Sex Birth Trauma with Kimberly Ann Johnson

Kimberly Ann Johnson: Author, Vaginapractor, Trauma Educator
  • 4.7 (270)
  • Sexuality
  • Biweekly

Cutting-edge, pioneering conversations on holistic women's health, including sex, birth, motherhood, womanhood, intimacy and trauma with doula, certified Sexological Bodyworker, Somatic Experiencing practitioner, and author of Call of the Wild and the Fourth Trimester, Kimberly Ann Johnson.

  1. 6d ago

    A Horse Named Lonesome – Starting at Birth, Male Sexual Trauma, and the Long Road to Real Connection with Luke Storey

    In this episode, Kimberly speaks with Luke Storey, host of The Life Stylist podcast, about his first book, A Horse Named Lonesome: Tales and Teachings to Reclaim Connection, Transcend Separation, and Discover the Divine Within, which comes out the same day as Kimberly's Erotic Seasons: Tuning into the Rhythms of Women's Sexuality and Spirituality. Luke traces how the book became an act of service, and how a vision of his own birth led him further back than decades of recovery and therapy ever had: an incubator, no breastfeeding, and circumcision, which he now calls male genital mutilation. Kimberly widens the frame to the culture's reflex to cut and intervene from the first days of life. At the heart of the conversation is something Kimberly has waited a long time to hear a man talk about openly: childhood sexual abuse, how grooming builds secrecy, how drugs and sex became anesthesia, and why Luke now sees those adaptations as intelligence rather than failure. In this rich conversation, they talk about his years as an honest but unavailable lover, the two years of celibacy and solitude that rebuilt his foundation, biohacking as a form of control, whether women can lead men into this kind of work, and the moment he finally saw his wife Alyson and recognized himself. Bio Luke Storey is a transformational speaker, spiritual teacher, and the creator and host of The Life Stylist, the podcast he launched in 2016 to explore spirituality, biohacking, and personal development. A former celebrity fashion stylist, he has spent nearly three decades in spiritual inquiry and addiction recovery, work he draws on in conversations about conscious relating and holistic living. His first book, A Horse Named Lonesome: Tales and Teachings to Reclaim Connection, Transcend Separation, and Discover the Divine Within (Balance, November 2026), traces his path through birth trauma, childhood abuse, addiction, and spiritual awakening to show how early disconnection shapes loneliness, and offers practices for coming home to oneself. He has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles magazine, and Men's Fitness. Luke lives in the Texas Hill Country with his wife, Alyson Charles Storey. What Luke Shares Why his first attempt at a book stalled, and the mushroom ceremony that changed his motive The ayahuasca vision of his own birth, and what his mother confirmed the next morning How an incubator, no breastfeeding, and circumcision shaped a lifelong abandonment wound Why preverbal trauma can carry as much weight as what we remember The loss of "inner sense": what childhood sexual abuse did to his identity How grooming builds secrecy, and why a child can't tell Seeing drugs and sex as intelligent adaptations rather than character defects Being an honest but unavailable lover, and what that still cost others Two years of celibacy, solitude, and taking himself out on dates Biohacking as a control mechanism Why no one could have talked him into this work, and what finally did Recognizing himself in his wife, Alyson What You'll Hear Two books out on the same day, with similar frames and different approaches Kimberly on her publisher asking her to keep "foreign countries" out of her first book Kimberly's 10-pound baby picture Why most people never think about their own birth Luke's fertility journey and the miscarriage that didn't make it into the book Kimberly on birth as a nervous system overhaul, not an inherent trauma Falling circumcision rates and the rise of tongue and lip tie diagnoses The Russian dolls: linear time and the inner child Why male survivors of sexual abuse rarely speak publicly, and the men who opened the door Flinging the doors open or slamming them shut after a boundary rupture The scorpion and the frog "Warm sex," and why it was foreign to him Pendulating from helplessness to absolute freedom Whether women can lead men into deeper work Conscious love as a circuit of reciprocity Kimberly on men's work and the missing piece of sexual literacy Luke as a self-described kindergartner in sexuality, and still a student Resources Luke's Book:  A Horse Named Lonesome: Tales and Teachings to Reclaim Connection, Transcend Separation, and Discover the Divine Within  Podcast, The Life Stylist (Apple Podcasts): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/id1121467751 Website: https://lukestorey.com Instagram (@lukestorey): https://www.instagram.com/lukestorey/ Kim's Book: Erotic Seasons: Tuning into the Rhythms of Women's Sexuality and Spirituality (Sounds True, November 17, 2026).

