The Marcella Principle Podcast

While Mother’s Day is conventionally wrapped in flowers and brunches, there are many women who spend this high holy day of motherhood in the shadows of a story that’s seldom brought into the open.That is the story of the mothers whose babies never took a breath or opened their eyes to the light of day.Today’s guest is Katy Cook, an alumna of my Women, Food & Forgiveness Academy who suffered a series of miscarriages that tragically culminated in the loss of her daughter Harper at 24 weeks—and propelled her into a dark night of the soul that forced her to confront her deepest grief and unresolved rage.Today, Katy is the proud mama of three living children and a passionate advocate of children everywhere blossoming into the full expression of their natural gifts and talents.This fall, Katy will open the doors to Acton Academy Davidson—a model of education rooted in self-direction, responsibility, and the belief that every child has a unique purpose.Acton Academy Davidson is opening its doors in the Charlotte, North Carolina area to children ages 5 to 7 this fall. To learn more and apply, visit actonacademydavidson.com. Are you ready to release decades of body shame, reconcile with your past, and reclaim the dignity that will allow you to live peacefully in your body? If so, I invite you to explore if my Women, Food & Forgiveness Academy is a fit for you.This 12-month online program draws on spiritual practices from contemplative traditions, along with embodiment practices such as EFT Tapping, to help guide your soul back home to your body, so that you can stop eating your emotions and start setting them free.Let’s just say … this is not your mother’s weight-loss group or typical diet program.Doors are open now, and we welcome you with open arms. Get full access to The Marcella Principle at themarcellaprinciple.substack.com/subscribe

You know what you want to eat… and yet in the moments that matter, you reach for something else.If you’ve ever felt stuck in that gap between knowing and doing, this episode is for you.This is a live EFT tapping session from the 7th anniversary of Tap, Taste, Heal, where I guide you through a simple process to uncover—and begin shifting—the deeper beliefs driving food struggles.✨ In this episode: Why willpower isn’t the problem What’s really behind self-sabotage A guided tapping session (starts ~20 min)Free Resource:If this resonates, I’ve created a free Tap, Taste, Heal audio library with 26 guided tapping sessions to support you in real-life moments—cravings, shame spirals, and everything in between.👉 Get access here: marcellafriel.com/taptasteheal Get full access to The Marcella Principle at themarcellaprinciple.substack.com/subscribe

Next week I turn 64. Which means, like all of us, I’m the oldest I’ve ever been.When I recorded the masterclass you’re about to hear, at the spritely age of 62, I thought I had a handle on the terrain of “aging gracefully”:Stay fit. Eat well. Tend to your spiritual life. Nurture your close relationships. And indeed I do feel I’m fulfilling those directives. Even so, something undeniably shifts as the years pass.Death gets closer. The body, however strong, feels a little more gossamer each day. There’s much more past and much less future—much less matter and much more spirit.Part of me digs it—part of me is terrified by it—and part of me remains fascinated by the passage of time as it manifests in our bodies and our souls.If you, dear lady, find yourself recoiling from the woman you see in the mirror, even as you long to make friends with her, this episode will guide you through contemplative journaling and EFT Tapping so that you can face the reality of aging with the dignity and tenderness it deserves.Give yourself a half-hour or so in Marcella’s classroom and walk away feeling rejuvenated by the unique gifts that only Father Time can give:Would you like to learn more about how EFT Tapping can help you forgive yourself as you age?Claim your copy of my free PDF download, “Tapping for Self-Forgiveness.” You’ll find this especially helpful if you turn to sweets and treats to avoid feeling the difficult feels—but the basic technique you’ll find in these pages universally applies to just about anything you’re struggling with. I use it all the time whenever an issue feels tough to resolve, and I always feel better after I’m done. Get full access to The Marcella Principle at themarcellaprinciple.substack.com/subscribe

