Finding Yourself Through Connection with Alexandra Friedman | #9

Finding Yourself Through Connection with Alexandra Friedman | #9

What if the loneliness you feel is actually a call to come home to yourself? In this deeply soulful conversation, Maira sits down with social artist and community builder Alexandra Friedman to explore belonging, embodiment, psychedelics, friendship, and the healing power of authentic connection. Alexandra shares how years of feeling like an outsider led her from a high-achieving but lonely life into creating Connection Feast, a movement helping people build deeper friendships and community. Together, they unpack ayahuasca journeys, Internal Family Systems, ecstatic dance, nervous system healing, and the difference between surviving life versus truly inhabiting it. This episode is a reminder that your truest self has never left you. It may just be waiting for you to slow down enough to listen. In this episode, we explore: • Why belonging starts within yourself • The surprising lessons ayahuasca revealed about suffering and softness • How embodiment practices can reconnect you to joy, intuition, and community If you've been craving deeper connection, more self-trust, or permission to fully be yourself, this conversation will feel like a warm homecoming.

Why Smart People Stay Stuck with Meg Poag | #8

What if the biggest thing holding you back isn't the world around you, but the stories you're telling yourself? Leadership coach, author, and founder of Mission Squared, Meg Poag, joins Maira for a candid conversation about the executive team meltdown that changed her life and set her on a path of deeper self-awareness, spiritual growth, and service. Drawing from decades of leadership experience, psychology, neuroscience, and mysticism, Meg reveals why emotional regulation, discernment, and self-honesty are essential for anyone who wants to create meaningful change. Together, they explore the hidden ways ego shapes our decisions, why adversity is often our greatest teacher, and how reconnecting with our higher selves can lead us toward a more joyful and fulfilling life. In this episode: • How a leadership crisis became a catalyst for transformation • Why nervous system regulation is the foundation of good decision making • The difference between happiness and true joy • How to recognize when your ego is driving and your higher self is sitting in the back seat This episode is an invitation to look inward, embrace the lessons hidden inside life's challenges, and discover what becomes possible when you lead from wisdom instead of fear.

Why Our Education System Is Failing Us with James Edwards | #7

What if the way we were taught to live, learn, and succeed is completely out of alignment with how life actually works? In this powerful conversation, educator and regenerative design thinker James Edwards shares the story of a lifelong question that began in childhood while observing nature: Why does modern society feel so disconnected from the world that sustains us? From Montessori classrooms to martial arts, documentary filmmaking, and a life-altering midlife depression, James reveals how each turning point pushed him toward a deeper mission to reconnect humans with nature, intuition, and each other. Together, James and Maira explore what it means to live and learn in harmony with the world around us and why education must evolve if we want a thriving future. Key themes from this episode: • Why conventional education trains obedience instead of curiosity • How reconnecting with the heart can transform the way we live and lead • The principles behind regenerative education and why they matter now If you’ve ever felt that the modern world is moving too fast, too disconnected, or too far from what truly matters, this conversation will remind you that another way of living and learning is possible. Slow down. Listen deeply. And rediscover the wisdom that was there all along.

Healed by Fire with Michael Vladeck | #6

What if the worst moments of your life were actually your initiation? Psychotherapist and guide Michael Vladeck shares the raw story behind his transformation from a suicidal, rage-filled teen to a deeply embodied teacher of human potential. After surviving a suicide attempt at 17 and living nearly eight years with late-stage incurable cancer, Michael discovered that nothing was “wrong” with him. He was simply human and uninitiated into his own experience. In this intimate and powerful conversation, we explore what it really means to heal, to embody, and to take radical responsibility for your life without shame. In this episode, we dive into: • Why nothing is wrong with you and why that changes everything • The alchemy of gentleness and radical accountability • How to process trauma instead of being defined by it • Why embodiment is the key to real transformation • How facing death can radically clarify how you live Michael’s story is not about bypassing pain. It is about relaxing into it, metabolizing it, and discovering the intelligence within your own nervous system. If you have ever felt broken, lost, depressed, or unsure whether change is possible, this conversation is your reminder that transformation is real and it is available to you. Your struggle is not proof that you are failing. It may be proof that you are being initiated.

The Parasympathetic Mechanic with Stephen Terrell | #5

What if healing isn’t about fixing yourself—but about being deeply, safely met? In this powerful conversation, Stephen Terrell—psychotherapist, teacher, and self-described parasympathetic mechanic—shares the story behind his life’s work: a childhood shaped by profound trauma, instability, and loss, and a long, nonlinear journey toward nervous system regulation, compassion, and relational safety. Together with Maira, Stephen explores how early adversity became the medicine he now offers others through therapeutic touch, somatic regulation, and radical presence. This episode is a masterclass in slowing down, listening to the body, and letting go of the healer’s ego in favor of creating the conditions where healing can naturally emerge. In this episode, you’ll explore: * Why the parasympathetic nervous system is the foundation of safety, connection, and healing * How “doing nothing” can be profoundly therapeutic * Reclamation vs. release: integrating trauma without abandoning parts of yourself If you’re a clinician, healer, or human longing for deeper regulation and real connection, this conversation will meet you exactly where you are—and gently invite you further in. This podcast wasn't always called Healing For Grown Ass Adults. A year and a half ago, when I started recording and preparing this podcast, it was called Life Mystic. As you listen to this episode, know that I was going through the process of figuring out how to be me in an expression different from my role as a somatic therapist and psychedelic medicine practitioner. I invite you to listen to this conversation with an open mind and an understanding that we are all always in process.