    A Horse Named Lonesome – Starting at Birth, Male Sexual Trauma, and the Long Road to Real Connection with Luke Storey

  2. Nov 4

    Mom Authority – Initiation, Technoference, and the Fire of Menopause with Jamie Glowacki

    In this episode, Kimberly speaks with Jamie Glowacki, author of the bestselling Oh Crap! Potty Training, about why her work has moved from potty training toward what she calls mom authority. Speaking from a stone cabin in the Rhode Island woods, Jamie traces a line from the misreading of gentle parenting and child-led philosophies to pandemic isolation, short-form content, and a motherhood built for the camera: a house made of cardboard, made of reels. They talk about the lost village and the shared consensus that once made it possible, the 1950s nuclear family, the comfort crisis, and technoference, the research on what parents' phones do to young children. Kimberly and Jamie compare notes on birth, breastfeeding, and choice as it is sold to new mothers, and how the "wait till they're ready" doctrine grew alongside the diaper industry. In the second half, the conversation turns to menopause, which Jamie found just as profound as motherhood: a descent and a fire, rather than a set of symptoms to manage. Together they ask what it means to medicate ourselves out of initiation, and how to bring back the commitment and juiciness that real transitions require. Bio Jamie Glowacki is an internationally recognized potty training and parenting expert and the author of Oh Crap! Potty Training and Oh Crap! I Have a Toddler. Her roots are in social work, where she worked with dual-diagnosis mothers and their children in residential facilities and became a doula to advocate for them in birth. She began teaching potty training classes out of the secondhand children's store she owned in Providence, Rhode Island, and her self-published guide grew into an international bestseller, revised and updated in 2024. With more than 25 years of work with families, Jamie now focuses on what she calls mom authority, helping mothers reclaim confidence, boundaries, and leadership through courses including Unscripted Authority and The Boundary Clinic, a consultant certification program, the Oh Crap! Potty Training Podcast, and her Substack. A bow hunter and mother to her son Pascal, she lives in the woods of northern Rhode Island. What Jamie Shares Why she shifted from potty training to what she calls mom authority How gentle parenting and child-led philosophies were misread as permissive parenting Motherhood as a house made of cardboard, built out of reels Why kids these days is really parents these days The 1950s nuclear family and how we lost the village Technoference and why "put your phone down" is her email signature How her potty training method began in a secondhand kids' store in Providence The marketing history behind "wait till they're ready" A menopause without symptoms that still burned everything down Why she thinks perimenopause is a report card on your life Living in the woods as a bow hunter and what it taught her about nature What You'll Hear Raising a son in a stone cabin with 30 chickens and a feral dog Authoritarian, authoritative, and permissive parenting, and the trap of oppositional parenting Why five- and six-year-olds are going to school in diapers The '90s mom: available but not inserted into childhood Neighborhood play, Kool-Aid at the beach, and the end of parenting consensus Adults who have never held a baby, or been to a birth Air conditioning, stoop culture, and losing our neighbors A mother at 38 weeks who didn't know what transition was "Everybody has the birth that makes them a mother" The still face experiment and what phones do to call and response Shafia Monroe and the joy of a birth team The comfort crisis and the pressure toward epidurals and formula Kimberly Seals Allers on choice feminism and The Big Letdown Why Kimberly stopped working as a doula Potty training as a rite of passage for parent and child Unhinged versus cringe, and the quiet unlayering of menopause Medicating ourselves out of initiation Asking older women in the grocery store about their menopause Whether awe survives the urge to post Resources Website: https://www.jamieglowacki.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jamie.glowacki/ (@jamie.glowacki) YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ohcrapwithjamie The Oh Crap! Potty Training Podcast (Apple): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-oh-crap-potty-training-podcast/id1627503268 The Oh Crap! Potty Training Podcast (Spotify): https://open.spotify.com/show/1rqHsRldmsoVDOitTtd7A8 Substack: https://substack.com/@jamieglowacki  Books: Oh Crap! Potty Training (revised and updated edition, Gallery Books, 2024); Oh Crap! I Have a Toddler Kimberly's New Book: Erotic Seasons Tuning into the Rhythms of Women's Sexuality and Spirituality

    Mom Authority – Initiation, Technoference, and the Fire of Menopause with Jamie Glowacki

  3. Oct 18

    EP 254: Women's Care Back in Women's Hands – Sobadas, the Womb Continuum, and the Power of Reparative Touch with Andrea Terrones

