https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/skin-and-soul-beyond-the-pale-with-gwenm-a-carsley--6634098enSexualityGwenm Carsleyhttps://d3wo5wojvuv7l.cloudfront.net/t_rss_itunes_square_1400/images.spreaker.com/original/9a581546e8755d1c1909e53428abc96e.jpghttps://www.spreaker.com/podcast/skin-and-soul-beyond-the-pale-with-gwenm-a-carsley--6634098Fri, 24 Jul 2026 20:22:58 +0000Gwenm CarsleyGwenm Carsleygwenmangelacarsley@me.comWelcome to Skin and Soul™ : Beyond the Pale with Gwenm A. Carsley. I’m Gwenm, your transformational body, soul, and sex coach. This podcast invites you to an uncensored and authentic exploration of our humanity through the lens of Eros. Together,...falseepisodichttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/union-beyond-the-body-beauty-sexuality-and-breath--73157229 Kalindi Jordan and Pete Warnock met in India eighteen years ago and have been partners in every sense since ~ in life, in love, and in work. Together they run Living In Love and the Amrita Tantra programme, teaching couples the art of staying; separately, each walks their own path — Kalindi through her sexual healing work with women, Pete through Naturally Ecstatic, the school of breath he founded.
Their medicine meets in the body but arrives from different doors. Kalindi works the energetic depths ~ Kundalini woke in her at eighteen, and thirty years of de-armouring, touch, and energy work have made her fluent in what the body holds beneath its armour. Pete works the breath and the nervous system ~ his own body hurt from the age of five, and sixteen years of hands-on sexual healing taught him that nothing opens until the body feels safe. We talk about building pleasure capacity, repairing rupture somatically when words stop working, desire after eighteen years of being fully seen ~ and the initiations their own bodies delivered, including the two weeks in 2020 when Kalindi's hair let go of her entirely.
Breath as medicine. Energy as language. Union that lives beyond the skin.
]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/union-beyond-the-body-beauty-sexuality-and-breath-39853Fri, 24 Jul 2026 17:00:00 +0000Gwenm CarsleyMost of us leave our bodies long before we leave our lovers. Kalindi Jordan and Pete Warnock met in India eighteen years ago and have been partners in every sense since ~ in life, in love, and in work. Together they run Living In Love and the Amrita... Kalindi Jordan and Pete Warnock met in India eighteen years ago and have been partners in every sense since ~ in life, in love, and in work. Together they run Living In Love and the Amrita Tantra programme, teaching couples the art of staying; separately, each walks their own path — Kalindi through her sexual healing work with women, Pete through Naturally Ecstatic, the school of breath he founded.
Their medicine meets in the body but arrives from different doors. Kalindi works the energetic depths ~ Kundalini woke in her at eighteen, and thirty years of de-armouring, touch, and energy work have made her fluent in what the body holds beneath its armour. Pete works the breath and the nervous system ~ his own body hurt from the age of five, and sixteen years of hands-on sexual healing taught him that nothing opens until the body feels safe. We talk about building pleasure capacity, repairing rupture somatically when words stop working, desire after eighteen years of being fully seen ~ and the initiations their own bodies delivered, including the two weeks in 2020 when Kalindi's hair let go of her entirely.
Breath as medicine. Energy as language. Union that lives beyond the skin.
]]>3534falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/the-hidden-life-of-dreams--73031767 What if our dreams aren't random at all?
What if they're quietly guiding us toward the parts of ourselves we've forgotten, rejected, or left behind?
In this episode of Skin & Soul, I sit down with psychotherapist, poet, and author Valerie Johns to explore the hidden language of dreams and what they reveal about trauma, memory, creativity, and healing.
Drawing from her newest book, Night Flights: The Poetry of Soul Retrieval, Valerie shares how dreams can become a pathway to wholeness—not by erasing the past, but by helping us reclaim the lost parts of ourselves. Together, we explore why nightmares may carry medicine, why the ego isn't our enemy, what it means when trauma "can't tell time," and how cultivating inner safety allows us to meet ourselves with greater compassion.
This is a conversation about the unconscious, imagination, and the courage to turn toward what we've spent a lifetime avoiding.
If you've ever wondered why certain dreams stay with you—or what they might be asking of you—this episode is an invitation to listen more deeply.
In this episode:

• Why dreams may be invitations rather than interruptions
• The hidden relationship between trauma, memory, and the unconscious
• Why nightmares can become unexpected guides
• The difference between ego and soul
• Soul retrieval, creativity, and the journey toward wholeness

Guest: Valerie Johns, author of Ashes in the Milk: A Poetic Memoir and Night Flights: The Poetry of Soul Retrieval.
]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/the-hidden-life-of-dreams-39823Fri, 17 Jul 2026 17:00:00 +0000Gwenm CarsleyThe Hidden Life of Dreams What if our dreams aren't random at all? What if they're quietly guiding us toward the parts of ourselves we've forgotten, rejected, or left behind? In this episode of Skin & Soul, I sit down with psychotherapist,... What if our dreams aren't random at all?
What if they're quietly guiding us toward the parts of ourselves we've forgotten, rejected, or left behind?
In this episode of Skin & Soul, I sit down with psychotherapist, poet, and author Valerie Johns to explore the hidden language of dreams and what they reveal about trauma, memory, creativity, and healing.
Drawing from her newest book, Night Flights: The Poetry of Soul Retrieval, Valerie shares how dreams can become a pathway to wholeness—not by erasing the past, but by helping us reclaim the lost parts of ourselves. Together, we explore why nightmares may carry medicine, why the ego isn't our enemy, what it means when trauma "can't tell time," and how cultivating inner safety allows us to meet ourselves with greater compassion.
This is a conversation about the unconscious, imagination, and the courage to turn toward what we've spent a lifetime avoiding.
If you've ever wondered why certain dreams stay with you—or what they might be asking of you—this episode is an invitation to listen more deeply.
In this episode:

• Why dreams may be invitations rather than interruptions
• The hidden relationship between trauma, memory, and the unconscious
• Why nightmares can become unexpected guides
• The difference between ego and soul
• Soul retrieval, creativity, and the journey toward wholeness

