In this episode, Molly shares a meditation originally released on the podcast “Meditations,” by her friend Gregory T. Obert in May of 2019. We are happy to share this recording here, where you’ll hear a set of sexual healing affirmations, ready by Molly and repeated several times in a loop. You may prefer to listen to this meditation in a quiet and private space to take them in. If you’d like to hear these same affirmations read by Gregory, you can find his podcast and look for the episode relea...
Jun 21, 2022•29 min•Season 1Ep. 31
In this episode, Molly interviews Amy Dawn about how she navigated the criminal justice system after deciding to press charges against the man who raped her. Some key highlights include: How Amy found herself in a role reversal from criminal justice student to someone navigating the system, and the challenge she experienced coming to terms with being a rape survivor. Her decision to report and then to pursue legal action. Disclosure and allowing other people’s reactions to impact how we feel abo...
Jun 07, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Season 1Ep. 30
In this episode Molly interviews Amy Collins, a survivor of things that were meant to break her spirit. Being honest with her past has helped her heal in so many beautiful ways. She believes in staying true to who she is and doing what’s best for her healing. In this interview, she shares her recent experience being in recovery from addiction, an eating disorder, and PTSD and the power of groups, among other things, in her relatively recently begun healing journey. ------------------------------...
May 24, 2022•44 min•Season 1Ep. 29
“Many sexual trauma survivors went into a freeze state.. And so there’s this sense of ‘My body betrayed me, and I don’t want to be in this body, but I’m stuck here, so I’m going to do the best job I can to not be here.’ And that is the ultimate disconnection. So what we’re going for is to start to reconnect that, just a little bit at a time, maybe at first just with questions and guidance, and little by little, help you start to recognize that your body is an ally in this process of healing. And...
May 10, 2022•36 min•Season 1Ep. 28
“I’m still struggling with ‘my body is my own’... It really does make me angry because it feels like I’m missing out on this wonderful thing that you experience with a partner.” In this episode, Molly interviews Anne Jensen, a survivor of childhood sexual abuse within a religious cult, shares her journey over the past several years after disclosing the abuse to her family. She discusses how the process of disclosing was retraumatizing for her, how she started doing the true work of healing when ...
Apr 26, 2022•1 hr 4 min•Season 1Ep. 27
In this conversation, Molly and regular special guest Sarah Brennan discuss consent in and out of the bedroom, fear of rejection (being rejected and/or rejecting someone else), and how communicating clear boundaries begets trust. -------------------------------------------- SUBSCRIBE to the show to be the first to hear about new episodes! Contact Sarah: www.theembodyconnection.com // sarah@theembodyconnection.com Contact Molly: www.theembodyconnection.com // molly@theembodyconnection.com Washing...
Apr 12, 2022•37 min•Season 1Ep. 26
“I like to think that I grew up in a relatively progressive area of the country… but I definitely, by osmosis, absorbed the cultural expectations and ideas of what a man is and should be, and it was definitely not somebody who’d been sexually abused or taken advantage of. And I think that was another factor inhibiting me from talking about it - just not wanting to deal with the consequent shame and humiliation that I’m sure would have come.” Phil is a poet, journalist, and content marketer whose...
Mar 29, 2022•1 hr 19 min•Season 1Ep. 25
“A lot of the work that I’m doing now is because of what happened in the backseat of that car... I would be lying if I said that that is resolved... I am recognizing that I still have a freeze response… It’s taken me nine years of resisting that there was still work to be done from that - because I didn’t want to investigate it… I lived with a very, very deep sense of shame until the last few years… The event plus the shame created this shut-down - a lack of circulation, a lack of life, a lack o...
Mar 15, 2022•1 hr 2 min•Season 1Ep. 24
In this conversation, Molly and regular special guest Sarah Brennan share their thoughts and experiences with big emotions, including “overreacting,” acting out/bad behavior, being labeled as “too emotional” or “too sensitive,” self-shaming, shutting down – and ultimately building the capacity to tolerate those big scary emotions with compassion for yourself and others. They also discuss triggers and how they manage them, the question of how to communicate about big feelings, how (and whether) t...
Mar 01, 2022•36 min•Season 1Ep. 23
In this episode, Dr. Rhonda Sherrod shares insights from her own healing journey from early childhood sexual abuse, which she also shares in her recently published book, “SHE - Surviving Healing & Evolving: Essays of Love, Compassion, Healing, and Affirmation for Black People.” A passionate educator and sought after public speaker, Dr. Sherrod previously taught undergraduate and graduate psychology at two HBCUs. She is now the president of The Need To Know Group where she conducts profession...
