The Soft Rebellion Podcast

Have you ever wondered if your body is speaking a language you’ve just never been taught how to understand? And what if your hormonal or pelvic health challenges were actually an invitation into deeper alignment with yourself?In today’s conversation - the final round of the Healthy Vagina Project - I am sitting down with Claire Dabreo. Claire is a Five Element acupuncturist and women’s health specialist with over 15 years of experience supporting fertility, hormonal balance, pregnancy, postpartum recovery, and intimate wellbeing. Through the lens of Chinese medicine, she helps women better understand the rhythms of their bodies and restore balance with practical, holistic care.In this conversation we talked about:💫 What led Claire to become the women’s health practitioner she is today; her first experience of Chinese Medicine when she experienced premenstrual tension as a teenager, and how acupuncture found her at a “transitioning threshold moment” in her life, supported her to “step out of the mess” and to unravel and find closer to her soul`s purpose and her creative flow.💫 Chinese medicine and its map and principles “meridians”, what 5-Element Acupuncture is - which is Claire`s practice - and why it is such a potent holistic approach for vaginal and pelvic health.💫 How physical symptoms are signals for something which is “disrupted” on deeper levels and how in acupuncture those symptoms can be seen as codes to find out where the energetic workings of the body need support - as ultimately this way of working is about creating conditions for the body to heal itself, not about fixing, it allows “everything to come into balance”, treating the whole person not just the symptoms.💫 The importance to name the emotional aspect of health challenges, especially pelvic health, as much as the physical. Claire calls the the pelvic bowl and womb our “sacred witchy space”, which I love :-), and we talked about how pelvicchealth is about stepping into our creativity and yes to ourself and our soul s alignment.Enjoy!---🌟 Join my softly rebellious on Substack - subscribe here.🌟 Sign up here to receive a copy of my free workshop about The wild and poetic anatomy of the female body.🌟 Book a Holistic Pelvic Care session with me in person in London or online, find out more here.---💛 The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email [email protected]:- Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: @flurina.thali / www.flurinathali.com- My guest, Claire Dabreo, you can find her webpage here and here,  follow her on Instagram and Facebook @thelondonacupuncturist and @TheHarmonyPrinciple This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

Dear Listeners, The Healthy Vagina Project is gradually cycling itself to an end … but not quite! Today I have the great joy to introduce you to Natalie Meddings! She has been supporting women through birth for over twenty years as a mother, doula and active birth teacher. She is also the author of How to Have a Baby and Why Homebirth Matters. Natalie approaches birth with deep respect for the body’s innate intelligence and sees it as an ongoing journey of learning and trust.In this episode, we explore why birth support matters so deeply - not only for how we give birth, but for how we come to trust ourselves in the process. We talk about birth as an initiation: not just into motherhood for our babies, but into a deeper relationship with ourselves. We also touch on the very physical reality that the way we birth, and how we experience our births, can influence the health and state of our vaginas and pelvic bowls.In this conversation we explored:💫 How modern life can leave us disconnected from our bodies - “heads on walking sticks”- and how this affects the way we approach birth.💫 The tendency to theorise about birth while remaining disconnected from its true physicality and intensity.💫 Natalie’s perspective that a healthy birth is in the mother’s gift, and that the mother’s body is designed to work on the baby’s behalf - giving women every reason to trust themselves completely.💫 How to navigate the negative narratives surrounding childbirth today, and how understanding the anatomy and physiology of birth can help women and birthing people approach birth with confidence and common sense.💫 A deeper (and delightfully geeky) dive into the science and mechanics of childbirth - from oxytocin and the brain–womb connection, to the importance of movement in labour, and how birth is a process of releasing tension so the baby can mould its way out of the mother’s body.💫 The role of a doula, and how our respective work - doula support and holistic pelvic care- intersect and complement one another in supporting women through birth and beyond.Enjoy!BIG LOVE, Flurina This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

If you’re curious to explore natural approaches to support menstrual health challenges today’s episode is for you. My guest, Melinda McDougall, is a registered Medical Herbalist specialising in women's health and runs a busy online clinic seeing patients across the UK and beyond. She combines the latest scientific research into botanical medicines with the traditional knowledge women have used for centuries to manage their health.Melinda shares a treasure trove of herbal information about how to improve irregular periods, heavy and painful menstruation, endometriosis, as well as how to reduce stress, and help your body to feel better overall!In this conversation we explored:- Melinda`s story and what led her to become a medical herbalist and why she decided to specialise in the field of women’s health.- The roots of medical herbalism in indigenous practices and knowledge and how plants have always been “the people’s medicine”.- Why medical herbalism is such a profound and potent holistic model to understand health and support our female and menstruating bodies beyond symptom management.- Various menstrual health challenges as well as endometriosis and how medical herbalism can be of support in these situations.---🌟 Join my softly rebellious on Substack - subscribe here.🌟 Sign up here to receive a copy of my free workshop about The wild and poetic anatomy of the female body.🌟 Book a Holistic Pelvic Care session with me in person in London or online, find out more here.---💛 The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email [email protected]:- Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: @flurina.thali / www.flurinathali.com- My guest, Melinda McDougall: You can find her webpage hereCredits:Intro/outro music – ‘Hymn for Jim’ by Aspyrian: Robin Porter – saxophone, Jack Gillen – guitar, Matt Parkinson – drums, composed by Robin Porter, listen to the full track here, graphic: Annina Thali, for more information click here This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

Painful, heavy, chaotic periods have become so normalised that many women are told to simply “get on with it.” But what if that narrative is wrong?In this powerful conversation, I sit down with Gemma — former NHS nurse, herbalist and founder of The Well Woman Project — to challenge the deeply rooted cultural and medical narratives around menstrual pain. We explore why period pain has been normalised, how shame and silence have shaped menstrual health care, and what it really means to reclaim agency over your body.If you’ve ever been told your symptoms are “just part of being a woman,” this episode is for you.In this conversation …💫 We name the historical — and present — menstrual landscape shaped by shame, silence and an illness-based narrative. We unpack how this narrative formed and why it needs dismantling.💫 Gemma shares her own menstrual journey — how her experience of “chaotic cycles” and various diagnoses sparked a deep question: How can I support myself beyond the conventional allopathic route? That quest ultimately led her to specialise in menstrual health and write her book.💫 We redefine menstrual health and examine why painful periods are not “normal.” Pain is a communication tool. When we understand the physiology behind it — particularly the role of inflammation — we begin to see what may worsen symptoms and what can genuinely help ease them.💫 We discuss why and how menstrual health matters for vaginal health and overall mental wellbeing!💫 Tracking your cycle isn’t just about fertility — it’s about gathering meaningful data. Gemma shares how women and menstruators can resist medical gaslighting, advocate for themselves and feel more confident in conversations with healthcare professionals.More about Gemma:Gemma is a former NHS nurse, herbalist and founder of The Well Woman Project. With over 20 years’ experience in health and wellbeing, she specialises in helping women decode painful, heavy and chaotic periods that have too often been dismissed or minimised.She is the author of Periods Aren’t Meant to Bloody Hurt and an outspoken advocate for better conversations around menstrual health and conditions such as endometriosis, adenomyosis and PMDD.Blending clinical insight with holistic practice, Gemma challenges medical gaslighting, empowers women to understand their bloodwork and symptoms, and teaches them how to reclaim agency over their bodies.Her work sits at the intersection of feminism, physiology and practical action. She is known for her grounded, straight-talking approach, depth of knowledge, and refusal to accept that debilitating periods are “just part of being a woman.”---🌟 Join my softly rebellious on Substack - subscribe here.🌟 Sign up here to receive a copy of my free workshop about The wild and poetic anatomy of the female body.🌟 Book a Holistic Pelvic Care session with me in person in London or online, find out more here.---💛 The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email [email protected]:- Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: @flurina.thali / www.flurinathali.com- My guest, Gemma Barry: You can find her webpage hereCredits:Intro/outro music – ‘Hymn for Jim’ by Aspyrian: Robin Porter – saxophone, Jack Gillen – guitar, Matt Parkinson – drums, composed by Robin Porter, listen to the full track here, graphic: Annina Thali, for more information click here This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

Yes, how do rites of passage shape women’s lives?In this episode, former homebirth midwife, teacher, writer, and menstrual, childbirth, and menopause educator Jane Hardwicke Collings joins me to explore how menstrual shame, birth trauma, and menopause have shaped women’s identities for generations — and how we can reclaim these rites of passage as sources of power rather than pain.Together we explored and talked about … 💫 Jane’s journey — the breadcrumbs she followed that led her to become the woman and leader she is today, and how “suddenly everything made sense” when her midwifery practice met the art of shamanism.💫 A powerful teaching Jane shares: “How we move through our rites of passage directly influences how we live our lives.” She speaks in depth about the blood rites and the women’s mysteries, guiding us into a deeper understanding of these sacred transitions.💫 We also explore the negative cultural narratives surrounding menstruation, childbirth, and menopause — the medicalisation and pathologising of the female body and its life phases. Jane shares what happens when we do not consciously honour our transitions — from menarche (our first bleed) to motherhood and menopause — and how these experiences silently teach us what our culture believes about women’s value and worth.💫 As Jane says, “The menstrual cycle is running your life, whether you pay attention to it or not.” So we might as well turn toward it. We might as well listen. We might as well learn to move with it instead of against it — allowing it to guide us into deeper self-trust and embodied wisdom.Enjoy this episode. If you have ever felt disconnected from your cycle, confused about your transitions, or longing to reclaim the sacredness of your body, this conversation is for you.BIG LOVE and happy Sunday!Flurina This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

In this grounded and liberating conversation, we speak about birth work, abortion, and reproductive justice through the lens of doula work, activism, inclusivity, and embodied experience. My guest, Sara Bakr invites us to rethink who birth support is for, what care can look like, and why bodily autonomy must be at the center of it all and a free Palestine.Sara is a Black, mixed, pro-abortion full spectrum doula. She created Ancestral Birth out of pure necessity as people need and deserve better support through all pregnancy outcomes. In short, she radically supports and gently nurtures individuals and families through life transition. Her personal mission is to improve sexual and reproductive health services as she believes in reproductive justice and bodily autonomy for all.In this conversation we talked about:💫 Sara’s multicultural upbringing between Egypt, Norway, Sudan and now North London — and how learning to embrace change from a young age shaped her path into birth work.💫 Living in a fat, mixed-ethnicity body and what it means resisting the somatic norms that teach us which bodies are acceptable and which are not.💫 What a doula is, what full-spectrum support means, and why care must include all pregnancy outcomes.💫 How continuous support and advocacy can impact safety, communication, pelvic health, and overall birth experiences.💫 The financial privilege of accessing doula care and the systemic inequalities within maternity services.💫 Abortion doula work, supporting loss without shame, and why reproductive justice and bodily autonomy are at the heart of Sara’s activism.I hope you enjoy this conversation!---🌟 Join my softly rebellious on Substack - subscribe here.🌟 Sign up here to receive a copy of my free workshop about The wild and poetic anatomy of the female body.🌟 Book a Holistic Pelvic Care session with me in person in London or online, find out more here.---💛 The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email [email protected]:- Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: @flurina.thali / www.flurinathali.com- My guest, Sara Bakr: You can find her webpage here, follow Samara on Instagram here.Credits:Intro/outro music – ‘Hymn for Jim’ by Aspyrian: Robin Porter – saxophone, Jack Gillen – guitar, Matt Parkinson – drums, composed by Robin Porter, listen to the full track here, graphic: Annina Thali, for more information click here This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

Dearest listener, dear community, THANK YOU for all your feedbacks and messages for the health vagina project - it is my absolute pleasure! 💜In this episode together with Dunya Ntinizi we continue and deepen the conversation about how somatic movement practices can support us in healing pelvic health challenges and reconnecting to the wisdom of the female body.Dunya shares her lived experience, professional insights, and spiritual journey, inviting us to explore the pelvic bowl as more than anatomy — as a place of memory, healing, and profound resourcefulness.In this conversation …💫 We continue weaving the meaning of the pelvic bowl as a place of healing and resourcefulness. Dunya shares why this is the place in our female bodies where “we hold our stories,” how we can meet the pelvic bowl as a “patient listener,” and how to navigate the contrast between our inner experience and the outer world.💫 Dunya speaks about her Congolese roots and Christian upbringing, which sparked an inner rebellion and led her to realize that her body is more than just a body — it is her most sacred textbook.💫 She shares how the practice of Longo, a healing dance rooted in Congolese spirituality, guided her to uncover and create her unique somatic approach to working with the female body: Somapresence.💫 We explore why and how somatic movement practices are an essential piece of the puzzle on the path to healing pelvic health challenges.💫 Dunya explains what Somapresence is and facilitates a guided movement process rooted in the inherent expression of the pelvic bowl.💫 We speak about why working with the female body is an ongoing process of opening to the unknown — and how pivotal life experiences led her to discover her own womanhood.I hope you enjoy this conversation. BIG LOVE,Flurina This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