Guest: Valerie Johns, author of Ashes in the Milk: A Poetic Memoir and Night Flights: The Poetry of Soul Retrieval.
]]>3383falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/the-sexy-the-slow-and-the-architecture-of-desire-after-50--72919826 One day you look up and realize your body stopped reaching. You stopped reaching. And you blame it on the years, the marriage, the exhaustion, the long list of everyone you've been holding up. Society even tells you it's natural to just give it up. You might call yourself ungrateful for wanting more.
In this episode of Skin & Soul, I sit down with Dr. Julie Merriman, the Nervous System Architect, who lived this silence before she found her way back through it. What she learned is the thing few of us are ever told: your body cannot protect you and open to pleasure at the same time. The wanting doesn't disappear. It goes into hiding. And through her Radiance Reset Model™, she shows how it comes back.
And we go there. The real stuff. Vaginal dryness. The positions that actually feel good now. What it takes to come home to the depth of your own pleasure.
If you've wondered where the wanting and the pleasure went, come sit with us. 
]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/the-sexy-the-slow-and-the-architecture-of-desire-after-50-39801Fri, 10 Jul 2026 17:00:00 +0000Gwenm CarsleyNobody warned us the wanting could just go quiet. One day you look up and realize your body stopped reaching. You stopped reaching. And you blame it on the years, the marriage, the exhaustion, the long list of everyone you've been holding up. Society... One day you look up and realize your body stopped reaching. You stopped reaching. And you blame it on the years, the marriage, the exhaustion, the long list of everyone you've been holding up. Society even tells you it's natural to just give it up. You might call yourself ungrateful for wanting more.
In this episode of Skin & Soul, I sit down with Dr. Julie Merriman, the Nervous System Architect, who lived this silence before she found her way back through it. What she learned is the thing few of us are ever told: your body cannot protect you and open to pleasure at the same time. The wanting doesn't disappear. It goes into hiding. And through her Radiance Reset Model™, she shows how it comes back.
And we go there. The real stuff. Vaginal dryness. The positions that actually feel good now. What it takes to come home to the depth of your own pleasure.
If you've wondered where the wanting and the pleasure went, come sit with us. 
]]>3255falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/what-are-we-running-from--72808279 A heartbreak that still catches in the throat. A relationship we can't quite let go of. A loneliness that no amount of scrolling, busyness, or distraction seems to fill.
What if healing isn't about moving on? What if it's about finally turning toward the parts of ourselves we've spent years trying to outrun?
In this episode, Gwenm sits down with healer, teacher, and author Ben Oofana to explore heartbreak, loneliness, attachment, and the emotional lives we never fully digest. Together they dive into Ben's extraordinary path through Native American vision quests, Taoist practice, and more than thirty-five years of helping people navigate trauma, illness, grief, and relational pain.
This is a conversation about what happens when we stop abandoning ourselves. About why we cling to relationships that have already ended. About the loneliness that sits beneath so much of modern life. And about the quiet courage it takes to stay with what hurts long enough for something new to emerge.
If you've ever wondered why the same patterns keep repeating, why letting go can feel impossible, or what it really means to heal, this conversation offers another way of looking at the human heart.
Because perhaps healing isn't about becoming someone else.
Perhaps it's about becoming present enough to meet the person you've been avoiding all along.
]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/what-are-we-running-from-39775Fri, 03 Jul 2026 17:00:00 +0000Gwenm CarsleyWe all carry something. A heartbreak that still catches in the throat. A relationship we can't quite let go of. A loneliness that no amount of scrolling, busyness, or distraction seems to fill. What if healing isn't about moving on? What if it's... A heartbreak that still catches in the throat. A relationship we can't quite let go of. A loneliness that no amount of scrolling, busyness, or distraction seems to fill.
What if healing isn't about moving on? What if it's about finally turning toward the parts of ourselves we've spent years trying to outrun?
In this episode, Gwenm sits down with healer, teacher, and author Ben Oofana to explore heartbreak, loneliness, attachment, and the emotional lives we never fully digest. Together they dive into Ben's extraordinary path through Native American vision quests, Taoist practice, and more than thirty-five years of helping people navigate trauma, illness, grief, and relational pain.
This is a conversation about what happens when we stop abandoning ourselves. About why we cling to relationships that have already ended. About the loneliness that sits beneath so much of modern life. And about the quiet courage it takes to stay with what hurts long enough for something new to emerge.
If you've ever wondered why the same patterns keep repeating, why letting go can feel impossible, or what it really means to heal, this conversation offers another way of looking at the human heart.
Because perhaps healing isn't about becoming someone else.
Perhaps it's about becoming present enough to meet the person you've been avoiding all along.
]]>3835falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/round-3-what-is-a-man-responsible-for--72706456What does it mean to step up as a man? In his actions? His intentions? His family? His blind spots? His impact on the people around him? The culture he participates in?
In this episode of Skin & Soul, Gwenm sits down with strategist, entrepreneur, coach, and Round 3 founder Reuben Butterfield for an open conversation about masculinity, accountability, fatherhood, consent, reinvention, and the ongoing practice of becoming.
Together, they explore the moments that shape a man: loss, heartbreak, mistakes, silence, courage, and the willingness to look honestly at where we've fallen short. Reuben shares insights from his own journey through personal transformation, the lessons learned from fatherhood and relationships, and why growth begins when we stop waiting for permission and start taking responsibility for the lives we're creating.
A conversation about awareness. Blind spots. Integrity. About what happens when a man decides to become someone he can respect.
From consent and culture to grief, purpose, leadership, and love, this episode asks a question that feels more urgent than ever:
What is a man responsible for?
]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/round-3-what-is-a-man-responsible-for-39739Fri, 26 Jun 2026 17:00:00 +0000Gwenm CarsleyWhat does it mean to step up as a man? In his actions? His intentions? His family? His blind spots? His impact on the people around him? The culture he participates in? In this episode of Skin & Soul, Gwenm sits down with strategist, entrepreneur,...What does it mean to step up as a man? In his actions? His intentions? His family? His blind spots? His impact on the people around him? The culture he participates in?
In this episode of Skin & Soul, Gwenm sits down with strategist, entrepreneur, coach, and Round 3 founder Reuben Butterfield for an open conversation about masculinity, accountability, fatherhood, consent, reinvention, and the ongoing practice of becoming.
Together, they explore the moments that shape a man: loss, heartbreak, mistakes, silence, courage, and the willingness to look honestly at where we've fallen short. Reuben shares insights from his own journey through personal transformation, the lessons learned from fatherhood and relationships, and why growth begins when we stop waiting for permission and start taking responsibility for the lives we're creating.
A conversation about awareness. Blind spots. Integrity. About what happens when a man decides to become someone he can respect.
From consent and culture to grief, purpose, leadership, and love, this episode asks a question that feels more urgent than ever:
What is a man responsible for?
]]>3310falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/coming-out-later-in-life-when-stability-becomes-a-prison--72603612 In this episode of Skin & Soul: Beyond the Pale, Gwenm sits down with attorney, mediator, divorce coach, and artist Sarah Rutledge Fischer to explore the rarely discussed journey of coming out later in life. After coming out as a lesbian at 43 following an 18-year marriage, Sarah found herself navigating not only the end of a relationship, but the unraveling and rebuilding of identity, family, desire, and belonging.
Together, they discuss the courage it takes to tell the truth, the fear of hurting those we love, the tension between authenticity and responsibility, the complexity of labels, and what happens when stability becomes a prison. This is a conversation about love, loss, self-betrayal, freedom, and the extraordinary act of becoming who you truly are.
Whether you're questioning your sexuality, your relationship, your purpose, or simply the life you've built, this episode is an invitation into a deeper conversation about what it means to live in alignment with yourself.
]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/coming-out-later-in-life-when-stability-becomes-a-prison-39720Fri, 19 Jun 2026 17:00:00 +0000Gwenm CarsleyWhat happens when the life you've spent years building no longer fits? In this episode of Skin & Soul: Beyond the Pale, Gwenm sits down with attorney, mediator, divorce coach, and artist Sarah Rutledge Fischer to explore the rarely discussed... In this episode of Skin & Soul: Beyond the Pale, Gwenm sits down with attorney, mediator, divorce coach, and artist Sarah Rutledge Fischer to explore the rarely discussed journey of coming out later in life. After coming out as a lesbian at 43 following an 18-year marriage, Sarah found herself navigating not only the end of a relationship, but the unraveling and rebuilding of identity, family, desire, and belonging.
Together, they discuss the courage it takes to tell the truth, the fear of hurting those we love, the tension between authenticity and responsibility, the complexity of labels, and what happens when stability becomes a prison. This is a conversation about love, loss, self-betrayal, freedom, and the extraordinary act of becoming who you truly are.
Whether you're questioning your sexuality, your relationship, your purpose, or simply the life you've built, this episode is an invitation into a deeper conversation about what it means to live in alignment with yourself.
]]>3404falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/permission-beyond-shame-beyond-kink--72503528 Not in bed.
Not in relationships.
Not even to themselves.
In this episode of Skin & Soul, Gwenm sits down with Amanda Dames, founder of The Kink Consultant, to talk about fantasy, kink, romance, desire, shame, and the strange things that happen when we spend years pretending we don't want what we want.
From fairy tales to fetishes, from secret turn-ons to hidden longings, this conversation explores what our desires might be trying to show us and why so many of us are terrified of finding out.
Because sometimes the hardest person to tell the truth to is ourselves.
]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/permission-beyond-shame-beyond-kink-39695Fri, 12 Jun 2026 17:00:00 +0000Gwenm CarsleyMost people don't tell the truth about what they want. Not in bed. Not in relationships. Not even to themselves. In this episode of Skin & Soul, Gwenm sits down with Amanda Dames, founder of The Kink Consultant, to talk about fantasy, kink,... Not in bed.
Not in relationships.
Not even to themselves.
In this episode of Skin & Soul, Gwenm sits down with Amanda Dames, founder of The Kink Consultant, to talk about fantasy, kink, romance, desire, shame, and the strange things that happen when we spend years pretending we don't want what we want.
From fairy tales to fetishes, from secret turn-ons to hidden longings, this conversation explores what our desires might be trying to show us and why so many of us are terrified of finding out.
Because sometimes the hardest person to tell the truth to is ourselves.
]]>3428falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/the-myth-of-ownership--72376599 In this episode of Skin & Soul, Gwenm sits down with author, entrepreneur, and creator of the viral EroticSleepOver events, Cidney G. Green, for a provocative conversation about freedom, attachment, desire, and the stories we inherit about love.
Drawing from her book All 3 in Me, Cidney shares how Nichiren Buddhism shaped her understanding of attraction, identity, and personal responsibility. Together, they explore the tension between intimacy and freedom, the challenge of unlearning control, and why so many of us confuse love with ownership.
This is not a conversation about whether non-monogamy is right or wrong. It's a deeper inquiry into what happens when we stop expecting other people to complete us, save us, choose us, or make us happy.
From relationships and jealousy to spirituality, self-sovereignty, and the many parts of ourselves we carry beneath the surface, this episode invites us to examine where we grip too tightly and what becomes possible when we finally loosen our hold.
Topics include:
• The myth of ownership in love and relationships
• Buddhism and personal responsibility
• Attraction, identity, and self-reflection
• Unlearning control and attachment
• Non-monogamy and freedom
• Jealousy, desire, and emotional honesty
• The many selves we carry within us
• What it means to live authentically on your own terms
• Self-sovereignty and the pursuit of happiness
A bold, honest, and thought-provoking conversation about love, freedom, and the parts of ourselves that are still learning how to let go.
]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/the-myth-of-ownership-39656Fri, 05 Jun 2026 17:00:00 +0000Gwenm CarsleyWhat if the greatest source of suffering isn't love itself, but our belief that we can possess what was never ours to own? In this episode of Skin & Soul, Gwenm sits down with author, entrepreneur, and creator of the viral EroticSleepOver events,... In this episode of Skin & Soul, Gwenm sits down with author, entrepreneur, and creator of the viral EroticSleepOver events, Cidney G. Green, for a provocative conversation about freedom, attachment, desire, and the stories we inherit about love.
Drawing from her book All 3 in Me, Cidney shares how Nichiren Buddhism shaped her understanding of attraction, identity, and personal responsibility. Together, they explore the tension between intimacy and freedom, the challenge of unlearning control, and why so many of us confuse love with ownership.
This is not a conversation about whether non-monogamy is right or wrong. It's a deeper inquiry into what happens when we stop expecting other people to complete us, save us, choose us, or make us happy.
From relationships and jealousy to spirituality, self-sovereignty, and the many parts of ourselves we carry beneath the surface, this episode invites us to examine where we grip too tightly and what becomes possible when we finally loosen our hold.
Topics include:
• The myth of ownership in love and relationships
• Buddhism and personal responsibility
• Attraction, identity, and self-reflection
• Unlearning control and attachment
• Non-monogamy and freedom
• Jealousy, desire, and emotional honesty
• The many selves we carry within us
• What it means to live authentically on your own terms
• Self-sovereignty and the pursuit of happiness
A bold, honest, and thought-provoking conversation about love, freedom, and the parts of ourselves that are still learning how to let go.
]]>3523falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/what-is-wrong-with-being-sexual--72224257 In this deeply honest and liberating episode of Skin and Soul Beyond the Pale, Gwenm sits down with sex and relationship coach, sacred sexuality educator, and author Maria Merloni for a powerful conversation on erotic healing, body acceptance, tantra, intimacy, shame, and the profound wisdom of the human body.
Maria shares her unconventional journey from therapist to exotic dancer to sacred sexuality teacher - and how stripping became an unexpected doorway into empowerment, authenticity, and spiritual purpose. Together, Gwenm and Maria unravel cultural shame around sex, the double standards placed on women’s bodies, and the ways both men and women disconnect from their erotic life force.
]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/what-is-wrong-with-being-sexual-39643Fri, 29 May 2026 11:22:51 +0000Gwenm CarsleyWhat if your sexuality was never something to suppress… but something sacred to reclaim? In this deeply honest and liberating episode of Skin and Soul Beyond the Pale, Gwenm sits down with sex and relationship coach, sacred sexuality educator, and... In this deeply honest and liberating episode of Skin and Soul Beyond the Pale, Gwenm sits down with sex and relationship coach, sacred sexuality educator, and author Maria Merloni for a powerful conversation on erotic healing, body acceptance, tantra, intimacy, shame, and the profound wisdom of the human body.
Maria shares her unconventional journey from therapist to exotic dancer to sacred sexuality teacher - and how stripping became an unexpected doorway into empowerment, authenticity, and spiritual purpose. Together, Gwenm and Maria unravel cultural shame around sex, the double standards placed on women’s bodies, and the ways both men and women disconnect from their erotic life force.
]]>3331falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/erotic-priestess-pleasure-power-erotic-innocence--72119925 In this episode of Skin & Soul: Beyond the Pale, Gwenm sits down with Erotic Priestess Patty Alfonso for a conversation on pleasure, feminine power, erotic innocence, sensation, desire, shame, and the slow disappearance that happens when a woman leaves her body to survive her life.
Together, they unravel the ways women perform womanhood while starving for touch, truth, softness, hunger, rest, devotion, freedom, and real sensation. The places where the body tightens. The years spent overriding instinct. The ache beneath being “fine.”
This is not a conversation about becoming sexier or more empowered.
It’s about the woman underneath the performance.
The one who still wants to feel.
The one whose body has been whispering for years.
Patty shares her work around Erotic Innocence, the remembering that nothing is missing and that the body is not a problem to fix, but a living intelligence waiting to be heard.
Together they explore:

• why so many women disconnect from sensation
• pleasure beyond performance or validation
• S Factor®, movement, eros, and the feminine body
• aging, aliveness, and reclaiming desire
• grief stored inside numbness
• self-abandonment disguised as “having it together”
• the body as oracle, lover, animal, and truth-teller

]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/erotic-priestess-pleasure-power-and-erotic-innocence-39597Fri, 22 May 2026 17:00:00 +0000Gwenm CarsleyHow many women are walking around successful on the outside while feeling numb inside their own skin? In this episode of Skin & Soul: Beyond the Pale, Gwenm sits down with Erotic Priestess Patty Alfonso for a conversation on pleasure, feminine... In this episode of Skin & Soul: Beyond the Pale, Gwenm sits down with Erotic Priestess Patty Alfonso for a conversation on pleasure, feminine power, erotic innocence, sensation, desire, shame, and the slow disappearance that happens when a woman leaves her body to survive her life.
Together, they unravel the ways women perform womanhood while starving for touch, truth, softness, hunger, rest, devotion, freedom, and real sensation. The places where the body tightens. The years spent overriding instinct. The ache beneath being “fine.”
This is not a conversation about becoming sexier or more empowered.
It’s about the woman underneath the performance.
The one who still wants to feel.
The one whose body has been whispering for years.
Patty shares her work around Erotic Innocence, the remembering that nothing is missing and that the body is not a problem to fix, but a living intelligence waiting to be heard.
Together they explore:

• why so many women disconnect from sensation
• pleasure beyond performance or validation
• S Factor®, movement, eros, and the feminine body
• aging, aliveness, and reclaiming desire
• grief stored inside numbness
• self-abandonment disguised as “having it together”
• the body as oracle, lover, animal, and truth-teller