Feb 15, 2022•1 hr 3 min•Season 1Ep. 22
**GRAPHIC CONTENT WARNING** please listen with care In this conversation, Molly and regular special guest Sarah Brennan reflect on how close to home the issue of sex trafficking is, including Sarah’s own story of being groomed and, ultimately, trafficked. Indeed, the Department of Homeland Security’s relatively new definition of sex trafficking acknowledges domestic sex trafficking, as well as international. And as we head into Super Bowl weekend in a couple weeks, we can anticipate that 10,000 ...
Feb 01, 2022•35 min•Season 1Ep. 21
Since 2018, Kristen has been a a certified rape crisis counselor in the state of Illinois and a volunteer medical advocate for Resilience (formerly Rape Victims Advocates). In her role as a medical advocate, Kristen provides individual level support and advocacy for survivors throughout their process at the hospital. She does this by answering pages to the hospitals that Resilience has contracts with and sitting with survivors of sexual assault in the emergency room as they receive medical care ...
Jan 18, 2022•47 min•Season 1Ep. 20
In this mini-episode, Molly invites you to reach out if you or someone you know may be interested in being interviewed on the show. Listen to hear some ideas of who we’re looking for, and reach out to Molly at molly@theembodyconnection.com if you are interested. Also - What’s your word or phrase for 2022? Molly reflects on this concept, as well as her phrase for 2022, in this episode and also wrote this blog post: https://theembodyconnection.com/the-power-behind-a-word/ SUBSCRIBE to the show to ...
Jan 04, 2022•11 min•Season 1Ep. 19
“And so while it is my job to support artists in the work they’re doing, I often see my own survival in the work that they’re sharing, and for me that just deepens the sense of not being alone. And every time, I think “Oh, right -- that’s the basic tenet of a healing community -- remembering ‘I’m not alone.’”… And for me it is the thing I need to continually remember and come back to: “I’m not alone, I’m not alone” -- I think forever it will be helpful to hear and to see that.” Molly spends time...
Dec 21, 2021•59 min•Ep. 18
In this conversation, Molly and regular special guest Sarah Brennan share their thoughts on a key part of the conversation that we should be having with our young people when we talk to them about sexual assault and how we may be inadvertently blaming and shaming them into silence. -------------------------------------------- SUBSCRIBE to the show to be the first to hear about new episodes! Contact Sarah: [theembodyconnection.com // sarah@theembodyconnection.com Contact Molly: theembodyconnectio...
Dec 07, 2021•30 min•Ep. 17
“You’re experiencing your everyday life in your body already. Sexual trauma is a trauma to the body already. So it’s with you. Learning how to connect to your body and understand it and feel connected to it as a supportive part of yourself can be a really important part of the journey. With some of my clients, we don’t move; we just connect to the body as a resource in other ways.” Amanda Mitchell is the Founder and CEO of InTouch & Motion, a creative arts therapies and psychotherapy practic...
Nov 23, 2021•57 min
“When I wrote The Courage to Heal , if you had asked me who I was at that point in my life, I would’ve said ‘I’m an incest survivor,’ and that would have been it. I didn’t have any other identity. I was consumed by it, and it felt like my life had been destroyed by it and that I would never recover. So many decades later, I’m in such a different place that if you asked me, ‘Who are you?’, I would say ‘I’m a teacher, I’m an author, I’m a mother, I’m a grandmother, I’m a swimmer, I’m a hiker, I’m ...
Nov 09, 2021•1 hr 4 min
Molly and special guest Sarah Brennan share their own experiences of the first time they shared aloud their sexual trauma, as well as what came next. SUBSCRIBE to the show to be the first to hear about new episodes! Contact Sarah : sarah@theembodyconnection.com Contact Molly: molly@theembodyconnection.com Special thanks to: Jenn Baykan, virtual assistant for creatives: https://www.jbaykan.com/ Dave Hiltebrand for intro and outro music original composition: https://www.davehiltebrand.com/ Gina Mc...
Nov 02, 2021•34 min
“There is, in this, an opportunity to truly listen to what we’re being called to move through and move toward…. I’m being asked and called to surrender much more than I have in the past, to move further into a space of faith. I have a foundation, but I’m needing to build a house on top of that foundation.” In this special episode (after a year long hiatus!), Molly is interviewed by Sarah Brennan, a former guest on the podcast who will soon be co-hosting the show with Molly. Join Sarah as she pro...
Apr 01, 2020•59 min
In this episode Molly shares some reflections on her healing journey in real time. "I'm angry that I have to do this work. And I'm angry that I've had to do all of the work I've done. I'm angry that I do most of it alone. I'm angry that I have to pay for it financially, with my time, with my energy. I'm angry that I've had pain in my body as a reaction to the trauma that I've held and harbored for years. I'm angry about it. It's bull shit. It's taken too much of my life." -----------------------...
