On Trauma and Power with Jenn Turner, LMHC

Healing Without Causing Harm | Featuring Lama Rod Owens

Lama Rod Owens — Black Buddhist teacher, Harvard Divinity School graduate, and author of Love and Rage and The New Saints — joins Jenn Turner for a conversation about what it actually takes to be in a healing role without causing harm. That question turns out to go deeper than most professional training ever reaches. They start with a practice called the Four Naturals: an opening that moves through natural body, natural breath, natural mind, and natural self — an invitation to arrive without agenda, without performance, without trying to fix what's already present. From there, the conversation goes into Lama Rod's early years as a meditation teacher, when he was regularly activating people in practice and didn't yet have the framework to understand why. He stopped teaching breathwork entirely until he figured out how to offer it in a way that gave people genuine agency. He calls that period a blessing. They talk about what keeps teachers and therapists from causing harm over time — not rules, but the internal structures that make accountability possible. Staying a student. Staying in relationship with peers and elders. Keeping a life outside of the role. They talk about the Calgon dynamic: the way people come to spiritual teachers and therapists wanting to be carried away from their suffering rather than supported in being with it — and why that fantasy is a setup for harm on both sides.  And they talk about truth-telling: what it costs Lama Rod to be as open as he is, why he does it anyway, and what he believes it makes possible for the people who are watching him do it.  Available on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

Embodied Wellbeing as the Foundation of Healing | Elaine Miller-Karas | On Trauma & Power S2 E6

Elaine Miller-Karas, LCSW has spent decades doing trauma work in some of the most difficult places imaginable — post-earthquake China and Haiti, war-affected Turkey and Syria, Covenant House shelters in Atlanta, and now the neighborhoods in Los Angeles leveled by fire. What she's developed from all of it is a biologically grounded, deeply invitational approach to healing that starts with one foundational question: what does your body already know? In this conversation with Jenn Turner, Elaine shares the core frameworks of the Trauma Resiliency Model (TRM) and Community Resiliency Model (CRM), including the wellness skill of gestures — a practice she first observed organically across multiple cultures as people reached for what helped them survive. She and Jenn go deep on what it actually means to work without prescribing, on the difference between a client who isn't ready and a client who is resistant, and on what the research coming out of Rwanda on compassion and forgiveness is telling us about the power of embodied wellbeing. They also get into the word resilience itself — where it gets weaponized, why Elaine has kept it in the name of her models anyway, and what her definition of it requires that most clinical frameworks miss. Plus: why she refuses to call tending and befriending a maladaptive response, and why that reframe matters enormously for the people sitting across from us. Available on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

Self Leadership, IFS & Healing School Culture from the Inside Out | Featuring Joanna Curry-Sartori

S2 E5 · Joanna Curry-Sartori Joanna Curry-Sartori, LMFT, is a licensed marriage and family therapist, the founder of the Self Leadership Collaborative, and the creator of the PAWS model — a framework rooted in Internal Family Systems that brings self-awareness, compassion, and relational capacity into schools, organizations, and communities. She is the author of The Self-Led Educator and has spent decades working at the intersection of trauma, systems, and the human beings inside them. In this conversation, Joanna and Jenn begin with a body-based practice before moving into one of the most practically grounded conversations this podcast has had. They explore what it actually looks like to bring IFS outside the therapy room — into classrooms, staff meetings, leadership teams, and communities under stress. Joanna shares the origin of the PAWS model, what happened after Sandy Hook that forced a question she spent years sitting with, and what she witnessed in a Zoom call with 80 teachers in the first months of the pandemic that changed how she understood belonging in professional spaces. Topics covered in this episode: — What unblending actually means, and why it is different from getting rid of a difficult part — Why the body is the portal into finding our parts — not just our thoughts or feelings — The student acting out in the classroom as a protective part with a positive intent nobody is asking about — Parts goggles: how curiosity changes what a teacher sees in a struggling student — The PAWS model — Pause, Aware of myself, Understand, Search for solutions, Experiment — and how it works in organizations — Why mindfulness taught as a tool is not the same as a practitioner who embodies it — 80 teachers on Zoom, the layers underneath "I'm holding it together," and what happened when safety built — What happened at Sandy Hook and the question it forced Joanna to sit with for years — Why the hardest part of working in schools is almost never the children — What becomes possible for a generation of children whose nervous systems wire up around the new C's: collaboration, community, connection, and contribution About Joanna Curry-Sartori, LMFT Founder & President, Self Leadership Collaborative Creator, PAWS Model for Self Leadership Author, The Self-Led Educator selfleadershipcollaborative.com About On Trauma & Power Hosted by Jenn Turner, LMHC, Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Center for Trauma and Embodiment. New episodes every other Tuesday. Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. Learn more about CFTE at healwithcfte.org