When perimenopause dawns for women over 40, it can bring a baffling cognitive haze for which most doctors have only one answer: “This is just how it is now.”But is that true?Functional nutritionist Sarah Wayne refused to accept that verdict. Sidelined by severe brain fog in her early forties, she chose to listen more closely to her body rather than resign herself to decline.In today’s episode, you’ll hear what Sarah discovered through both her own inner listening and her work with hundreds of women. Contrary to conventional medical beliefs, brain fog is not a life sentence. It’s your body’s way of communicating its genuine needs.If you’re ready to love the you who forgets what she’s saying, this conversation is a solid first step on your path forward.Ready to bring your foggy brain back to clarity? Join Sarah at her live three-day experience, Bye-Bye Brain Fog, taking place February 24–26. It’s designed for women like you who are ready to emerge from the fog with clarity and grace, without spending a fortune on supplements that maybe work, maybe don’t.Sarah will help you create a customized plan of simple self-caring actions you can take right away to begin lifting the fog, often within days. Get full access to The Marcella Principle at themarcellaprinciple.substack.com/subscribe

Now that the wave of New Year’s resolutions is on the wane, let’s talk about what really creates sustainable positive change, one day at a time. According to one of his devotees, the late sage Maharishi Mahesh Yogi reportedly said, “Well begun is half-done.”In today’s Marcella Principle podcast I break down for you why the first hour of your day determines the direction of your entire life and why, when it comes to new habits, well begun really is half-done.Beyond white-knuckling it with will power, this masterclass from my archives explores the tension between your sincere desire to create a meaningful morning routine and your habitual resistance that pulls you into distraction. About halfway through we jump into some guided EFT Tapping practice to help you relax that resistance and kindle your desire to start your day on terms that nourish you.Here’s to beginning your day in a way that feeds the life you want to live.Are you seeking to eat joyfully and love your body in 2026?Consider joining my Women, Food & Forgiveness Academy, a 12-month spiritual odyssey that will help you lose emotional and physical weight, transform breakdown into breakthrough, and become the Heroine you are meant to be.You can learn more at my website, womenfoodandforgiveness.com. Get full access to The Marcella Principle at themarcellaprinciple.substack.com/subscribe

Today I share with you the opening meditation and teaching from my Winter Virtual Retreat, which took place this past Saturday, December 6. The theme of the retreat was “Let There Be Light,” and in the talk I invite you to slow down and unpack that statement as perhaps the most powerful intention of healing that you can invoke for yourself. Because just as light can’t exist without darkness, so it is that a Heroine like you, who is seeking to heal her relationship with her food and her body, can’t find that light of unconditional love within without first going through the darkness of the ordeal. I invite you, for at least the first few minutes of this episode, to settle yourself into a space of quiet to do this meditation, and then listen along as I guide you through an overview of the Heroine’s Journey into the light, as we practice it in my Women, Food & Forgiveness Academy. If you’re seeking a spiritual path to help you heal your relationship with your body so that you can love the woman you see in the mirror without having to go on yet another diet, come join me when the 2026 Academy resumes the week of January 12. You can learn more at my website, womenfoodandforgiveness.com. Get full access to The Marcella Principle at themarcellaprinciple.substack.com/subscribe

If you are a human walking on this Earth, you have known grief. Maybe grief arrived unbidden after your beloved disappeared … your dream shattered … your body changed … or some part of your identity just … slipped away.In Traditional Chinese Medicine, the dry, descending energy of autumn mirrors the falling leaves and correlates to the lungs, where grief and sorrow often hide as breathlessness, fatigue, or lingering colds.This month’s episode of The Marcella Principle Podcast offers you a warm space to hold your grief with lovingkindness. Grab a journal, make yourself a comforting cuppa, and let me guide you through a Two-Way Prayer meditation followed by some EFT Tapping. You might feel more lifted and more grounded by the end of our time together. If you’d like to deepen the conversation, here’s my personal reflections on grief along with a talk I gave to my Women, Food & Forgiveness Academy about how to harness the archetype of the Queen—she who transmutes her sorrow into leadership—to harvest the secret medicine of compassion that lies within the grief.Want to join me for more live masterclasses like this one? You can find me live most Saturdays at 8 a.m. U.S. mountain time on Insight Timer. Get full access to The Marcella Principle at themarcellaprinciple.substack.com/subscribe