]]>3388falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/from-fbi-to-love-songs-acacia-grace-on-illness-sensuality-reinvention--72023277 In this deeply intimate episode of Skin and Soul, Gwenm Carsley sits down with singer-songwriter Acacia Grace for a raw conversation about reinvention, sensuality, heartbreak, creativity, and healing through art.
From working FBI forfeiture and seizure cases to writing emotionally charged love songs in France, Acacia opens up about the unexpected path that led her back to herself. Together, they explore chronic autoimmune illness, spirituality beyond religion, feminine desire, emotional maturity in love, and the power of music to transform pain into beauty.
This episode is a vulnerable, soulful journey into what it means to soften after survival — and to choose authenticity over performance.
A powerful conversation for anyone navigating reinvention, illness, heartbreak, creativity, or the courage to live more truthfully.   ]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/from-fbi-to-love-songs-acacia-grace-on-illness-sensuality-and-reinvention-39592Fri, 15 May 2026 17:00:00 +0000Gwenm CarsleyWhat happens when a woman leaves behind a life of law enforcement, survives chronic illness, and finally gives herself permission to feel? In this deeply intimate episode of Skin and Soul, Gwenm Carsley sits down with singer-songwriter Acacia Grace... In this deeply intimate episode of Skin and Soul, Gwenm Carsley sits down with singer-songwriter Acacia Grace for a raw conversation about reinvention, sensuality, heartbreak, creativity, and healing through art.
From working FBI forfeiture and seizure cases to writing emotionally charged love songs in France, Acacia opens up about the unexpected path that led her back to herself. Together, they explore chronic autoimmune illness, spirituality beyond religion, feminine desire, emotional maturity in love, and the power of music to transform pain into beauty.
This episode is a vulnerable, soulful journey into what it means to soften after survival — and to choose authenticity over performance.
A powerful conversation for anyone navigating reinvention, illness, heartbreak, creativity, or the courage to live more truthfully.   ]]>3360falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/be-chalant-the-mess-of-loving-long-term--71928596 Bruce is a psychologist and couples therapist who has spent more than 30 years sitting with couples at the edge of rupture, betrayal, longing, distance, and repair. His work circles around what he calls The Passion Paradox: the tension between stability and intimacy. The very things that make love feel safe can sometimes drain the risk, aliveness, and erotic charge out of it.
And then there is Judy: teacher, principal, co-host, translator of theory into real life, and author, under the name Laria Zylber, of The Blue Tent: Erotic Tales from the Bible, a work of biblical erotica that reimagines ancient stories through desire, flesh, female voice, and what she calls sexual midrash. 
This conversation may move through couples therapy, sex, faith, long-term love, betrayal, romance, erotic storytelling, and what happens when two people still love each other but can no longer find the heat, honesty, or courage to reach across the table.
Because romance is not dead. But it does ask something of us.
]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/be-chalant-the-mess-of-loving-long-term-39523Fri, 08 May 2026 17:00:00 +0000Gwenm CarsleyIn this live episode of Skin and Soul: Beyond the Pale, I’m joined by Dr. Bruce Chalmer and Judy Alexander, the married co-hosts of Couples Therapy in Seven Words. Bruce is a psychologist and couples therapist who has spent more than 30 years sitting... Bruce is a psychologist and couples therapist who has spent more than 30 years sitting with couples at the edge of rupture, betrayal, longing, distance, and repair. His work circles around what he calls The Passion Paradox: the tension between stability and intimacy. The very things that make love feel safe can sometimes drain the risk, aliveness, and erotic charge out of it.
And then there is Judy: teacher, principal, co-host, translator of theory into real life, and author, under the name Laria Zylber, of The Blue Tent: Erotic Tales from the Bible, a work of biblical erotica that reimagines ancient stories through desire, flesh, female voice, and what she calls sexual midrash. 
This conversation may move through couples therapy, sex, faith, long-term love, betrayal, romance, erotic storytelling, and what happens when two people still love each other but can no longer find the heat, honesty, or courage to reach across the table.
Because romance is not dead. But it does ask something of us.
]]>3405falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/the-spark-you-ve-been-missing-authintimacy--71819014 Paul’s work asks what happens when love stops being a fantasy we chase and becomes something we practice.
We talk about the divorce cycle, conscious endings, the voice in the mirror, dating fatigue, surface connection, the loneliness hiding inside “I’m fine,” and Paul’s framework of Authintimacy — authenticity on the out-breath, intimacy on the in-breath.
This conversation moves through love, sex, pleasure, communication, men’s work, adult sexual education, and the quiet places where relationships go numb long before they officially break.
It’s about the spark we lose when we perform our lives instead of inhabiting them — and what it takes to come back into truth, contact, and connection.
]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/the-spark-youve-been-missing-authintimacy-39522Fri, 01 May 2026 17:00:00 +0000Gwenm CarsleyIn this episode of Skin & Soul, Gwenm sits down with Paul Aaron Travis, founder of School for Love and School for Lovers, certified sexologist, AASECT-certified sexuality educator, long-time men’s group facilitator, and author of The Spark You’ve... Paul’s work asks what happens when love stops being a fantasy we chase and becomes something we practice.
We talk about the divorce cycle, conscious endings, the voice in the mirror, dating fatigue, surface connection, the loneliness hiding inside “I’m fine,” and Paul’s framework of Authintimacy — authenticity on the out-breath, intimacy on the in-breath.
This conversation moves through love, sex, pleasure, communication, men’s work, adult sexual education, and the quiet places where relationships go numb long before they officially break.
It’s about the spark we lose when we perform our lives instead of inhabiting them — and what it takes to come back into truth, contact, and connection.
]]>3053falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/encore-shameless-parenting--71617539 In this episode of Skin and Soul: Beyond the Pale, I sit with Dr. Tina Schermer Sellers — therapist, educator, and author of Sex, God & the Conservative Church and Shameless Parenting — for a wildly honest, surprisingly funny conversation about raising shame-free kids in an over-sexualized world.
We talk about babies discovering their genitals in the bath, toddlers who just want to hug everyone, and why “hands in your pants at the dinner table” is not a crisis but an invitation to teach boundaries without shaming desire. Tina walks us through what real “family life education” looks like from 0–18, why one hundred tiny, awkward one-minute chats beat the one Big Talk, and how to start when you feel like you’re years too late.
We go there with porn, phones and tablets, patriarchy, boys’ right to say no too, and how to help our kids recognize exploitation instead of becoming numb to it. We also talk about re-parenting ourselves, healing the little one inside who never got these conversations, and the strange grace that can show up with aging parents and dementia.
This one is for the exhausted, tender, secretly terrified parents who still want their kids to know: your body is yours, your pleasure is good, and you never have to trade your soul to belong.
]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/encore-shameless-parenting-39501Fri, 24 Apr 2026 17:00:00 +0000Gwenm CarsleyWhat happens when you mix a sex-positive grandma, a childhood spent figure-skating on frozen lakes, and a lifetime of dismantling religious shame… with modern parenting, porn, and kids with iPads? In this episode of Skin and Soul: Beyond the Pale, I... In this episode of Skin and Soul: Beyond the Pale, I sit with Dr. Tina Schermer Sellers — therapist, educator, and author of Sex, God & the Conservative Church and Shameless Parenting — for a wildly honest, surprisingly funny conversation about raising shame-free kids in an over-sexualized world.
We talk about babies discovering their genitals in the bath, toddlers who just want to hug everyone, and why “hands in your pants at the dinner table” is not a crisis but an invitation to teach boundaries without shaming desire. Tina walks us through what real “family life education” looks like from 0–18, why one hundred tiny, awkward one-minute chats beat the one Big Talk, and how to start when you feel like you’re years too late.
We go there with porn, phones and tablets, patriarchy, boys’ right to say no too, and how to help our kids recognize exploitation instead of becoming numb to it. We also talk about re-parenting ourselves, healing the little one inside who never got these conversations, and the strange grace that can show up with aging parents and dementia.
This one is for the exhausted, tender, secretly terrified parents who still want their kids to know: your body is yours, your pleasure is good, and you never have to trade your soul to belong.
]]>3150falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/the-intimacy-that-women-pay-for--71415613https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/the-intimacy-that-women-pay-for-39467Fri, 17 Apr 2026 17:00:00 +0000Gwenm CarsleyWhat are women really seeking when they reach beyond the usual scripts of dating, sex, and intimacy? In this episode, Gwenm speaks with George Goulburn, who left corporate life at 51 to become a professional male companion in Australia. Together they...3355falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/the-well-loved-woman--71235959We talk about feminine power, relational dynamics, the patterns women fall into when they have spent too long holding everything together, and the shift that becomes possible when a woman no longer defines worth through overgiving, over-functioning, or self-abandonment. This is a conversation about being deeply loved, yes—but also about becoming the woman who can inhabit that love without shrinking, armoring, or disappearing from herself.
This one is about devotion. Softness with spine. Power with heart. And the kind of love that does not ask a woman to betray her own aliveness.]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/the-well-loved-woman-39435Fri, 10 Apr 2026 16:24:55 +0000Gwenm CarsleySuzanne Raja has spent decades working with women at the intersection of power, intimacy, leadership, and love. In this conversation, we go into the deeper terrain of The Well Loved Woman ~ not as a polished ideal, but as a lived experience. What does...We talk about feminine power, relational dynamics, the patterns women fall into when they have spent too long holding everything together, and the shift that becomes possible when a woman no longer defines worth through overgiving, over-functioning, or self-abandonment. This is a conversation about being deeply loved, yes—but also about becoming the woman who can inhabit that love without shrinking, armoring, or disappearing from herself.
This one is about devotion. Softness with spine. Power with heart. And the kind of love that does not ask a woman to betray her own aliveness.]]>3442falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/encore-after-usefulness-desire-identity-the-quiet-panic-of-freedom--71085274In this episode, I sit with Dawn Marcotte, a Certified Professional Retirement Coach who works at the inner edge of retirement. Not the financial planning. Not the bucket lists. The moment when roles fall away and time opens up, leaving many people face to face with freedom, grief, desire, and a quiet panic they did not expect.
We talk about identity after productivity, what surfaces when no one is waiting for you to perform, and how retirement can become a threshold rather than a retreat. This is a conversation about aliveness, unlived longings, and the courage it takes to meet yourself when the scaffolding disappears.]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/encore-after-usefulness-desire-identity-and-the-quiet-panic-of-freedom-39414Fri, 03 Apr 2026 17:00:00 +0000Gwenm CarsleyWhat happens when usefulness ends and life finally slows down. In this episode, I sit with Dawn Marcotte, a Certified Professional Retirement Coach who works at the inner edge of retirement. Not the financial planning. Not the bucket lists. The moment...In this episode, I sit with Dawn Marcotte, a Certified Professional Retirement Coach who works at the inner edge of retirement. Not the financial planning. Not the bucket lists. The moment when roles fall away and time opens up, leaving many people face to face with freedom, grief, desire, and a quiet panic they did not expect.
We talk about identity after productivity, what surfaces when no one is waiting for you to perform, and how retirement can become a threshold rather than a retreat. This is a conversation about aliveness, unlived longings, and the courage it takes to meet yourself when the scaffolding disappears.]]>3324falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/grief-risk-and-the-second-act--70933837https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/grief-risk-and-the-second-act-39367Fri, 27 Mar 2026 17:00:00 +0000Gwenm CarsleyProducer Laura Z. Barket shares her journey through widowhood, motherhood, and finding aliveness again through theatre.3337falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/rites-of-return-women-healing-and-home--70787964 We explore her new book, Another Spring, a seasonally shaped guide rooted in self-therapy, spiritual practice, and women’s wisdom. Together, we touch on stillness, grief, trust, intuition, emotional resilience, and the quiet reclaiming of inner authority.
This is about the soul after winter,  and how women’s healing ripples beyond the personal.
]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/rites-of-return-women-healing-and-home-39340Fri, 20 Mar 2026 17:00:00 +0000Gwenm CarsleyIn this episode of Skin & Soul, Gwenm is joined by Terry Folks for a conversation on women, healing, and the return to what feels like home within. Terry’s work sits where psychotherapy, spirituality, and women’s lived experience meet — especially... We explore her new book, Another Spring, a seasonally shaped guide rooted in self-therapy, spiritual practice, and women’s wisdom. Together, we touch on stillness, grief, trust, intuition, emotional resilience, and the quiet reclaiming of inner authority.
This is about the soul after winter,  and how women’s healing ripples beyond the personal.
]]>2705falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/america-in-therapy--70627423Together they explore how what begins in the home does not stay in the home. The child who becomes symptomatic, the family that cannot repair, the absence of healthy boundaries, the silence around pain, the pull toward blame, helplessness, aggression, and disconnection — all of it echoes outward into culture, community, and nation. Phyllis brings decades of therapeutic insight to the question of what happens when individuals and societies lose their capacity to listen, to tolerate difference, to stay in dialogue, and to heal.
This conversation moves through trauma, witness helplessness, nonviolent communication, accountability, belonging, and the power of love not as sentiment, but as a real force in healing. It is a conversation about what breaks us, what hardens us, what keeps us repeating harm, and what becomes possible when we begin to repair.]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/america-in-therapy-39320Fri, 13 Mar 2026 17:00:00 +0000Gwenm CarsleyIn this episode of Skin and Soul Beyond the Pale, Gwenm Carsley sits down with psychotherapist and author Phyllis Leavitt for a deep conversation on abuse, learned helplessness, family systems, boundaries, power, and repair. Together they explore how...Together they explore how what begins in the home does not stay in the home. The child who becomes symptomatic, the family that cannot repair, the absence of healthy boundaries, the silence around pain, the pull toward blame, helplessness, aggression, and disconnection — all of it echoes outward into culture, community, and nation. Phyllis brings decades of therapeutic insight to the question of what happens when individuals and societies lose their capacity to listen, to tolerate difference, to stay in dialogue, and to heal.
This conversation moves through trauma, witness helplessness, nonviolent communication, accountability, belonging, and the power of love not as sentiment, but as a real force in healing. It is a conversation about what breaks us, what hardens us, what keeps us repeating harm, and what becomes possible when we begin to repair.]]>3370falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/the-sounds-of-hands--70512300 And yet he has spent more than forty-five years standing between silence and sound ~ translating not just words, but grief, sarcasm, poetry, justice, faith, intimacy, and pride.
In this episode, we explore what it means to live as the bridge between Deaf and hearing worlds. What it means to transmit without altering. To hold neutrality in courtrooms, in family calls, in moments of tenderness between sisters. To speak fluently in sarcasm - in two languages.
We talk about the sensuality of language. The fact that signing does not merely say “It’s raining,” but shows the force, the wind, the impact - all at once. How eye contact is built into the grammar. How music becomes visual poetry in motion. How the body becomes tone, rhythm, emphasis.
And beneath it all, a deeper question:
If words are but pictures of our thoughts… what happens when the picture is made with hands?
This is a conversation about the human need for connection and the world inside silence. About standing between silence and sound. About the extraordinary depth of a language that turns the body into voice.
]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/the-sounds-of-hands-39280Fri, 06 Mar 2026 18:00:00 +0000Gwenm CarsleyHis name means My Voice. And yet he has spent more than forty-five years standing between silence and sound ~ translating not just words, but grief, sarcasm, poetry, justice, faith, intimacy, and pride. In this episode, we explore what it means to... And yet he has spent more than forty-five years standing between silence and sound ~ translating not just words, but grief, sarcasm, poetry, justice, faith, intimacy, and pride.
In this episode, we explore what it means to live as the bridge between Deaf and hearing worlds. What it means to transmit without altering. To hold neutrality in courtrooms, in family calls, in moments of tenderness between sisters. To speak fluently in sarcasm - in two languages.
We talk about the sensuality of language. The fact that signing does not merely say “It’s raining,” but shows the force, the wind, the impact - all at once. How eye contact is built into the grammar. How music becomes visual poetry in motion. How the body becomes tone, rhythm, emphasis.
And beneath it all, a deeper question:
If words are but pictures of our thoughts… what happens when the picture is made with hands?
This is a conversation about the human need for connection and the world inside silence. About standing between silence and sound. About the extraordinary depth of a language that turns the body into voice.
]]>3623falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/after-usefulness-desire-identity-the-quiet-panic-of-freedom--70345701 In this episode, I sit with Dawn Marcotte, a Certified Professional Retirement Coach who works at the inner edge of retirement. Not the financial planning. Not the bucket lists. The moment when roles fall away and time opens up, leaving many people face to face with freedom, grief, desire, and a quiet panic they did not expect.
We talk about identity after productivity, what surfaces when no one is waiting for you to perform, and how retirement can become a threshold rather than a retreat. This is a conversation about aliveness, unlived longings, and the courage it takes to meet yourself when the scaffolding disappears.
]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/after-usefulness-desire-identity-and-the-quiet-panic-of-freedom-39203Fri, 27 Feb 2026 18:00:00 +0000Gwenm CarsleyWhat happens when usefulness ends and life finally slows down. In this episode, I sit with Dawn Marcotte, a Certified Professional Retirement Coach who works at the inner edge of retirement. Not the financial planning. Not the bucket lists. The... In this episode, I sit with Dawn Marcotte, a Certified Professional Retirement Coach who works at the inner edge of retirement. Not the financial planning. Not the bucket lists. The moment when roles fall away and time opens up, leaving many people face to face with freedom, grief, desire, and a quiet panic they did not expect.
We talk about identity after productivity, what surfaces when no one is waiting for you to perform, and how retirement can become a threshold rather than a retreat. This is a conversation about aliveness, unlived longings, and the courage it takes to meet yourself when the scaffolding disappears.
]]>3324falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/carrying-the-tiger-love-practiced-in-the-presence-of-death--70182888 In this episode of Skin & Soul, I sit with Tony Stewart to talk about Carrying the Tiger - a memoir that refuses to sentimentalize illness, grief, or recovery.
We talk about:

