If you’ve ever felt the lingering impact of religious trauma - especially from high-control, fear-based systems - this episode is for you. I’m sharing from my personal experience growing up in the Seventh-Day Adventist church, and exploring seven common factors that can create deep disconnection from your body, your needs, and your sense of self. This episode touches on: • Why trauma isn’t just about what happened, but how it lives in the body • How messages like “you’re born sinful” or “don’t t...
Jul 08, 2025•9 min•Ep. 55
Today I have something a little different for you. Last year, I went to my 20th high school reunion. I attended a Seventh-day Adventist boarding school, and going back felt like stepping into another lifetime. If I’d thought about religious trauma before that experience, I’ve been thinking about it a lot more since. You’ll hear me talk about that today, but what’s different is that this episode is actually from a brand new podcast I co-host called Ask Me a Question . I created this podcast with ...
Jun 17, 2025•1 hr
Healing doesn't happen in a hurry. The hurry to be healed, integrated, enlightened, free, arrived...it's not as neat and tidy as a lot of self-help books or before-and-after photos might suggest. It's more like, the harder we try to fix things, the harder our nervous systems work to keep us where things are familiar. Whereas, if we can slow down with ourselves, right in the behavior or with the part of us we hate or struggle with most, we can get to know it. There are often so many unknown steps...
Sep 07, 2023•8 min
THE TOP 10 MISTAKES I’VE MADE ON MY HEALING JOURNEY: Honestly, I cringe a bit using the words "healing" OR "journey" because the internet is so oversaturated with wellness or spiritual teachers. I'm not interested in making "healing" my whole personality, but simultaneously I have always had this deep interest in why things hurt. What any kind of pain, emotional, mental, or physical, is saying. and coming from a background of religious and family trauma, being queer and undiagnosed neurodivergen...
Aug 31, 2023•17 min
I love a project . I love working towards something. I think that's pretty human. But for a long time my body was my project . I grew up in a holistic, Seventh-Day Adventist, vegetarian home. we used homeopathy and natural remedies and drank carrot juice and ate homemade bread. To this day I LOVE the taste of barley green powder because I have early memories of drinking it as something that would support my health. I wanted to know about all the supplements in the kitchen cupboard and what they ...
Jul 13, 2023•10 min
So many folks I see, and this was me too, attach goodness and morality to their health. If something is wrong, they feel wrong. They will spin into stories about how they're creating their own disease or this is going to turn into something far worse. Can you make some space for the fact that not all of the contributing factors were in your hands? Your genetics, adverse childhood experiences, your environment and day to day stressors that accumulate. There are areas where we have choice and can ...
Jul 06, 2023•14 min
Today I'm talking about the ways that shame lived in my body and fed into the cycle of binge eating and disembodied practices with food. I'll also talk about making my body safe enough to finally feel the shamed parts of me so that they could be understood and come to a more whole and free place. Links: Work with Rande Free Spirit Academy on Instagram...
Jun 29, 2023•12 min
For a huge chunk of my life, trauma had left me flat, numb, and unable to feel what was going on in my body. In today's episode I talk about the seemingly "normal" experiences that can lead to an overwhelmed nervous system, the symptoms or carrying stored survival energy, impulses, and emotions with us over a long period of time, and the symptoms that can occur as a result. Links: Work with Rande Free Spirit Academy on Instagram...
Jun 23, 2023•19 min
Today I'm speaking with Holistic Health and Root Cause Practitioner Sarah Hook. Sarah and I have been connected online since our early wellness blogging days when we were certain we had it all figured out. Some years ago Sarah was bit by a tick and developed severe Lyme disease, causing her to question what she knew about wellness. We talk about what it's like to need food restrictions after healing from an eating disorder as well as the ways in which we can get in our own way with our attempts ...
Aug 25, 2022•54 min
Is it possible to take on a healing diet or a supportive protocol with a history of disordered eating? Is there a way to have a healthy, alive relationship with food that's also intentional? Is restriction 100% bad news in all cases? Today I'm sharing my personal experiences with chronic illness, having a background of disordered eating from a young age. I'm excited to share this with you and hope it brings you more peace and freedom in your relationship with food and your body! Links: Work with...
Nov 09, 2021•12 min•Ep. 63
On today's episode I'm talking a bit about the autoimmune diagnoses I got earlier this year. This is a shorty ep but includes: ...why it took me so long to see medical professionals and get tested. ...the wide range of feelings post-diagnosis. ...the pre-self-love I had to do before I had any answers. ...the promises I made myself once I had something concrete to work with. ...my thoughts on medication, etc. ...the complex journey that is illness and a disordered eating history. Links: Work with...
