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Your body is not a project to be fixed or perfected – it's a sacred temple housing your deepest wisdom and innate healing capacities. Yet for most women, the journey to this realization is complicated by years of cultural programming that keeps us chasing impossible ideals.

Beauty, diet, and puritanical culture have sold us myths about what makes our bodies acceptable, worthy, and good. These forces teach us that love, safety, and acceptance must be earned through checking invisible boxes – having the right look, the right size, the right behaviors. What's worse, these influences didn't originate within us but were imposed from outside, often before we could even form our own relationship with our bodies.

When we add our personal histories – experiences of trauma, shame, or disconnection – we create a perfect storm of body dissatisfaction that can't be resolved through mindset work alone. Traditional approaches like talk therapy can help us understand our issues intellectually, but they often miss the critical component: your body has its own wisdom and needs that can only be accessed through embodiment.

The revolutionary path forward isn't about trying harder to love your body through affirmations or controlling it more effectively. It's about building an entirely new relationship with your physical form based on devotion, respect, and trust. Through somatic yoga therapy and embodiment practices, you can wire up neural pathways that make feeling at home in your body your default state – not something you have to constantly work to maintain.

Ready to feel deeply connected to your body's wisdom? Join me in exploring practices that honor your body as the temple it truly is. Your healing revolution begins not in your mind, but in the sacred vessel that carries you through this life.

Let's connect on Instagram @the_nourished_woman or through my website KeriMarino.com

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The sacred practice of yoga holds tremendous power for healing, integration, and transformation—but with that power comes the responsibility to navigate the yoga world with awareness and discernment. Drawing from personal experience and years of professional observation, I pull back the curtain on the sometimes uncomfortable reality of yoga cults and high-control groups that have caused harm to vulnerable practitioners.

From fallen leaders like John Friend of Anusara Yoga to the well-documented abuses within Bikram Yoga and Kundalini Yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan, we explore why these dynamics develop and how to protect yourself. The vulnerability inherent in deep yoga practice creates openings that require careful boundaries around who we allow to guide us through these tender spaces.

Your yoga journey should always strengthen your connection to your own inner wisdom rather than create dependency on a teacher. I share three crucial elements to look for in yoga spaces: teachers who actively engage in their own mental health work, who continuously invite you to listen to your inner knowing rather than positioning themselves as having all the answers, and who respond to feedback with openness and validation rather than defensiveness or gaslighting.

These insights aren't just for yoga—they apply to any healing or personal growth environment. The ultimate message isn't to fear yoga but to approach it with eyes wide open, choosing trauma-informed practitioners who honor your agency while providing supportive community. For those who have experienced harm yet still yearn for yoga's benefits, know that healing is possible and that rediscovering yoga on your own terms can be part of your recovery journey.

Whether you're a yoga practitioner, teacher, or someone curious about the practice, this conversation offers essential guidance for navigating the sometimes murky waters of modern yoga while preserving access to its profound gifts. Choose wisely, trust your instincts, and remember that true yoga always returns you to your own wholeness and power.

If you enjoyed this episode, I love hearing from you let me know on Instagram @the_nourished_woman and if you're curious about ways I can support you or my work, visit my website: www.KeriMarino.com

For Resources on Yoga and Other Cult Documentaries, Cults and Cult Recovery:

Yoga Documentaries:

Bikram: Yogi, Guru, Predator (Bikram Yoga), Breath of Fire TV Series and True Believers (Kundalini Yoga), Wild, Wild Country (Osho)

Other Cult Documentaries:

Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey, Holy Hell, Source Family, One Taste, Escaping Twin Flames and so many more.

Organizations that Can Help: People Leave Cults and International Association of Cultic Studies both have great resources on their blog.

If you're curious about what somatic yoga therapy could to improve your mental health, reduce anxiety, help you recover from trauma or simply feel deeply at home & at peace within yourself. Join us inside The Nourished Woman Sanctuary for just $47/month.

Join by the end of October for access to our 5 day Meditation Challenge, get started today.

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Amidst the constant clamor for our attention, finding moments of intentional silence has become both revolutionary and essential. Drawing from personal experience, I share how even a simple 30-minute drive home in silence became a profound challenge—catching my hand mid-reach for the radio dial, repeatedly recommitting to the practice despite my wandering mind.

This struggle isn't unique. Every woman in my Nourished Woman community shares similar experiences with meditation and mindfulness. We live in a world where gas pumps blare advertisements, social media bombards us with content, and the sacred resource of our attention is continuously pulled outward. Many of us have developed habits of filling every potential quiet moment with some form of input, leaving no space for inner stillness.

Yet it's precisely in these moments of inner quiet where the magic happens. When we create space for silence, our intuition speaks more clearly, answers emerge naturally, and we reconnect with our deepest selves. This episode explores meditation myths—particularly the misconception that successful meditation means maintaining perfect focus. As spiritual teacher Ram Dass noted, holding attention on anything for even ten seconds is nearly impossible. The wandering "monkey mind" isn't a meditation failure; it's simply part of being human. True meditation mastery lies not in perfect focus but in the humble commitment to keep returning to presence.

Ready to reclaim your attention and rediscover the power of inner quiet? This episode offers practical insights for creating sacred silence in your life, approaching meditation with both discipline and playfulness, and measuring your practice not by perfection but by devotion. Your relationship with inner quiet may be the most important relationship you cultivate—it's where true nourishment begins.

Did something about this episode move you? Tell me about it on Instagram @the_nourished_woman or dive in and start putting what you've learned here into practice inside The Nourished Woman Sanctuary. For $47/month members say, it's "stacked with value," and that they can't believe how powerful these short somatic yoga rituals are.

If you're curious about what somatic yoga therapy could to improve your mental health, reduce anxiety, help you recover from trauma or simply feel deeply at home & at peace within yourself. Join us inside The Nourished Woman Sanctuary for just $47/month.

Join by the end of October for access to our 5 day Meditation Challenge, get started today.