• loving someone while they are dying
  
• caregiving as an act of intimacy
  
• how grief lives in the body, not the calendar
  
• the moment joy returns — and the guilt that can follow
  
• loving again without erasing what came before
  

This is a conversation about staying present when life cannot be fixed.
About learning to live with your hands open.
About what it means to carry love forward, while remaining with life.
]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/carrying-the-tiger-love-practiced-in-the-presence-of-death-39201Fri, 20 Feb 2026 18:00:00 +0000Gwenm CarsleyWhat does love become when there is no cure ~ only time, devotion, and choice? In this episode of Skin & Soul, I sit with Tony Stewart to talk about Carrying the Tiger - a memoir that refuses to sentimentalize illness, grief, or recovery. We... In this episode of Skin & Soul, I sit with Tony Stewart to talk about Carrying the Tiger - a memoir that refuses to sentimentalize illness, grief, or recovery.
We talk about:

• loving someone while they are dying
  
• caregiving as an act of intimacy
  
• how grief lives in the body, not the calendar
  
• the moment joy returns — and the guilt that can follow
  
• loving again without erasing what came before
  

This is a conversation about staying present when life cannot be fixed.
About learning to live with your hands open.
About what it means to carry love forward, while remaining with life.
]]>3471falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/masters-of-the-boardroom-bedroom-boredom--70055536 In this episode of Skin & Soul, Gwenm sits down with Flora Petri to explore the quiet disconnect many high-performing men live with: outward success paired with internal numbness. Together they unpack performance, burnout, erotic intelligence, and why so many leaders can command rooms yet feel absent in their own bodies, relationships, and pleasure.
Flora shares her journey from corporate law and diplomacy into embodied leadership and why presence, pleasure, and intimacy aren’t indulgences, but the foundation of sustainable power. This conversation moves between boardroom and bedroom, asking what kind of leadership is possible when men stop performing and start inhabiting themselves.
This is an episode about eros as intelligence.
About power that can feel.
]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/masters-of-the-boardroom-bedroom-boredom-39199Fri, 13 Feb 2026 18:00:00 +0000Gwenm CarsleyWhat happens when mastery at work doesn’t translate to intimacy—or aliveness? In this episode of Skin & Soul, Gwenm sits down with Flora Petri to explore the quiet disconnect many high-performing men live with: outward success paired with... In this episode of Skin & Soul, Gwenm sits down with Flora Petri to explore the quiet disconnect many high-performing men live with: outward success paired with internal numbness. Together they unpack performance, burnout, erotic intelligence, and why so many leaders can command rooms yet feel absent in their own bodies, relationships, and pleasure.
Flora shares her journey from corporate law and diplomacy into embodied leadership and why presence, pleasure, and intimacy aren’t indulgences, but the foundation of sustainable power. This conversation moves between boardroom and bedroom, asking what kind of leadership is possible when men stop performing and start inhabiting themselves.
This is an episode about eros as intelligence.
About power that can feel.
]]>3209falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/encore-desire-as-currency--69848140 Working within the sex industry as an erotic dancer, hosting swinger events, styling adult film sets, and writing erotic fiction, she witnessed how sex, money, and power actually move. When formal pathways failed her, she created Seductive Art—focusing on visual stimulation, erotic dialogue, and sensual movement.
This conversation strips away the fairytale and looks at desire as currency: how power shapes attraction, why honesty about sex is rare, and what awareness really protects us from.
]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/encore-desire-as-currency-39174Fri, 06 Feb 2026 18:00:00 +0000Gwenm CarsleyRill’s understanding of desire comes from proximity, not theory. Working within the sex industry as an erotic dancer, hosting swinger events, styling adult film sets, and writing erotic fiction, she witnessed how sex, money, and power actually move.... Working within the sex industry as an erotic dancer, hosting swinger events, styling adult film sets, and writing erotic fiction, she witnessed how sex, money, and power actually move. When formal pathways failed her, she created Seductive Art—focusing on visual stimulation, erotic dialogue, and sensual movement.
This conversation strips away the fairytale and looks at desire as currency: how power shapes attraction, why honesty about sex is rare, and what awareness really protects us from.
]]>3287falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/the-shape-of-discipline--69690881Behind the polish. The visibility. The story we tell about having “made it.”
Clarissa Burt grew up inside strict rules, left home at eighteen, survived abuse, and built a life that looked powerful long before it felt anchored. We don’t talk about confidence as a glow or a performance. We talk about what it costs. What it takes. What stays.
This is a conversation about the quiet work ~ the rebuilding no one sees. About esteem as something practiced daily, not claimed once. About giving endlessly, and the far more vulnerable act of learning how to receive. About what happens when survival ends and there’s no applause to hold you up.
What remains when the image falls away?
Who are you when you’re alone with yourself?
A conversation about maturity, endurance, and the interior life — the one that makes a life inhabitable.
]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/the-shape-of-discipline-39113Fri, 30 Jan 2026 18:00:00 +0000Gwenm CarsleyThis conversation lives behind the image. Behind the polish. The visibility. The story we tell about having “made it.” Clarissa Burt grew up inside strict rules, left home at eighteen, survived abuse, and built a life that looked powerful long before...Behind the polish. The visibility. The story we tell about having “made it.”
Clarissa Burt grew up inside strict rules, left home at eighteen, survived abuse, and built a life that looked powerful long before it felt anchored. We don’t talk about confidence as a glow or a performance. We talk about what it costs. What it takes. What stays.
This is a conversation about the quiet work ~ the rebuilding no one sees. About esteem as something practiced daily, not claimed once. About giving endlessly, and the far more vulnerable act of learning how to receive. About what happens when survival ends and there’s no applause to hold you up.
What remains when the image falls away?
Who are you when you’re alone with yourself?
A conversation about maturity, endurance, and the interior life — the one that makes a life inhabitable.
]]>3539falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/voyage-into-presence--69564965We showed up.
With Aaron Mandelbaum, we don’t map transformation ~ we sit inside it. In the pauses. In the places where language thins and the body starts telling the truth. We speak about presence not as mastery, but as devotion. The kind that asks you to stay when it would be easier to perform, explain, or disappear.
We touch the places we usually rush past: discomfort, intimacy, the quiet violence of bypass, the ache of becoming without applause. There is philosophy here, yes — but it’s been chewed, lived, and softened by breath.
Nothing is resolved. Nothing is promised.
Only the intimacy of attention.
Only the walk.
Only what happens when you let yourself be here.
]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/voyage-into-presence-39111Fri, 23 Jan 2026 18:00:00 +0000Gwenm CarsleyWe didn’t plan this conversation. We showed up. With Aaron Mandelbaum, we don’t map transformation ~ we sit inside it. In the pauses. In the places where language thins and the body starts telling the truth. We speak about presence not as mastery,...We showed up.
With Aaron Mandelbaum, we don’t map transformation ~ we sit inside it. In the pauses. In the places where language thins and the body starts telling the truth. We speak about presence not as mastery, but as devotion. The kind that asks you to stay when it would be easier to perform, explain, or disappear.
We touch the places we usually rush past: discomfort, intimacy, the quiet violence of bypass, the ache of becoming without applause. There is philosophy here, yes — but it’s been chewed, lived, and softened by breath.
Nothing is resolved. Nothing is promised.
Only the intimacy of attention.
Only the walk.
Only what happens when you let yourself be here.
]]>3350falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/helplessness-the-brothers-who-carry-the-unspeakable--69473073 Keeper opens the door on what most families never speak about. Helplessness is his forty-five-year journey through shock, shame, paralysis, and finally toward a fragile kind of hope - born not in denial but in the courage to face what was buried and forbidden. This memoir foregrounds what brothers experience when systems, culture, and love itself tell them to shut up, stay strong, and carry on, even as their world collapses. 
In this episode, Keeper and I delve into the emotional architecture of silence,  how not talking becomes its own prison, how guilt morphs into a lifelong companion, and how reclaiming voice is an act of resistance and healing. We talk about men’s emotional health in the shadow of unspeakable pain, the absence of spaces that hold brotherly experience with tenderness and depth, and the grand societal myth that resilience means never breaking. 
]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/helplessness-the-brothers-who-carry-the-unspeakable-39066Fri, 16 Jan 2026 18:00:00 +0000Gwenm CarsleyIn this unflinching conversation, we sit with Keeper Catran-Whitney - author, survivor, brother, and truth-speaker - about his memoir Helplessness: What Happens to Brothers When We Learn Our Sisters Have Been Molested by Our Parents. This isn’t just... Keeper opens the door on what most families never speak about. Helplessness is his forty-five-year journey through shock, shame, paralysis, and finally toward a fragile kind of hope - born not in denial but in the courage to face what was buried and forbidden. This memoir foregrounds what brothers experience when systems, culture, and love itself tell them to shut up, stay strong, and carry on, even as their world collapses. 
In this episode, Keeper and I delve into the emotional architecture of silence,  how not talking becomes its own prison, how guilt morphs into a lifelong companion, and how reclaiming voice is an act of resistance and healing. We talk about men’s emotional health in the shadow of unspeakable pain, the absence of spaces that hold brotherly experience with tenderness and depth, and the grand societal myth that resilience means never breaking. 
]]>3158falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/encore-sculpting-venus--69373573 In this unfiltered and unforgettable episode of Skin & Soul, I sit down with British sculptor Jamie McCartney—creator of The Great Wall of Vagina (now Vulva), The Spice of Life, and a growing body of work that dares to mold the raw truth of our erotic anatomy.
From labia to penis, outer lips to internal vaginal walls, Jamie’s art captures what we’re taught to hide. This isn’t porn. It’s not provocation for its own sake. It’s documentation. Reclamation. Reverence.
We talk about:

