Shows
Desire As Medicine Podcast125 ~ Being Okay With Right Now and Why It Changes EverythingWant a new year with resolutions that doesn’t fall apart by February? Go straight to sustainable change by making peace with right now so your goals have solid ground. Instead of forcing quick wins that fade, we explore how acceptance turns desire into a steady practice. True growth feels like a spiral, where you revisit old patterns with new wisdom, not the same you.Together we unpack the difference between change and transformation, sharing candid stories from our health and money journeys. Catherine talks about the cost of an easeful retirement and how intentional systems beat im...
2026-01-1440 min
Desire As Medicine Podcast119 ~ Rituals, Desire, And The Art Of Making Life SpecialWhat if you stopped waiting for an invitation and started treating life like it matters today? Catherine and Brenda explore the power of ritual, the medicine of desire, and the steady courage it takes to create meaning in your own life. From the circle of the Grand Ole Opry to a candlelit bill paying session at a kitchen table, they look at how a small shift in attention changes everything.They explore the trap of waiting for the perfect moment and offer a grounded reframe. Work with what is here right now. Brenda shares simple practices that st...
2025-12-0325 min
Desire As Medicine Podcast118 ~ How To Be Grateful On ThanksgivingThe holidays can really speed up your life. Catherine and Brenda invite listeners to treat Thanksgiving as a time for gratitude. They explore gratitude as a perception practice. They bring in the Chinese parable of maybe, maybe not and the mantra if I am not winning, I am learning to show how progress grows through honest reflection.They examine the fine line between positivity and bypass. They focus on how intent shapes perception and how the right lens supports either momentum or shortfall. They share how releasing perfection creates room for risk. Speaking up before knowing the...
2025-11-2629 min
Desire As Medicine Podcast115 ~ Body Scan (Tool Box Edition)Catherine & Brenda guide a Body Scan that turns stress into clear signals and shows how somatic awareness supports desire-led choices. Breathwork, curiosity, and small resourcing moves help you feel safer, softer, and more honest with yourself.Episode Highlights:• why a five-minute body scan builds self-trust• naming sensations to separate signals from stories• lengthening breath to calm the nervous system• breathing into tension and letting it speak• using humming, hand-to-heart, and grounding as resourcing• choosing a one percent action for support• integrating presence into daily decisions and desireYou can fi...
2025-11-0512 min
Desire As Medicine Podcast114 ~ How to Stay Present in Real Life StressWhen the mind gets loud and the body goes into alert, thinking harder does not calm anything. Brenda and Catherine guide listeners to slow down. They introduce a gentle body scan practice to shift awareness into regulation. One breath. One sensation. One small shift. These small shifts build trust in the body’s signals.They share how to use a body scan daily. Before checking a bank balance, during an argument, while parenting, when our inner alarm system fires without a clear cause. Listeners learn what to notice, how to track changes before and after, and simple re...
2025-10-2921 min
Desire As Medicine Podcast113 ~ Power of Pausing: How Coasting Creates Space for New DesiresEver feel like your desire tank is running on empty? After a season of deep conversations, Brenda and Catherine shift gears to explore the often-overlooked wisdom of coasting.Growth is not meant to be nonstop. Just as nature moves through seasons, desire ebbs and flows. Sometimes the healthiest choice is to step back, pause the practices, and let yourself float for a while.In this conversation, they share real-life moments of exhaustion and burnout, reminding us that these pauses are not failures. They are part of our natural rhythm. Trees rest in winter. Farmers leave...
2025-10-2216 min
Desire As Medicine Podcast112 ~ Desire Check-In: Behind the ScenesWhat happens when two desire coaches pause to reflect on their own relationship with desire? After three years and 111 episodes of the Desire as Medicine podcast, Brenda and Catherine open up about where desire feels alive, where it feels challenging, and how their relationship with it has evolved.Brenda shares about her journey of building physical strength at 57 through pole dancing, inspired by a conscious choice to shift family health patterns. Catherine reflects on her uncertainty around retirement planning, revealing how some desires flow naturally while others feel overwhelming.Together, they explore the importance of...
2025-10-1535 min
Desire As Medicine Podcast111 ~ Lineage Gifts: Embracing What's Passed DownHave you ever noticed how easily we focus on the difficult patterns inherited from our families while overlooking the beautiful gifts passed down through generations?In this heartfelt mini-episode, Brenda and Catherine expand the conversation about lineage beyond trauma to celebrate the treasures our ancestors have given us.Brenda shares the story of her family’s chicken soup recipe, passed from her grandmother to her mother, to herself, and now to her daughter. This tradition is more than food. It is love, care, and wisdom carried through generations. Making the soup connects her to the wo...