What the Body Inherits: War, Displacement & the Politics of Healing | Featuring: Linda Thai LMSW, EPRTY 200

Linda Thai, LMSW, ERYT 200 is a somatic therapist, integrative trauma therapist, and international speaker who understands the wounds of war, refugitude, and military occupation from the inside — as a former child refugee, an adult immigrant, and a non-citizen living in the United States today. Her work focuses on breaking cycles of historical and intergenerational trauma at both the individual and community level. In this conversation, Jenn and Linda begin with the body — specifically, with a practice Linda has been using to move through the last several months. She calls it the turtleneck: a way of intentionally completing the shock trauma response that accumulates at the back of the neck when a nervous system can neither fight nor flee. From there, the conversation moves through what it means to carry ancestral reverberations of military occupation in your body, how authoritarianism registers physiologically, the paradox at the heart of decolonizing our clinical practices, the compartmentalization that makes so many of us good clinicians and the point at which it stops working, why children of color are permitted only a certain degree of upset before that upset becomes a pathology or a pipeline, and why Linda believes affordable, stable, consistent housing may be the single most underestimated factor in trauma healing. This is one of the most honest conversations this podcast has had. Come prepared to feel something. Topics covered in this episode: * Refugitude and the physiology of displacement * Intergenerational and historical trauma in the body * The turtleneck — a somatic practice for completing shock trauma response * Authoritarianism and the nervous system * Decolonizing clinical practice, starting with ourselves * The school-to-prison pipeline and racialized expressions of emotion * Compartmentalization, coherence, and doing our own work as clinicians * Housing as a foundation for trauma healing * Grief, rage, and the body's way home Learn more about Linda Thai: * Website: linda-thai.com * Current offerings: 12-Week Certificate in Somatic Embodiment & Regulation, The Alchemy of Anger, The Missing Pieces of Attachment Theory: A Decolonized Approach On Trauma & Power is hosted by Jenn Turner, LMHC, Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Center for Trauma and Embodiment. New episodes drop every other Tuesday. Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

Healing Trauma in Neurodivergent Bodies featuring Kory Andreas LCSW-C

This week, Jenn is joined by AuDHD therapist, educator, and Founder of Unplugged and Unmasked Retreats, Kory Andreas, LCSW-C for a rich conversation on neurodivergence, embodiment, trauma and the nervous system. Together, they explore why traditional mindfulness and body-based practices can feel inaccessible or even overwhelming for neurodivergent individuals, and how shifting toward regulation-focused, choice-based approaches can create more supportive and affirming experiences.  Kory shares insights from her work with high-masking autistic adults, emphasizing neurodivergence as a deeply embodied, nervous system experience rather than simply a diagnostic label. The conversation highlights how many neurodivergent individuals navigate chronic overwhelm, misattunement, and systemic misunderstanding—often leading to misdiagnosis, shame, and disconnection from their internal experience. Jenn and Kory discuss the parallels between trauma and neurodivergence, particularly the impact of environments that require individuals to override their instincts and adapt to systems not designed for them. Throughout the episode, they underscore the importance of curiosity, lived experience, and relational authenticity in therapeutic spaces. Together, they explore how reconnecting with the body, rebuilding self-trust, and cultivating self-compassion can open pathways toward healing, authenticity, and hope. To learn more about Kory and her work, including her Unplugged and Unmasked Retreats, resources for neurodivergent folks, and her podcast 'That's Me! Autistic Lives. Unfiltered' head to koryandreas.com 🧠    Go to healwithcfte.org/podcast for more information about the show, todays guest, The Center For Trauma and Embodiment and your host Jenn Turner, LMHC. Follow us on instagram instagram.com/ontraumaandpower @ontraumaandpower and instagram.com/healwithcfte @healwithcfte and stay updated on future episodes! 💜  ________________________________________________________   On Trauma and Power is edited and produced by E Ragonese at the Center For Trauma and Embodiment. To learn more about CFTE, head to healwithcfte.org.  Copyright Credit: Center For Trauma and Embodiment 2026