• The myth of the “perfect” pussy—and the quiet epidemic of aesthetic shame
  
• Why the most radical thing you can do is see (and show) your real body
  
• The art of internal vaginal casting (!), and the intimate trust it demands
  
• Genital diversity, censorship, and why real erotic bodies deserve museum walls
  

Jamie’s sculptures aren’t just flesh frozen in time. They are resistance. Education. Sacred rebellion. They say: you are not wrong. You are not broken. You are not alone.
Because Venus was never one shape.
She was every curve. Every crease. Every variation.
And each one of them is divine.
Watch: https://youtu.be/UX7JZG1-Puw
]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/encore-sculpting-venus-39047Fri, 09 Jan 2026 17:23:44 +0000Gwenm CarsleyWhat happens when you cast the most hidden, most judged parts of the body into permanence? In this unfiltered and unforgettable episode of Skin & Soul, I sit down with British sculptor Jamie McCartney—creator of The Great Wall of Vagina (now... In this unfiltered and unforgettable episode of Skin & Soul, I sit down with British sculptor Jamie McCartney—creator of The Great Wall of Vagina (now Vulva), The Spice of Life, and a growing body of work that dares to mold the raw truth of our erotic anatomy.
From labia to penis, outer lips to internal vaginal walls, Jamie’s art captures what we’re taught to hide. This isn’t porn. It’s not provocation for its own sake. It’s documentation. Reclamation. Reverence.
We talk about:

• The myth of the “perfect” pussy—and the quiet epidemic of aesthetic shame
  
• Why the most radical thing you can do is see (and show) your real body
  
• The art of internal vaginal casting (!), and the intimate trust it demands
  
• Genital diversity, censorship, and why real erotic bodies deserve museum walls
  

Jamie’s sculptures aren’t just flesh frozen in time. They are resistance. Education. Sacred rebellion. They say: you are not wrong. You are not broken. You are not alone.
Because Venus was never one shape.
She was every curve. Every crease. Every variation.
And each one of them is divine.
Watch: https://youtu.be/UX7JZG1-Puw
]]>3505falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/desire-as-currency--69283014 Working within the sex industry as an erotic dancer, hosting swinger events, styling adult film sets, and writing erotic fiction, she witnessed how sex, money, and power actually move. When formal pathways failed her, she created Seductive Art—focusing on visual stimulation, erotic dialogue, and sensual movement.
This conversation strips away the fairytale and looks at desire as currency: how power shapes attraction, why honesty about sex is rare, and what awareness really protects us from.
]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/desire-as-currency-38988Fri, 02 Jan 2026 18:00:00 +0000Gwenm CarsleyRill’s understanding of desire comes from proximity, not theory. Working within the sex industry as an erotic dancer, hosting swinger events, styling adult film sets, and writing erotic fiction, she witnessed how sex, money, and power actually move.... Working within the sex industry as an erotic dancer, hosting swinger events, styling adult film sets, and writing erotic fiction, she witnessed how sex, money, and power actually move. When formal pathways failed her, she created Seductive Art—focusing on visual stimulation, erotic dialogue, and sensual movement.
This conversation strips away the fairytale and looks at desire as currency: how power shapes attraction, why honesty about sex is rare, and what awareness really protects us from.
]]>3287falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/desire-by-design-kabbalah-eros-the-personality-code--69213131 In this episode of Skin & Soul, I’m joined by David Bederman, spiritual teacher, behavioral strategist, and creator of The Personality Code — a system rooted in Kabbalah that explores the hidden wiring shaping how we love, attract, create, and evolve.
We talk about Kabbalah as an ancient energetic framework and how it illuminates desire, attraction patterns, masculine and feminine energies, soul growth, and erotic repetition.
We explore why we’re drawn to who we’re drawn to, how intimacy reveals our deepest wiring, and why sex and eros may be among the most powerful forces for spiritual evolution.
]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/desire-by-design-kabbalah-eros-and-the-personality-code-38977Fri, 26 Dec 2025 18:00:00 +0000Gwenm CarsleyWhat if desire isn’t random — and intimacy isn’t accidental? In this episode of Skin & Soul, I’m joined by David Bederman, spiritual teacher, behavioral strategist, and creator of The Personality Code — a system rooted in Kabbalah that explores... In this episode of Skin & Soul, I’m joined by David Bederman, spiritual teacher, behavioral strategist, and creator of The Personality Code — a system rooted in Kabbalah that explores the hidden wiring shaping how we love, attract, create, and evolve.
We talk about Kabbalah as an ancient energetic framework and how it illuminates desire, attraction patterns, masculine and feminine energies, soul growth, and erotic repetition.
We explore why we’re drawn to who we’re drawn to, how intimacy reveals our deepest wiring, and why sex and eros may be among the most powerful forces for spiritual evolution.
]]>3295falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/a-love-story-to-the-universe--69138313 We also enter her newest project, The Art and Science of Wishing, rooted in peaceful, positivity, and purposeful, where desire becomes something sharper than hope and far more intimate than manifestation. Together we explore how wishing, when done from truth rather than fantasy, becomes a force that shapes reality.
This is an episode about devotion, destiny, and the courage to want ~ fully, unapologetically, with the whole body.
]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/a-love-story-to-the-universe-38181Fri, 19 Dec 2025 18:00:00 +0000Gwenm CarsleyIn this episode, Brownell Landrum joins us to explore the pulse beneath her work A Love Story to the Universe - a conversation about soul mates, longing, synchronicity, and the quiet ways the cosmos answers the human heart. We also enter her newest... We also enter her newest project, The Art and Science of Wishing, rooted in peaceful, positivity, and purposeful, where desire becomes something sharper than hope and far more intimate than manifestation. Together we explore how wishing, when done from truth rather than fantasy, becomes a force that shapes reality.
This is an episode about devotion, destiny, and the courage to want ~ fully, unapologetically, with the whole body.
]]>3381falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/when-sex-meets-god-forever-jung--69012833 Deborah shares how Jungian psychology shaped her awakening, how younger lovers appeared as catalysts, and how projection, archetype, and kundalini pulled her into a transformation she couldn’t think her way out of.
A conversation about becoming Forever Jung—alive, undone, curious, and willing to follow eros into the unknown.
]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/when-sex-meets-god-forever-jung-38932Fri, 12 Dec 2025 18:00:00 +0000Gwenm CarsleyIn this intimate conversation with depth psychology coach and author Deborah Lukovich, we dive into the lived story behind her memoir When Sex Meets God. We explore the midlife unraveling that cracks open desire, shadow, dreams, synchronicity, and the... Deborah shares how Jungian psychology shaped her awakening, how younger lovers appeared as catalysts, and how projection, archetype, and kundalini pulled her into a transformation she couldn’t think her way out of.
A conversation about becoming Forever Jung—alive, undone, curious, and willing to follow eros into the unknown.
]]>3402falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/encore-embodying-the-practice-intimate-with-ayahuasca--68904211 In part 2 of our Embodying the Practice conversation, Andrew Marshall returns to talk about intimacy - with the medicine, and with the ones we love. We explore his experiences with Ayahuasca - the openings, the purges, the raw honesty of meeting himself and how that honesty now lives in his purpose and his relationships.
What do we keep from our partners in the name of love?
What truths sit unsaid in the body?
And what does it take to speak from that place - unarmored, alive, fully present.
This is a conversation about embodiment, truth, and the courage to see and face one's shadows when there’s nowhere left to hide.
 
 ]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/encore-embodying-the-practice-intimate-with-ayahuasca-38895Fri, 05 Dec 2025 18:00:00 +0000Gwenm Carsley  In part 2 of our Embodying the Practice conversation, Andrew Marshall returns to talk about intimacy - with the medicine, and with the ones we love. We explore his experiences with Ayahuasca - the openings, the purges, the raw honesty of meeting... In part 2 of our Embodying the Practice conversation, Andrew Marshall returns to talk about intimacy - with the medicine, and with the ones we love. We explore his experiences with Ayahuasca - the openings, the purges, the raw honesty of meeting himself and how that honesty now lives in his purpose and his relationships.
What do we keep from our partners in the name of love?
What truths sit unsaid in the body?
And what does it take to speak from that place - unarmored, alive, fully present.
This is a conversation about embodiment, truth, and the courage to see and face one's shadows when there’s nowhere left to hide.
 