Welcome to the fourth conversation of The Healthy Vagina Project - through the lens of Somatic Movement and Birth Work!This conversation follows a golden thread woven through the landscapes of this project: the cyclical nature of the pelvis, sensation, movement, and life itself. The pelvis as a place of deep sensory intelligence. A place that holds grief and pleasure, descent and rising, birth and death. A place that remembers.Together we explore what becomes possible when we trust the body’s timing, allow sensation to guide us, and meet pain not as something to fix, but as something alive, relational, and meaningful.Samara Concepción is a holistic birth doula, a women’s health practitioner, and a social artist, based in London. She is devoted to elevating women’s experiences of womanhood, pregnancy, birth and motherhood through reacquainting them with their deepest source of truth and power, which is their innate body wisdom. Samara is the host of the Birth: A New Story podcast, which is a gathering place for visionary voices to explore what it means to be human and welcome new life into the world with reverence, and is the director of the emerging documentary film by the same name.In this conversation we explored:💫  Descent and rising: In moments of pain and grief, descent is natural and doesn’t need to be fixed. It’s a rich, layered experience that fosters connection. Samara shares how she navigated these moments, especially when the descent feels endless, and highlights the importance of not descending in isolation — we need the presence of others.💫  The pelvic bowl brings us into deep relationship with the earth, natural law, and creative cycles. The pelvis has the capacity to feel the deepest rivers of grief and pleasure, birth and death, and connects us to something eternal and intangible, if we dare to listen.💫  Why it’s essential to begin listening and nurturing a relationship with our bodies if we are on a journey to heal pain and physical challenges.💫  Samara shares how her dance training led her to somatic movement, feeling like a return to the initial desire to move for pure pleasure and joy, and how she learned to let her body lead again.💫  What inspired Samara to become a guide and teacher in birth work and women’s health was her exploration of the question: “How would birth unfold if women were invited to meet their bodies’ innate wisdom through somatic movement?”💫  We can all begin to inhabit our pelvic bowl physically by attuning to sensation and discovering resources of aliveness and pleasure — it’s a subtle and profound process.I hope you enjoy this conversation!---🌟 Join my softly rebellious on Substack - subscribe here.🌟 Sign up here to receive a copy of my free workshop about The wild and poetic anatomy of the female body.🌟 Book a Holistic Pelvic Care session with me in person in London or online, find out more here.---💛 The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email [email protected]:- Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: @flurina.thali / www.flurinathali.com- My guest, Samara Concepción: You can find her webpage here, follow Samara on Instagram here.- Other sources mentioned: You can listen to my conversation with Carly Mountain here, and you can explore Samara`s podcast and her conversations with Carly hereCredits:Intro/outro music – ‘Hymn for Jim’ by Aspyrian: Robin Porter – saxophone, Jack Gillen – guitar, Matt Parkinson – drums, composed by Robin Porter, listen to the full track here, graphic: Annina Thali, for more information click here This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

What does it mean to truly listen to the body — especially the pelvic bowl — rather than trying to fix it? In this conversation with Avni Trivedi, we explore women’s pelvic health through touch, osteopathy, grief, and embodiment. Together, we speak about how personal health journeys shape our work, how unprocessed experiences live in the body, and how practices of touch, movement, and self-care can gently support healing and transformation.Avni Trivedi is an experienced and intuitive practitioner using touch and movement to help people to connect with their bodily wisdom. She is a Women’s Health and Paediatric Osteopath, Birth Doula, Zero Balancer and Non-Linear Movement Teacher. Her podcast, Speak From the Body’ explores themes such as embodiment, stress, trauma, hormones and pleasure. Avni runs regular workshops called ‘Moving Through Loss’ to gently address grief in the body.I very much loved the daily live self care inputs Avni shared with us at the very end, so to stay with us or return if you take a break in between.In this conversation, we talked about:💫  Avni’s path, and how her personal experiences and health challenges shaped her journey into becoming the women’s health practitioner and teacher she is today. She shares what bodywork means to her, and why touch is such a potent tool “to bring us back into our physical body” and to feel truly listened to.💫  Avni’s way of practising osteopathy, and the other philosophies and healing modalities she weaves into her work with patients and women.💫  The strangeness of learning about sacred yoni work through a Western lens, even though the language and inspiration come from Indian and Eastern traditions. We explore how to navigate these entanglements as practitioners, and the importance of naming them.💫  Experiences of grief in and through the female body — such as early pregnancy loss or abortion — and how these may lie at the root of pelvic health issues. Avni shares about her grief workshops and how we can begin to meet these experiences and emotions in more resourced and supportive ways.💫  Our shared fascination with the pelvic bowl as a place where we tend to store so much shame and pain, while it also holds the very medicine needed for healing and transformation.💫 Avni’s daily self-care and pelvic bowl practices, and the “1%” she returns to in order to nurture her body and soul.I hope you enjoy this conversation!---🌟 Join my softly rebellious on Substack - subscribe here.🌟 Sign up here to receive a copy of my free workshop about The wild and poetic anatomy of the female body.🌟 Book a Holistic Pelvic Care session with me in person in London or online, find out more here.---💛 The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email [email protected]:Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: @flurina.thali / www.flurinathali.comMy guest, Avni Trivedi: You can find her webpage here, listen to her podcast Speak From the Body podcast here and follow her on Instagram here.Credits:Intro/outro music – ‘Hymn for Jim’ by Aspyrian: Robin Porter – saxophone, Jack Gillen – guitar, Matt Parkinson – drums, composed by Robin Porter, listen to the full track here, Graphic: Annina Thali, for more information click here This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

Have you ever wondered what it truly means to practice yoga through a woman’s lens — one that honors the body’s wisdom, its fluid nature, intuition and (hormonal) life transitions?In this episode, I’m joined by Lynn Murphy, an experienced practitioner and teacher in women’s yoga, the active birth movement and pelvic health. We explore how her personal journey — from menarche to menopause, activism to artistry — shaped a lifelong dedication to supporting women’s wellbeing through yoga informed by the teachings of Vanda Scaravelli.In this conversation, we talked about:💫 Lynn’s personal journey as a woman and artist — from menarche to birth and postpartum and menopause — and how this has shaped her path into yoga, the birth world and women’s health.💫 Why following our intuition, this deep inner voice of our true calling is part of a healthy vagina and pelvic bowl!💫 What Lynn means with “Yoga through a women’s lens”; Lynn shared about the pioneering teaching of Vanda Scaravelli and how her teaching has (and continuously does) transformed Lynn`s yoga practice.💫 What lies at the core of this approach to yoga, namely being present with gravity, the breath and a fluid spine so that we can cultivate a sense of soft strength, find more ease through less effort and reconnect with the body`s inherent intelligence.💫 Lynn`s offer, Women’s Yoga; Lynn shared how she works with women of all ages and stages and how this practice can support pelvic health, nervous system regulation, and hormonal transitions … and why this is an important part of the pelvic health toolbox.💫 How through these conversations we learn what The Healthy Vagina Project is truly about; Inclusion and awareness, to acknowledge that the whole body is healing the part - to be with the pelvic bowl is asking us to be with the whole body - as practitioners and patients, to name that  we know as much as we don’t know and through talking between practitioners we can weave a web of support for all women, that the alternative way of healing can exist next to the medical path, there is space for both / and … on all levels!More about Lynn:Lynn Murphy is a yoga teacher, trainer, and birth trauma recovery practitioner with over 30 years’ experience supporting women’s pelvic health. Her work is trauma-informed and pelvic-centred, helping women reconnect with their pelvis through embodied yoga, breath, and practical practices. She mentors women through life transitions and trains teachers and therapists in programmes such as Pelvic Love Sessions, Womb to World, and Mother Love. Lynn is deeply committed to helping women feel empowered, resourced, and at home in their bodies.I hope you enjoy this conversation!---🌟 Join my softly rebellious on Substack - subscribe here.🌟 Sign up here to receive a copy of my free workshop about The wild and poetic anatomy of the female body.🌟 Book a Holistic Pelvic Care session with me in person in London or online, find out more here.---💛 The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email [email protected]:Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: @flurina.thali / www.flurinathali.comMy guest, Lynn Murphy: Learn more about her work here and follow her on Instagram @herplacebylynnCredits:Intro/outro music – ‘Hymn for Jim’ by Aspyrian: Robin Porter – saxophone, Jack Gillen – guitar, Matt Parkinson – drums, composed by Robin Porter, listen to the full track here.Graphic: Annina Thali, for more information click here This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

I am so excited and deeply grateful to be launching The Healthy Vagina Project with this conversation.This project has been living in my body and heart for a long time, and it feels incredibly meaningful to begin it with a topic that is so often unnamed, misunderstood, or shamed: Intimacy, sexuality, and sexual energy as a vital part of pelvic and vaginal health.In this episode, I’m joined by Daven Lee, an integrative craniosacral therapist and intimacy coach for women who feel a deep, unmet sexual longing.After over a decade of working with women, she recognizes this longing is not just about sex, but is actually a coming from what she calls the Sexual Soul - our essential life force energy that expresses in everything we do. Through her 1:1 work, as well as workshops and online programs, she helps women trust their desire, heal their sexual past, and embody their feminine power so they can blossom into their full expression sexually - and in everything they do.In this conversation, we explore why intimacy and sexuality are not optional extras when it comes to pelvic health, but rather core expressions of this part of our body - and why they are so often the most silenced.In this episode we talked about:💫 What led Daven to this work, including her own lived experience of longing, desire, and the moment she realised that turning away from intimacy would mean turning away from life itself.💫 How intimacy coaching supports women on their healing journeys - emotionally, energetically, and physically.💫 Why sexual energy is not about performance or orgasm, but about cultivating life force, presence, and deep listening.💫 Insights from Sacred Tao teachings, including Yin and Yang, polarity, and feminine cultivation beyond gender.💫 Why intimacy and sexual energy are a crucial missing piece of pelvic and vaginal health - and a foundational pillar of The Healthy Vagina Project.💫 A powerful guided practice to connect with your pelvic bowl, sexual energy, and the subtle rise of Yin and Yang.💫 How to meet sexual trauma and abuse with gentleness, resourcing, and pathways toward healing.This conversation invites us to slow down, listen deeply, and reconnect with the wisdom held in our pelvis—the place where truth lives, and where healing can begin.---🌟 Join my softly rebellious on Substack - subscribe here.🌟 Sign up here to receive a copy of my free workshop about The wild and poetic anatomy of the female body.🌟 Book a Holistic Pelvic Care session with me in person in London or online, find out more here.---💛 The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email [email protected]:Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: @flurina.thali / www.flurinathali.comMy guest, Daven Lee: Learn more about her work here and follow her on Instagram @hellosexualsoulCredits:Intro/outro music – ‘Hymn for Jim’ by Aspyrian: Robin Porter – saxophone, Jack Gillen – guitar, Matt Parkinson – drums, composed by Robin Porter, listen to the full track here.Graphic: Annina Thali, for more information click here This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

