear:

• The 13 year journey of writing a book

• Differences in how men and women are treated in public as new parents

• Liberation of separation and divorce

• The challenge of holding boundaries with mothers-in-law

• Creating a culture of community care in a colonial context

• How to navigate who you want in your cuarentena?

• How to work with narcissism and boundaries?

• Listen to your womb, listen to your intuition, ask your baby: what do you need?

• Pain and martyrdom’s role in parenting

• Respect is connected to access in a relationship

• A birth story that led to parent/child healing

• How to be in communication with your womb

Resources

Website: https://indigemama.com/

IG: @indigemama

Book: Thriving Postpartum at Sounds True

Kimberly and Mirabai Starr engage in a rich and intimate exploration of mysticism, personal loss, spirituality, and the intersection of sexuality and the sacred. They consider how they have each found spirituality in their everyday lives while being mindful of their journeys, cultures, ancestry, and the complexities involved. They discuss Mirabai's new book, "Ordinary Mysticism," which delves into the nature of mysticism and its accessibility to everyone every day. Mirabai emphasizes that mysticism doesn't require institutionalized religion and can be found in ordinary moments. They discuss the profound impact of loss and grief in Mirabai’s life. She describes how these experiences deepened her connection to the sacred and the beauty intertwined with suffering.

Bio

Mirabai Starr is an award winning author of creative nonfiction and contemporary translations of sacred literature. She taught philosophy and world religions at the University of New Mexico, Taos for 20 years, and now teaches and speaks internationally on contemplative practice and inter-spiritual dialog. A certified bereavement counselor, Mirabai helps mourners harness the transformational power of loss. She has written over 15 books, and the latest is “Ordinary Mysticism.” But you'll hear her talk about “Caravan of No Despair,” “Wild Mercy,” and some of her translations from Spanish to English, “In The Mystics,” “The Great Mystics.” She lives with her extended family in the mountains of northern New Mexico.

What you’ll hear:

• Mirabai's views on spiritual, literary and poetic writing.

• The origin story of her new book "Ordinary Mysticism" - including it’s connection to Anne Lamott

• The ease in finding the mystical if you are open to it.

• The challenges of having that openness in the everyday

• The intersections of grief and the sacred

• Cultivating mystical awareness in daily life

• Searching for spiritual grounding

• Uprootedness of being spiritual but not religious

• How to understand your relationship to different spiritual technologies

• How to tap into spiritual bounty without colonizing and appropriating

• Intention and attention are crucial for recognizing the sacred in the mundane.

• The integration of sexuality and spirituality

• The common split many women feel between the sexual and the sacred aspects of their lives. How healing from/through sexual abuse can lead to sacredness in intimacy

• What’s a responsible and mindful approach to drawing from various spiritual traditions?

• How does storytelling and reflecting on shared struggles lead to insights within the spiritual journey?

• And how ending an abusive sexual and spiritual relationship can lead to healing through new forms of intimacy.

• Healthy intimacy can be holy

Resources
https://mirabaistarr.com/