Mar 06, 2019•20 min
"If we're not honoring boundaries with each other on a smaller scale, in a smaller context..., it's no surprise to me that we have this whole culture that is having a lot of trouble with boundaries and standing up for ourselves and saying 'no.' ... We don't wanna say 'no' to people, we don't wanna let them down, we don't wanna hurt their feelings. It's very difficult for all of us, men and women, to practice 'yes' and 'no.'" Kate is a trauma-informed bodyworker, coach, and social change and tran...
Jan 14, 2019•46 min
"Every small and large step I've taken to speak, in whatever form - whether it's my voice, my play, my readings - every time I do any of that, I heal a little bit more because it's contradicting all that has made me believe I shouldn't be telling... It's always healing, every bit of it." Donna has a lot to offer with nearly four decades working through her own healing process. She is an activist, playwright, actor and author who is committed to sharing her story of healing from incest as a part ...
Jan 01, 2019•1 hr 1 min
In this mini episode, I share my own story of how I decided to heal and how Reiki gave me the support I needed to do so. --------------------------------------------------- SUBSCRIBE to the show to be the first to hear about new episodes! Contact Molly: www.mollycoeling.com // molly.coeling@gmail.com --------------------------------------------------- A special thanks to: Gina McLaughlin Photography for photo and graphic design: https://www.facebook.com/ginamclaughlinphotography/?fref=tag Dave H...
Dec 19, 2018•21 min
"When you have sexual agency as a woman, there’s less of you being on the defensive as the victim. When we own our bodies, and we own not only our sexual power but also when we own our sexual pleasure, then we can say ‘Ya know, this doesn’t feel good. I don’t like this.’” Tazima - a sex & intimacy coach - talks about bringing trauma into our relationships and into the bedroom AND what we can do about it, including moving toward pleasure and away from shame & avoidance. ------------------...
Dec 06, 2018•56 min
“Once you start examining it, then it’s yours. Then you own it. These are MY memories. I’m not reacting out of something that happened to me; I’m reacting out of something that I own. It’s a small little adjustment in your brain, and it’s everything.” Sarah Brennan is a wife, mother of two beautiful boys and a Reiki practitioner living in Chicago. After leaving a career in the restaurant industry to raise her children, she focused on her own healing from decades old sexual trauma - through talk ...
Nov 20, 2018•1 hr 15 min
"If I'm willing to take a new definition of vulnerability and recognize it as 'This is part of the human condition; everyone is vulnerable to something, and no one leaves this world unscathed in some way.' If I'm willing to look at it that way, I have more of a chance to empower myself and to help myself, rather than to just stay stuck." Sarah Buino is a Chicago based therapist and founder and president of Head/Heart Therapy, a group practice that specializes in addiction, shame and complementar...
Nov 05, 2018•1 hr 4 min
"If we're asking what's next, my 'what's next' has a lot to do with making space for people's healing, which doesn't just mean feeling good and getting bodywork and going to yoga. It could mean getting really angry and getting really sad and finding places and practitioners who can hold space for all of that healing to unfold, so that we can move into whatever is our own 'what's next.'" As a survivor, practitioner, advocate and so much more, Molly lives and breathes the anti sexual violence move...
Oct 23, 2018•1 hr 14 min
“For young women and girls, overwhelmingly, the silence results in funneling them further into a system of violence. So they go from personal and interpersonal violence to structural and systemic violence, ultimately leading them to incarceration.” In this interview, Liz shares her thoughts on sexual violence both from the perspective of her professional work advocating for at-risk girls, as well from a more personal lens, as the daughter of an incest survivor. The mission of her consulting grou...
Oct 09, 2018•53 min
In this mini episode, I reflect on an alternative to the "he said, she said" rhetoric that is dominating the national conversation (yet again). "Even if he knows somewhere inside himself that he did this, is there any space in our current conversation for him to admit what he did, to apologize and to potentially arrive at redemption? Redemption as a human being who is worthy of love, who is worthy of respect, who is not to be shamed and cast aside and isolated." ---------------------------------...
Oct 04, 2018•20 min
“Scorpio is the underworld, the skeletons in our closet... And here comes this bright, shiny light [Jupiter] being like ‘Hey, let’s look at that,’ and pretty much in tandem with Jupiter’s onset to Scorpio, the MeToo movement popped up.” In this interview Carly explains how we can look to astrology to better understand the energy that was the impetus for the MeToo movement - and where we are headed, if we do The Work. We also touch on the basics of astrology, how it can be used as a therapeutic m...
Sep 25, 2018•48 min