In this end-of-year (and Christmas 🧑‍🎄) conversation, I’m joined by Asha Frost for a deeply grounding and timely exploration of cyclical wisdom, rest, and healing. As we move toward winter solstice and the intensity of the holiday season, we speak about slowing down, honouring ancestral knowledge, and remembering that our worth is not tied to productivity. This episode invites you into the deep medicine of inner wintering — in the body, the creative process, and life itself.Asha Frost is an Indigenous (Ojibwa) healer, best-selling author of the book You Are The Medicine, speaker and guide. Drawing on her ancestral knowledge and innate gifts, Asha has become a prominent figure in the field of Indigenous healing, garnering recognition on both local and international platforms.She has created transformative experiences for thousands with heart, profound wisdom and unwavering dedication to her heritage.In this episode we talked about:💫 The origins of The Inner Winter: Asha shares what led her to write the book, emerging from a deep place of survival and her own resistance to rest, shaped by oppressive systems that equate worth with productivity.💫 Writing as decolonial healing: She reflects on how creating the book became a personal journey of unwinding colonial harm and internalised narratives around doing, striving, and earning rest.💫 Living with chronic illness: Drawing from her lived experience with lupus, Asha speaks honestly about illness, rest, and healing, challenging the shame and blame often attached to diagnosis and the belief that being unwell is our fault.💫 The gifts of the Inner Winter: The Inner Winter invites us to release productivity-based self-worth and recognise wintering as a powerful phase of intuition, connection, learning, and deep inner evolution.💫 Wintering in a fast, capitalist world: Asha explores how to honour rest and wintering in a culture that values speed and output, emphasising trust in our inherent enoughness simply as we are.💫 Illness, healing, and deep medicine: The Inner Winter speaks to those navigating chronic illness, mental health challenges, postpartum seasons, or feeling unseen and left behind—offering illness as an invitation to go deeper, where profound healing and creative medicine can emerge, even if cure is not possible.💫 The power of Spirit Animals: We spoke about spirit animals and explored the symbolism of the bear and the butterfly, and how spirit animals can support us through different phases of healing, transformation, and rest.Enjoy!---🌟 Join my softly rebellious on Substack: Subscribe here.🌟 Sign up here to receive a copy of my free workshop about The wild and poetic anatomy of the female body.🌟 Work with me 1:1 online or in person, find out more here.---💛 The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email [email protected]:- Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: @flurina.thali / www.flurinathali.com- My guest, Asha Frost: Find out more about her work through her website here. Follow Asha on Instagram here.Credits:Intro/outro music – ‘Hymn for Jim’ by Aspyrian: Robin Porter – saxophone, Jack Gillen – guitar, Matt Parkinson – drums, composed by Robin Porter, listen to the full track here.Graphic: Annina Thali, for more information click here This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Chris Bobel, one of the most influential (scholarly) voices in menstrual activism and critical menstruation studies. For more than twenty years, Chris has been pushing the boundaries of how we understand menstruation - not just as a biological event, but as a powerful lens into culture, politics, and social justice. Our conversation explores how menstrual health sits at the intersection of human rights, feminist activism, and collective liberation, and why examining the systems and stories that surround our bodies matters more than ever.Chris Bobel is a Professor of Women's, Gender & Sexuality Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Since 2003, Chris has been a pathbreaking scholar of menstrual activism, exploring how menstrual health is a matter of both human rights and reproductive justice. As past president of the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research and frequent media consultant on menstrual activism, Chris unites feminist thinking with feminist doing. Her major publications in this area include New Blood: Third Wave Feminism and the Politics of Menstruation and The Managed Body: Developing Girls and Menstrual Health in the Global South. Her co-edited open-access Palgrave Handbook of Critical Menstruation Studies has been downloaded over 3 million times worldwide. In this conversation we talked about:💫 Chris’s personal journey into menstrual activism and how her early research, including New Blood, led her to map the menstrual movement and identify its core activist groups.💫 What surprised her during that research—especially the points of resistance she encountered—and why critically examining the movements we love is essential.💫 The concept of cultural inscription and what it reveals about how society shapes our understanding of bodies, menstruation, and belonging.💫 How privilege shows up within menstrual activism and why awareness is necessary to create more inclusive, justice-centered work.💫 Why menstrual advocacy must extend beyond individual self-improvement into collective action and broader social change - and how menstrual literacy becomes a tool of resistance.💫 How menstrual stigma sits at the root of so many challenges in this field and why naming it openly is key to transforming the narrative.Enjoy!---🌟 Join my softly rebellious on Substack: Subscribe here.🌟 Sign up here to receive a copy of my free workshop about The wild and poetic anatomy of the female body.🌟 Work with me 1:1 online or in person, find out more here.---💛 The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email [email protected]:Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: @flurina.thali / www.flurinathali.comMy guest, Dr Chris Bobel: Dr Chris Bobel is working at the University of Massachusetts Boston, you can find her contacts here, you can find direct free access to the Palgrave Handbook of Critical Menstruation Studies here, you can find her book New Blood here.Credits:Intro/outro music – ‘Hymn for Jim’ by Aspyrian: Robin Porter – saxophone, Jack Gillen – guitar, Matt Parkinson – drums, composed by Robin Porter, listen to the full track here.Graphic: Annina Thali, for more information click here This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

What might change if we treated menstruation not as something to hide, but as a source of knowledge - about ourselves, our society, and the systems we live in? What if the way we relate to the menstrual cycle could teach us how to build a more humane world? Could paying attention to menstruation be a way of paying attention to what our culture has forgotten — care, rest, and integrity?In this episode I have the great honour to talk to Dr. Lara Owen. Lara is recognised internationally for her pioneering and continuing work on menstruation. She is the author of Her Blood Is Gold, first published by HarperCollins in 1993, and Reorganizing Menstruation, published by Oxford University Press in 2024. She holds a PhD in menstrual organisation from Monash Business School and is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of St Andrews. Lara teaches a Master’s level course in Contemporary Menstrual Studies that attracts students globally and consults with organisations worldwide on menstrual policies and practices.In this episode, Lara shares generously from both her academic and spiritual paths — the “both/and” of menstruality: holding intellect and embodiment, activism and inner work, courage and stillness. We talk about how her life’s work evolved from a dream and a deep listening to the soul, to becoming a leading global voice on menstruation and menstrual organisation.Together we explored:🌙 How Lara followed and follows her soul path - from acupuncture to writing Her Blood Is Gold and pursuing groundbreaking menstrual research …❤️ … and ow living and working from the heart — even in humble, small ways — nurtures both the individual and the collective.🩸 Why menstruation is the “canary in the coal mine” of capitalism — and what it reveals about our economic and social systems.💡 The idea that our lives are activism — that living with integrity and wholeness is a radical act of resistance.🧘 The importance of slowing down, trusting timing, and avoiding shortcuts in a world obsessed with productivity and profit.🔬 The need for nuanced, empirical research in menstruality — and Lara’s vision for bridging the embodied and the academic.📚 Her latest book Reorganising Menstruation, and how menstruation offers us a model for reorganising society toward care, commons, and wholeness.🌏 The rise of menstrual literacy and the revolutionary potential of women reclaiming their cycles.This is a conversation about embodiment, integrity, and imagination — about how deep trust and alignment can become the quiet revolution our world needs.Enjoy!🌟 Join my softly rebellious on Substack: Subscribe here.🌟 Sign up here to receive a copy of my free workshop about The wild and poetic anatomy of the female body.🌟 Work with me 1:1 online or in person, find out more here.---💛 The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email [email protected]:Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: @flurina.thali / www.flurinathali.comMy guest, Lara Owen: www.laraowen.com - you can find all informations about her course on her webpage, follow Lara on instagram @drlaraowenCredits:Intro/outro music – ‘Hymn for Jim’ by Aspyrian: Robin Porter – saxophone, Jack Gillen – guitar, Matt Parkinson – drums, composed by Robin Porter, listen to the full track here.Graphic: Annina Thali, for more information click here This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

What if descent wasn’t something to fear, but a sacred invitation — to soften, to surrender, to remember who we truly are beneath the noise? This conversation with Carly Mountain felt like sitting beside a fire, slowly warming the parts of ourselves we’ve hidden away. With tenderness and deep wisdom, Carly guides us into the mythic, sensual, and often-forgotten terrain of the body, of feminine cycles, of descent and rising. This is a conversation about remembering — not just with the mind, but with the whole body. It stayed with me long after we stopped recording. I hope it touches you, too.Carly Mountain is a writer, author of the book Descent and Rising, psychotherapist and initiatory guide. She facilitates women and the people who love them, to remember, reclaim and reconnect with their sensual, emotional, embodied aliveness and instinctual knowing that is rooted in the earth. She draws on twenty years of embodied practice, training and space holding and has a trauma informed approach.In this conversation we explored:💫 Carly`s story and what she rebelled against and is softy rebelling for! Yes, coming home to your body is an act of rebellion. But don’t do it for that. Do it for you. For your body. For your sensuality. For your creativity. For your relationship with yourself and all things.💫 The myth of Inanna and her descent into the underworld …💫 Carly shares how this myth mirrored her own personal journey and why it continues to speak to modern women facing burnout, identity shifts, or creative rebirth.💫 How women’s bodies are encoded for this ancient map and the journey of descent and rising in a special and powerful way. Woman, you are made to descend and rise!💫 How our culture medicalises the experience of a “break down” when in fact to fail is to birth - a break down invites us to descent, to embrace what we have abandoned in our (earlier) life and it’s the beginning of a healing journey. We descent into wounding to raise into healing!💫 We explore the myths call to reclaim erotic intelligence, surrender, and embodied wisdom. Carly reframes surrender not as weakness but as the courage to meet what’s real - and sees descent not as failure, but as the doorway to collective healing.Enjoy!🌟 Join my softly rebellious on Substack: Subscribe here.🌟 Sign up here to receive a copy of my free workshop about The wild and poetic anatomy of the female body.🌟 Work with me 1:1 online or in person, find out more here.---💛 The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email [email protected]:Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: @flurina.thali / www.flurinathali.comMy guest, Carly Mountain: www.carlymountain.com, follow Carly on instagram @carly_mountainCredits:Intro/outro music – ‘Hymn for Jim’ by Aspyrian: Robin Porter – saxophone, Jack Gillen – guitar, Matt Parkinson – drums, composed by Robin Porter, listen to the full track here.Graphic: Annina Thali, for more information click here This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

What if the act of creating — a book, a poem, a life — is also an act of soul retrieval? In this tender and powerful conversation, Coco invites us into the deep terrain of trauma, healing, and divine remembrance. Her voice carries the wisdom of one who has walked through fire and returned with medicine: the sacred feminine, the regenerative force of the body, and the healing power of creative expression. This is a conversation about truth-telling, about birthing the self, and about trusting that our bodies are living libraries of ancient, sacred knowing.Coco is a UK-based mother, grandmother, creative, mystic, soul guide and writer. Her creativity is informed by her journey as a devotee of the Tantric path (an embodied path of self-liberation) and her personal journey with trauma. She has always felt a call to channel the Voice of the Divine Feminine and is published in several bestselling anthologies. Often thought provoking, yet always heartfelt her work speaks of the sacred wisdom stored in the body, the non-linear nature of trauma and the embodiment of soul. She believes that our innate connection to the natural world can heal humanity.In this conversation we explore:- The inspiration and medicine behind Coco’s recently published book, Digging for Mother’s Bones.- The story that shaped the book — beginning in abuse and mental illness, and unfolding through a spontaneous Kundalini awakening, a near-death experience, and a long journey of integration.- How the process of writing the book became a path of healing: reclaiming sacred body wisdom, releasing trauma, and embodying the divine feminine.- The thresholds Coco crossed — from inner resistance to cultural conditioning — and how the creative process initiated her into a new expression of self.- Practical insights on how creativity can guide us through fear, resistance, and transformation.- A deep dive into the archetype of the Mother and the Great Mother — the regenerative, feminine force of creation — and how we can unearth the body’s wisdom as a living, sacred library.Enjoy!🌟 Join my softly rebellious on Substack: Subscribe here.🌟 Sign up here to receive a copy of my free workshop about The wild and poetic anatomy of the female body.🌟 Work with me 1:1 online or in person, find out more here.---💛 The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email [email protected]:- Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: @flurina.thali / www.flurinathali.com- My guest, Coco Oya: www.creativelycoco.com, follow Coco on instagram @creativelycocoCredits:- Intro/outro music – ‘Hymn for Jim’ by Aspyrian: Robin Porter – saxophone, Jack Gillen – guitar, Matt Parkinson – drums, composed by Robin Porter, listen to the full track here.- Graphic: Annina Thali, for more information click here This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