What happens when an ER doc realizes—as many now do—that the system meant to heal us is profoundly broken? In this episode of The Marcella Principle Podcast, I talk with Amy Walsh—an MD turned wild woman and self-proclaimed nettle witch—as she chronicles her heroine’s exodus from the Western medical paradigm to the deeper forests of holistic healing and plant spirit medicine.Amy shares how her COVID burnout broke her down, then cracked her open to explore the witchy side of her own healing wisdom. Together we meander through her fourfold framework for authentic healing, laud the hardy spirits of lamb’s quarters, dandelion, and St. John’s wort, and explore the gut microbiome as our collective ancestral inheritance. If you’re longing for a rewilded medical model that’s more backyard garden than pharma factory, this is a talk you want to hear.Want more wisdom from Amy? Subscribe to The Nettle Witch here on Substack: Get full access to The Marcella Principle at themarcellaprinciple.substack.com/subscribe

You stare in the mirror and think, disgusting. You tug at your clothes, avoid the camera, dread the dressing room. You carry a shame so old it feels, in Carl Jung’s words, like the “swampland of your soul.”But what if that deeply personal shame is actually your tender heart of compassion, waiting to be born?In this first episode of a four-part series on body image and feminine power, let the wild innocence of the Maiden archetype guide you to shed your inherited shame and reawaken the sacredness of your body.Want to go deeper? Join me August 13–17 for A Pilgrimage to Self-Love, a 4-night retreat in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of Southern Colorado. Details at marcellafriel.com/retreat Get full access to The Marcella Principle at themarcellaprinciple.substack.com/subscribe

It’s easy to “love yourself” when, say, your wallet is full, or you’re having a great hair day, or life just generally feels like it’s on your side. But what about when the sorrows of personal and collective trauma feel like more than you can handle? Today in The Marcella Principle I share with you why the life-saving practice of self-love might be the most important choice you can make to find a home of inner ballast that weathers every storm.Because the circumstances of our lives that we might regard as unbearable, unspeakable, and infinitely shameful are the keys that open the gates to an equally unfathomable divine grace—the grail that always overflows and never runs dry.In the spirit of Fathers' Day (a holiday I never celebrated), I dedicate this post to the memory of my father, Howard Charles Friel Jr. (1925 - 1972), a man I never knew.Daddy went to prison when I was 18 months old and died there just before I turned 10. Years ago, on a solo hike in the deep Sangre de Cristo wilderness, I received a visitation from his spirit where he let me know he had been stuck in an afterlife limbo ever since he died. I sat in the woods with my hands on my heart and listened. Would I forgive him, he asked, for abandoning me and my family? For succumbing to the roaring undertow of his addictions? I sat quietly until a small voice came: Yes, Howard. Yes, Daddy, I forgive you. And I'll do what I can to help you move forward. In keeping that promise, this post is for you, Dad. May you know the love that you are, wherever you are.Join me for A Pilgrimage to Self-Love, a 4-night retreat in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of Southern Colorado, August 13–17, 2025. Through EFT Tapping, ritual, sacred sisterhood, and deep rest, you’ll reconnect with your body’s wisdom and remember the love that never left you. Get full access to The Marcella Principle at themarcellaprinciple.substack.com/subscribe

For all the pain that’s proliferated 24/7 these days, there’s a parallel universe of deep somatic healing flourishing right alongside it. Sometimes that medicine arrives in the form of one practice, one moment, or one question that unlocks a door we didn’t even know was closed. And it often comes just as we’re ready to receive it.In this episode of The Marcella Principle podcast I’m joined by Lulu Agan—surfer, yogini, and host of The Power of Just One, a free masterclass series running now through June 8.Listen as Lulu and I ride hilariously through waves of self-forgiveness and paddle peacefully through the bliss of pure being. Want to go deeper? Join Lulu, me, and 27 other wise women as we each share one practice you can do daily to activate the healing powers within you.These include * The power of Yoga Nidra for peaceful sleep* A healing journey through hypnotherapy* MELT magic: easing body pain with simple awareness* Connecting to the magic of plants and the earth* Feel it to free it: a somatic path to emotional liberationI’ll be speaking on June 6 about the one practice you can do to calm your inner mean girl and activate self-compassion, no matter your circumstances. Get full access to The Marcella Principle at themarcellaprinciple.substack.com/subscribe