Jul 19, 2021•12 min•Ep. 59
Hello friends, today I'm talking to my friend Lena, an eating disorder recovery coach who also understands firsthand months of juice fasting, pure raw food diets, and even using diet to heal illness - complicated by her many years of disordered eating that didn't stop once she got into raw foods. Throughout this conversation, we make some simple connections about how and why her eating disorder developed but there could certainly be many more factors one could look at. - We'll discuss being rais...
Jul 12, 2021•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 58
After well over a year, the Free Spirit Academy Podcast is BACK! I begin this episode with a health update of my own - and talk about the balance between maintaining a peaceful relationship with food and my body, while also supporting my body's very specific needs. That will lead us into a conversation with colon hydrotherapist and trauma-informed coach, Theresa Piela. Theresa is exceedingly familiar with chronic illness herself, and also knows well what it's like to do everything 'right' on a h...
Jun 21, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 56
Here's what you can expect from today's episode: ...how the anxiety of our current circumstances can trigger any anxiety already living within us. ...the question of whether or not we'll ever be going back to 'normal'. ...we'll talk about the pressure to always be growing, creating, being productive, and going to our max. ...the idea that the universe is saying one thing to all humans right now. ...working with the feeling that there's constantly not enough time. ...finding safety in uncertainty...
Apr 14, 2020•36 min
HEALING ANCESTRAL TRAUMA WITH INHERITED TRAUMA RESOLUTION COACH, LISA NAGEL In today's episode, you'll hear us talk about... ...The symptoms of inherited trauma: anxiety, secondary ptsd, depression, feeling like we can't get where we want to go, feeling trapped in repeating cycles, etc. ...Lisa's story of looking around at her family and seeing the shared patterns and emergency responses that were on autopilot and the revelation that we don't just have personal trauma but also inherited trauma. ...
Mar 09, 2020•50 min
EXPLORING HUMAN POTENTIAL - GIL JACOBS UNEDITED! Hi friends. Before some of you get TOO excited (because I'm with you in that group of niche weirdos that thinks an interview with Gil Jacobs on the internet the single most exciting ever) I DID release this interview in the first year of the podcast. However, I was in a place at the time where I was very much catering to clients and an audience with a traditional intuitive eating view. And that view tends to look like like: eat whatever you want, ...
Feb 25, 2020•1 hr 5 min
For all of the seeking we do... ...medical mediums. ...spiritual gurus. ...plant medicines. We often miss the most powerful medicine: the information our own bodies hold. 2019 was like a massive plant medicine journey for me...sans plant medicine (so y'know, I'm going based on what I've heard). My body took me on the ride of my life - and while it wasn't easy, it was the most liberating year I've ever experienced. This was a year that confirmed for me something I've long felt suspicious of... th...
Feb 17, 2020•20 min
Friends!! After a bit of a hiatus, the Free Spirit Academy Podcast is back and it feels SO good. I'll update you a bit in the intro to this episode, but here's a bit of what to expect today: I met Jen at my Level 1 Kundalini Yoga Teacher Training and my first thought was 'thank GOD, a real human'. While I met so many lovely humans, Jen didn't feel like she was trying to prove anything or sound a certain way, she was there for the practice and was simultaneously running her own studio and it was ...
Feb 10, 2020•1 hr 3 min
I met today's guest in my very first kundalini yoga teacher training and we've continued taking trainings from Guru Singh in Seattle for the last couple of years - and I wanted to have her on as a teacher but also as an example of someone who moved through serious addiction to drugs and alcohol and on the other side - is more real and more uniquely herself than she'd ever been before. In this conversation we talked about addictions, coping tools and distractions and how they work until they don'...
Jul 08, 2019•51 min•Ep. 50
THE DREAM UNDER THE DREAM BODY. This solo episode is going to be a taster of my most recent program in the Free Spirit Academy membership site. My new 40-day program Liberated is my take on what many call intuitive eating. If you've listened to this podcast for any length of time you'll know that I talk a LOT about eating intuitively, finding freedom around food, and freedom in our bodies...AND I've just never been satisfied with the general way I've seen intuitive eating going which, to me, isn...
Jun 03, 2019•25 min
WHAT IT MEANS TO "BE LOVE" WITH REIKI PRACTITIONER, COLON HYDROTHERAPIST, AND OWNER OF LOVE BEING, ALEC STEURY. A few of the things you'll hear us talk about are... What it's like to start to shift from a solely logical, linear way of thinking and being to developing intuition and self trust. Putting our attention and letting our journey be lead by what feels interesting and inspiring to us. The health issues or ways of being human that we think of as "normal" that don't necessarily have to be. ...
