You Meet a Version of Yourself Who Had Always Existed but Had Never Been Seen with Tamela Julia Gordon

You Meet a Version of Yourself Who Had Always Existed but Had Never Been Seen with Tamela Julia Gordon

In this episode of the Bodyway Intuition Podcast, meet Tamela Julia Gordon, author of Hood Wellness, a memoir that blends personal storytelling, communal care, spirituality, wellness practices, and collective healing. She is also a freelance writer, editor, tarot reader, and communal care advocate. Introduced to Santería through her father's Cuban lineage, Tamela was immersed in spiritual practices from an early age. By age four, she was creating altars, and as a teenager, she was giving spiritual readings, following in the footsteps of her paternal grandmother, who also gave readings. Tamela shares how ancestral altar practices, intuitive experiences, and spiritual traditions shaped her understanding of healing, belonging, and community. She also reflects on receiving intuitive information from a young age, discovering tarot during the pandemic, and why she believes everyone has the capacity to deepen their own spiritual practice. We also discuss the creation of Casa de Tammy, a self-care home and community-funded retreat space for Black activists and community organizers seeking rest, healing, and renewal. Her book emerged from those experiences, and, specifically, seven years of studying care. Together, we also explore the challenges of vulnerability in writing and of maintaining authenticity through the publishing process.

I Acquired All the Drugs and Alcohol I Could, and I Just Couldn’t Get High with Paul Gerard

Paul Gerard is a chef with a lifetime of experience cooking for discerning clients across New York, in Los Angeles, and internationally. A native of South Brooklyn, Chef Paul Gerard honed his craft in the intense, fast-paced kitchens of 1980s New York, where he began cooking at just 13 years old. His culinary journey led him to New Orleans, where he spent over a decade in some of the city’s most celebrated kitchens, including Restaurant August, Peristyle, Lilette, and Gautreau’s. He later led acclaimed culinary programs as Executive Chef at Soho Grand Hotel, Soho House, and China Grill Management.  On this episode of the Bodyway Intuition Podcast, chef Paul shares a deeply personal conversation about food, grief, addiction, spirituality, healing, and the intelligence of the body. What begins as a discussion about cooking with intention, food as support for grief and fear, and the relationship between taste, smell, and memory evolves into a profound exploration of trauma, recovery, meditation, and spiritual awakening. He reflects on a life of addiction that began at age 11 and shares the pivotal moment that transformed his relationship with drugs and alcohol when, despite taking them, he could no longer get high. Paul describes the experience as evidence that there was something greater than himself, which led him more deeply into meditation, prayer, energy work, and spiritual study. We also discuss emotional sensitivity, intuition through the body, silence, grief, conversations with Radhanath Swami, mythology, India, and learning how to surrender, heal, and reconnect with both the body and the soul. This conversation is a rich reflection on what it means to truly feel, transform, and allow life to open you spiritually.

It Wasn’t Darkness for Naught, It was Darkness for Purpose with Karen Allen

Karen Allen is an international keynote speaker, growth mindset coach, and author with nearly a decade of experience empowering leaders and teams. Specializing in growth mindset, mindfulness, and human leadership skills, Karen uses her Stop & Shift methodology to drive positive change. She has collaborated with organizations such as Genentech, Google, and Thomson Reuters to enhance leadership and team dynamics, resulting in more productive and resilient work environments. On this episode of the Bodyway Intuition Podcast, Karen shares how the murder of her husband before the age of 30 transformed her relationship with grief, intuition, healing, and self-trust. She reflects on how her body processed the experience before her brain could fully understand it, and how that darkness ultimately became a space of transformation and purpose. Together, we explore post-traumatic growth, subconscious processing, visualization, dreams, clairvoyance (clear vision), clairsentience (clear feeling), and the intelligence of the body. Karen also shares how learning to trust herself, follow intuitive guidance, and connect more deeply with her inner world helped shift the trajectory of her life and work. This conversation is a powerful reflection on how even the darkest experiences can crack us open, deepen our connection to ourselves, and lead us toward greater healing, alignment, and purpose.

Humans Have Created So Much Chaos That Is Misaligned with Balance with Michelle Cassandra Johnson

Michelle Cassandra Johnson is an author, activist, spiritual teacher and director, racial equity consultant and educator, and intuitive and shamanic healer. Her work centers on healing individual and collective trauma, returning to wholeness, and aligning the mind, body, spirit, and heart. Drawing on more than two decades as a clinical social worker, Michelle has led transformative work dismantling racism and systems of oppression while creating more accessible spaces for healing and wellness. In this episode of the Bodyway Intuition Podcast, Michelle shares learning to trust the reality of her metaphysical experiences. She reflects on receiving clairaudient (clear hearing) guidance from her deceased grandmother, connecting through dreams, signs, nature, and ancestral presence, and how those experiences guided her more deeply into spiritual work and spiritual direction. Together, we explore intuition through the body, channeling, communication through crows and the natural world, collective healing, reclaiming ritual and ceremony, and the importance of stillness in a world filled with noise and disconnection. We also discuss sensitivity as a form of awareness, spirituality as disruption, and how reconnecting to ourselves may be part of the larger transformation happening collectively.

A Woman in a Strange Land is Always Considered a Witch with Mawiyah Kai EL-Jamah Bomani

In this episode of the Bodyway Intuition Podcast, meet New Orleans native, author, and eighth- generation witch, Mawiyah Kai El-Jamah Bomani. The conversation explores West African spirituality through Yoruba traditions, the Orishas, and the shared representation of deities across cultures. Mawiyah shares her connection to the Goddess Oya, who represents the wind, and reflects on how that relationship manifested in her physical life through weather and messages carried by the wind. She even briefly and gorgeously sings a prayer to Oya. Mawiyah also shares the idea of gratitude altars alongside ancestral altars, and the importance of readiness, intention, and authenticity when calling on deeper energetic or spiritual support. The conversation expands into ideas of “good” and “bad” as forms of identification that shape perception. Check out her new book titled Hoodoo Saints and Root Warriors: Stories and Magick for Liberation.