In this first episode of The Marcella Principle, I explore how you can free yourself from the extremes of acting anger in or acting it out and instead honor the wildfire within by coming into wise relationship with this life-giving energy.It feels fitting that anger is my inaugural topic for this podcast. Because anger, just like this episode, is by its nature rough around the edges.After alligator-wrestling with GarageBand and a dozen other tech gremlins and cussing up a blue streak … after fretting and fussing about this detail and that … I’ve decided to trust that you, my beloved audience, will hear helpful words in my lumpy initial foray into podcast land. So many of us women are afraid to release our voices into the world. Heaven forbid we burp, or fart, or discover spinach in our teeth in the midst of our impassioned speech. But today I say, “Done is better than perfect.” And imperfect truth is better than polished procrastination, don’t you agree?In this episode, you’ll hear:* The ecological fallout of suppressing anger* The difference between acting in, acting out, and acting wisely* How anger, when honored, can deepen intimacy and fuel healing* Somatic and earth-based practices to metabolize anger* The flaming threads that connect rage, shame, boundaries, and body trustHow does anger show up for you? What has been the cost of your personal wildfire suppression? What would it take for you to come into respectful relationship with your native anger?Thanks so much for liking, sharing, and reposting! They fire me up to keep producing the content that you enjoy. And when you upgrade to paid you not only give me even more rocket fuel to keep doing this work—you also join Marcella’s Inner Sanctum, where you receive guided meditations, journal prompts, and other writings I share only with my loyal subscribers. Get full access to The Marcella Principle at themarcellaprinciple.substack.com/subscribe

Last fall at my “Becoming Ageless As We Age” retreat, I discovered an unexpected truth:A dozen women, in one powerful moment, confessed that they longed to rekindle their sexuality—whether by igniting passion with their husbands, venturing into solo exploration, or rediscovering intimacy after divorce. If this small gathering was any indication of our collective predicament, then the jury is in: Ladies … we need to talk about sex.Enter Ana Novakovic Odoi, a formidable force of wisdom in the realm of post-menopausal sexuality. Are there other women in your life who need to get in on this conversation? Share this post with them!With loving fearlessness Ana boldly declares that “menopause is the new 20”—not merely the new 40, but a radical reimagining of what it means to age with passion and power. Our candid conversation spans everything from the ancestral “witch wound” every woman carries, to why Freud was right after all about female orgasm, to why menstruating women are the heartbeat of the world. I came away from this conversation feeling that the roof of my cranium had been blown off. It took me a good few hours afterward to put my brain back together. Here’s a time-stamped summary of what we talked about when:* 0:00 Introduction* 1:14 Taoism and Tantra for 21st-century Western women* 8:20 Clitoral versus internal orgasm* 11:20 The ancestral sexual trauma every woman carries* 14:50 Masculine sexual trauma* 23:15 Why is menopause the new 20?* 35:56 It’s never too late for a happy first menstruation* 43:56 One woman, many partners * 50:22 Why all women need to cultivate an inner father* 53:33 Why menopause is the new 20 (really)* 57:43 Ancestral wisdom heals technocratic dehumanization* 59:30 A Taoist breathing practice for women to thaw their frozen zoneThanks for reading “Grief, Grit & Grace”! Your support helps me continue creating content about how we midlife women can make the rest of our lives the best of our lives. If you feel inspired by what you find here, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Would you like to go deeper with Ana? Reach out to learn more about her suite of offerings. She’d love to hear from you. Get full access to The Marcella Principle at themarcellaprinciple.substack.com/subscribe