 ]]>3287falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/a-cup-of-tea-on-the-commode-loving-second-childhood--68788909 Mark’s award-winning memoir, A Cup of Tea on the Commode, captures the wild contradictions of eldercare:
how a parent becomes a child again,
how dignity hangs by a thread,
how humor saves you when nothing else can,
and how love gets louder as memory fades.
We talk about the small rebellions, the forgotten names, the guilt, the tenderness, the absurdity, the devotion, and the surprising joy that arrives when you’re forced to show up in ways you never imagined you could.
This is a conversation about the human comedy of decline — and the unexpected beauty in loving someone through their second childhood.
]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/a-cup-of-tea-on-the-commode-loving-second-childhood-38860Fri, 28 Nov 2025 18:00:00 +0000Gwenm CarsleyIn this episode of Skin & Soul: Beyond the Pale, I sit with Mark Steven Porro — actor, designer, accidental entrepreneur, and the son who walked straight into the chaos, comedy, and heartbreak of caring for his mother in her final years. Mark’s... Mark’s award-winning memoir, A Cup of Tea on the Commode, captures the wild contradictions of eldercare:
how a parent becomes a child again,
how dignity hangs by a thread,
how humor saves you when nothing else can,
and how love gets louder as memory fades.
We talk about the small rebellions, the forgotten names, the guilt, the tenderness, the absurdity, the devotion, and the surprising joy that arrives when you’re forced to show up in ways you never imagined you could.
This is a conversation about the human comedy of decline — and the unexpected beauty in loving someone through their second childhood.
]]>3389falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/shameless-parenting--68683535 In this episode of Skin and Soul: Beyond the Pale, I sit with Dr. Tina Schermer Sellers — therapist, educator, and author of Sex, God & the Conservative Church and Shameless Parenting — for a wildly honest, surprisingly funny conversation about raising shame-free kids in an over-sexualized world.
We talk about babies discovering their genitals in the bath, toddlers who just want to hug everyone, and why “hands in your pants at the dinner table” is not a crisis but an invitation to teach boundaries without shaming desire. Tina walks us through what real “family life education” looks like from 0–18, why one hundred tiny, awkward one-minute chats beat the one Big Talk, and how to start when you feel like you’re years too late.
We go there with porn, phones and tablets, patriarchy, boys’ right to say no too, and how to help our kids recognize exploitation instead of becoming numb to it. We also talk about re-parenting ourselves, healing the little one inside who never got these conversations, and the strange grace that can show up with aging parents and dementia.
This one is for the exhausted, tender, secretly terrified parents who still want their kids to know: your body is yours, your pleasure is good, and you never have to trade your soul to belong.
]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/shameless-parenting-38817Fri, 21 Nov 2025 18:00:00 +0000Gwenm CarsleyWhat happens when you mix a sex-positive grandma, a childhood spent figure-skating on frozen lakes, and a lifetime of dismantling religious shame… with modern parenting, porn, and kids with iPads? In this episode of Skin and Soul: Beyond the Pale, I... In this episode of Skin and Soul: Beyond the Pale, I sit with Dr. Tina Schermer Sellers — therapist, educator, and author of Sex, God & the Conservative Church and Shameless Parenting — for a wildly honest, surprisingly funny conversation about raising shame-free kids in an over-sexualized world.
We talk about babies discovering their genitals in the bath, toddlers who just want to hug everyone, and why “hands in your pants at the dinner table” is not a crisis but an invitation to teach boundaries without shaming desire. Tina walks us through what real “family life education” looks like from 0–18, why one hundred tiny, awkward one-minute chats beat the one Big Talk, and how to start when you feel like you’re years too late.
We go there with porn, phones and tablets, patriarchy, boys’ right to say no too, and how to help our kids recognize exploitation instead of becoming numb to it. We also talk about re-parenting ourselves, healing the little one inside who never got these conversations, and the strange grace that can show up with aging parents and dementia.
This one is for the exhausted, tender, secretly terrified parents who still want their kids to know: your body is yours, your pleasure is good, and you never have to trade your soul to belong.
]]>3150falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/book-of-wings-on-eros-death-and-the-infinite--68570715https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/book-of-wings-on-eros-death-and-the-infinite-38786Fri, 14 Nov 2025 18:00:00 +0000Gwenm CarsleyPoet, author, and sound artist Tawhida Tanya Evanson joins Gwenm to explore eros, death, mysticism, lucid dreaming, and the divine in Book of Wings.3544falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/the-woman-who-stayed-dad-truth-transition-and-the-body-that-finally-fits--68466592 Teegan Toftley transitioned in her late forties — not to prove a point, but to stop living divided. Now in her fifties, she’s still married to the same woman, still “Dad” to her kids, and still disarmingly real about what it means to belong to your own skin.
In this episode, we tackle conversations about gender, belonging, and authenticity. Teegan speaks openly about body dysmorphia, love that lasts through change, and the current cultural noise surrounding what it means to be trans.
It’s about what happens when the stories we tell about identity meet the deeper story of being human.
]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/the-woman-who-stayed-dad-truth-transition-and-the-body-that-finally-fits-38762Fri, 07 Nov 2025 18:00:00 +0000Gwenm CarsleyWhat happens when becoming yourself collides with a world obsessed with identity — when truth, politics, and love all live in the same body? Teegan Toftley transitioned in her late forties — not to prove a point, but to stop living divided. Now in... Teegan Toftley transitioned in her late forties — not to prove a point, but to stop living divided. Now in her fifties, she’s still married to the same woman, still “Dad” to her kids, and still disarmingly real about what it means to belong to your own skin.
In this episode, we tackle conversations about gender, belonging, and authenticity. Teegan speaks openly about body dysmorphia, love that lasts through change, and the current cultural noise surrounding what it means to be trans.
It’s about what happens when the stories we tell about identity meet the deeper story of being human.
]]>3458falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/desire-purpose-and-the-hunger-for-something-real--68370243 What’s the difference between pleasure and purpose — between the quick hit of happiness and the quiet satisfaction of meaning?
In this episode, Gwenm sits with Justin McSweeny, philosopher of mind and host of an interview series exploring sense-making and identity, to talk about the space where eros meets consciousness. Together they explore the longing that drives us — the hunger for depth in a world that keeps us on the surface.
Justin brings insights from philosophy of mind and third-generation cognitive science — how we build meaning, construct self, and relate to our own becoming. Gwenm brings it back into the body — where desire, purpose, and soul all converge.
They talk about hedonic versus eudaimonic happiness, the intelligence of desire, and what it means to live with presence instead of performance.
]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/desire-purpose-and-the-hunger-for-something-real-38708Fri, 31 Oct 2025 17:00:00 +0000Gwenm Carsley What’s the difference between pleasure and purpose — between the quick hit of happiness and the quiet satisfaction of meaning? In this episode, Gwenm sits with Justin McSweeny, philosopher of mind and host of an interview series exploring... What’s the difference between pleasure and purpose — between the quick hit of happiness and the quiet satisfaction of meaning?
In this episode, Gwenm sits with Justin McSweeny, philosopher of mind and host of an interview series exploring sense-making and identity, to talk about the space where eros meets consciousness. Together they explore the longing that drives us — the hunger for depth in a world that keeps us on the surface.
Justin brings insights from philosophy of mind and third-generation cognitive science — how we build meaning, construct self, and relate to our own becoming. Gwenm brings it back into the body — where desire, purpose, and soul all converge.
They talk about hedonic versus eudaimonic happiness, the intelligence of desire, and what it means to live with presence instead of performance.
]]>3400falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/embodying-the-practice-intimate-with-ayahuasca--68370253 In part 2 of our Embodying the Practice conversation, Andrew Marshall returns to talk about intimacy - with the medicine, and with the ones we love. We explore his experiences with Ayahuasca - the openings, the purges, the raw honesty of meeting himself and how that honesty now lives in his purpose and his relationships.
What do we keep from our partners in the name of love?
What truths sit unsaid in the body?
And what does it take to speak from that place - unarmored, alive, fully present.
This is a conversation about embodiment, truth, and the courage to see and face one's shadows when there’s nowhere left to hide.
 
 ]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/embodying-the-practice-intimate-with-ayahuasca-38666Fri, 24 Oct 2025 17:00:00 +0000Gwenm Carsley  In part 2 of our Embodying the Practice conversation, Andrew Marshall returns to talk about intimacy - with the medicine, and with the ones we love. We explore his experiences with Ayahuasca - the openings, the purges, the raw honesty of meeting... In part 2 of our Embodying the Practice conversation, Andrew Marshall returns to talk about intimacy - with the medicine, and with the ones we love. We explore his experiences with Ayahuasca - the openings, the purges, the raw honesty of meeting himself and how that honesty now lives in his purpose and his relationships.
What do we keep from our partners in the name of love?
What truths sit unsaid in the body?
And what does it take to speak from that place - unarmored, alive, fully present.
This is a conversation about embodiment, truth, and the courage to see and face one's shadows when there’s nowhere left to hide.
 
 ]]>3287falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/embodying-the-practice-becoming-the-conscious-masculine--68370272 He chased the highs - the fight, the women, the thrill that felt like freedom.
But it wasn’t. It was escape dressed up as aliveness.
 
Andrew Marshall, Master Coach, Jiu Jitsu black belt, husband, father - lived the performance of freedom until his body, his spirit, and the woman who he finally called in, asked for something truer. We talk about what happens when the chase ends. When control no longer feels powerful. When freedom isn’t about getting away - but being right here, in the body, fully awake.
 
This is a conversation about the myth of freedom,
the discipline it takes to stay,
and the quiet beauty of a man who’s learned to live inside his skin.
]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/embodying-the-practice-becoming-the-conscious-masculine-38632Fri, 17 Oct 2025 17:00:00 +0000Gwenm Carsley  He chased the highs - the fight, the women, the thrill that felt like freedom. But it wasn’t. It was escape dressed up as aliveness.   Andrew Marshall, Master Coach, Jiu Jitsu black belt, husband, father - lived the performance of freedom... He chased the highs - the fight, the women, the thrill that felt like freedom.
But it wasn’t. It was escape dressed up as aliveness.
 
Andrew Marshall, Master Coach, Jiu Jitsu black belt, husband, father - lived the performance of freedom until his body, his spirit, and the woman who he finally called in, asked for something truer. We talk about what happens when the chase ends. When control no longer feels powerful. When freedom isn’t about getting away - but being right here, in the body, fully awake.
 
This is a conversation about the myth of freedom,
the discipline it takes to stay,
and the quiet beauty of a man who’s learned to live inside his skin.
]]>3152falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/fucking-on-repeat-the-aphrodisiac-of-opening--68370270 Bedroom boredom isn’t about running out of positions or toys. It’s about the slow leak of presence — the touch that doesn’t land, the kiss that no longer opens, the silence that grows cold between bodies. In this episode, Gwenm drops raw into her own story — a marriage that ended in rupture, the ache of midlife awakening, the pull of numbness, and the courage to soften back into pleasure.
She unpacks how boredom can become a deadening cycle — or an invitation. Through visceral stories and practical tools, she offers a path back into aliveness: breath that ignites desire, sound that cracks you open, touch that revives numb landscapes, polarity, mystery, adventure, repair, and the forgotten aphrodisiac of opening the heart.
This is not surface-level “spice.” This is eros as lifeblood — the difference between living half-asleep and being fully claimed by presence.
]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/fucking-on-repeat-the-aphrodisiac-of-opening-38572Fri, 03 Oct 2025 17:00:00 +0000Gwenm Carsley  Bedroom boredom isn’t about running out of positions or toys. It’s about the slow leak of presence — the touch that doesn’t land, the kiss that no longer opens, the silence that grows cold between bodies. In this episode, Gwenm drops raw into her... Bedroom boredom isn’t about running out of positions or toys. It’s about the slow leak of presence — the touch that doesn’t land, the kiss that no longer opens, the silence that grows cold between bodies. In this episode, Gwenm drops raw into her own story — a marriage that ended in rupture, the ache of midlife awakening, the pull of numbness, and the courage to soften back into pleasure.
She unpacks how boredom can become a deadening cycle — or an invitation. Through visceral stories and practical tools, she offers a path back into aliveness: breath that ignites desire, sound that cracks you open, touch that revives numb landscapes, polarity, mystery, adventure, repair, and the forgotten aphrodisiac of opening the heart.
This is not surface-level “spice.” This is eros as lifeblood — the difference between living half-asleep and being fully claimed by presence.
]]>2740falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/encore-selfless-starvation-what-dies-in-a-woman-when-desire-is-abandoned--68370254 Melissa Barnes knows this terrain. Outwardly successful, inwardly empty, she spent years performing the role of the “good woman” while starving herself of desire, intimacy, and fire — until she became a ghost in her own life. After two decades as a funeral director and end-of-life care worker, she witnessed the sharp truth of what’s lost when we bury our hunger. Out of that rupture, she created The RISE Method™, guiding women who appear to have it all but feel hollow inside.
]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/encore-selfless-starvation-what-dies-in-a-woman-when-desire-is-abandoned-38551Fri, 26 Sep 2025 17:00:00 +0000Gwenm CarsleyWomen are praised for being selfless — but the cost is often desire: starved, silenced, abandoned. The marriage that quietly goes cold. The body that goes numb. The fire that flickers out. Melissa Barnes knows this terrain. Outwardly successful,... Melissa Barnes knows this terrain. Outwardly successful, inwardly empty, she spent years performing the role of the “good woman” while starving herself of desire, intimacy, and fire — until she became a ghost in her own life. After two decades as a funeral director and end-of-life care worker, she witnessed the sharp truth of what’s lost when we bury our hunger. Out of that rupture, she created The RISE Method™, guiding women who appear to have it all but feel hollow inside.
]]>3385falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/loving-the-avoidant--68371002 What does it mean to love someone who cannot stay? To pour yourself into the silence of unanswered notes, unread poems, dangling carrots of “thinking of you,” and calls that exit before they land? In this episode, I step into the rawness of loving the avoidant — the man who hides behind polished confidence, the boy inside who is terrified of conflict, shame, and intimacy.
But this is not only about the other. This is about the avoidant within us... within me. Attachment styles reflect our own unhealed places. The skin-tightening recoil before visiting my mother, the restless feet of the next thrill, the ways I disappear when love gets too close. I tell stories of my own avoidance, my mother’s desperation, my wife’s piercing callouts, and the moments where acting, sex, and love all meet in the same vulnerability hangover.
We'll wander through attachment styles — wave, island, anchor — without clinical jargon, but through lived experience. And what it means to love anyway, to risk love as something that costs, something that undresses us down to bone, to shame, to fire, to Eros itself.
]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/loving-the-avoidant-38523Fri, 19 Sep 2025 17:00:00 +0000Gwenm Carsley  What does it mean to love someone who cannot stay? To pour yourself into the silence of unanswered notes, unread poems, dangling carrots of “thinking of you,” and calls that exit before they land? In this episode, I step into the rawness of loving... What does it mean to love someone who cannot stay? To pour yourself into the silence of unanswered notes, unread poems, dangling carrots of “thinking of you,” and calls that exit before they land? In this episode, I step into the rawness of loving the avoidant — the man who hides behind polished confidence, the boy inside who is terrified of conflict, shame, and intimacy.
But this is not only about the other. This is about the avoidant within us... within me. Attachment styles reflect our own unhealed places. The skin-tightening recoil before visiting my mother, the restless feet of the next thrill, the ways I disappear when love gets too close. I tell stories of my own avoidance, my mother’s desperation, my wife’s piercing callouts, and the moments where acting, sex, and love all meet in the same vulnerability hangover.
We'll wander through attachment styles — wave, island, anchor — without clinical jargon, but through lived experience. And what it means to love anyway, to risk love as something that costs, something that undresses us down to bone, to shame, to fire, to Eros itself.
]]>2613falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/wired-love-imprinting-aliveness--68371008 With raw stories of survival, longing, and devotion, practices for rewiring through pleasure, and poetry that lands in your bones, Wired for Love explores how ache becomes cathedral, how longing becomes erotic, and how love — in its mess, shadow, and mystery — becomes the most powerful force of aliveness we have.
 