    In this episode, Kimberly speaks with Andrea Terrones, founder and lead teacher of Ma School and of Ma, her women's health and bodywork practice in Valle de Bravo, Mexico. Andrea traces her path from doula work, where she saw a gap in postpartum care, through a decade of seeking out traditional Mexican midwives and sobadoras, internal pelvic work, and scar tissue training, to building the long-form school she wishes had existed when she started. They talk about sobadas as lifelong community care, her teachers who saw every girl monthly from her first bleed to her deathbed, and what it means to learn a tradition's practices with respect rather than extraction. Kimberly lays out the professional landscape for anyone who wants to work with the pelvis, birth, and women's health, and why two years of hands-on training builds what a weekend cannot. They discuss the normalization of prolapse and incontinence, postpartum depression as incomplete physiological recovery, the shame that keeps women from looking at their own bodies, and why the field needs collaboration rather than competition. They close on a shared vision: a practitioner in every town, and women's care back in women's hands. Bio Andrea Terrones is the founder and lead teacher of Ma School and of Ma, her women's health and bodywork practice based in Valle de Bravo, Mexico, working with women worldwide. She left medical school in search of a medicine that could hold the whole body, and spent more than a decade apprenticing with traditional midwives, sobadoras, and curanderas across Mexico, a path that led her back to the matriarchal lineage of Juchitán, Oaxaca, that she comes from through her grandmothers. She began her career as a doula and specialized for many years in postpartum care, pairing traditional Mexican medicine with formal training in pelvic bodywork, body-mind psychotherapy, and functional medicine and nutrition. Her work brings together hands-on work in the pelvis, womb, and abdomen, functional nutrition, somatic practice, and ceremony. Founded in 2023, Ma School offers a two-year certification for Womb Continuum Practitioners and has trained more than 70 women from over 15 countries. She is a mother of two. What She Shares The postpartum gap that set her searching for teachers for nearly a decade Grieving the support she knew was possible but could not receive in her own postpartum Sobadas, the traditional Mexican bodywork that realigns the organs and the womb How internal pelvic work, fascia, and scar tissue work joined her practice Why weekend trainings left her and other women unsure of their hands Her teachers as community holders, tending girls monthly from first bleed to deathbed What her teachers said when she asked permission to teach their work Why being trained in a circle of women heals the sister wound How the two-year program is structured, and why it is built for in-person practice Why the field needs more teachers and more practitioners, not fewer What You'll Hear Kimberly on the professional paths open to people who want to work with birth and the pelvis Sexological bodywork, STREAM, and Holistic Pelvic Care: what each offers and what is missing Why a two-year training is not too long for someone with no touch background Kimberly's 35-minute session that resolved a new mother's tailbone pain Advanced doula training without the on-call life Prolapse and diastasis as diagnoses no one actually looked for Cultural appropriation, cultural continuity, and the problem with learning rebozo in a weekend Womb work traditions in Thailand, India, and the Philippines Kimberly's 800 sessions in three years and the waiting lists that followed Competition, proprietary attitudes, and the case for standing shoulder to shoulder How hands-on work changes the practitioner's own anxiety, depression, and isolation The myth of inevitable prolapse, and studies that normalize decline Postpartum depression as incomplete physiological recovery The siloed care that sends a crying postpartum woman from PT to psychotherapy and back Why so many women have never looked at their own vulva What Kimberly will teach in the training: intakes, session framing, and the nervous system in the tissues Dates, retreats, and how to apply Resources Website (Ma School): https://maschool.co Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mawomenshealth/ Apply: https://form.typeform.com/to/PBmpdC4P Practitioner Directory: https://maschool.co/directory Next cohort: Begins March 2027. Applications open.

    EP 254: Women's Care Back in Women's Hands – Sobadas, the Womb Continuum, and the Power of Reparative Touch with Andrea Terrones

  4. Oct 11

    Season of the Witch – Inner Authority, Menopause as Initiation, and Learning to See in the Dark with Dr. Ellen Vora