In this talk from a winter virtual retreat I led with my Women, Food & Forgiveness Academy community, we explored a timely question:How do we un-conform ourselves to the swirling world of illusory appearances and instead transform ourselves by the renewing of our minds?Who do we seek to become in this aeon of collective degeneration prophesied in Hindu cosmology as the Kali Yuga, the darkest hour that precedes the dawn of the new Golden Age?The answer to such cosmic questions lie closer to home than you might imagine. Dive in with me, and after listening, I’d love to hear about the thoughts you are thinking and the actions you are taking to anchor yourself to sanity amidst the maya of a world in turmoil.Is there someone you know who would resonate with this talk? If so, please feel free to share it.Here’s what I talked about when:0:00 Welcome and introduction0:41 Discovering sacredness in a turbulent world1:45 The Kali Yuga: the last of a four-age cycle4:44 The choices you make matter 6:03 The crisis is the crossroads7:12 Hospice the death of the old; midwife the birth of the new8:15 The threefold commitment to yourself8:41 Regarding the body as sacred11:06 Every word you say matters14:41 Penetrating the illusions of mind15:56 Technology shabbat and the re-wilding of the soul17:10 Walking back to analog reality19:22 Be not conformed to this world20:17 Discovering what is truly sacred in our lives“The human race built most nobly when limitations were greatest, and therefore when most was required of the imagination to build at all. Limitations seem to have always been the best friends of architecture.” —Frank Lloyd WrightAre you seeking to make 2025 the year you reclaim your health on every level? Join my Women, Food & Forgiveness Academy in January and learn the spiritual and practical tools you need to transform your body into an ally for healing. Get full access to The Marcella Principle at themarcellaprinciple.substack.com/subscribe

“Shock has value,” says wise woman Josephine Spilka upon contemplating the outer and inner wreckage that mighty Hurricane Helene visited upon her life. After what she thought was a night of heavy rain, Josephine awoke in the early morning of September 27 to what sounded a freight train ripping through her house. When the stately rooted trees on her property began twirling like parasols through the sky and crashed down into a 10-foot-high barricade of tangled wood blocking her driveway, all she could do was sit on her sofa and cry trembling tears. No power. No cell phone service. No way to know what was going on elsewhere. Drawing on her decades of accumulated wisdom as a Classical Chinese Medicine practitioner, Buddhist devotee, and I Ching student, Josephine summoned her presence amidst the chaos and has emerged—is continuing to emerge—with, in her words, “trust in the natural order of Heaven and Earth.”Listen to Josephine express the privilege she feels by having experienced Helene firsthand and the opportunity it presents her to transmute crisis into blessing. Is there another natural disaster survivor you know who would draw strength from Josephine’s wisdom? If so, please share!Here’s a time-stamped summary of what we covered: * 0:00 Introduction: “Things will never be the same”* 9:52 We had no idea what was going on anywhere else* 10:50 The strange exhilaration of a living world heightened by disaster* 14:20 Natural elements don’t behave the way we expect them to* 16:09 You can’t pretend anything is ok* 17:30 “I Ching Hexagram 51: The Arousing”* 18:50 Thousands of dollars of wasted food* 22:19 Disaster has no opinion* 23:24 “What do I really need?”* 28:02 Kwan Yin’s blessing* 33:10 Astrological coincidence and the massive hand of fate* 36:10 Back to WNC: the impact on Josephine and the future of Asheville* 42:44 Trust in the natural order of Heaven and Earth* 47:58 We each need to become sovereign* 49:57 Nature eats chaos for breakfastTo follow Josephine’s insights on her continued journey, subscribe to her Monday Morning Notes here on Substack. ”The shock that comes from the manifestation of God within the depths of the earth makes man afraid, but this fear of God is good, for joy and merriment can follow upon it.” —I Ching Hexigram 51, The Arousing (Shock, Thunder) Get full access to The Marcella Principle at themarcellaprinciple.substack.com/subscribe

Election tension is running high and is likely to run higher in the coming days. I can’t say this to you strongly enough: Stop squandering your precious life force on people, places, and circumstances you cannot control. Remember: worry is praying for what you don’t want.Instead, turn off the shrieking media … find a quiet spot … put in your earbuds … and let this centuries-old Buddhist meditation on compassion bring you the peace you need to face whatever election outcomes unfold with skillful equanimity.Is there someone you know who is suffering from election anxiety who could benefit from listening to this meditation? If so, please share. Get full access to The Marcella Principle at themarcellaprinciple.substack.com/subscribe