Watch: https://youtu.be/seqqYjl3B-c 
]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/wired-love-imprinting-aliveness-38502Fri, 12 Sep 2025 17:00:00 +0000Gwenm CarsleyWhat if the way you love, long, and ache isn’t random — but the wiring of your soul? In this solo episode, Gwenm takes you into the body’s first imprints of love and eros, from the womb to the nervous system, through vows made in heartbreak and the... With raw stories of survival, longing, and devotion, practices for rewiring through pleasure, and poetry that lands in your bones, Wired for Love explores how ache becomes cathedral, how longing becomes erotic, and how love — in its mess, shadow, and mystery — becomes the most powerful force of aliveness we have.
 
Watch: https://youtu.be/seqqYjl3B-c 
]]>3364falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/savage-rope-shibari-berlin-suspension-breath-and-the-body-s-truth-with-dagmar-baumunk--68371005 Shibari took us somewhere we couldn’t script. The knots held more than flesh — they held memory, hunger, release. We talk about what it felt like to surrender, to hang between trust and fear, to feel the rope carve its language into our skin. This isn’t a tutorial. It’s a conversation about the intimacy of being bound, the strange freedom inside suspension, and what was revealed when we let the rope have us. 
 
Watch: https://youtu.be/9Mj2ACmeyDw 
]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/savage-rope-shibari-berlin-suspension-breath-and-the-bodys-truth-with-dagmar-baumunk-38455Fri, 05 Sep 2025 17:00:00 +0000Gwenm Carsley We tied to each other in Berlin. Not for performance. Not for pretty pictures. For the ache of what happens when rope meets skin and silence stretches between two bodies. Shibari took us somewhere we couldn’t script. The knots held more than flesh... Shibari took us somewhere we couldn’t script. The knots held more than flesh — they held memory, hunger, release. We talk about what it felt like to surrender, to hang between trust and fear, to feel the rope carve its language into our skin. This isn’t a tutorial. It’s a conversation about the intimacy of being bound, the strange freedom inside suspension, and what was revealed when we let the rope have us. 
 
Watch: https://youtu.be/9Mj2ACmeyDw 
]]>3428falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/selfless-starvation-what-dies-in-a-woman-when-desire-is-abandoned--68371007 Melissa Barnes knows this terrain. Outwardly successful, inwardly empty, she spent years performing the role of the “good woman” while starving herself of desire, intimacy, and fire — until she became a ghost in her own life. After two decades as a funeral director and end-of-life care worker, she witnessed the sharp truth of what’s lost when we bury our hunger. Out of that rupture, she created The RISE Method™, guiding women who appear to have it all but feel hollow inside.
]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/selfless-starvation-what-dies-in-a-woman-when-desire-is-abandoned-38391Fri, 29 Aug 2025 17:00:00 +0000Gwenm CarsleyWomen are praised for being selfless — but the cost is often desire: starved, silenced, abandoned. The marriage that quietly goes cold. The body that goes numb. The fire that flickers out. Melissa Barnes knows this terrain. Outwardly successful,... Melissa Barnes knows this terrain. Outwardly successful, inwardly empty, she spent years performing the role of the “good woman” while starving herself of desire, intimacy, and fire — until she became a ghost in her own life. After two decades as a funeral director and end-of-life care worker, she witnessed the sharp truth of what’s lost when we bury our hunger. Out of that rupture, she created The RISE Method™, guiding women who appear to have it all but feel hollow inside.
]]>3385falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/when-desire-outlives-the-body--68371030 When Desire Outlives the Body
I recorded this episode in Berlin — the city my mother once called home, and the place I brought her back to in hopes of finding some kind of peace, or beauty, or closure. Instead, what I found was diapers in hotel bathrooms, bureaucracy in cold German offices, hospital corridors, rage, tenderness, shame, laughter, and the kind of intimacy no one prepares you for.
This is not a clean story. It is messy and visceral and full of contradiction. My mother is eighty-four, with dementia, and still lights up like a schoolgirl when a handsome man walks by. She is storm and tragedy and beauty — part Judy Garland, part Marilyn Monroe, part my very own haunting. She lived for drama and eros, numbed herself with pills and drink, and still remains hungry for love, even now.
In this episode, I open my grief diaries and speak the truth: the rage, the shame, the exhaustion, the moments of bone-deep hatred, and also the tenderness that keeps cracking me open. Because eros is not just sex or romance. It is survival, it is presence, it is the ache that keeps us tethered to life even as memory dissolves.
This is an episode about what it means to live and to love when the body declines but desire refuses to die. About what it means to face your mother — and yourself — in the most raw and unfiltered ways.
Because eros doesn’t retire. Desire outlives the body. And the mess of being alive might just be enough.
]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/when-desire-outlives-the-body-38376Fri, 22 Aug 2025 17:00:00 +0000Gwenm Carsley  When Desire Outlives the Body I recorded this episode in Berlin — the city my mother once called home, and the place I brought her back to in hopes of finding some kind of peace, or beauty, or closure. Instead, what I found was diapers in hotel... When Desire Outlives the Body
I recorded this episode in Berlin — the city my mother once called home, and the place I brought her back to in hopes of finding some kind of peace, or beauty, or closure. Instead, what I found was diapers in hotel bathrooms, bureaucracy in cold German offices, hospital corridors, rage, tenderness, shame, laughter, and the kind of intimacy no one prepares you for.
This is not a clean story. It is messy and visceral and full of contradiction. My mother is eighty-four, with dementia, and still lights up like a schoolgirl when a handsome man walks by. She is storm and tragedy and beauty — part Judy Garland, part Marilyn Monroe, part my very own haunting. She lived for drama and eros, numbed herself with pills and drink, and still remains hungry for love, even now.
In this episode, I open my grief diaries and speak the truth: the rage, the shame, the exhaustion, the moments of bone-deep hatred, and also the tenderness that keeps cracking me open. Because eros is not just sex or romance. It is survival, it is presence, it is the ache that keeps us tethered to life even as memory dissolves.
This is an episode about what it means to live and to love when the body declines but desire refuses to die. About what it means to face your mother — and yourself — in the most raw and unfiltered ways.
Because eros doesn’t retire. Desire outlives the body. And the mess of being alive might just be enough.
]]>2189falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/the-art-of-awareness--68371010 What if it was never about becoming someone else—
but finally becoming yourself?
In this episode, Gwenm speaks with Lori Triolo—actor, director, and master teacher of Meisner and Fitzmaurice Voicework®—about how the craft of acting can draw us into deeper contact with our truth, rather than pulling us away from it.
They explore voice as a measure of emotion, breath as a doorway into the present moment, and how real performance isn’t about polish—it’s about contact. With the body. With sensation. With the parts of ourselves we’ve been trained to mute.
This isn’t just a conversation for actors.
It’s for anyone who has gone numb.
Anyone who’s tired of holding it together.
Anyone ready to feel again.
It’s about awareness—
and the quiet, steady return of aliveness
when we stop performing and start paying attention.
 
Watch: https://youtu.be/CQp7UGygHPM 
]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/the-art-of-awareness-38295Fri, 08 Aug 2025 17:00:00 +0000Gwenm CarsleyActing isn’t about pretending. It’s about presence. About listening. About coming back to what’s real. What if it was never about becoming someone else— but finally becoming yourself? In this episode, Gwenm speaks with Lori Triolo—actor, director,... What if it was never about becoming someone else—
but finally becoming yourself?
In this episode, Gwenm speaks with Lori Triolo—actor, director, and master teacher of Meisner and Fitzmaurice Voicework®—about how the craft of acting can draw us into deeper contact with our truth, rather than pulling us away from it.
They explore voice as a measure of emotion, breath as a doorway into the present moment, and how real performance isn’t about polish—it’s about contact. With the body. With sensation. With the parts of ourselves we’ve been trained to mute.
This isn’t just a conversation for actors.
It’s for anyone who has gone numb.
Anyone who’s tired of holding it together.
Anyone ready to feel again.
It’s about awareness—
and the quiet, steady return of aliveness
when we stop performing and start paying attention.
 
Watch: https://youtu.be/CQp7UGygHPM 
]]>3461falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/to-love-the-son-and-the-inherited-wound--68371012  
We explore the invisible fractures that can keep a mother from fully softening, the lineage patterns that live in the body, and the way old pain can shadow the love we long to give. What does it take to nurture when we’ve known betrayal and abandonment? To love without condition when every instinct tells us to close?
 
This is an episode about past-life echoes, inherited wounds, and the holy surrender it takes to rewrite the history we were born into.
 
Watch: https://youtu.be/lpt4fogH7PE 
 
]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/to-love-the-son-and-the-inherited-wound-38288Fri, 01 Aug 2025 17:00:00 +0000Gwenm CarsleyThis conversation with Alyssa Hawn—Theta Healer, Human Design and Gene Keys enthusiast—dives into the places where love meets resistance. Alyssa carries the echo of a wound that has whispered through her bloodline for lifetimes, shaping the way she...  
We explore the invisible fractures that can keep a mother from fully softening, the lineage patterns that live in the body, and the way old pain can shadow the love we long to give. What does it take to nurture when we’ve known betrayal and abandonment? To love without condition when every instinct tells us to close?
 
This is an episode about past-life echoes, inherited wounds, and the holy surrender it takes to rewrite the history we were born into.
 
Watch: https://youtu.be/lpt4fogH7PE 
 
]]>3253falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/undressing-arousal-the-pulse-beneath-the-skin--68371033 What turns you on—deeply, irrationally, achingly?
This isn’t just about sex. It’s about the soul’s memory of touch, tension, worship, and wildness.
In this intimate and uncensored episode, Gwenm peels back the layers of the Erotic Blueprints—not just the textbook types, but the archetypes that live in the ache.
The Spark. The Tender. The Flame. The Threshold. The Morph.
And her own additions: The Devourer. The Deep. The Dyad.
We explore body language, walk, clothing, and gaze—what your erotic self says without a word.
And then… into the Dark Eros. Where shadow meets desire. Where grief lives in the moan.
This is a love letter to your body.
And an unflinching mirror for your unspeakable wants.
 
Watch: https://youtu.be/dAioCiorfV4
 
]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/undressing-arousal-the-pulse-beneath-the-skin-38236Fri, 18 Jul 2025 17:00:00 +0000Gwenm Carsley  What turns you on—deeply, irrationally, achingly? This isn’t just about sex. It’s about the soul’s memory of touch, tension, worship, and wildness. In this intimate and uncensored episode, Gwenm peels back the layers of the Erotic Blueprints—not... What turns you on—deeply, irrationally, achingly?
This isn’t just about sex. It’s about the soul’s memory of touch, tension, worship, and wildness.
In this intimate and uncensored episode, Gwenm peels back the layers of the Erotic Blueprints—not just the textbook types, but the archetypes that live in the ache.
The Spark. The Tender. The Flame. The Threshold. The Morph.
And her own additions: The Devourer. The Deep. The Dyad.
We explore body language, walk, clothing, and gaze—what your erotic self says without a word.
And then… into the Dark Eros. Where shadow meets desire. Where grief lives in the moan.
This is a love letter to your body.
And an unflinching mirror for your unspeakable wants.
 