What if motherhood isn’t just a role we step into — but a rite of passage that invites us to heal, transform, and reconnect with the cycles of life?In this rich and nourishing conversation, Naomi Glass shares her journey from disconnection to deep embodiment, from inner patriarchy to cyclical living. Together, we explore the sacred messiness of motherhood, the healing power of nature, and the quiet revolution that begins when we learn to listen — to the earth, to our bodies, and to the wisdom passed down through generations.Naomi Glass is a conception, birth, baby loss, and postpartum doula, as well as a Matrescence Coach and Birth Story Specialist. Through her practice and space Embracing the Waves, she supports people in navigating the deep rite of passage into parenthood - helping them feel heard, anchored, and empowered.She offers one-to-one sessions, circles, and workshops (both online and in-person), and is also co-Director of the Real Health Collective CIC, a community project focused on holistic wellbeing for families. Based in West Wales, Naomi is a home-educating parent, smallholder, and writer, committed to healing ancestral legacies and reconnecting with the earthIn this conversation we explore:💫  Naomi’s story - from an urban upbringing marked by disconnection and struggle, to a soft rebellion that led her toward light, meaning, and healing.💫  How rediscovering nature and growing her own food helped her heal from disordered eating and find a sense of place in the world.💫  Her involvement in environmental activism, and how learning about the cycles of nature helped her come home to the cycles within dismantling inner hierarchies and patriarchal conditioning.💫  Why reconnecting with the rhythms of nature is key to reconnecting with ourselves.💫  The ongoing, often unspoken rite of passage that is motherhood - and how birthing and parenting her daughters launched her into the transformational process of Matrescence.Enjoy!🌟 Join my softly rebellious on Substack: Subscribe here.🌟 Sign up here to receive a copy of my free workshop about The wild and poetic anatomy of the female body.🌟 Work with me 1:1 online or in person, find out more here.---💛 The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email [email protected]:- Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: @flurina.thali / www.flurinathali.com- My guest, Naomi Glass Find out more about all her offers on her webpage www.embracingthewaves.comCredits:Intro/outro music – ‘Hymn for Jim’ by Aspyrian: Robin Porter – saxophone, Jack Gillen – guitar, Matt Parkinson – drums, composed by Robin Porter, listen to the full track here.Graphic: Annina Thali, for more information click here This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

In today`s episode I`m talking to Dr. Cacky Mellor who invites us to reframe shame as a sacred space - a place where healing begins, stories are reclaimed, and the body becomes a source of power rather than pain. We explore how trauma, illness, and cultural conditioning shape our inner narratives - and how somatic work can help us come home to ourselves.Dr. Cacky Mellor is a teacher, healer, and community builder whose work blends art therapy, somatics, complementary medicine, and depth psychology to support trauma resilience and healing on both personal and community levels. She specializes in women and femme empowerment, helping people reclaim their bodies and stories through her remote practice, Somatic Reclamation.With a background in art therapy and holistic psychology, Cacky holds a Master's in art-based activism and social entrepreneurship, is a Master Somatic Movement Therapist and Educator, a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, yoga teacher, and Reiki master. She also earned her Ph.D. in Depth Psychology with a focus on Somatic Studies from Pacifica Graduate Institute. Her work is deeply rooted in community, social justice, and the transformative power of the arts and embodied healing.This is such a deep, generous and raw conversation about the essence of life - this gentle meeting of who we are on a deepest soul level. Enjoy! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

Have you ever wondered what it really means to be female? Do you sometimes resent being female in a man’s world? Do you feel like something is missing in your experience and don’t know what it is?Today’s guest, Dr. Sharon Moloney, has spent a lifetime exploring and writing about exactly these questions — and the body of work she has created is pure healing. She says, “I’m a proud and passionate ambassador for the female state of being. It’s the one thing that lights me up just thinking about it, and for which I want to be remembered after I’m gone.”I am so deeply grateful and happy to have had Sharon on the podcast!Dr. Sharon Moloney is an author, speaker, women’s health therapist, and bodyworker who guides women to find, reclaim, and embody their sacred female power. Her mission is to restore the sacredness of the female body, which she believes has a crucial role to play in restoring male/female balance on the planet. Her work is informed by her PhD, which explored menstruation and birth as female spiritual experiences. Sharon believes that our female bodies are our most intimate connection with Nature, and her book Activate Your Female Power is a guided journey into that intimacy.In this conversation, we explored:- Sharon’s personal story of growing up as the fourth daughter of a mother who desperately wanted a son, and how she experienced her first period as an extraordinary spiritual awakening that led her on a path to uncover and teach about the sacredness and power of the female body.- The incredibleness of the female body and the menstrual cycle as an invitation to turn inward, connect with spirit, and unfold our truest and greatest potential.- The negative hypnotic trance of menstrual shame, and why it is a core patriarchal organizing principle that predisposes women to approach birth feeling fearful, disempowered, and vulnerable to intervention.- And so much more!---🌟 Join my softly rebellious on Substack: Subscribe here.🌟 Sign up here to receive a copy of my free workshop about The wild and poetic anatomy of the female body.🌟 Work with me 1:1 online or in person, find out more here.---💛 The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email [email protected]:Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: @flurina.thali / www.flurinathali.comMy guest, Dr. Sharon Moloney: www.sharonmoloney.com, you can email her at [email protected] book Activate Your Female Power, is available here on Amazon or here in Australia.Her online video program can be found here.Credits:- Intro/outro music – ‘Hymn for Jim’ by Aspyrian: Robin Porter – saxophone, Jack Gillen – guitar, Matt Parkinson – drums, composed by Robin Porter, listen to the full track here.- Graphic: Annina Thali, for more information click here This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

What is our Second Spring? Who are we after menopause? How can we harness the wisdom we’ve gained from previous cycles and transitions to navigate this shift? AND how can the wisdom of menopause plug us deeper into our cyclical summer years too?This is what I talk about in today’s episode with guest Kate Codrington. Kate is a mentor, speaker, facilitator, artist and podcaster. She is also the author of Second Spring: The self-care guide to menopause, one of the seven best books on menopause according to the New York Times. Kate mentors professionals and people in perimenopause and beyond, is a nature-based Yoga Nidra meditation guide, hosts Life - An Inside Job podcast, has been a therapist for over 30 years and creates multi-level art textile projects.In this liberating and permission-giving conversation we explored:* Kate`s “homecoming journey” and how the tough experience of navigating kids and perimenopause led her to the depth of her cycle (just as she lost it!) and initiated her into becoming a trailblazing teacher and mentor in the field of (peri)menopause.* The seasons and cycles of a woman’s life, from menarche, to our cyclical years, menopause and beyond.* Why in the summer season she needs her spirit recognised, is invited to plant the seeds of her dreams - and if at times we give ourselves away too much it’s NOT a mistake!* How menopause is a beginning as this season asks us, very intensely, to come into relationship with ourselves and shows us where we need to put our attention to.* Why we deeply need to re-write the menopause narrative, and colour in the vibrant, creative life that happens in our Second Spring.* How learning about menopause can plug us youngsters ever deeper into our creative summers!---🌟 Join my softly rebellious on Substack: Subscribe here.🌟 Sign up here to receive a copy of my free workshop about The wild and poetic anatomy of the female body.🌟 Work with me 1:1 online or in person, find out more here.---💛 The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email [email protected]:Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: @flurina.thali / www.flurinathali.comMy guest, Kate Codrington: www.katecodrington.co.uk, follow Kate on instagram @Kate_codringtonCredits:Intro/outro music – ‘Hymn for Jim’ by Aspyrian: Robin Porter – saxophone, Jack Gillen – guitar, Matt Parkinson – drums, composed by Robin Porter, listen to the full track here.Graphic: Annina Thali, for more information click here This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

You are never not embodied. You are a body — a treasure trove of wisdom and native intelligence. There’s a bubbling abundance of insight within you, but it’s not something you can access through the mind alone. That’s why we’re called to give authority back to the body — to let her know she can be trusted, and to rewild our experience which is the sacred return to our true nature.But what does it really mean to live in our body again — to stop outsourcing truth to the mind and remember the language of sensation, instinct, and pleasure?In this episode, I’m joined by the incredible Michaela Boehm. Michaela teaches and counsels internationally as an expert in intimacy and relationships. Born and raised in Austria, she combines a background in psychology and extensive clinical counseling experience with deep training in the yogic arts. Her unique body of work sits at the intersection of embodiment and intimacy. Michaela is the author of The Wild Woman’s Way and the founder of The Non-Linear Movement Method®, a powerful somatic release practice.Together, we explore:- Michaela’s journey from effortless embodiment in childhood, to a period of disconnection and being “stuck in her head,” and finally to discovering profound embodiment practices that now shape her life’s work.- What embodiment really means: giving authority back to the body, cultivating interoceptive awareness, and deeply listening to the messages the body constantly sends us.- How we can rewild ourselves — returning to the body, to pleasure, and to the art of being rather than always doing— even in the busyness of modern life. Michaela shares powerful embodiment practices that allow us to live a wildly creative life without burning out.- Why so many of us end up as “thinking heads on sticks” — and how we can reconnect with the lower body to awaken intimacy, pleasure, and aliveness. We also discuss how to meet the shame that can arise in this reconnection, especially around the lower body.---🌟 Join my softly rebellious on Substack: Subscribe here.🌟 Sign up here to receive a copy of my free workshop about The wild and poetic anatomy of the female body.🌟 Work with me 1:1 online or in person, find out more here.---💛 The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email [email protected]:Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: @flurina.thali / www.flurinathali.comMy guest, Michaela Boehm: www.michaelaboehm.com, follow Michaela Boehm on instagram @micboehm77 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

The Sacred Feminine is about your power, my power, and the deep, ancient wisdom that guides us toward authenticity, healing, and transformation. Herstory and mythology - often erased or forgotten - reveal that women have always been undeniable forces of nature. These stories offer us new frameworks for leadership, creativity, and courage in a world crying out for change. If we allow Her to lead, the Sacred Feminine offers a roadmap to the most powerful, embodied version of ourselves.In this episode, I`m talking to Liz Childs Kelly, a writer, award-winning researcher, educator, community builder, and host of the popular Home to Her podcast dedicated to amplifying the voices of the Sacred Feminine. She is also the author of Home to Her: Walking the Transformative Path of the Sacred Feminine, a 2023 Nautilus Gold award winner.I can still feel my soul shimmer and my heart take flight when I think back to my conversation with Liz. Thank you, dearest Liz, for your work, your courage, and your truth-telling. It’s real, it’s urgent, and it’s so deeply needed.This conversation is a wake-up call—a power talk urging us to release what no longer aligns, even when it's terrifying. Especially when it's terrifying. Sometimes, we have to leap into the unknown to reclaim our power and remember our strength.In this conversation we explored:* Liz’s journey back home to herself and to the Sacred Feminine—how she has always been a seeker, and how the Sacred Feminine gifted her with the profound realization: “I am not crazy. The system is.”* The nature of female power, and how to reclaim it in a world built around entirely different paradigms. Liz explains why stepping into the unknown is essential to awakening our creative potential and bathing in the cosmic womb.* Liz shared about the 5 ancient secrets of female power and we can embrace and live them now!* The power of darkness—the place everything emerges from, the place we are born from. In the darkness, divinity unfolds. It’s where we begin to hear Her.* The importance of honoring liminality in our lives. We are cyclical beings, and the liminal is not just a transitional space—it is life-affirming, sustainable, and necessary.Take a rest, lean into darkness and enjoy this wonderful conversation. I`m looking forward hearing from you and what your greatest takeaways are. BIG LOVE, Flurina xxx This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

We all come from the feminine — from the mother. You and I have unfolded from bodies within bodies. (Did you know the egg that created you was already in your mother’s ovaries when she was still a fetus in your grandmother’s womb?) And yet, we often take her — the mother — and her story for granted. We forget our greatest source, Mother Earth, and our maternal lineage, which is often tangled with shame, grief, and silence.In this episode, I speak with Pippa Grace — a socially engaged artist, writer, sculptor, and author of Mother in the Mother. This powerful anthology brings together stories from over fifty women, exploring the many layers of motherhood — particularly through the lens of the three-way relationship between grandmother, mother, and child.Pippa’s work is devoted to amplifying quiet, everyday stories that are often overlooked or forgotten. Where voices have been silenced, her practice helps them find expression through creative means. A lifelong feminist, she specializes in working with women to explore themes like motherhood, grand-motherhood, menarche, the female body, and trauma.In this conversation, we explore:* Pippa’s personal journey and what inspired her to write Mother in the Mother. She shares from her experience of estrangement from her birth family, how she felt the lack of mother, and how giving birth became a portal to reconnecting with her maternal lineage and the power of her female ancestors.* The themes of maternal lineage and women's experiences when they themselves became a mother. We touch on what are some of the challenges or joys women often encounter in their own relationships when they themselves become a mother, how becoming a mother in itself, can be healing for some women, and we look at how Pippa explored the role of being both a mother and a daughter in the same body.* Her work as an arts therapist, using creative methodologies that help participants rediscover their creative voice, share their stories, and connect more deeply with themselves, their communities, and their environments.* Practical and inspiring ways we can begin to explore our own maternal lineage for both personal and collective healing.Enjoy listening! BIG LOVE, Flurina xx This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