If you’re biting your nails and grinding your teeth with election anxiety, step with me out of the madness and into a parallel universe where love comes alive in the specter of death. I initially intended to interview midlife renewal coach Anasuya Basil about the caregiving journey she’d undertaken to support Gary, her ex-partner, through his ordeal with stage 4 cancer. I was curious to hear how Anasuya, a multi-talented wise-woman healer, was taking care of herself while tending to Gary’s overwhelming needs.When Anasuya and Gary’s story took a unanticipated twist, I reached out to her immediately. What started as an odyssey of caregiving became a profound affirmation of passionate love in the face of impending loss. In Anasuya’s words, “It's a good way to live.”This is a story you must hear. Or watch, if you prefer video:Does someone in your life need to hear Anasuya and Gary’s story? If so, please share.If you’d like to support Anasuya and Gary's journey, they welcome your prayers and financial support. You can find Gary's GoFundMe page here. Read more about Gary's story and donate if the spirit moves you. Aging is inevitable. How you age is up to you. Take my brand-new online course, “Becoming Ageless As We Age,” where you'll learn EFT Tapping and other somatic tools to release regrets, revitalize your dreams, and journey to the eternal fountain of youth in the center of your heart.The course centers around talks I gave during an in-person retreat in August 2024. Pull up a chair and join the circle as we women-of-a-certain-age explore the raw and rugged issues that face us as we get older: loving our older bodies, getting back into sex, and rewriting the scripts of our past to go for the life of our dreams. Get full access to The Marcella Principle at themarcellaprinciple.substack.com/subscribe

Last month I had the privilege of talking with Erin Reese, host of Truth and Consciousness—one of my favorite podcasts here on Substack—about how planetary movements can give us insight and courage when our personal and collective lives feel overwhelming. Erin describes her work as “straddling the worlds using astrology as a portal for guidance and expression in day-to-day living alongside my truest love of the Advaita [nondual] wisdom teachings.”Erin also read my astrological natal chart (what she calls my “baby picture”) and forecasted events in my near future based on my astro-progressions and transits. (Chart screenshots are below.)You’ll find Erin’s wisdom reassuring whether you’re an astrology pro, a rank novice, or even a nay-sayer. And don’t we all need more reassuring wisdom these days?Here’s what we covered when: * 0:00 Introduction* 1:20 Using astrology as a portal for functioning in the duality of daily living* 8:39 How Erin uses channelling to create her podcasts* 10:45 Astrology, the Trump assassination attempt, and Biden’s withdrawal from the campaign* 14:08 How powering down technology changes the world* 16:00 How astrology helps us feel less crazy* 19:06 Erin reads Marcella’s astrological “baby picture”* 27:21 Marcella’s ambition for God* 30:50 Erin reads Marcella’s progressed chart* 34:31 Why Marcella is astrologically configured to teach forgiveness* 37:10 When Marcella’s spiritual journey took off* 40:47 Marcella and Erin’s composite chart* 43:54 What is “archetypal astrology”?* 48:11 How archetypes help us make sense of current events* 49:30 One of the most popular archetypes in Marcella’s Women, Food & Forgiveness Academy* 51:56 Why women need to connect to the Inner Father archetype* 53:52 “Walk toward the Hag”55:49 Where to find out more about ErinIf you’d rather watch than listen, here’s the video of our conversation:For those of you who like to geek out on the stars, here are the charts that Erin read in our conversation:* Marcella’s natal chart with planetary transits:* Marcella’s natal chart with planetary progressions:* Marcella and Erin’s composite charts:All acts of healing are acts of heroism, and reclaiming your soul from restrictive dieting is no exception. If you're ready to embark on a Heroine's Journey to heal the emotional roots of your food behaviors, sign up now to join the waitlist for my new Women, Food & Forgiveness Academy online course and be the first to enroll when the course opens in January 2025. Get full access to The Marcella Principle at themarcellaprinciple.substack.com/subscribe

