What Is Somatic Experiencing? Laurie James on Healing Trauma Held in the Body

Deep rest is a birthright, and daily ritual can be the way back to it. Author and teacher Tracee Stanley joins Harmony Slater and Russell Case to talk about retreat, ritual, and reclaiming your attention in a world built to distract you. Tracee is the author of Radiant Rest and The Luminous Self, and her new book, Living Ritual, answers the question she hears at the end of every retreat: how do I bring this home? She shares the story of her spiritual awakening in Cape Town, her years as a film producer, her donation-based yoga studio, and a simple evening and morning ritual you can try for seven days. She also leads a short guided practice to call your attention back to you. In this episode

Deep rest is a birthright, and daily ritual can be the way back to it. Author and teacher Tracee Stanley joins Harmony Slater and Russell Case to talk about retreat, ritual, and reclaiming your attention in a world built to distract you. Tracee is the author of Radiant Rest and The Luminous Self, and her new book, Living Ritual, answers the question she hears at the end of every retreat: how do I bring this home? She shares the story of her spiritual awakening in Cape Town, her years as a film producer, her donation-based yoga studio, and a simple evening and morning ritual you can try for seven days. She also leads a short guided practice to call your attention back to you. In this episode

What if your symptoms aren't the problem? What if they're a message? Harmony Slater and Russell Case welcome Allison Lorne, a certified nurse midwife with 25 years in women's health who guides women through perimenopause and menopause as a sacred passage rather than a set of symptoms to silence. Allison is also a spinal energetics practitioner, so the conversation moves between the clinical and the energetic: what hormones are doing, what the body is asking for, and how to come home to it. Allison explains why she calls perimenopause "adolescence in reverse," how the history of hormone therapy shaped what women were told for two decades, and why emotional symptoms like anxiety, irritability, and sleeplessness often arrive first. She shares her own first symptom, why it took her years to recognize perimenopause, and how a lifetime of intuitive healing work led her from hospital nursing to private practice. Along the way: the grandmother hypothesis, a coven on California's Central Coast, dandelions, and a simple practice for tuning in to your inner wise woman. In this episode

What if your symptoms aren't the problem? What if they're a message? Harmony Slater and Russell Case welcome Allison Lorne, a certified nurse midwife with 25 years in women's health who guides women through perimenopause and menopause as a sacred passage rather than a set of symptoms to silence. Allison is also a spinal energetics practitioner, so the conversation moves between the clinical and the energetic: what hormones are doing, what the body is asking for, and how to come home to it. Allison explains why she calls perimenopause "adolescence in reverse," how the history of hormone therapy shaped what women were told for two decades, and why emotional symptoms like anxiety, irritability, and sleeplessness often arrive first. She shares her own first symptom, why it took her years to recognize perimenopause, and how a lifetime of intuitive healing work led her from hospital nursing to private practice. Along the way: the grandmother hypothesis, a coven on California's Central Coast, dandelions, and a simple practice for tuning in to your inner wise woman. In this episode

Everyone is talking about nervous system regulation. But what if the goal isn't to be calm all the time? Harmony Slater and Russell Case talk with Laurie James, author of Sandwiched: A Memoir of Holding On and Letting Go, host of the Confessions of a Free Bird podcast, and a certified somatic practitioner and coach who works in the Somatic Experiencing approach developed by Peter Levine. Laurie shares how caring for aging parents while raising four daughters, and the end of a 26-year marriage, led to a season of overwhelm and then to somatic healing. She explains what Somatic Experiencing is, why a healthy nervous system moves between activation and rest many times a day, how to build capacity instead of chasing calm, and why you can heal without retelling your whole story. In this episode