May 01, 2019•53 min
DETACHING SELF-WORTH FROM YOUR FOOD CHOICES WITH EMOTIONAL EATING COACH, GEORGINA GORRINGE. In this week's conversation, you'll hear us talk about: ...how the opposite of emotional eating isn't "normal" eating and how that may not necessarily be what we're looking for. ...the journey from mindless eating to more conscious eating with nutrition knowledge, to an EMBODIED practice of listening to what works. ...when we see foods as "good" or "bad" and they leave US feeling like WE are "good" or "ba...
Mar 11, 2019•51 min
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A FREE SPIRIT? Today it's a solo episode where I talk about what it does and doesn't mean to be a "free spirit" and to cultivate more freedom in your life and body. Links mentioned: Kundalini warmup Feeling Breath Practice Work with me Free Spirit Academy website Free Spirit Academy courses Free Spirit Academy Facebook group Links: Work with Rande Free Spirit Academy on Instagram...
Mar 04, 2019•18 min
FEELING AT HOME IN YOUR BODY WHEREVER YOU ARE WITH CLINICAL NUTRITIONIST AND PRIVATE FLIGHT ATTENDANT, CHRISTINA PISTONE. Here are some of the gems you can look forward to in this conversation. ...we talk about the dangerous assumption that thinness equals health. ...how sometimes working LESS hard is what's needed to support your health and well being. ...realizing you might be thinking about food more than engaging with LIFE and how to use that as a cue to re-connect with yourself. ...feeling ...
Feb 25, 2019•50 min
Before Free Spirit Academy was Free Spirit Academy I was trying to figure out how to transition from food blogging as a hobby to Eating Psychology Coaching as a career. And I'm pretty certain that if I hadn't worked with a coach I would have struggled a LOT longer than I did to create what I wanted to create. Coaching and mentorship is SO important in certain phases and I wanted to bring Ally on because she's not only a business coach - she has a background in ayurveda, and using sensual feminin...
Feb 18, 2019•48 min•Season 3Ep. 5
MOTHERHOOD AS A SPIRITUAL PATH. In today's conversation, we'll talk about motherhood as a spiritual path but even if you're not a parent or even planning on being a parent (and if that's you, I'm right there with you) there's so much great stuff in here for you. Here are a few of the things you're in for: ...Leslie talks about how carrying extra weight may have a divine reason and how we can feel into the body to see if it's at it's natural resting place - rather than using a number on a scale t...
Feb 11, 2019•47 min•Season 3Ep. 4
BODY LOVE: FROM RULES TO RELATIONSHIP WITH EXPERIENTIAL EATING EXPERT, BETH SUMMERS. In today's conversation we talked about when health becomes a value - and how that can be a beautiful thing in relationship and a destructive thing if it's disembodied. Beth will tell us the story of how experiential eating became such a prominent part of her work. We chat about the importance of the way we eat not defining who we are as people - and we dive into this from the perspective of kundalini yogis and ...
Feb 04, 2019•47 min
DIET BEYOND WEIGHT LOSS. Episode 9 is here with bestselling author and Clinical Nutritionist, Natalia Rose. While it's true that you'll find most of Natalia's books on the diet shelf, they are truly more than just weight loss books. After finding her first book over 10 years ago, my perspective on food, body, and LIFE was forever shifted. TODAY WE TALK ABOUT: How Natalia's life radically changed when she began cleansing her body - and how that made her see that everything she'd "ever learned abo...
Feb 03, 2019•1 hr 1 min•Season 1Ep. 9
Welcome to episode 41 of the Free Spirit Academy Podcast with Artist and Intuitive, Lindsay King. Sometimes people's worlds are so unfathomable to me that it feels like magic. Lindsay is a beautiful intuitive human being and artist. In her words, she "paints the relationship between the subconscious and what is seen. In this conversation, we talk about... ...our shared history and Lindsay's experience of feeling like a fraud in religion. ...the importance of aligning with who you really are and ...
Jan 21, 2019•1 hr 3 min•Season 3Ep. 3
Welcome to episode 40 of the Free Spirit Academy podcast with Holistic Health Coach and Wellness Lifestyle Consultant Meredith Wadsworth. I discovered Meredith's work while I was going down a rabbit hole with exercise. You'll hear more about this as we dive in but one slice of what Meredith does is fitness training for the method we'll talk about. But that really is just one piece. Her company The HYE Life (Honor Yourself Everyday) represents so much of what I love: a balance between intuition a...
Jan 14, 2019•49 min•Season 3Ep. 2