    In this episode, Kimberly speaks with Dr. Ellen Vora, holistic psychiatrist, acupuncturist, yoga teacher, and author of The Anatomy of Anxiety, on the eve of her new book, Season of the Witch: A Psychiatrist's Case for Magic. They begin with perception: how Ellen's credentials serve as a platform from which to question conventional medicine, and how loss, not training, is what gave her any authority of her own. Ellen explains why the title came to her in prayer, and why she expects criticism from both ends of the witchy spectrum. Speaking in the wake of the Lindsay Clancy trial, they look at how female life thresholds have been psychiatrized, what an unsupported postpartum mother actually needs, and why a prescription is often the only tool left in the room. Kimberly names the pattern of exceptions becoming rules across birth, fertility, and mental health. They turn to rites of passage and the communities that can sit with big emotions. They then turn to menopause, where Ellen offers her theory that menopausal symptoms borrow the body's postpartum software, and Kimberly describes her own transition as a portal of learning to see in the dark. They close on information overload, wearables and the atrophy of listening, Ellen's choice to join a national conversation on psychiatric medication, and what it means to stay purple. Bio Ellen Vora, MD, is a holistic psychiatrist, acupuncturist, and yoga teacher. She received her B.A. in English from Yale University and her M.D. from Columbia University, and she is board-certified in psychiatry and integrative holistic medicine. She takes a functional medicine approach to mental health, considering the whole person and addressing imbalance at the root, with a focus on depression, anxiety, insomnia, women's mental health, and medication withdrawal support. She is the author of The Anatomy of Anxiety: Understanding and Overcoming the Body's Fear Response, and of Season of the Witch: A Psychiatrist's Case for Magic (Random House, October 2026), which offers five practices for reclaiming the full spectrum of our intelligence: embodiment, presence, valuing the yin, being open to mystery, and serving the collective. She lives in New York City with her husband and daughter. What She Shares Why her medical credentials exist so she can say "that's not the whole story" How loss, including losing her parents and pregnancy losses, gave her more authority than any training How the title Season of the Witch arrived through prayer, and why it wasn't up for negotiation What an unsupported postpartum mother needs, and why a prescription is so often what she gets The hidden costs of psychiatric medication: dependence, interdose withdrawal, depersonalization, and akathisia Rites of passage as the ground where inner authority and discernment are built Her theory of menopause as a medical anomaly, and why symptoms may borrow from the postpartum blueprint Learning to see in the dark as the value older women hold for the culture Why constant listening to the body outperforms any formula, macro, or wearable Taking work decisions to spirit, and being socially blind enough to accept the mission What You'll Hear Kimberly and Ellen as Harper Wave bookmates, and two books with "season" in the title Flossing the edge between being responsible to authority and handing people their own "Look at me, I'm a witch" versus "look at you, you're a witch" Expecting criticism from both the Christian and Wiccan ends of the spectrum What people actually mean when they say "mental health" The Lindsay Clancy trial and the push for more postpartum screening Pain versus suffering, and the unnecessary suffering in how mental health care is applied Kimberly on intervention, exceptions becoming rules, and IVF without eroticism "Are you in therapy?" as a box to check Why we apologize for crying, and what it would mean to pull up a chair instead Kimberly's menopause: hot flashes, night waking, and a portal of life review The orca grandmother effect and why elders need the maiden and mother energy Is there a flaw in the female design, or in the male one? Trading algorithms for a "dolphin phone" Skipping heavy weights for an Epsom salt bath on the heaviest day of her period The RFK Jr. interview, the SSRI roundtable, and Laura Delano's Unshrunk Being purple, and why new voices at the policy table give Ellen hope Resources Website: https://ellenvora.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ellenvoramd/ (@ellenvoramd) Season of the Witch: A Psychiatrist's Case for Magic (Random House, October 13, 2026): https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/776546/season-of-the-witch-by-ellen-vora-md/ The Anatomy of Anxiety: Understanding and Overcoming the Body's Fear Response: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-anatomy-of-anxiety-ellen-vora Book tour and events: https://ellenvora.com/book-tour/

    Season of the Witch – Inner Authority, Menopause as Initiation, and Learning to See in the Dark with Dr. Ellen Vora

  5. Oct 5

    Coming Home – Ancestral Healing, Emergency Medicine, and Advocating from a Regulated Place with Dr. Vanessa Calderón