What if midlife wasn’t a crisis - but a calling?In this soul-stirring episode, I sit with Phoebe - heart-centred women’s coach, women’s circle facilitator, and voice activation guide - to explore the initiatory nature of perimenopause, the power of voice, and the transformative healing found in circle work.Phoebe shares from her personal journey: From feeling lost and stripped of identity to discovering her creative power through morning pages, voice, and sitting in circle with other women. We talk the power of circle initiation to guide us home to our cyclical bodies and how perimenopause is a rite of passage to remember and reconnect with the wild, intuitive wisdom we’ve long ignored.If you've ever experienced or are experienced at the moment this sense of dissolving, and despair - and yet you know that a deeper part of you is waiting to (finally) emerge and act upon - this episode is for you.In this conversation we explored:- Phoebe`s path: How perimenopause and the unraveling of identity led her to her experience and hold women’s circles and how the experience of losing her sense of self  opened the door to true feminine leadership. Phoebe shared what feminine leadership means to her and how she’s embodying it.- Phoebe`s moment of awakening through singing on  a women’s retreat, and how voice became a channel for healing and creativity.- The wisdom of the cyclical body and how we can return to it after years of living in our heads.- Why sitting in circle is a sacred act of rebellion, a return to ancient feminine ways and how it can guide us home to our bodies.Join my softly rebellious on Substack: Subscribe here.Register for my upcoming free workshop on the 25th of June 2025 about The wild and poetic anatomy of the female body. You can claim your seat here.---The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email [email protected]:Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: @flurina.thali / www.flurinathali.comPhoebe Rose: www.phoeberose.co.uk, follow Alice on instagram @p.h.o.e.b.e.r.o.s.eCredits:Intro/outro music – ‘Hymn for Jim’ by Aspyrian: Robin Porter – saxophone, Jack Gillen – guitar, Matt Parkinson – drums, composed by Robin Porter, listen to the full track here.Graphic: Annina Thali, for more information click here This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

Over the last few weeks I have landed with a new question to start my days; when I wake up and emerge into the potent liminality of the early morning hour, I ask «Mother Earth, who do you need me to be today?» This question is inspired by one of my dearest teachers, Jane Hardwicke Collings who urges us to be the woman the earth needs.Lately Mother Earth keeps sending me this message: «I need you to soften», she says, «I need you to soften into your own experience, into the wholeness and rightness you are».And this message led me to (re)discover what I am sharing with you in today’s episode - The art of softening as an incredibly profound portal to lean into the wild and poetic landscapes of the female body.And so today I invite you to join me to soften. Just a little.P.S: In case you don’t know (yet), I am obsessed with the female body. I have dedicated my life to studying the body through dance, osteopathy, anatomy and embryology, as a practitioner, lecturer and researcher. I feel called to share this growing body of playful wisdom with you - I call it the wild and poetic landscapes of the female body. She guides us home to the creative power within, to the temple our body is, invites to plug in, come home to our root and awaken our into our lived experience and silent felt sensation.P.P.S.: During this episode I invite you to listen back to two earlier episodes, one about the wild and poetic anatomy of your heart, and one about your miraculous ovaries.Sign up to my newsletter, to be the first to receive an invitation for my upcoming free workshop, claim your seat here.Join the community and subscribe to my wildly poetic universe on Substack, I can’t wait to have you join me!---The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email ⁠[email protected]⁠.---Social media: Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: ⁠@flurina.thali⁠Visit my webpage: www.flurinathali.comBOOK an in-person 1:1 sessions with me here.Credits:Intro/outro music – ‘Hymn for Jim’ by ⁠Aspyrian⁠: Robin Porter – saxophone, Jack Gillen – guitar, Matt Parkinson – drums, composed by Robin Porter, listen to the full track ⁠here⁠. Graphic:Annina Thali, for more information click ⁠here⁠ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

What does it mean to rebel softly — to walk a spiritual path that challenges, heals, and liberates, to let go of the costume which no longer fits you, feel an intuitive sense of flow to life and trusting your own experience?In this soulful episode, I sit down with the amazing (and ever so inspiring!) Alice Grist — an award winning author, tarot deck creator and spiritual guide to rebellious women looking to invoke intuition and sacred connection through everyday lives — to explore the intersection of creativity, intuition, and mystical rebellion.In this episode we explored:* Alice’s journey which began in a mystical, other-worldly childhood as the daughter of a vicar and a radical feminist mother, and deepened in her teenage years within spiritual circles, laying the foundation for a lifetime of spiritual study and practice.* What the Soft Rebellion means to Alice; namely to awaken as much as to who we are and to who we are NOT!* The art of Tarot; Alice shared how tarot keeps transforming her life as it serves not as a tool of prediction, but as a mirror — reflecting the parts of ourselves we most need to meet.* Intuition! We explore what it means to “follow our intuition”, how to actually do it … and how to meet the fear and doubt along the way!This episode is a call to the wild, wise woman within — to begin trusting your intuition, unpicking the doubts, and riding the creative current until the wheel comes off!Join my softly rebellious on Substack: Subscribe now!  - www.flurinathali.com/Book a (wildly poetic) Osteopathy session with me @moon in London, more here. https://www.mwhealth.co.uk/practitioners/flurina-thali-110/---The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email [email protected]:Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: @flurina.thali / www.flurinathali.comAlice Grist: www.alicegrist.co.uk, follow Alice on instagram @alicegrist This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

What if your womb is the creation portals for your leadership? And the transformed leadership we want for our world and communities will be born through our wombs, and the work of tending to our wombs and bodies? Today I am talking about womb healing and leadership with Tumelo Moreri who is an initiated Spiritual Healer, Womb Medicine Woman and Embodied Leadership Guide based in Botswana. She supports women seeking to heal their inner womb wounds and pains and reclaim the power and sovereignty of their wombs. Tumelo`s work is influenced by African Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Psycho-spiritual Healing, and is grounded in the Kingdom of God, and in mentorship and training in Womb Healing, Quantum Healing, Cosmic Womb Wisdom, Menstruality and Cycle Awareness, Pleasure and Intimacy Work, Sacred Sexuality, and Trauma-Informed space holding.This is such a deeply authentic and insightful conversation, from woman to woman and womb to womb - enjoy!  In this conversation we explored:​Tumelo`s journey, and how she was guided to develop this work when being selected for a leadership development program in 2014 which set her onto a deep journey of inner healing, truly meeting herself, starting to converse with her womb and research this field extensively. ​What womb healing is and how we may heal our womb. Tumelo shared different modalities for healing our womb and self-care practices we can incorporate into our day-to-day life to support the healing of your womb.​We talked about what might necessitate womb healing in general, and also specifically for us as women leaders. Tumelo shared why we need to do our inner healing work as leaders. We explored the potential of our body and womb to serve as creation portals for a new earth and for an integrated leadership.​We talked about abortion and early pregnancy loss and that there’s a growing absence of resources (that women know of and are aware of) to facilitate healing for this experience as a Rite of Passage for women. Tumelo offers a womb healing program to restore and honor pregnancy and pregnancy loss as a Rite of Passage and an initiation of womanhood.Receive my free mini course: From body shame and disconnect to joy and into the fullness of your creative power: - www.flurinathali.com/ ---The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email [email protected]:Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: @flurina.thali / www.flurinathali.comTumelo: www.tumelomoreri.com, follow Tumelo on instagram @tumelomoreriCredits:- Intro/outro music – ‘Hymn for Jim’ by Aspyrian: Robin Porter – saxophone, Jack Gillen – guitar, Matt Parkinson – drums, composed by Robin Porter, listen to the full track here. - Graphic: Annina Thali, for more information click here This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

New solo episode out! Join me as I share with you how the Soft Rebellion has shown up in my life recently- pitching bloody miraculous article ideas! - and hear what 3 questions guide me through my daily meditation and journal practice to hear the voice of my inner rebel and act upon it! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

Four years ago, I read a book called "Loving What Is" by Byron Katie and learned about a process called The Work, which became a catalyst for my homecoming journey. This process gifted me with what I call "the poetry of truth"—so deeply meaningful, liberating, and full of joy. As part of that process, I met an incredible woman, Evie, today’s guest! Evie sat with me for many hours, doing The Work and holding the space to awaken to the truth beneath stories, beyond fear and fantasy...I am deeply excited to share our story, her story and the gifts of The work with all of you today! The Soft Rebellion is she who knows (and practices!) the power of inquiry and meets what she is yearning for - divine intelligence and unconditional love. Evie Karen Gibbens is a certified facilitator and trainer of The Work of Byron Katie and a kundalini yoga teacher. With a deep passion for inquiry, she guides individuals through self-inquiry processes to uncover clarity, peace, and radical innocence. Her work integrates influences from A Course in Miracles, A Course of Love, Nonviolent Communication, and other transformational teachings. She offers courses and workshops, including Radical Innocence and Working With Feedback, to help people meet life’s challenges with openness and self-compassion.In this episode we talked about:- Evie’s story and how she discovered The Work. Evie shares how this process has changed her life, as she learns to love what is, being invited to see through veils of illusion and tapping into inner wisdom beyond stories and fears—a deeply transformative journey of remembering the wholeness she has always been.- We explored why and how The Work gives us the tools to open our minds and set ourselves free—a process of liberation, meeting the freedom to love.- Evie explained the steps of this simple, yet deeply profound process, which is accessible to all of us, always. The Work is a meditative process, designed to identify and question what you think. It’s a way of getting intimate with your own thoughts.- We did The Work! In order for you to see (and feel!) how doing the work looks, Evie guided me through the process of inquiry with a stressful thought I experienced recently.Enjoy!Receive my free mini course: From body shame and disconnect to joy and into the fullness of your creative power: - www.flurinathali.com/ ---The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email [email protected]:Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: @flurina.thali / www.flurinathali.comEvie Gibbens: Webpage: www.selfinquirywithevie.com, follow Evie on Instagram @eviekarengibbens.comCredits:- Intro/outro music – ‘Hymn for Jim’ by Aspyrian: Robin Porter – saxophone, Jack Gillen – guitar, Matt Parkinson – drums, composed by Robin Porter, listen to the full track here. - Graphic: Annina Thali, for more information click here This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

What does your womb mean to you? How do you relate to her and nurture your connection? What if you were invited to tune into her movement and join her dance? What if our journey of homecoming is about learning to perceive the anatomy of our very selves (not a textbook!) through the lens of our sensual experience? I am thrilled to welcome Anja Gysin back onto the podcast. Anja is a dancer, choreographer, and Somatic Movement Educator in Body-Mind Centering. She has been teaching movement and dance as a healing force for over 25 years. In both her artistic practice and teaching, Anja centers the nature of the human being, creating space for the unfolding of the individual while also inviting a connection to the spirit that binds us all. Truly, a medicine dancer!In our conversation, we explore both of our embodied womb journeys. The womb is our first physical home, a deep connection to our inner world, a symbol of our dreams, and what we wish to birth into the world. It is a space of transformation, a source of life, and a place of feminine healing.In this episode, we discuss:* Anja's personal womb journey and how she continues to re-story her connection to her womb through movement and dance. She shares her experience with the menstrual cup, her first encounter with the magic of women's circles in Canada, and the transformative experience of giving birth to her children.* The meaning of both our physical womb and the social womb. Anja talks about why womb work is world work and peace work, and why she feels the term "feminine awakening" doesn’t resonate — were we ever really asleep?* How dance and movement can support us in reconnecting with and reclaiming our wombs. Through movement and dance, we give the womb life of her own. Anja shares how she works with women, meeting their pain and suffering, and helping them transform these into joy and a powerful "YES" to their bodies.Enjoy!Receive my free mini course: From body shame and disconnect to joy and into the fullness of your creative power: - www.flurinathali.com/ ---The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email [email protected]:Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: @flurina.thali / www.flurinathali.comAnja Gysin: www.medizintaenzerin.chCredits:- Intro/outro music – ‘Hymn for Jim’ by Aspyrian: Robin Porter – saxophone, Jack Gillen – guitar, Matt Parkinson – drums, composed by Robin Porter, listen to the full track here. - Graphic: Annina Thali, for more information click here This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