2025-10-0816 min
Desire As Medicine Podcast110 ~ Seven Generations Forward and Back: Family LineagesThe threads of ancestry shape daily life in both subtle and profound ways. From stress responses to emotional habits to worldview, Catherine and Brenda reflect on how they are living expressions of those who came before them.In this episode, they explore the Indigenous wisdom concept of Seven Generations Forward and Back, which teaches that present choices affect seven generations ahead while also carrying wisdom, gifts, and wounds from seven generations behind.Catherine shares how she inherited a lineage of hardworking women who rarely asked for help, giving her strength but limiting her ability to...
2025-10-0133 min
Desire As Medicine Podcast109 ~ Why Real Change Takes Time: How to Stay the CoursePersonal transformation does not fit neatly into a 90-day program. In this conversation, Catherine and Brenda explore why meaningful growth often takes years or decades, and why that timeline is both natural and necessary.They reflect on what sustains the process when change feels slow: forgiving who we were, showing compassion for how long it takes, and facing reality without judgment. Many of the most difficult patterns are not entirely our own, but are carried through family lineage. Even so, they become ours to transform.While breakthroughs can happen quickly, lasting transformation requires practice and...
2025-09-2440 min
Desire As Medicine Podcast108 ~ How To Move Beyond Quick FixesThe space between knowing something and embodying it is where transformation happens. In this conversation, Catherine and Brenda explore what it takes to move from intellectual understanding to living change as second nature.Catherine shares her 20-year journey of opening her heart and building healthy boundaries. What began as a desire for deeper relationships required years of therapy, confronting judgment, untangling codependence, and resisting the urge to rescue others. She reflects on moments of doubt and pain, and how her commitment to meaningful connection kept her moving forward.Brenda reflects on her daily yoga and...
2025-09-1745 min
Desire As Medicine Podcast107 ~ Bridging The Gap Between Knowing and DoingThe gap between knowing and doing is often the hardest part of personal growth. In this episode, Brenda and Catherine explore what embodiment truly means and how to bridge the distance between intellectual understanding and lived experience.What happens when advice like "love yourself more" feels impossible? Why do we scroll until 1 AM even though we know better? Through personal stories—Catherine’s evolving relationship with money and Brenda’s late-night encounter with dill pickle chips—they show how embodiment requires more than knowledge. It takes practice, mistakes, and self-compassion.At the center of their conversa...
2025-09-1039 min
Desire As Medicine Podcast106 ~ How Caregiving Transforms DesireWhen health challenges arise, whether caring for an aging parent, supporting a partner, or facing personal illness—desire often shifts in profound ways. Priorities change almost overnight, reshaping how we experience and relate to desire itself.In this episode, Brenda and Catherine share personal stories and reflections on caregiving, illness, and the transformation of desire during these seasons of life.Brenda speaks about her time caring for her mother, grandmother, and father, and how her desire became rooted in simply being present with them. She reflects on the tension between wanting to give everything and re...
2025-09-0331 min
Desire As Medicine Podcast105 ~ Responsibility and Desire: The Link No One Talks AboutResponsibility might seem like the buzzkill of desire, but what if it’s actually the key to deep fulfillment? Brenda and Catherine challenge the fantasy that our wants should simply appear without effort. Instead, they explore how taking ownership of our desires creates the fertile ground for them to flourish—both within ourselves and in our relationships.They discuss the natural seasons of desire and how what we want changes over time, requiring different kinds of attention and action. Brenda shares her current journey toward homeownership as an example of holding space for a big desire even when...
2025-08-2723 min
Desire As Medicine Podcast104 ~ Reclaiming Your Turn-On: Why Desire Fluctuates and How to Keep It AliveWhat happens to our sex lives when we actively practice desire? Everything changes. When we approach desire as a spiritual practice, our relationship with sex shifts from reactive and conditional to conscious and self-responsible.Brenda and Catherine explore how this transformation unfolds, moving beyond old patterns, like withholding sex during conflicts or expecting partners to manage our arousal, and toward a more empowered, pleasure-led way of relating. They share personal experiences of letting go of outdated scripts, like believing we should always want sex if we love someone, or that desire disappearing signals a relationship problem.
2025-08-2027 min
Desire As Medicine Podcast103 ~ When You've Lost Desire: How to Get It BackHave you ever found yourself in that strange, disorienting space where you used to feel your desires clearly, but now, all you hear is silence?In this episode, Brenda and Catherine explore what happens when desire goes quiet. After spending so much time learning to follow the whispers of longing, what do you do when those whispers disappear?Rather than rushing to fix it, they invite you to pause and listen differently. These quiet seasons aren’t failures—they’re invitations. Invitations to slow down, return to the body, and deepen your trust in the natura...
2025-08-1322 min
Desire As Medicine Podcast102 ~ Hungry Ghosts: When Desire Becomes InsatiableHave you ever caught yourself mindlessly eating chocolate or clicking “next episode” on Netflix into the early hours, even when you’re no longer enjoying it? Brenda and Catherine talk about the “hungry ghost” state: a craving that seems bottomless, never fully satisfied.In this episode, they explore the Buddhist concept of the hungry ghost (Preta in Sanskrit), beings with enormous bellies and tiny mouths, eternally yearning but never fulfilled, and how this ancient metaphor shows up in modern life. Whether it's through binge-watching, emotional eating, impulse shopping, or draining relationship patterns, they reveal how these behaviors often poin...
