United Bodies Kendall Ciesemier

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 the ...

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 b...

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 time...

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. But ...

Content warning: child abuseTrauma 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 w...

Welcome to the second half of United Bodies, where we’re focused on building the world we need. A huge part of building a better world is about imbuing our world with joy and there’s nothing that makes me feel more joy than laughter. I love to laugh and I particularly love to laugh about my own problems. This is what I think they call… coping. Laughter is contagious. It literally extends our lives. Laughter can also help us reckon with circumstances we cannot control, like the ones our b...