United Bodies | Podcast Guru

Details

United Bodies is a podcast about the lived experience of health. Join health and disability writer, producer, and activist Kendall Ciesemier and her guests as they explore how different components of our health – mental, physical, social, and spiritual – interplay with one another and intersect with the whole of our identity. When we understand these forces in our lives, we can meet both ourselves and others with more empathy and maybe even realize our fights for equity, justice, freedom, and accessibility are united.

Recent Episodes

What Makes an Enjoyable Life With Andrea Gibson

As the first season of United Bodies comes to a close, here’s a conversation that will buoy us all by proving what’s possible. We’ve been talking about building the world we need -- be that through destigmatizing the hard stuff in our life through humor, liberating ourselves through movement, choosing to write a new story for our lives, finding bodily pleasure, or reconciling our spirituality. Today we are bringing all of those threads together in a conversation about accessing joy amidst t...

48 MIN

Pleasure Is For All of Us with adrienne maree brown

Today we’re talking about pleasure. I can already tell that some of you are wincing. Pleasure is experienced in our bodies and keeps us full of aliveness—whether that’s the pleasure that comes from feeling sun on our backs, tasting our favorite treat, or from a steamy sexcapade. We’re talking about it all today with the person who wrote a whole book about its importance. adrienne maree brown is the NYT Bestselling author of Pleasure Activism. She’s a writer, activist and organizer who...

39 MIN

Reclaiming Spirituality After It Was Weaponized Against Us with Phillip Picardi

For many of us, spiritual health is a facet of our health that we consider less, perhaps even give less weight to or spend less time cultivating. There are many reasons for this. Spirituality can feel elusive, confusing, scary, and unknown. It can bring up religious baggage, ostracization, and pain. Religion is one of the most notable constructs of how people find and express individual and communal spirituality, but it’s also been used as a tool to oppress and commit violence. At a t...

43 MIN

The Liberating Power of Movement With Morgan Dixon and Aj Williams

Moving your body, in any way you can, can be a liberating experience—to feel your power, your strength, your security and resiliency through a step forward, a dance, a roll or stroll through nature. Studies support this—movement has a profound impact on our brains: reducing stress, anxiety, and depression, encouraging creativity and ingenuity. Think about it: when we are babies, we move our bodies naturally. We are born with the desire to move because movement feels good to us. Bu...

44 MIN

Writing A New Story with Stephanie Foo

Content warning: child abuse Trauma is everywhere we look. Most prominently, trauma is marked by a sense of powerlessness and loss of control. This is one of most overwhelming parts of experiencing trauma. It’s terrifying to lose control over our bodies and our lives. Recovery is then about regaining control over all that was taken from us. One tool that can help us is the act of writing our stories. When we are able to reclaim our own stories, we can find a power greater than the power...

37 MIN