What if the journey of homecoming to the female body begins with sharing our experiences of inhabiting a female body?In this solo episode I share with you a recent so magical, joyful and bloody powerful encounter in my favourite coffee shop in South East London in which a “business” meeting transformed into a circle of connection with another woman. We openly and shamelessly discussed menstruality, inspiring the women around us to do the same. This experience is giving birth to a new, deeply meaningful definition of the Soft Rebellion. Enjoy!Receive my free online workshop: A guided journey to explore and reclaim your soft rebellion - access it ⁠here⁠.---The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email ⁠[email protected]⁠.---Social media: Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: ⁠@flurina.thali⁠Credits:* * Intro/outro music – ‘Hymn for Jim’ by ⁠Aspyrian⁠: Robin Porter – saxophone, Jack Gillen – guitar, Matt Parkinson – drums, composed by Robin Porter, listen to the full track ⁠here⁠. * * Graphic: Annina Thali, for more information click ⁠here⁠ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

What does social justice and inclusion mean to you? What stories of your past make you to notice, sense and feel racial injustice? Where in you does personal injustice live? And how do you feel you can use your practice of menstrual cycle awareness to dismantle inequalities within you and the world?In this episode I am embarking on a racial injustice inquiry with Dr. Cre Dye, a dear friend, teacher, mentor, sister and such an incredible woman! Yes, we are the daughters of our stories and the stories that inform who we are, are the seeds of our revolutionary work. So let us look deep within and do the work! I am truly excited and honoured to share this conversation with you. About Cre:The theme of social justice and inclusion is a red thread in Dr. Cre`s Soft Rebellion journey and is how she is guiding herself and others back to the body, back home to belonging, and how she helps us understand how can be be together and support each other as a community and as human beings. Dr. Cre is an Associate Professor,  Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor and Supervisor and Registered Yoga Teacher/Trainer – 500. She has served her local, national, and international communities with heart, mind and body activism for over 25 years as a mental health therapist, yoga teacher / trainer and university professor. She is also part of the Red School team as a Menstruality Justice and Inclusion Educator, facilitating inner change for social change on our Menstruality Leadership Programme, supporting us all to work with the power of the cycle in a way that is just and inclusive.In this conversation we explored: - Dr. Cre Dye`s journey of being born into a family of a black mother and a white father, how she grew into a world of difference and how this work (of social justice and inclusion) has birthed her. We explore how the environment we grow into shapes our believes about the world around us and how the concept of cognitive dissonance helps us to wake up from veils of illusion. - Why inner change equals social change. Dr. Cre Dye shared with us why feeling guilty for being privileged isn’t the way forward but becoming conscious about differences in our lives and using our privileges to “fill the gap” and and create opportunities for others, thereby fostering a more equitable and compassionate society.- How we can use the practice of menstrual cycle awareness to dismantle inequalities within ourselves and the world. Our menstrual cycle is our greatest guide to become aware of the different aspects within ourselves and perspective around us, empowering us to challenge the societal norms that perpetuate imbalance.Enjoy!Receive my free mini course: From body shame and disconnect to joy and into the fullness of your creative power: - www.flurinathali.com/ ---The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email [email protected]:Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: @flurina.thali / www.flurinathali.comCre Dye: www.indrayogainstitute.com, Instagram: @credyeyogaCredits:- Intro/outro music – ‘Hymn for Jim’ by Aspyrian: Robin Porter – saxophone, Jack Gillen – guitar, Matt Parkinson – drums, composed by Robin Porter, listen to the full track here. - Graphic: Annina Thali, for more information click here This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

How often do you hide the truth of your female body and neglect her cyclical rhythm (and the magic that comes with it)? When was the last time you completely let go, dropped your bundle, and surrendered to the need to rest—unexpectedly, out of the blue—because your body was asking for it in that very moment? And when did you last fully surrender to your desires, with a big smile in your heart, without judging yourself for it?In this episode, I invite you to join me on a walk along the Ravensbourne River in South East London. Let’s sit together on a bench as I share the story of my recent experience on day 25 of my menstrual cycle, which unexpectedly transformed into a day 1 experience. In that shift, I turned shock and frustration into profound surrender, unveiling golden nuggets of wisdom along the way (which I can’t wait to share with YOU). It felt like waves of homecoming, and I want you to taste that, too.P.S.: I’m so excited to be back with a solo episode! I’ve missed connecting directly with you, my wonderful, softly rebellious community. I can’t wait to hear your takeaways from this short episode and learn where you are on your Soft Rebellion journey, and how she's showing up in your life right now.This episode is so wildly poetic and so bloody real. Like the Soft Rebellion. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

In this fascinating episode, I am joined by Dr. Jaap van der Wal, Ph.D., a medical doctor and renowned expert in embryology and anatomy. Gradually, he developed into a teacher of philosophy of science and medical anthropology and today he calls his teaching “Embryosophy” as he finds in the embryo tentative answers to questions about the meaning of human existence. Jaap van der Wal has been a teacher of mine in the past and I follow his work with deep respect, admiration and fascination. Whilst feeling very nervous (and aware of the vastness of this topic and my yet little “knowledge”) it was such a delight to talk with him about the Embryo. We were all embryos once, right? This episode guides us to really deeply appreciate that!The Soft Rebellion is she who awakens to the embryo within her, acknowledges that her being is an embryonic way of life, her adult body a process, always, and allows those forces to keep shaping her being. And dreams. Enjoy!Receive my free mini course: From body shame and disconnect to joy and into the fullness of your creative power: - www.flurinathali.com/ ---The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email [email protected]:Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: @flurina.thali / www.flurinathali.comJaap van der Wal: www.embryo.nl This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

How can being highly sensitive be a gift rather than a burden, and how do we learn to embrace and navigate that sensitivity in our lives and work?In this episode, we dive into the world of bodywork and healing. Jo is an experienced Osteopath whose journey has taken her beyond physical health and into the realms of emotional and spiritual. We explored how we can create a safe space for ourselves - and our patients - to surrender, trust and come home to our bodies. Jo shared how she navigated and still navigates her path as a highly sensitive being and it can be a gateway for deep transformation. If you’re someone who identifies as highly sensitive or if you’re curious about how shamanic practices can be integrated into modern therapeutic work, this episode is for you. Tune in to hear Jo's powerful insights and learn how you can navigate your own healing journey with more softness, trust, and confidence - and meet the fear of being “weird” or “witchy”! Read more about Jo: Jo initially earned a degree in Fine Art before retraining as an Osteopath, inspired by her own positive experience with osteopathic treatment for back pain. She has been a practicing Osteopath for over 17 years. In addition to her clinical work, Jo lectures at the European School of Osteopathy and serves as a personal tutor and student mentor.Jo’s specialist interest lies in working with the effects of trauma and stress, whether stemming from physical or emotional causes. During her exploration of trauma responses, she encountered the shamanic concept of "soul loss," which sparked her interest in shamanism and indigenous healing practices. Since 2019, Jo has been training in psycho-spiritual and therapeutic shamanism, focusing on integrating shamanic techniques into modern therapeutic settings.Jo is also deeply committed to supporting her fellow osteopathic colleagues in leading happy and fulfilling professional lives. She is currently training to become a supervisor, aiming to guide osteopaths towards a more confident, joyful, and fulfilling practice.In this conversation we talked about: * Jo's journey from Fine Art to Osteopathy: How her personal experience with back pain led her to explore the healing arts — and why understanding that sensitivity doesn’t equal shyness has been key. * Exploring sensitivity as a strength: Jo shares her own healing journey as a sensitive person, coming to understand her emotional and physical sensitivity as a powerful tool rather than something to be "fixed."* How Jo meets trauma and stress in her clinical practice: Jo introduces shamanic practices and explains how she integrates these ancient techniques with Osteopathic treatment to address trauma and emotional blockages.- And so much more … :-) Receive my free mini course: From body shame and disconnect to joy and into the fullness of your creative power: - www.flurinathali.com/ ---The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email [email protected] media:Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: @flurina.thaliGuest: Jo Sheppard @jo.sheppard.osteopathJo`s webpage: www.josheppardosteopath.co.ukCredits:- Intro/outro music – ‘Hymn for Jim’ by Aspyrian: Robin Porter – saxophone, Jack Gillen – guitar, Matt Parkinson – drums, composed by Robin Porter, listen to the full track here. - Graphic: Annina Thali, for more information click here This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

Do you catch yourself measuring your worth by how much you do, and how much what you do benefits others? If so, you’re not alone. As my guest today, Tamu Thomas, says – it’s not your fault.Tamu Thomas is the author of the groundbreaking book, Women Who Work Too Much: Break Free from Toxic Productivity. She’s a transformational coach and thought-provoking keynote speaker, passionately advocating for the well-being and success of high-achieving women. Tamu’s mission is to dismantle the societal and systemic barriers that lead to burnout, helping women create work lives that feel deeply fulfilling and aligned with their values.Through her coaching, speaking, and writing, Tamu addresses the complex relationship between productivity, joy, and well-being. She empowers ambitious women to transition from toxic productivity cycles to lives where rest, self-worth, and authentic ambition coexist.Join us in this conversation as we explore how to break free from toxic productivity, heal, and become the change the world so desperately needs.In this conversation we explored:- Tamu’s journey from growing up in a lineage of women who worked tirelessly and learned early on that hard work was tied to worthiness. We discuss the impact of intergenerational experiences, how these shape our epigenetics and the woman we become.- How she realised that the struggle to work too much isn’t personal, but systemic. Tamu shares insights on how many of us end up caught in cycles of overwork, the addictive nature of productivity, and the damaging link between rewards and burnout. We also explore why rest often feels shameful.- Why understanding our biology is key. We’re cyclical beings, we can’t be on 24/7, we must learn to listen to the needs of our body and name our feelings and emotions.- How we can all break the cycle of toxic productivity, namely by honoring our legacies, healing ancestral wounds, and transforming trauma into power. Tamu shares simple and so powerful practices to navigate overwhelm and turn burnout into a pathway for renewal.Enjoy!Receive my free mini course: From body shame and disconnect to joy and into the fullness of your creative power: - www.flurinathali.com/ ---The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email [email protected]:Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: @flurina.thali / www.flurinathali.comTamu Thomas: Book website: https://www.womenwhoworktoomuch.co/International Amazon link: https://hayhs.com/wwwtm_pp_pb_azLive Three Sixty website: https://www.livethreesixty.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tamu.thomas/Substack: https://livethreesixty.substack.com/Credits:- Intro/outro music – ‘Hymn for Jim’ by Aspyrian: Robin Porter – saxophone, Jack Gillen – guitar, Matt Parkinson – drums, composed by Robin Porter, listen to the full track here. - Graphic: Annina Thali, for more information click here This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

How do you meet resistance and anger in your lifeCheck if cnava left account twice ? How often do you say yes when you mean no? And how often did you betray yourself by neglecting the power of your female body to fight back?I am so excited to have had the amazing Breanne Fahs as guest on the podcast. Breanne is professor of Women and Gender Studies at Arizona State University, where she specializes in studying women's sexuality, critical embodiment studies, feminist histories, and political activism. She has authored many books, including most recently Unshaved and Burn It Down! Feminist Manifestos for the Revolution. She is the founder and director of the Feminist Research on Gender and Sexuality Group at Arizona State University, and she also works as a clinical psychologist in private practice.Together we explored all about Menstrual activism and why the world needs (menstrual) activists for the collective healing of the female body and women’s voices. What a liberating conversation - wild and so true. Enjoy. In this conversation we explored:- Breanne`s experience of growing up in a menstruating body, how she met this strong narrative and what protected her from seeing her body as an object but a powerful individual.- Breanne`s very rebellious writing and research, how she became a menstrual activist and how this path changed her understanding and meaning of the cyclical body. - What menstrual activism actually means, namely to no longer fragment ourselves, to recognise our bodies needs and address them, to fight back against shame and stigma, against over-medicalisation of menstruation and the hatred for cycles all together. - How we can all be (menstrual) activist by starting to recognise and acknowledge our anger and indulge the impulse to resist. Receive my free mini course: From body shame and disconnect to joy and into the fullness of your creative power: - www.flurinathali.com/ ---The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email [email protected] media:Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: @flurina.thaliBreanne' s webpage: www.breannefahs.comCredits:- Intro/outro music – ‘Hymn for Jim’ by Aspyrian: Robin Porter – saxophone, Jack Gillen – guitar, Matt Parkinson – drums, composed by Robin Porter, listen to the full track here. - Graphic: Annina Thali, for more information click here This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