    In this episode, Kimberly speaks with Dr. Vanessa Calderón, an emergency physician, master executive coach, and healer from a lineage of ancestral healers in Mexico and El Salvador. Introduced by an ER doctor Kimberly met on a flight, Vanessa traces her path from the five-year-old who dreamed of being a missionary doctor, through healthcare access activism and UCLA medical school, to the emergency room, where diagnoses like "abdominal pain, not otherwise specified" showed her the limits of Western medicine. She describes the voice that told her, mid-run on a Northern California beach, that it was time to come home, and the decade of apprenticeship with Latin American healers that followed. They talk about what med school does to the nervous system, the new language of well-being entering medical training, and the pain that told her to step away from the ER for a season. At the heart of the conversation is a practical question for anyone who listens to their body and still needs a doctor: how to advocate for yourself from regulation rather than fear. They close on rewilding, motherhood, Vanessa's vision of medicine built on power with rather than power over, and how the current framing of menopause reflects a broader shift in consciousness. Bio Dr. Vanessa Calderón is a Harvard graduate and board-certified emergency physician, a Master Executive Coach, and a Neuroplasticity Trainer with more than 20 years of leadership experience and a decade of business development expertise. A first-generation Latina from a long line of ancestral healers, she apprenticed directly with Indigenous healers of Mexico and Central America. Through Calderón Co., she coaches physicians, executives, and mission-driven leaders, weaving leadership and business strategy with nervous system work, identity work, and ancestral wisdom so they can create meaningful impact without sacrificing their health, relationships, or sense of self. She also leads Resourced Wealth, a six-week, healing-centered program on money, power, and capacity. She is the host of The Authentic Path podcast, which explores the intersection of leadership, performance science, and ancient wisdom. She continues to practice emergency medicine and lives in Atlanta with her family. What She Shares How a lineage of Mexican and Salvadoran healers, and a teenage rejection of them, led her into Western medicine Why "abdominal pain, not otherwise specified" became the crack in her faith in the system The voice on a beach run that told her it was time to come home Building a meditation practice in residency, one minute at a time What medical training does to the nervous system, and how the language of well-being is changing it The attending who taught her that a patient knows their body better than the doctor does The left wrist pain that told her to step away from the ER, and how she listened Why the patient-physician relationship should be a partnership, and when to walk away from one How to advocate for yourself from regulation instead of fear Rewilding as coming home to yourself and to everything around you Her vision of medicine built on power with rather than power over What You'll Hear How a chance first-class seat brought Kimberly and Vanessa together The five-year-old who wanted to be a missionary doctor Christianity, shame, and women's bodies, and what she kept from her upbringing Whether anything in the core medical curriculum could make room for trauma and energetics Kimberly on Brazil's cesarean culture and doctors who were never taught vaginal birth Do doctors have to quit medicine to practice in line with their values? Kimberly's doula years and how defensive boundaries escalate a birth room Recognizing your own signs of dysregulation before you walk into an appointment Small, human requests in the exam room: eye contact, warm hands, a pause Setting an intention for the outcome you want before you see the doctor How motherhood changed the way she treats children and parents in the ER The "menopause mafia," the hormone debate, and a shift in collective consciousness Resources Website (Calderón Co.): https://www.calderonco.org Podcast, The Authentic Path: https://www.theauthenticpathpodcast.com Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/id1807391306 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0t14N6wKrEvh3MsfklhGMn Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vanessacalderonmd/ (@vanessacalderonmd) Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vanessacalderonmd/ Resourced Wealth (six-week program): https://www.calderonco.org/resourced-wealth

    Coming Home – Ancestral Healing, Emergency Medicine, and Advocating from a Regulated Place with Dr. Vanessa Calderón

  6. Sep 27

    The Great Void – Menopause as Initiation, the Secret Teacher, and the Decommissioning of the Mind with Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer

    In this episode, Kimberly speaks with Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer about the spiritual power of menopause. Pope and Wurlitzer are co-founders of Red School and authors of Wild Power and Wise Power. Each woman traces the turning point that led them to this work: for Alexandra, sudden and relentless menstrual pain at 31 and the decision to listen to her body; for Sjanie, seven years on hormonal contraception and the return of her cycle, which brought her inner life back online. Kimberly, two and a half years postmenopause, asks what women orbit once the menstrual cycle no longer guides them. They explore menopause as a great void and an initiation, the two "superpowers" of no and sight, the menstruality life arc as a turning of seasons, ego death and the dismantling of the psyche, and brain fog as the "decommissioning" of the mind. The conversation turns to what's missing culturally: elders and "secret teachers" who can dignify the passage, allies and listening partners, and a framing that doesn't pathologize. They close on choice, including the choice of medical support, as its own act of inner authority, and on Red School's October programming for Menopause Awareness Month. Bio Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer are the co-founders of Red School and pioneers of the emerging field of menstruality. They are the co-authors of Wild Power: Discover the Magic of the Menstrual Cycle and Awaken the Feminine Path to Power (Hay House, 2017) and Wise Power: Discover the Liberating Power of Menopause to Awaken Authority, Purpose and Belonging (Hay House, 2022), and the creators of the Menstruality Medicine Circle™. Drawing on backgrounds in psychotherapy, hypnotherapy, coaching, embodied movement, teaching, and facilitation, they teach a psycho-spiritual approach to health, creativity, leadership, and spiritual life rooted in menstrual cycle awareness and conscious menopause. Alexandra, a psychotherapist, began this work in her early 30s, first sharing her discoveries in workshops at Sydney's Royal Hospital for Women. Together they have spent decades listening to thousands of women's experiences of the journey from menarche to menopause, and they teach worldwide through Red School's courses, trainings, and online events. What They Share How severe menstrual pain at 31 led Alexandra to listen to her body and begin the work that became Red School Sjanie's seven years on hormonal contraception and the "technicolor" return of her inner life when her cycle came back Why menstrual cycle awareness is a training ground for inner authority Menopause as a great void and an initiation, not a medical event to manage The two superpowers of menopause: the power of no and the power of sight The menstruality life arc as seasons, with menopause as winter and a fertile void Ego death, the dismantling of the psyche, and brain fog as the "decommissioning" of the mind Why we need elders and "secret teachers" who can dignify the passage Listening partnerships, allies, and Wise Power as a companion through the transition Choosing medical support as its own act of inner authority What You'll Hear Kimberly's postpartum realization: "it's all a lie" What we orbit when we're no longer cycling with the moon Why charting with the moon may not speak to people in the thick of menopause, and when it might "I don't recognize myself": the falling away of habits, roles, and performance Facing the shadow and dearmoring on the approach to menopause Kimberly's reframe of symptoms as "indicators" and the 47 changes she tracked The cultural absence of a dignified framing, and what it costs women Birth, dying, and menopause as the great initiations no one sails through The edge between martyrdom and relief: HRT, epidurals, and whether the rite still happens What to do if you don't have a secret teacher The moment you want to burn the house down, and what actually needs burning Red School's October programming for Menopause Awareness Month Resources Website: https://www.redschool.net/ Instagram: @red.school Menopause Event (free, three days, starting Oct 12)

    The Great Void – Menopause as Initiation, the Secret Teacher, and the Decommissioning of the Mind with Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer

  7. Sep 23

    EP 250: Honrar la Voz - Lineage, the Body, and Creating Without Pain with Carolina Mama

