Larissa is a queer, cis, biracial, Black movement teacher and mom to twins. She teaches intelligent movement strategies that help you feel connected, curious, and joyful in your body, and specializes in core & pelvic floor dysfunction. She is an ardent believer in the idea that connecting to your body is a pathway to joy, and joy is a pathway to justice and liberation.
This episode we discuss
* learning to sense joy and the full range of human emotion in your body
* reestablishing a connection to the pelvic floor
* the benefits of seeing a pelvic physical therapist
* freedom and clarity that comes with middle age
* living at multiple identity intersections and cultivating friendships
Episode Resources
Body Liberation for All Theme
They might try to put you in a box, tell them that you don't accept when the world is tripping out tell them that you love yourself. Hey, Hey, smile on them. Live your life just like you like it
It’s your party negativity is not invited. For my queer folks, for my trans, people of color, let your voice be heard. Look in the mirror and say that it's time to put me first. You were born to win. Head up high with confidence. This show is for everyone. So, I thank you for tuning in. Let's go.
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Dalia: This is so exciting. It's been forever since I've recorded an episode. Originally, I said I was just going to take a couple of months off. Mm-hmm. to just get my life in order, post covid and post finishing the book. And it is month six. And I'm not entirely sure when I'm gonna release this one, but I am excited to be recording again. I know that season two is gonna start the 1st of January and honoring rest and really liberating myself from that need to be productive all the time. I realized that I only wanted to podcast once a month.
It just felt so right in my entire body. Yes. And when I was looking at what you do, when we first met, it was at the Together Thriving conference. Yes, yes. And then you were talking about pelvic floor health. So, I thought your focus was on. Reproductive wellness. Mm-hmm. and that part of the body for people born with a uterus.
Right. And didn't realize that it's so much more than that, that it's embodiment work. When I was looking at your site and it talked about embodying joy, but also embodying justice, that really struck me because I realized I wasn't even sure what. Justice might feel like in the body. I'm just now getting to the point where I could feel in my body that podcasting once a month was a hell yes.
Per my entire body. Yeah. But there's still some things I think I wouldn't even recognize. So why do you lead with that on your site?
Larissa: That's such a good question. You know, so I was and still am really interested in and focused on doing core and pelvic floor rehab work. It's one of the things that. I love nerding out about hardcore, but what I found was, this is like the most circuitous way to get to the answer to your question, by the way.
But what I found was that the more that I worked with people and the more that we kind of went on this pelvic floor journey together, where they started developing more awareness of their bodies' habits and patterns, and the more work I was doing with the folks, the more I got to this like realization that.
At the bottom, if you imagine the work we're doing as a cereal box, or like a box of Cracker Jack or something, there's like this prize in the bottom of the box and that is like this body liberation stuff. Mm-hmm. And I decided I was tired of having it be the secret. Mm. I was tired of it being like the thing that we got to at the end of a series or after working together for a few months.
And I really wanted to lead with it because I feel very strongly. Like, like I say on my website, that the body is a home for joy because we feel joy in our bodies and our bodies are homes for justice because we feel injustice acted on our bodies and we feel it with our bodies, and we feel it in the ways that we make choices about our bodies.
And so, if we can get in more touch with our bodies, if we can really embody our bodies, feel like our bodies are our homes, then our bodies become a site for justice instead of injustice.
Dalia: I lov
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