In this short solo episode, I share my vision — the why behind all the work I do, from writing and coaching to research and teaching. This is more than just a declaration; it’s an invitation to join me on this softly rebellious quest to expand this vision into a larger energetic container where it can truly grow - thank you for being a witness! I`ll read my vision three times:As my personal vision. A vision for the world. As YOUR vision, imagining it is your own - power talk gift for you!This episode is also a space for reflection and conversation. I’ll offer journal prompts to explore your own visions, and I warmly invite you to share your softly rebellious vision with me. Who knows? Perhaps your vision could find a place on this podcast!Let’s dream boldly, reflect deeply, and co-create our visions together.✨ Journaling Prompts for Reflection: • What is your most heartfelt vision for yourself or the world? • What softly rebellious steps can you take to honor it? • How does my vision resonate with you?I can’t wait to hear how this lands for you. Reach out and share your thoughts — or your vision — because this is a conversation we’re building together.Receive my free online workshop: A guided journey to explore and reclaim your soft rebellion - access it ⁠here⁠.---The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email ⁠[email protected]⁠.---Social media: Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: ⁠@flurina.thali⁠Credits:* Intro/outro music – ‘Hymn for Jim’ by ⁠Aspyrian⁠: Robin Porter – saxophone, Jack Gillen – guitar, Matt Parkinson – drums, composed by Robin Porter, listen to the full track ⁠here⁠. * Graphic: Annina Thali, for more information click ⁠here⁠ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

Welcome to the first solo episode of The Soft Rebellion of 2025! In this moment of transition—from my personal wintering season into spring—I’m sharing an intimate look at my journey as I step back into the creative flow of this podcast and my life’s work. Over the last two weeks, I’ve navigated feelings of overwhelm, fear, and self-doubt, only to receive a simple but profound gift: a message from within that said, “You are enough. You’ve never not been enough.”From that place of clarity, I embraced a theme for my year—and for this podcast season: An Abundant, Trustful Yes. In this episode, I explore what it means to say a courageous yes to life, to creativity, and to ourselves, even when the path feels uncertain. I invite you to join me in making this theme your own and to discover how this mindset can help us navigate transitions, honor our cycles, and step into the fullness of our power.What you’ll hear in this episode:- The challenges of stepping out of rest and into action after a season of wintering.- How the menstrual cycle mirrors creative cycles and offers wisdom for transitions. - The power of saying yes to your enoughness - and what it can unlock.- Why 2025`s theme for The Soft Rebellion is an ABUNDANT TRUSTFUL YES. This episode is an invitation to you. How can you embrace this year’s theme of An Abundant, Trustful Yes in your life? Listen in for my reflections, and let’s walk this path together. Share your thoughts, your struggles, and your yeses with me on Instagram or through email. Let’s make this year a soft rebellion for all of us.Receive my free online workshop: A guided journey to explore and reclaim your soft rebellion - access it ⁠here⁠.---The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email ⁠[email protected]⁠.---Social media: Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: ⁠@flurina.thali⁠Credits:* Intro/outro music – ‘Hymn for Jim’ by ⁠Aspyrian⁠: Robin Porter – saxophone, Jack Gillen – guitar, Matt Parkinson – drums, composed by Robin Porter, listen to the full track ⁠here⁠. * Graphic: Annina Thali, for more information click ⁠here⁠ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

Imagine a world where women meet with other women as the year comes to an end, together they reflect, process and collectively lean into their dreams and wishes for the new beginning, and because they do, the collective space holding and honoring awakens and plants the seed of their greatest vision and desire. This is today’s conversation. A radical act of self-care. Intimate. Inspiring. I am joined by my friend Valentina Thayer, a menstrual cycle coach & fertility awareness educator. Living in a world where the female body is often misunderstood in her natural rhythms, Valentina helps women reconnect to the pulse of their health and vitality - the menstrual cycle - so that they can live in alignment, harmony and Power. Valentina is based in Vietnam, offering in person workshops and online 1:1 coaching. We share many things in common and most recently the shared experience of having followed the softly rebellious call to winter. In this conversation we explored:- How both our wintering times unfolded, what filled and nurtured us during this time of turning inwards, what commitments we took and how we navigated fears and feelings of shame or guilt that arose with it. - What we harvested during the past weeks: We share our greatest insights and inspirations - how wintering allowed us to (re-)align with nature and drop into the power of darkness.- Why wintering in the season of winter is particularly profound … and that it is unnegotiable not to do it again this year!- The invitation of our monthly bleed and inner winter to carry those gifts into the new year and beyond … We wish you all a HAPPY NEW YEAR, may you be with the people you love, immerse yourself into the hunger of your female body and say YES to your unique version of the Soft Rebellion. Receive my free mini course: From body shame and disconnect to joy and into the fullness of your creative power: - www.flurinathali.com/ ---The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email [email protected] media:Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: @flurina.thaliCredits:- Intro/outro music – ‘Hymn for Jim’ by Aspyrian: Robin Porter – saxophone, Jack Gillen – guitar, Matt Parkinson – drums, composed by Robin Porter, listen to the full track here. - Graphic: Annina Thali, for more information click here This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

Sometimes we just need to let go. For the time being. And trust that the arising emptiness will birth effortlessly what we have been working towards so hard. I am feeling tired. I have a strong calling to invite women home to their soft healing power of their bodies … and reclaim their very own version of the Soft Rebellion, their unique, weird and wonderful self. Over the last months I have been playing in various ways how to do that … and I wish to be in a deeper conversation about this, with you. And right now, I don’t know how. So I follow my own softly rebellious knowing and I am going to rest for a month, let it winter and see what arises. In this episode I share with you how I came to the decision to give myself permission to winter and why it feels so bloody good to go for it! I am looking forward being with you again in January 2025!Love, Flurina Receive my free online workshop: A guided journey to explore and reclaim your soft rebellion - access it ⁠here⁠.---The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email ⁠[email protected]⁠.---Social media: Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: ⁠@flurina.thali⁠Credits:* Intro/outro music – ‘Hymn for Jim’ by ⁠Aspyrian⁠: Robin Porter – saxophone, Jack Gillen – guitar, Matt Parkinson – drums, composed by Robin Porter, listen to the full track ⁠here⁠. * Graphic: Annina Thali, for more information click ⁠here⁠ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

What’s the story of the women’s bodies? And what can the evolutionary biology of the female body teach us about our health, agency, and creative power? The functions of the female body have always been shroud in mysteries, and often myths and misconceptions. As our understanding of our own anatomy and physiology evolves we still have such big questions such as why do women go through menopause? Why do we have periods unlike other mammals? What’s the function of the female orgasm? Why are we in the midst of a fertility crisis? And why is reproductive choice a vital instinct? In this episode of The Soft Rebellion, evolutionary biologist, author, and teacher Dr. Deena Emera joins me to explore exactly that: The mysteries of the female body through an evolutionary lens. Her research on the biology of pregnancy in mammals and the deep history of our female bodies reveals powerful insights into how we can better understand and reclaim our innate feminine wisdom.Talking to Deena expanded what the Soft Rebellion means (to me) so much: The Soft Rebellion is she who knows that her body is her own, she who knows its power, she who knows that reproductive choice is at the core of being a female mammal and a deeply ingrained and vital instinct. This episode is for you if you are ready to let the ancient science and evolutionary biology of the female bod, change your view and experience of your own body, and to follow its invitation to slow down in a world where we are caught in a struggle between our bodies and cultural evolution.In this conversation we talked about: - Deena’s journey to dedicating her life’s work to study the evolutionary biology of the female body, unlock its powerful mysteries and share her work with the world. - Deena’s research about the evolution of pregnancy in mammals, how studying our evolutionary history can change our understanding health and disease and what this lens taught Deena about mothering and the meaning of motherhood.- The cultural vs. biological evolution of the female body and why this tension shapes our modern experience of health and wellness, we explored reproductive choice as an essential act of female agency, rooted in the evolutionary biology of mammals, and why it’s at the core of women’s fight for bodily autonomy.About Deena: Deena Emera, PhD, is an evolutionary biologist, author, and teacher. She earned a bachelor’s degree in Integrative Biology from UC Berkeley, a master’s degree in Physical Anthropology from NYU, and a PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Yale. She currently serves as a senior scientist at the Buck Institute’s Buck Center for Healthy Aging in Women. Her current work is focused on the genetic basis of reproductive longevity in mammals. In her recent book A Brief History of the Female Body, Deena draws on her expertise as a biologist and experience as a mother of four to explore the mysteries of the female body through an evolutionary lens.  Receive my free mini course: From body shame and disconnect to joy and into the fullness of your creative power: - www.flurinathali.com/ ---The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email [email protected] media:Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: @flurina.thaliGuest: Dr. Deena Emera @deenaemeraDeena’s webpage: www.deenaemera.comCredits:- Intro/outro music – ‘Hymn for Jim’ by Aspyrian: Robin Porter – saxophone, Jack Gillen – guitar, Matt Parkinson – drums, composed by Robin Porter, listen to the full track here. - Graphic: Annina Thali, for more information click here This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

Welcome to The Soft Rebellion Podcast, I am so happy that you are here.In this episode I invite you onto a journey exploring the wildly poetic anatomy of your ovaries, `wombscapes` and the body of the egg. Yes, you knew and sensed ovaries before anything else, ovaries have been your first human experience, your first melting and meeting point with the feminine and its physical expression and they shaped first land you travelled upon … … your ovaries are a temple of deeply grounded wisdom. And the home of the body of the egg, she who reminds us to own our size, to nurture body and enjoy rebellious rest. We talk so often about the menstrual cycle, the inner seasons, the blood, the bleed, ovulation, but we don`t really take a deep dive into the world of the ovaries and the body of the egg do we? Do you know where your ovaries are in your body at all? What does ovary mean to you? And when did you last place your hands onto your lower belly, just above your pubic bone and allow your attention to meet your breath and your breath to bring you to the mind of your ovaries and allow their voice to speak to you ... what does she has to tell you? What does she need from you?This episode comes to you from the center and joy of my womb, it is an amalgamation of the science and theory I learnt about the human body, my lived experience, and the ocean of poetry awaiting to be freed. Receive my free online workshop: A guided journey to explore and reclaim your soft rebellion - access it ⁠here⁠.---The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email ⁠[email protected]⁠.---Social media: Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: ⁠@flurina.thali⁠Credits:* Intro/outro music – ‘Hymn for Jim’ by ⁠Aspyrian⁠: Robin Porter – saxophone, Jack Gillen – guitar, Matt Parkinson – drums, composed by Robin Porter, listen to the full track ⁠here⁠. * Graphic: Annina Thali, for more information click ⁠here⁠ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

Welcome back to the Soft Rebellion Podcast. I feel so excited, touched and moved sharing this conversation with you during which I felt like I am arriving in every moment, from anew, and deeper. Thank you, Lizzy. Skinner Releasing Technique is a somatic dance practice and in this episode you will learn how rich of a container and wholly immersive this practice is to come home to your body, find healing and give voice to your very own version of … the Soft Rebellion. Today's guest is Lizzy Le Quesne, a dance artist and teacher of Skinner Releasing Technique. Together we explored her journey from continuously burning herself out and experiencing performance anxiety and how finding Skinner Releasing Technique gave her permission to sense and play again, falling back in love with dance and keep performing. This conversation is a deep dive into the power of rest and an exploration of what happens when we rest in a new way so to find effortless effort, spontaneity, creativity, embodied presence and arrive in our physical volume with soft strength. The big take home message for me was so simple, pragmatic, and so bloody hard namely to allow my body to do what she wants to do most, always, and fully trust that voice, always. In this conversation we explored: - What Skinner Releasing Technique is. Lizzy shared how this `wholly immersive experience` allows you to become present without anticipation, surrender to being moved and get in touch with that `deep unconscious self` …- Lizzy`s story and the path which led her to Skinner Releasing Technique. After many `crashes and burn outs` and immense performance anxiety - Lizzy thought she would stop performing at all - Skinner Releasing Technique was a game-changer, a catalyst and an embodied exploration of what healing might be and how healing might feel like … - We spoke a lot about transitions and transitioning, the fall and rise in energy, that is always happening and not always easy to lean into and navigate … Lizzy shared how Skinner Releasing Technique supported her to transition in movement and in daily life too, we spoke about the transitioning body and the cyclical body and how to harvest the power of transitions to grow an ever-deeper sensory vocabulary. And a bit more about Lizzy:Lizzy Le Quesne is a dance artist and certified teacher of Skinner Releasing Technique (SRT). Trained in dance, fine art and several somatic practices, Lizzy works with spatial and kinaesthetic awareness, sourcing embodied freedoms and understanding the physical and energetic self as a vital presence in our world. Her creative practice embraces dance, site, text and photography for different kinds of historical, political and cultural spaces. She teaches professional dancers and dance students internationally, as well as in arts and health in the community. Lizzy writes widely on dance, art, embodiment and somatics in academic and non-academic formats and she has authored chapters in various books including ‘Skinner Releasing Technique - A Movement and Dance Practice' (2021). She produced the first study on SRT and the autonomic nervous system, analysing how SRT supports optimal function of the ANS, and is currently near completion of a practice-based PhD at Coventry University on SRT, somatic dance and processes of embodied becoming. Receive my free mini course: From body shame and disconnect to joy and into the fullness of your creative power: - www.flurinathali.com/ ---The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email [email protected] media:Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: @flurina.thaliGuest: Lizzy Le Quesne @lizzylequesne1470LIzzy`s webpage: www.lizzylequesne.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