2025-08-0629 min
Desire As Medicine Podcast101 ~ Desire vs. Discontent: What Your Frustration Is Trying to Tell YouWhat if desire shows up before we even have the words for it? In this episode, we explore how desire first emerges - not as a clear thought, but as a whisper, a spark, a sensation in the body. Long before we can name it, it’s already speaking to us.We share personal stories (including Brenda’s not-actually-about-the-beach vacation dilemma) to show how subtle desires, when ignored, often morph into resentment. In a world that trains us to focus on problems rather than possibility, we rarely ask: What do I truly want?Together, we unpa...
2025-07-3025 min
Desire As Medicine Podcast99 ~ What if the thing you're missing...is rest?In this episode, we dive into the deep medicine of sacred rest. What happens when you intentionally put everything down and step away from the constant pull of work, screens, and to-dos. Through the lens of Brenda’s personal Shabbat practice, we explore how ritualized pauses create room for desire, clarity, and real connection.We live in a culture that celebrates hustle and constant output. Whether you’re a parent, caregiver, creator, or all of the above, honoring your need for rest isn’t indulgent, it’s essential.Let’s talk about how creating boundaries around dow...
2025-07-1620 min
Desire As Medicine Podcast98 ~ Clean Asking: Create Intimacy, Not DistanceHave you ever noticed how the same desire can be received completely differently, simply based on how you say it? The way we communicate our needs and desires shape the quality of our relationships more than we realize.In this intimate and insightful episode, we unpack the subtle (and powerful) role of syntax, tone, and word choice in expressing desire. Whether you’re navigating romantic connection, friendship, or family dynamics, the shift from blame to vulnerability can open doors to deeper intimacy.Brenda shares her personal practice of saying, “I have a desire…” to invite curiosit...
2025-07-0915 min
Desire As Medicine Podcast96 ~ How To Ask For What You Want (Without Sabotaging It)What happens when you ask for something you deeply desire, and it’s met with rejection?In this episode, Brenda and Catherine explore the art of asking for what we want while staying rooted in self-worth, even when the answer is “no.” Through honest personal stories—from diamond earrings to a fridge full of Pellegrino—they unpack how to hold desire cleanly, without attachment to the outcome.This is not about getting what you want—it’s about loving that you want it.They explore the nuances of desire as a personal pract...
2025-06-2531 min
Desire As Medicine Podcast95 ~What No One Tells You About Getting What You WantWhat happens when life feels like an all-you-can-eat buffet of desires? When every opportunity feels irresistible and you want it all—right now?In this episode, Brenda and Catherine dive into the emotional terrain of competing desires and the tough choices we must make when we can't have everything at once. They explore what it means to move through life’s “candy store” with discernment, drawing from personal stories and hard-earned wisdom.Brenda shares a powerful, vulnerable account of her divorce—a soul-driven choice that led to emotional upheaval, financial strain, and years of shame b...
2025-06-1840 min
Desire As Medicine Podcast94 ~ Scroll, Shop, Binge: How We EscapeWe all want freedom but are our go-to comforts actually keeping us stuck? In this revealing episode, Brenda and Catherine explore the fine line between real freedom and sophisticated forms of avoidance.From Netflix binges to spontaneous vacations, they examine how common pleasures can sometimes act as distractions from discomfort. Through honest personal stories, they uncover how facing limitations, rather than escaping them, builds deeper resilience and lasting liberation.This conversation invites you to explore your own habits with compassion and curiosity. What are you avoiding? What would true freedom really feel like?
2025-06-1138 min
Desire As Medicine Podcast91 ~ Freedom From The InsideWhen we’re young, freedom feels like staying up late, eating candy for dinner, and having no one tell us what to do. But as we grow up, that surface-level idea of freedom gets challenged. True freedom, is not about indulging in everything, it’s about having genuine choice and the ability to act from our values, not our wounds.Brenda and Catherine explore their personal paths to authentic freedom. Brenda opens up about breaking free from perfectionism and people-pleasing, where retail therapy once offered short-lived comfort but not true satisfaction. Catherine shares how her struggle with over...
2025-05-2124 min
Desire As Medicine Podcast90 ~ Seeing Red Cars: How Your Brain Filters RealityEver wonder why some people see kindness everywhere while others only notice rejection? It’s not the world that’s different, it’s our perception. Brenda and Catherine explore how our brains filter reality based on our beliefs, often without us realizing it.Using Tony Robbins’ “red car” experiment as a jumping-off point, they speak to how 95% of our brain activity happens unconsciously. These mental filters shape everything from our relationships to our opportunities. Beliefs like “I have to do everything alone” or “nobody wants women to succeed” can become self-fulfilling prophecies, until we learn to spot them.Through...
2025-05-1425 min