Watch: https://youtu.be/dAioCiorfV4
 
]]>3475falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/sculpting-venus--68371035 In this unfiltered and unforgettable episode of Skin & Soul, I sit down with British sculptor Jamie McCartney—creator of The Great Wall of Vagina (now Vulva), The Spice of Life, and a growing body of work that dares to mold the raw truth of our erotic anatomy.
From labia to penis, outer lips to internal vaginal walls, Jamie’s art captures what we’re taught to hide. This isn’t porn. It’s not provocation for its own sake. It’s documentation. Reclamation. Reverence.
We talk about:

• The myth of the “perfect” pussy—and the quiet epidemic of aesthetic shame
  
• Why the most radical thing you can do is see (and show) your real body
  
• The art of internal vaginal casting (!), and the intimate trust it demands
  
• Genital diversity, censorship, and why real erotic bodies deserve museum walls
  

Jamie’s sculptures aren’t just flesh frozen in time. They are resistance. Education. Sacred rebellion. They say: you are not wrong. You are not broken. You are not alone.
Because Venus was never one shape.
She was every curve. Every crease. Every variation.
And each one of them is divine.
Watch: https://youtu.be/UX7JZG1-Puw
]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/sculpting-venus-38213Fri, 11 Jul 2025 17:00:00 +0000Gwenm CarsleyWhat happens when you cast the most hidden, most judged parts of the body into permanence? In this unfiltered and unforgettable episode of Skin & Soul, I sit down with British sculptor Jamie McCartney—creator of The Great Wall of Vagina (now... In this unfiltered and unforgettable episode of Skin & Soul, I sit down with British sculptor Jamie McCartney—creator of The Great Wall of Vagina (now Vulva), The Spice of Life, and a growing body of work that dares to mold the raw truth of our erotic anatomy.
From labia to penis, outer lips to internal vaginal walls, Jamie’s art captures what we’re taught to hide. This isn’t porn. It’s not provocation for its own sake. It’s documentation. Reclamation. Reverence.
We talk about:

• The myth of the “perfect” pussy—and the quiet epidemic of aesthetic shame
  
• Why the most radical thing you can do is see (and show) your real body
  
• The art of internal vaginal casting (!), and the intimate trust it demands
  
• Genital diversity, censorship, and why real erotic bodies deserve museum walls
  

Jamie’s sculptures aren’t just flesh frozen in time. They are resistance. Education. Sacred rebellion. They say: you are not wrong. You are not broken. You are not alone.
Because Venus was never one shape.
She was every curve. Every crease. Every variation.
And each one of them is divine.
Watch: https://youtu.be/UX7JZG1-Puw
]]>3505falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/kiss-me-like-you-mean-it--68371031 Kissing and tango have a lot in common.
Both are about timing, presence, and the space between bodies.
A kiss—like a good tango—isn’t about how fast you get there.
It’s about how attuned you are to the other person’s rhythm.
In tango, you don’t rush. You feel. You pause. You let breath and weight guide the next move. That’s what makes it erotic. It’s not just steps—it’s listening.
A great kiss works the same way. It doesn’t push. It waits. It adjusts. It reacts. It leads. It follows.
A kiss can be sacred—or scandalous.
A firestarter. A farewell. A way home.
It can ruin you, rewire you, or leave you starving.
In this raw and intimate episode, I’m joined by Venezuelan-born illustrator, tattoo artist, and tango dancer Lis Salvatierrafor a conversation about kissing—not just the act, but the imprint, the memory, the myth, the missteps, and the magic.
Together, we explore the kiss as a tango: a dance of breath, tension, pause, and surrender. That moment before lips meet—the lean-in, the pull-back, the heat of proximity—can be more electric than the kiss itself.
We talk about bad kissers, ghost kisses, the ones that repelled, and the ones you still dream about.
We share stories of clumsy mouths, cosmic connections, cultural differences, and the way some people kiss to take—while others kiss to give something back. The how-to, and the how-not-to.
It’s about the kiss you still feel in your body—
And the one you have yet to experience.
Watch: https://youtu.be/lCA40A9MFB0
]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/kiss-me-like-you-mean-it-38155Fri, 27 Jun 2025 17:00:00 +0000Gwenm Carsley  Kissing and tango have a lot in common. Both are about timing, presence, and the space between bodies. A kiss—like a good tango—isn’t about how fast you get there. It’s about how attuned you are to the other person’s rhythm. In tango, you don’t... Kissing and tango have a lot in common.
Both are about timing, presence, and the space between bodies.
A kiss—like a good tango—isn’t about how fast you get there.
It’s about how attuned you are to the other person’s rhythm.
In tango, you don’t rush. You feel. You pause. You let breath and weight guide the next move. That’s what makes it erotic. It’s not just steps—it’s listening.
A great kiss works the same way. It doesn’t push. It waits. It adjusts. It reacts. It leads. It follows.
A kiss can be sacred—or scandalous.
A firestarter. A farewell. A way home.
It can ruin you, rewire you, or leave you starving.
In this raw and intimate episode, I’m joined by Venezuelan-born illustrator, tattoo artist, and tango dancer Lis Salvatierrafor a conversation about kissing—not just the act, but the imprint, the memory, the myth, the missteps, and the magic.
Together, we explore the kiss as a tango: a dance of breath, tension, pause, and surrender. That moment before lips meet—the lean-in, the pull-back, the heat of proximity—can be more electric than the kiss itself.
We talk about bad kissers, ghost kisses, the ones that repelled, and the ones you still dream about.
We share stories of clumsy mouths, cosmic connections, cultural differences, and the way some people kiss to take—while others kiss to give something back. The how-to, and the how-not-to.
It’s about the kiss you still feel in your body—
And the one you have yet to experience.
Watch: https://youtu.be/lCA40A9MFB0
]]>3526falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/through-the-goddess-lens-reclaiming-pussy--68371014 In this episode of Skin and Soul, Gwenm sits down with embodiment coach, sacred photographer, and modern-day priestess Carol Beavers to explore what it means to reclaim the feminine body, the erotic pulse, and the power of pussy—not as performance, but as portal.
Carol shares her soul-led journey from a life that no longer fit to a global pilgrimage of remembrance. Her camera is more than a tool—it is a ritual, a resurrection, a reclamation. Together, we speak of dismantling the patriarchy, of what it means to be truly seen, and of the raw truth that gets captured when a woman drops the pose and lets her essence rise.
This isn’t about being photogenic.
It’s about being sovereign.
It’s about pussy as power. And the lens as holy witness.
carolbeavers.com
watch: https://youtu.be/bS41hUbrSGQ
]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/through-the-goddess-lens-reclaiming-pussy-38050Fri, 13 Jun 2025 17:00:00 +0000Gwenm Carsley What happens when a woman refuses to be framed by the world’s gaze—and chooses to see herself through the eyes of the divine? In this episode of Skin and Soul, Gwenm sits down with embodiment coach, sacred photographer, and modern-day priestess... In this episode of Skin and Soul, Gwenm sits down with embodiment coach, sacred photographer, and modern-day priestess Carol Beavers to explore what it means to reclaim the feminine body, the erotic pulse, and the power of pussy—not as performance, but as portal.
Carol shares her soul-led journey from a life that no longer fit to a global pilgrimage of remembrance. Her camera is more than a tool—it is a ritual, a resurrection, a reclamation. Together, we speak of dismantling the patriarchy, of what it means to be truly seen, and of the raw truth that gets captured when a woman drops the pose and lets her essence rise.
This isn’t about being photogenic.
It’s about being sovereign.
It’s about pussy as power. And the lens as holy witness.
carolbeavers.com
watch: https://youtu.be/bS41hUbrSGQ
]]>3530falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/what-remains-of-the-father-in-me--68371011 Watch here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XM9pTMwqpxM 
]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/what-remains-of-the-father-in-me-38078Fri, 06 Jun 2025 17:00:00 +0000Gwenm CarsleyThis is a personal eulogy to my father who just passed away on Shavuot.  Watch here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XM9pTMwqpxM  Watch here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XM9pTMwqpxM 
]]>1309falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/from-ashes-to-embodiment-a-man-s-journey-into-sensual-awakening-with-kevin-hawkins--68371013
They tried to hold on, but the marriage ended, and Kevin found himself standing in the ashes of everything he thought he knew.

What followed could’ve been collapse. But it wasn’t.

It was a reckoning.
A rewilding.
A return.
To sensation.
To truth.
To his body, not as a tool for performance, but as a place he could finally come home to.

After two decades with the only lover he’d ever known — who didn’t sexually desire him — Kevin was left asking:
What does my desire feel like?
What does it mean to be wanted and craved?

Through his own journey and awakening, Kevin is now a trauma-informed, somatic-based sex and intimacy coach. He helps people return to themselves.

This is an offering for those who are quietly unraveling. Who sense there’s something more, just beneath the surface. Who’s ready to feel again. To love differently. To remember the body as a place of truth.
 
Watch: https://youtu.be/HDGPPzfZqjs
]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/from-ashes-to-embodiment-a-mans-journey-into-sensual-awakening-with-kevin-hawkins-38042Fri, 30 May 2025 17:00:00 +0000Gwenm CarsleyKevin didn’t set out to become a sex and intimacy coach. For 25 years, he was devoted to one woman — his junior high school sweetheart, the only lover he’d ever known. They built a life together anchored in marriage and children. They shared a story...
They tried to hold on, but the marriage ended, and Kevin found himself standing in the ashes of everything he thought he knew.

What followed could’ve been collapse. But it wasn’t.

It was a reckoning.
A rewilding.
A return.
To sensation.
To truth.
To his body, not as a tool for performance, but as a place he could finally come home to.

After two decades with the only lover he’d ever known — who didn’t sexually desire him — Kevin was left asking:
What does my desire feel like?
What does it mean to be wanted and craved?

Through his own journey and awakening, Kevin is now a trauma-informed, somatic-based sex and intimacy coach. He helps people return to themselves.

This is an offering for those who are quietly unraveling. Who sense there’s something more, just beneath the surface. Who’s ready to feel again. To love differently. To remember the body as a place of truth.
 
Watch: https://youtu.be/HDGPPzfZqjs
]]>3602falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/the-cage-of-wants-the-pleasure-ceiling--68371018

Watch: https://youtu.be/APNj-BhtT6c
]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/the-cage-of-wants-and-the-pleasure-ceiling-38022Fri, 23 May 2025 17:00:00 +0000Gwenm CarsleyWe want the highs. We chase the peak experiences—bliss, orgasm, success, visibility. But few of us ask what we're willing to feel to get there. This episode is about the places we cap our pleasure, our truth, our voice. Gwenm speaks to the quiet...

Watch: https://youtu.be/APNj-BhtT6c
]]>3410falsefullhttps://www.spreaker.com/episode/ashakenings-midlife-crisis-awakenings-that-rupture-your-life--68371037I’m not easing into things. I might be sloppy and inelegant, but my aim is to bring something real to the table, whether it’s pretty or not. Without apologies but with conscious accountability. There are things I still barely say aloud—like I left my wife when she had cancer. That I had fallen in love with a man, who I continue to love at a soul level. And that none of it wraps up super neat with a pretty ribbon.
I was starving—emotionally, sexually, spiritually—for so long that when I came into the eye of the storm of what you can call an awakening or a midlife crisis, I was literally sucking for breath. What happened after wasn’t graceful. It was brutal. And it woke me up, shook me up so I could not stay in my life as it was.
This whole journey was born from my awakening—from the ache, the shame, the beauty, and the courage it took to choose my own aliveness.
I use the word Ashakenings because it shakes you to your core.
Welcome to Skin and Soul. Let’s go beyond the pale. 
 
Watch: https://youtu.be/mQf80oPpA0Q
 
]]>https://www.thetransformationnetwork.com/episode/ashakenings-midlife-crisis-awakenings-that-rupture-your-life-37916Fri, 16 May 2025 17:00:00 +0000Gwenm CarsleyThere’s a point in life—often around midlife—when the script we’ve been reading from no longer fits the voice in our throat. Mine came with a quietly growing ache I couldn’t ignore at a point. Then love. Then a complete rupture. Then grief. In this...I’m not easing into things. I might be sloppy and inelegant, but my aim is to bring something real to the table, whether it’s pretty or not. Without apologies but with conscious accountability. There are things I still barely say aloud—like I left my wife when she had cancer. That I had fallen in love with a man, who I continue to love at a soul level. And that none of it wraps up super neat with a pretty ribbon.
I was starving—emotionally, sexually, spiritually—for so long that when I came into the eye of the storm of what you can call an awakening or a midlife crisis, I was literally sucking for breath. What happened after wasn’t graceful. It was brutal. And it woke me up, shook me up so I could not stay in my life as it was.
This whole journey was born from my awakening—from the ache, the shame, the beauty, and the courage it took to choose my own aliveness.
I use the word Ashakenings because it shakes you to your core.
Welcome to Skin and Soul. Let’s go beyond the pale. 
 
Watch: https://youtu.be/mQf80oPpA0Q
 
]]>3173falsefull