Welcome to The Soft Rebellion Podcast, I am so happy that you are here.This episode is a powerful reminder that giving up is not a solution. And I record this as much for myself as for all of you! I got to know this place too well recently when waves of doubts and worries seem to override what once felt like a burning fire committing to a deep-desired project. Yes, those waves seem to override our fire, but do they really? No, I experienced they do not, if, we have the right tools at hand to meet the situation and ask this one so important question … don’t give up and keep listening :-) This episode is for you, if you are curious how I meet worries and doubts and transform them into joy and trust with 3 magic tools and inspirations I gathered on my path recently. This is a power talk, a reminder, with great love and a cheeky smile, an episode you can listen to over and over again when you need it, when this gunky voice is telling you a come on just give up, but your heart screams no keep going ….Receive my free online workshop: A guided journey to explore and reclaim your soft rebellion - access it ⁠here⁠.---The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email ⁠[email protected]⁠.---Social media: Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: ⁠@flurina.thali⁠Credits:* Intro/outro music – ‘Hymn for Jim’ by ⁠Aspyrian⁠: Robin Porter – saxophone, Jack Gillen – guitar, Matt Parkinson – drums, composed by Robin Porter, listen to the full track ⁠here⁠. * Graphic: Annina Thali, for more information click ⁠here⁠ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

Do you ever feel numb or restless in your heart? Navigating those feelings can be incredibly challenging, yet it can also lead to profound discovery if we allow our bodies to guide us. Today’s guest, Jasmine Alicia Carter, knows this journey all too well. She felt there was no space for her and no space for womanhood—until she began creating art with her own menstrual blood.Jasmine is a true Soft Rebellion. As a Menstrual Artist and Feminine Empowerment Mentor, she has been painting with her period blood since 2016. This sacred art form has transformed her life and the lives of countless women around the world through the Menstrual Art Movement.In this conversation we explored:* Jasmine’s Journey: Discover the soft rebellious moments that led Jasmine to create art with her menstrual blood and how this act has impacted her life and the lives of others.* De-shaming Female Bodies: We discuss how menstrual art challenges societal perceptions and helps heal the world by embracing the female experience.* Healing Through Creativity: Learn how the act of making art can give voice to pain and guide us toward healing, as our menstrual blood reveals wounds that need to be seen and addressed.* Joining the Movement: Jasmine shares practical first steps for those who want to explore this empowering practice for themselves.This conversation is not only empowering but also a heartfelt invitation to reconnect with our bodies and reclaim our narratives. I am forever grateful to Jasmine for sharing her story with us.Tune in for an inspiring exploration of art, healing, and feminine empowerment!About Jasmine:Jasmine Alicia Carter is a Menstrual Artist, Woman Embodiment Mentor, Wife, Mother of 2 and founder of Sacred Woman: a world-class brand devoted to empowering and inspiring women to return to a state of holistic balance, supporting them in embodying their authentic feminine nature to live a healthy, womb-centered and meaningful life. Sacred Woman also has an online boutique that offers women’s care products and sacred pleasure tools to awaken and celebrate the sacred sexual expression of the female body . Her favourite way to share feminine wisdom is drawing with her menstrual blood, a sacred art that she's been spreading across the world since 2016. Her work, which has gone viral all over the world and has been featured on major news platforms, led to the creation of a non-profit organization called Menstrual Art Movement that counts thousands of women and bleeders world-wide who embraced their periods as a source of empowerment and healing.Receive my free mini course: From body shame and disconnect to joy and into the fullness of your creative power: - www.flurinathali.com/ ---The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email [email protected] media:Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: @flurina.thaliGuest: Jasmine Alicia Carter @jasminealiciacarterJasmine’s webpage: www.sacredwoman.comCredits:- Intro/outro music – ‘Hymn for Jim’ by Aspyrian: Robin Porter – saxophone, Jack Gillen – guitar, Matt Parkinson – drums, composed by Robin Porter, listen to the full track here. - Graphic: Annina Thali, for more information click here This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

In this episode I share with you how discovering menstrual cycle awareness has helped me to not continuously burn myself out. I have always felt so passionate for my studies and work that I often pushed myself too hard as I missed the subtle signs of my body saying “stop, we need a break!”. In fact for the longer time of my life (!) I resisted any type of break: I felt guilty during my holiday, got up at 6 am on Sundays and constantly felt chasen by the fear of not having achieved enough. The result was that I would burn out, over and over again. And I felt so bloody tired of it, but didn’t know how to change this pattern. Does that sound familiar? Meeting menstrual cycle awareness in my mid-20th had a huge impact upon my life, suddenly I had a tool to read the rise and fall of energy which my body goes through every month. And responding to these shifts in energy helped me hugely to maintain the voltage in my own battery and sustain a healthy lifestyle. This episode is for you, if you are ready to stop pushing against and ignoring your body’s messages, but lean into the breath of your own cycle, surf the waves of rise and fall and emerge into your rest and source of creativity. Receive my free online workshop: A guided journey to explore and reclaim your soft rebellion - access it ⁠here⁠.---The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email ⁠[email protected]⁠.---Social media: Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: ⁠@flurina.thali⁠Credits:* Intro/outro music – ‘Hymn for Jim’ by ⁠Aspyrian⁠: Robin Porter – saxophone, Jack Gillen – guitar, Matt Parkinson – drums, composed by Robin Porter, listen to the full track ⁠here⁠. * Graphic: Annina Thali, for more information click ⁠here⁠ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

In this episode I am talking to Lucy H Pearce, the author of the amazingly powerful book Burning Woman. I still feel my soul shimmer thinking back to this meaningful conversation!Burning Woman is a breath-taking and controversial woman’s journey through history — personal and cultural — on a quest to find and free her own power. And so is this episode a wake-up call to the Burning Woman within you, a reminder. We live in burning times and they call for Burning Women. This is our time to come out of the shadows and burn brightly. The Soft Rebellion is my expression of Burning Woman and I hope that this conversation inspires and encourages you to bring your version of Burning Woman into your life too, uncover her voice and no longer let your fears take your power. Lucy H. Pearce is the author of multiple life-changing non-fiction books, including Nautilus Award silver winners Medicine Woman, Burning Woman, and Creatrix. Her newest books is Crow Moon: reclaiming the wisdom of the dark woods and The Kitchen Witch Companion, which she illustrated and co-authored with Sarah Robinson. Her writing focuses on women’s healing through archetypal psychology, embodiment, historical awareness and creativity. An award-winning graduate in History of Ideas with English Literature from Kingston University, and a PGCE from Cambridge University, Lucy founded Womancraft Publishing, creating paradigm-shifting books by women for women, in 2014. She is the host of the Creative Magic podcast, where she interviews contemporary creative women.The mother of three children, she lives in East Cork, Ireland.In this conversation we explored:- How to connect with the source of creativity. We explored how the writing process looks for both of us and what we need to let the writing pour out of us. Lucy shared how writing feels like a journey through spaces which are portals for voices coming through her.- Why we must connect with our sensual body if we want to reclaim our feminine fire and Burning Woman. Before Burning Woman safes the world, she has to save herself, which means to recognise her subconscious desires so that the fire within becomes the fire without and a guiding light for the world! - How fear invites us to work with our energy wisely. Rather than denying or resisting it, we can transmute fear, meaning to express it and give a voice to what is ruling us and to what has never been expressed.- How by transmuting the energy of fear, we free the power within it. Fear, Lucy shared, is trapped energy turned against us and fear asks for inquiry, otherwise we back off and keep serving patriarchy. Receive my free mini course: From body shame and disconnect to joy and into the fullness of your creative power: - www.flurinathali.com/ ---The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email [email protected] media:Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: @flurina.thaliGuest: Lucy H Pearce @lucyhpearce and @womencraft_publishingCredits:- Intro/outro music – ‘Hymn for Jim’ by Aspyrian: Robin Porter – saxophone, Jack Gillen – guitar, Matt Parkinson – drums, composed by Robin Porter, listen to the full track here. - Graphic: Annina Thali, for more information click here This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

In this episode, we delve into the journey of discovering and nurturing our true calling. Together, we explore what it means to feel called, how to reconnect with that inner voice, and find our way back home — even when the path seems clouded by confusion and overwhelm.Have you ever found yourself in that uncertain space, wondering, “How the heck will I ever know what I’m meant to do?” When your heart yearns for something that feels just out of reach, it can create a tumultuous internal struggle. I share my own experiences from the past few weeks—navigating feelings of confusion and being pulled in multiple directions by a whirlwind of options and emotions.Through my reflections, I discuss how important it is to stay connected to our true calling and to listen to our bodies, which serve as vessels for our deeper knowing. I’ll guide you on how to cultivate this relationship and summon the courage to take the next steps, even when the path ahead feels unclear.In this conversation I share with you: - The power of resting on your back!- How to set your inner compass and what to align it with - what would your Soft Rebellion follow?- What the embryo has to do with finding your calling. - How to balance being and doing when navigating your path whilst feeling confused. Receive my free online workshop: A guided journey to explore and reclaim your soft rebellion - access it ⁠here⁠.---The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email ⁠[email protected]⁠.---Social media: Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: ⁠@flurina.thali⁠Credits:* Intro/outro music – ‘Hymn for Jim’ by ⁠Aspyrian⁠: Robin Porter – saxophone, Jack Gillen – guitar, Matt Parkinson – drums, composed by Robin Porter, listen to the full track ⁠here⁠. * Graphic: Annina Thali, for more information click ⁠here⁠ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com

What does magic and witchcraft mean to you? And how much of it do you allow there to be in your life? The witch, an ancient archetype, is there in all of us, waiting to be awakened and its powers to be used wisely. The witch is the one who gets things done, magically, meaning in flow whilst she is harvesting the ocean of possibilities. And so did my today’s guest Sarah Robinson get a lot done being the author of a whole world of magical books! Together we explored why it is so powerful to invite fairytale, stories and the old ancient myth into our lives - as they help us to remember our true power and call out of us voices, ideas, visions and dreams which otherwise stay hidden. This conversation is for you if you are ready for a deep dive into how you can dive into the world of magic and witchcraft and how you can bring it into your daily life - and yoga practice! Sarah Robinson is a yoga teacher and author based in Bath, UK (once named after a goddess: the ancient Roman town of Aquae Sulis). Her background is in science; she holds an MSc Psychology & Neuroscience and has studied at Bath, Exeter and Harvard University. She loves weaving her love of all things mythic, magic and Goddess - and is passionate about creating work that inspires and transforms. Through yoga, meditation and ritual she aims to help everyone connect with their own unique magic and inner power.In this conversation we talked about:- Sarah’s so inspiring story and how she dared to move on in moments when “it wasn’t feeling magic”! And yes, this conversation is a wonderful powertalk and invitation for all of us to do the same, reclaim your magic, sisters! - What magic means to Sarah and how we can bring more of it into our lives. We talked about how to meet those stuck moments along our creative journeys and how to move through them. Sarah shared some amazing practices and tools with us!- Fairytale, folklore, ancient myths and goddesses. Fairytales speak to us in a very deep way, awakening older parts of our brain and reflect hidden voices. You will hear how connecting with the story of the goddess means to connect to ourselves, how she is a metaphor for possibility and nurtures us deeply. - How to approach yoga to connect with our special powers and inner magic! Receive my free mini course: From body shame and disconnect to joy and into the fullness of your creative power: - www.flurinathali.com/ ---The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email [email protected] media:Flurina Dominique Thali & The Soft Rebellion: @flurina.thaliGuest: Sarah Robinson: @yogaforwitchesCredits:- Intro/outro music – ‘Hymn for Jim’ by Aspyrian: Robin Porter – saxophone, Jack Gillen – guitar, Matt Parkinson – drums, composed by Robin Porter, listen to the full track here. - Graphic: Annina Thali, for more information click here This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit flurinathali.substack.com