    Kimberly speaks with Carolina Mama: Argentine composer, singer-songwriter, filmmaker and photographer, calling in from Barcelona. They met in Santa Fe and worked together on the photographs for the Erotic Seasons era of Kimberly's work, and this conversation sits at the intersection of artistry, spirituality, liberation and social justice. Carolina traces her ear through the folkloric rhythms that lived in her body before she had names for them, to a full scholarship at the New School in New York and the research through Morocco that led to her debut album, Amina. They talk about making peace with being loved and hated at once, why the audience is a co-author rather than a jury, and the night at Lincoln Center when she understood that a version of herself had just died on stage. The second half provides a peek into the contemporary music industry: where artists are asked to arrive tour ready, audience ready, content ready and team ready with no infrastructure behind them. She speaks about arriving in the U.S. and discovering she was not white here, about gratitude alongside the loss of safety on a working visa, and about the Latina archetype the market keeps handing her, which she refuses. They close on synesthesia and the weave between film and music, on psychology as curiosity rather than analysis, on the trauma frame and what it costs art, on the surname she chose in order to honor her grandfather, and a long exchange about collaboration, elders, and what it means to be in service.   BIO Carolina Mama is an Argentine singer, composer, musician and filmmaker. Her debut solo album, Amina, was released in September 2025, co-produced and recorded in Los Angeles with Lau Noah and Emily Elbert, rooting the folkloric traditions of Latin America and North Africa in the improvisational spirit of jazz and a cinematic sense of narrative. The record takes its name from Amina El Filali, a sixteen year old girl in Larache, Morocco, whose story Carolina encountered while researching folkloric music composed and performed by women; that story, together with her involvement in the Ni Una Menos movement in Argentina, shaped the album into a testimony for silenced lives and a call for gender based violence prevention. She studied film at the Universidad Nacional del Arte in Buenos Aires and was working in the industry by seventeen, before a full scholarship brought her to the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in New York, where she chose the Argentine pianist and composer Guillermo Klein as her mentor. A former member of the collective projects Nacarola and Levana, she has sung alongside Juan Carlos Baglietto, Lito Vitale, Julia Zenko and León Gieco, and has performed at Lincoln Center, the Joyce Theater, Pregones Theater and Zinc Bar. She has toured and traveled through Mexico, Europe, South America and Morocco, and splits her time between Brooklyn and Santa Fe. She spoke for this episode from Barcelona. WHAT SHE SHARES How a teenage bedroom in Argentina, one CD at a time, built the ear she still writes with The move to New York, the full scholarship, and the feeling of having touched the ceiling at home Making peace with being loved and hated, and the person who always finds you after the show The audience as co-author: how a room changes the music while it is being played The night at Lincoln Center when the fear did not come, and what she understood from that What intimacy means to her, and why desire and life force come before any song Silence as the condition for the muse, outside the body and inside the head The state of the music industry: smaller rooms, rarer live music, artists asked to arrive fully built Why she stopped subscribing to constant output, and what her body had to do to make that decision What actually supports an artist, and why she will not consume AI music Arriving in the U.S. and discovering she was not white here Gratitude for what the country gave her, alongside the loss of safety on a working visa The Latina archetype the market expects, and her refusal to be digestible Synesthesia, and why she does not separate the filmmaker from the musician Psychology as curiosity rather than analysis, and why analyzing her own art would kill it Refusing to romanticize trauma, and learning what it is to create from joy How she became Carolina Mama, and the grandfather she chose to honor Her filters for a collaborator, and why she needs trust built slowly before she opens WHAT YOU'LL HEAR  Totó la Momposina, Susana Baca, Mercedes Sosa and Caetano Veloso alongside Radiohead, Portishead and No Doubt How Gnawa music and the women's folkloric traditions of Morocco reopened her ear Cooking, nature, and the moments of no time that bring her back into creating Her advice to anyone beginning: do it until you fall in love with the process, then ask what is making you hurt Writers who write every day and writers who do not, and where she lands Tour ready, audience ready, content ready, team ready: six jobs at once with no infrastructure The friends sending her tracks she can hear were not made by a person Kimberly on sedation, human biodiversity, and no longer being able to tell what is generated Samba, chacarera, gato, vidala, baguala and carnavalito living in the body before they have names A careful, difficult exchange about what it costs to manage your own speech in public Book covers, Canva thumbnails, and what we are starving for without knowing it What music taught her about repetition and what film taught her about pacing and tension The trauma frame, and whether it is squashing art Maga Mama, Carolina Mama, and the men who told her not to use that name Collision instead of collaboration: Stephen Jenkinson, the word elder, and the tidal river in Maine What it means to be in service of an elder and to carry that until it is your turn RESOURCES Website: https://www.carolina-mama.com/ Instagram: @carolinamama__ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1Mr5h9VDW05W672PzEUYmP YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCkd_WwWChVCYQTWqD_lkJA Album: Amina (2025), ten tracks, co-produced with Lau Noah and Emily Elbert. Full track list in section 4. Kimberly's book referenced in the intro: Erotic Seasons: Tuning into the Rhythms of Women's Sexuality and Spirituality (Sounds True, 2026)

    EP 250: Honrar la Voz - Lineage, the Body, and Creating Without Pain with Carolina Mama

  8. Sep 13

    Mothering the Mother – Granny Midwifery, the Lying-In, and Diasporic Memory with Shafia Monroe