After endlessly telling yourself, “someday I’m gonna …,” you finally gain traction in building those atomic self-care habits. Saying farewell to gluten and dairy, your belly feels calmer, your joints feel looser, and your clothes fit more comfortably. Getting out of bed and onto your yoga mat first thing in the morning, you step into your day feeling invigorated. But just as real progress appears … your motivation suddenly pitches off a cliff, and you mysteriously can’t be bothered to keep going. Is this just you being lazy?In this episode from my Women, Food & Forgiveness Academy archives, I invoke the archetype of the Queen to help you delve into the insidious nature of doubt that emerges just as you're thriving, especially during the midlife journey. Listen as I reveal the timeless antidotes that can free you from the trap of doubt and help you age like the Sovereign you know you can be.How is doubt showing up for you these days? What are the actions you know you need to take but just aren’t doing? Let’s talk about it. Get full access to The Marcella Principle at themarcellaprinciple.substack.com/subscribe

Anxiety, wrinkles, and stiffness: How can the elemental science of Ayurveda help us heal these symptoms of aging using everyday ingredients from our own kitchen?Today I meander through these questions and more with Ayurveda educator Mary Sheila Gonnella of Occidental Nutrition.Listen as Mary Sheila walks us through simple self-loving practices you can begin immediately to calm your soul and hydrate your aging body. This talk is a teaser on our upcoming in-person retreat “Becoming Ageless As We Age,” led by Mary Sheila and me August 1 - 5 in Southern Colorado.Want to dig deeper into the topics Mary Sheila and I covered? Here are the links:“Becoming Ageless As We Age,” a transformational wellness retreat for midlife women in Southern Colorado August 1 - 5, 2024, led by Marcella Friel and Mary Sheila Gonnella.CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), how to find one near youDeAnna Batdorff, Mary Sheila's Ayurveda mentorBauman College Holistic Nutrition + Culinary Arts, where Marcella and Mary Sheila metFearless Aging with Meridian Tapping, Marcella and Mary Sheila's course on DailyOM. Get full access to The Marcella Principle at themarcellaprinciple.substack.com/subscribe

Today I continue my soft tiptoe into podcast land with belly-health and body-love expert Allison Post. Allison is author of The Gut Wellness Guide: The Power of Breath, Touch, and Awareness to Reduce Stress, Aid Digestion, and Reclaim Whole-Body Health.In 2019 our mutual publisher, North Atlantic Books, arranged an author conversation between Allison and me to celebrate the publication of my book, Tap, Taste, Heal. I reached out to Allison recently to catch up on what’s changed in our world in the five years since we met. In sharing her “belly autobiography” Allison tells of how, in the early 1970s, she became an unwitting casualty in a malfeasant medical experiment that cost her and over 300,000 U.S. women their fertility. Her journey of recovering from that devastation led her to become a healer of last resort for other medical guinea pigs who have been consumed and tossed out of the mainstream health-care system. Our talk segued into the health challenges many are facing today in the wake of the most recent global medical experiment launched on all of us in the past several years. Allison’s wisdom, as relevant then as it is now, can be summed up in three words:Ask. Listen. Love.For those who want to dig deeper into the topics Allison and I covered, here are some resources for you:* The Dark History of the Dalkon Shield * DES Action Information and Resource Center * The Story of Thalidomide in the U.S.* Front Line COVID Critical Care Alliance: Support for People with Long COVID and COVID-Vaccine Health Complications* Infrared Breast Thermography Research and Resources * Dr. John Campbell on YouTube * The Center for Humane Technology: Creators of the Documentary The Social Dilemma* Real Not Rare: Stories of People Injured by COVID-19 Vaccines * React 19: Science-Based Support for People Suffering from Long-Term COVID-19 Vaccine Effects Is there someone you know who would benefit from listening to my talk with Allison? If so, please feel free to share. Get full access to The Marcella Principle at themarcellaprinciple.substack.com/subscribe