Desire As Medicine Podcast

Catherine & Brenda guide a Body Scan that turns stress into clear signals and shows how somatic awareness supports desire-led choices. Breathwork, curiosity, and small resourcing moves help you feel safer, softer, and more honest with yourself.

Episode Highlights:
• why a five-minute body scan builds self-trust
• naming sensations to separate signals from stories
• lengthening breath to calm the nervous sys...

When the mind gets loud and the body goes into alert, thinking harder does not calm anything. Brenda and Catherine guide listeners to slow down. They introduce a gentle body scan practice to shift awareness into regulation. One breath. One sensation. One small shift. These small shifts build trust in the body’s signals.

They share how to use a body scan daily. Before checking a bank balance, during an argument, while parenting, when...

Ever feel like your desire tank is running on empty? After a season of deep conversations, Brenda and Catherine shift gears to explore the often-overlooked wisdom of coasting.

Growth is not meant to be nonstop. Just as nature moves through seasons, desire ebbs and flows. Sometimes the healthiest choice is to step back, pause the practices, and let yourself float for a while.

In this conversation, they share real-life moments of exhau...

What happens when two desire coaches pause to reflect on their own relationship with desire? After three years and 111 episodes of the Desire as Medicine podcast, Brenda and Catherine open up about where desire feels alive, where it feels challenging, and how their relationship with it has evolved.

Brenda shares about her journey of building physical strength at 57 through pole dancing, inspired by a conscious choice to shift family...

Have you ever noticed how easily we focus on the difficult patterns inherited from our families while overlooking the beautiful gifts passed down through generations?

In this heartfelt mini-episode, Brenda and Catherine expand the conversation about lineage beyond trauma to celebrate the treasures our ancestors have given us.

Brenda shares the story of her family’s chicken soup recipe, passed from her grandmother to her mother, to he...

The threads of ancestry shape daily life in both subtle and profound ways. From stress responses to emotional habits to worldview, Catherine and Brenda reflect on how they are living expressions of those who came before them.

In this episode, they explore the Indigenous wisdom concept of Seven Generations Forward and Back, which teaches that present choices affect seven generations ahead while also carrying wisdom, gifts, and wounds...

Personal transformation does not fit neatly into a 90-day program. In this conversation, Catherine and Brenda explore why meaningful growth often takes years or decades, and why that timeline is both natural and necessary.

They reflect on what sustains the process when change feels slow: forgiving who we were, showing compassion for how long it takes, and facing reality without judgment. Many of the most difficult patterns are not e...

The space between knowing something and embodying it is where transformation happens. In this conversation, Catherine and Brenda explore what it takes to move from intellectual understanding to living change as second nature.

Catherine shares her 20-year journey of opening her heart and building healthy boundaries. What began as a desire for deeper relationships required years of therapy, confronting judgment, untangling codependenc...

The gap between knowing and doing is often the hardest part of personal growth. In this episode, Brenda and Catherine explore what embodiment truly means and how to bridge the distance between intellectual understanding and lived experience.

What happens when advice like "love yourself more" feels impossible? Why do we scroll until 1 AM even though we know better? Through personal stories—Catherine’s evolving relationship ...

When health challenges arise, whether caring for an aging parent, supporting a partner, or facing personal illness—desire often shifts in profound ways. Priorities change almost overnight, reshaping how we experience and relate to desire itself.

In this episode, Brenda and Catherine share personal stories and reflections on caregiving, illness, and the transformation of desire during these seasons of life.

Brenda speaks about her tim...

Responsibility might seem like the buzzkill of desire, but what if it’s actually the key to deep fulfillment? Brenda and Catherine challenge the fantasy that our wants should simply appear without effort. Instead, they explore how taking ownership of our desires creates the fertile ground for them to flourish—both within ourselves and in our relationships.

They discuss the natural seasons of desire and how what we want changes over ...

What happens to our sex lives when we actively practice desire? Everything changes. When we approach desire as a spiritual practice, our relationship with sex shifts from reactive and conditional to conscious and self-responsible.

Brenda and Catherine explore how this transformation unfolds, moving beyond old patterns, like withholding sex during conflicts or expecting partners to manage our arousal, and toward a more empowered, ple...

Have you ever found yourself in that strange, disorienting space where you used to feel your desires clearly, but now, all you hear is silence?

In this episode, Brenda and Catherine explore what happens when desire goes quiet. After spending so much time learning to follow the whispers of longing, what do you do when those whispers disappear?

Rather than rushing to fix it, they invite you to pause and listen differently. These quiet ...

Have you ever caught yourself mindlessly eating chocolate or clicking “next episode” on Netflix into the early hours, even when you’re no longer enjoying it? Brenda and Catherine talk about the “hungry ghost” state: a craving that seems bottomless, never fully satisfied.

In this episode, they explore the Buddhist concept of the hungry ghost (Preta in Sanskrit), beings with enormous bellies and tiny mouths, eternally yearning but nev...

What if desire shows up before we even have the words for it? In this episode, we explore how desire first emerges - not as a clear thought, but as a whisper, a spark, a sensation in the body. Long before we can name it, it’s already speaking to us.

We share personal stories (including Brenda’s not-actually-about-the-beach vacation dilemma) to show how subtle desires, when ignored, often morph into resentment. In a world that trains...

Celebrating 100 episodes! 

In this milestone episode of Desire as Medicine, we pause to reflect on the extraordinary journey we’ve taken together. What began as tentative conversations has blossomed into a bold exploration of desire, self-love, and transformation, for us, and for you.

Over the past hundred episodes, we've charted a path for women (and the people who love them) to live more authentically. Series like Self-Love, S...

In this episode, we dive into the deep medicine of sacred rest. What happens when you intentionally put everything down and step away from the constant pull of work, screens, and to-dos. Through the lens of Brenda’s personal Shabbat practice, we explore how ritualized pauses create room for desire, clarity, and real connection.

We live in a culture that celebrates hustle and constant output. Whether you’re a parent, caregiver, creat...

Have you ever noticed how the same desire can be received completely differently, simply based on how you say it? The way we communicate our needs and desires shape the quality of our relationships more than we realize.

In this intimate and insightful episode, we unpack the subtle (and powerful) role of syntax, tone, and word choice in expressing desire. Whether you’re navigating romantic connection, friendship, or family dynamics, ...

Have you ever asked for something that felt totally reasonable, only to be met with resistance, rejection or discomfort? It can feel disorienting, even painful.

In this episode, we explore how to ask for what you want in relationships without attachment, resentment, or collapse. Through stories of diamond earrings, perfume, and simple affection, we reveal the subtle difference between demanding and cleanly desiring.

When we love our ...