    In this episode, Kimberly speaks with Shafia Monroe, the renowned midwife, doula trainer, cultural historian, and author of Mothering the Mother: African American Postpartum Traditions, Recipes, and Healing, with a foreword by Erykah Badu. Shafia begins with the inheritance she was raised on: a second-generation Boston Catholic mother who told her to burn the bra and not to stay anywhere she was unhappy, and a rural foot-washing Alabama father who turned an empty Boston lot into collard greens and turnips before anyone called it a community garden. From there the conversation follows the diasporic threads she has spent four decades tracing, from her father eating with his right hand to the Senegalese village where she watched women shape a newborn's head exactly as her mother had shaped her niece's. They talk about what enslavement broke in African-American postpartum culture and what was rebuilt after it: the lying-in, the warm soup, the darkened room, and a community that knew what to do without needing a book. Shafia lays out the history of the granny midwives, including the origin of the word granny itself. She and Kimberly work through the real difference between a doula and a midwife, why she trains in full circle rather than full spectrum, and why women are flock people whom Western birth deliberately separated. Shafia describes raising seven children inside the work rather than around it, and why the family that hired you has to come first. The conversation closes on money, policy, and fear: what makes birth work financially viable, what this country refuses to fund, and why she tells every woman and man she meets to stop fearing birth, to refuse the label of patient, and to trust a body that has been doing this since the beginning. Bio Shafia Monroe, MPH, is a renowned midwife, master doula trainer, cultural historian, author, and motivational speaker whose work has shaped birth and postpartum care for more than four decades. A leading subject matter expert on African American birth and postpartum traditions, she has researched the lives of twentieth century Black midwives and traveled to interview and observe them, learning traditional practices firsthand. In 1991 she founded the International Center for Traditional Childbearing, the first national nonprofit dedicated to increasing the number of midwives and doulas of color and to promoting home birth in Black communities. In 2002 she created the SMC Full Circle Doula Birth Companion Training, a dual certification program built on the legacy of the twentieth century African American midwife, which has since trained thousands of birth workers worldwide. She is president of Shafia Monroe Consulting and Birthing CHANGE, which helps health care providers deliver culturally competent care. Her work has been recognized with numerous honors, including four lifetime achievement awards, and she was named by Scientific American in 2022 among those working to make health care more fair. Her book, Mothering the Mother: African American Postpartum Traditions, Recipes, and Healing, with a foreword by Erykah Badu, was published by Hachette Go. She draws on her Southern roots in rural Alabama, where her grandmother taught her that food is medicine. She is a mother of seven, a grandmother of nine, and a great-grandmother of two, and she lives in Portland, Oregon. What She Shares -  The two worlds she was raised between: a Boston Catholic mother and a rural foot-washing Alabama father -  Her father turning an empty Boston lot into a garden in the 1970s, before there was a name for it -  Her mother on burning the bra, on equality at home, and on never staying where you are unhappy -  Why her mother told her that what people do not want you to know is kept in a book -  Diasporic recognitions: eating with the right hand, banku and cornbread, rainwater, and infant massage -  Watching women in a Senegalese village do exactly what she had watched her mother do fifty years earlier -  Belly wrapping as something her community always practiced without a name for it -  What enslavement broke in African American postpartum care, and what was rebuilt after emancipation -  The lying-in, the warm soup, the quilts, and why the elders kept the room dark -  African Americans as the country's dominant providers of postpartum care, and the credit never given -  The granny midwives, where the word granny came from, and what it was meant to do -  Why wisdom mattered more than whether a midwife had borne children of her own -  The real difference between a doula and a midwife, and why she wants both -  Full circle rather than full spectrum, and why the circle is the right shape -  Herbs for period pain instead of putting a thirteen year old on the pill -  Raising seven children inside the calling, and why the family that hired you comes first -  What makes birth work financially viable, and what this country refuses to pay for -  Why she tells everyone to stop fearing birth, and to stop calling themselves a patient What You'll Hear -  Why she is claiming the title of doctor, at her son's instruction -  That midwives once held higher standing in a community than the pastor -  Seven children, nine grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren -  Kimberly on her husband's Candomble practice and the recognitions it triggers in African American visitors -  How a birth world that borrows freely from Mexico, Sweden, Japan, and Bali has erased Black postpartum culture -  Why the elders kept the room dark, and the physiology that proved them right -  Date night ten days postpartum, and what the old culture expected instead -  A twelfth pregnancy answered with a blessing rather than an interrogation -  Who was actually captured and brought here: rice growers, healers, readers of Arabic, dyers, midwives -  Being twenty years old at a forty year old woman's birth, with the skill but not yet the life -  The granny midwives walking through the dark past the Klan, and serving Black and white families alike -  Kimberly on the inversion that files the most human skills under unskilled labor -  Flock people, and what Western birth broke by separating women from each other -  The song her trainings close with every day -  A nine year old carrying the oxygen tank to the car -  Byllye Avery on the midwife having a star in her crown -  Kimberly on why the self-care framing in doula training only makes sense without spiritual care -  Why nobody left a home birth exhausted, and what a hospital does differently -  Eight hundred dollars a birth, and the second and third incomes that made it work -  Paid leave, daycare, the Momnibus, and the comparison to Norway and Denmark -  Why fear of birth keeps people from questioning their care -  Refusing the labels: high risk, geriatric, obese -  Her objection to the genocidal framing of Black maternal mortality -  Why a doula cannot save your life, and what she can actually do Resources Shafia Monroe Main website  https://shafiamonroe.com/ SMC Full Circle Doula Birth Companion Training  https://smcdoulas.com/ Instagram  https://www.instagram.com/shafiamonroe/ Facebook  https://www.facebook.com/shafiamonroeconsulting/ Mothering the Mother, publisher page  https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/shafia-monroe/mothering-the-mother/9780306835438/

    Mothering the Mother – Granny Midwifery, the Lying-In, and Diasporic Memory with Shafia Monroe
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Cutting-edge, pioneering conversations on holistic women's health, including sex, birth, motherhood, womanhood, intimacy and trauma with doula, certified Sexological Bodyworker, Somatic Experiencing practitioner, and author of Call of the Wild and the Fourth Trimester, Kimberly Ann Johnson.

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