<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" version="2.0" xmlns:itunes="http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd"><channel><title><![CDATA[Embodied Ecstasy]]></title><description><![CDATA[Embodied Ecstasy lives on the heretical edge of embodiment, birth, motherhood, and the taboo. Recorded live from inside the experiment, this podcast offers unfiltered conversations on embodied truth, feminine power, and what happens when women remember what they were taught to forget. <br/><br/><a href="https://embodiedecstasy.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast">embodiedecstasy.substack.com</a>]]></description><link>https://embodiedecstasy.substack.com/podcast</link><generator>Substack</generator><lastBuildDate>Tue, 07 Apr 2026 15:17:17 GMT</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/4727834.rss" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"/><author><![CDATA[Lauren Segalla]]></author><copyright><![CDATA[Lauren Segalla]]></copyright><language><![CDATA[en]]></language><webMaster><![CDATA[embodiedecstasy@substack.com]]></webMaster><itunes:new-feed-url>https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/4727834.rss</itunes:new-feed-url><itunes:author>Lauren Segalla</itunes:author><itunes:subtitle>Hey! I&apos;m Lauren—Nurse. Embodiment Mentor. Birth Witch. Emotional Alchemist. I help women reclaim their feeling body as a superpower + pleasure as the portal. For the mothers, misfits &amp; mystics who refuse to go numb. Welcome to the revolution.</itunes:subtitle><itunes:type>episodic</itunes:type><itunes:owner><itunes:name>Lauren Segalla</itunes:name><itunes:email>embodiedecstasy@substack.com</itunes:email></itunes:owner><itunes:explicit>Yes</itunes:explicit><itunes:category text="Health &amp; Fitness"><itunes:category text="Sexuality"/></itunes:category><itunes:category text="Education"/><itunes:image href="https://substackcdn.com/feed/podcast/4727834/0a590390ef593d067f23f391e09752a5.jpg"/><item><title><![CDATA[Cervix as the Portal]]></title><description><![CDATA[<p>What if your cervix wasn’t something to ignore, override, or rush, but a powerful portal of wisdom, pleasure, and healing?</p><p>In this episode of <strong><em>Embodied Ecstasy</em></strong>, Lauren explores the cervix through the lens of neuroscience, birth physiology, sexuality, and embodied consciousness. We dive into cervical pleasure, safety, nervous system regulation, endogenous DMT, ancient wisdom, and why slowness and an open heart are essential for both ecstatic birth and sex.</p><p>This episode is an invitation to reconnect with your body, your power, and the intelligence living within you.</p><p>Cervix Serpent Wand from Yoni Pleasure Palace: Use code 'EmbodiedEcstasy' at checkout: <a target="_blank" href="https://yonipleasurepalace.com/en-us/products/the-cervix-serpent?_pos=1&#38;_sid=1bd87f0ec&#38;_ss=r">Cervix Serpent Wand</a></p> <br/><br/>Get full access to Embodied Ecstasy at <a href="https://embodiedecstasy.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_4">embodiedecstasy.substack.com/subscribe</a>]]></description><link>https://embodiedecstasy.substack.com/p/cervix-as-the-portal</link><guid isPermaLink="false">substack:post:168895419</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Lauren Segalla]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 12 Feb 2026 13:00:00 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/168895419/7fa1d7ded9f74d89a0a654da41caf842.mp3" length="61513885" type="audio/mpeg"/><itunes:author>Lauren Segalla</itunes:author><itunes:explicit>No</itunes:explicit><itunes:duration>3845</itunes:duration><itunes:image href="https://substackcdn.com/feed/podcast/4727834/post/168895419/0a590390ef593d067f23f391e09752a5.jpg"/></item><item><title><![CDATA[BDSM as Birth Prep?]]></title><description><![CDATA[<p>In this unapologetic solo episode, Lauren explores the radical parallels between BDSM, surrender, and birth consciousness. Drawing from her experience as a former labor & delivery nurse and embodiment mentor, she challenges modern birth narratives and invites listeners into a deeper understanding of pain, pleasure, power, and surrender as sacred pathways to ecstatic, undisturbed birth. </p> <br/><br/>Get full access to Embodied Ecstasy at <a href="https://embodiedecstasy.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_4">embodiedecstasy.substack.com/subscribe</a>]]></description><link>https://embodiedecstasy.substack.com/p/bdsm-as-birth-prep-400</link><guid isPermaLink="false">substack:post:186211840</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Lauren Segalla]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 29 Jan 2026 17:03:01 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/186211840/cee788bc6fd73cf3e617118da103ce7a.mp3" length="22011892" type="audio/mpeg"/><itunes:author>Lauren Segalla</itunes:author><itunes:explicit>No</itunes:explicit><itunes:duration>1834</itunes:duration><itunes:image href="https://substackcdn.com/feed/podcast/4727834/post/186211840/0a590390ef593d067f23f391e09752a5.jpg"/></item><item><title><![CDATA[The First 40 Days: Postpartum Is Not What You’ve Been Told]]></title><description><![CDATA[<p><em>What if postpartum wasn’t something to survive—but a sacred initiation that could heal you, your baby, and your lineage? In this unapologetic solo episode, I speak to the truth most women are never told about the first 40 days after birth. From why babies are not meant to self-soothe, to how outsourcing postpartum care can quietly fracture the mother–baby bond, this episode dismantles modern myths around independence, productivity, and “getting your body back.” This is a call to reclaim rest, high nurture, and maternal intuition, and to place mothers and babies back where they belong:</em><strong><em> at the center.</em></strong></p><p><strong>Reclaiming the Sacred Postpartum (The First 40 Days)</strong></p><p>In this raw, embodied, and unapologetic solo episode, Lauren speaks from her lived experience as a postpartum doula, former labor & delivery nurse, and woman devoted to restoring reverence to the mother–baby dyad.</p><p>This episode is an invitation to radically reimagine postpartum—not as something to “get through,” but as a sacred initiation, a healing portal, and the foundation of motherhood.</p><p><strong>In this episode, we explore:</strong></p><p>* Why the <strong>first 40 days postpartum</strong> are the most critical window for healing, bonding, and nervous system imprinting</p><p>* How to approach postpartum through a <strong>lens of empowerment rather than deprivation or survival</strong></p><p>* The difference between <strong>supporting the mother–baby dyad</strong> and unintentionally outsourcing or bypassing it</p><p>* Why “doing less” and <strong>removing excess baby gear</strong> can deepen intuition, connection, and confidence</p><p>* The role of <strong>nutrition, warmth, rest, and containment</strong> in postpartum healing</p><p>* What true postpartum support looks like (and what it doesn’t) when working with a postpartum doula</p><p>* The importance of <strong>closing the body and nervous system after birth</strong> to prevent trauma cycles</p><p>* How learning to <strong>receive care</strong> is essential preparation for motherhood</p><p>* Why babies are not self-soothing—and how <strong>high nurture shapes lifelong nervous system health</strong></p><p>* The impact of maternal regulation on issues like <strong>colic, feeding challenges, and infant distress</strong></p><p>* How postpartum can reopen and heal <strong>your own early childhood wounds</strong></p><p>* Why this season is not just about the baby—but about <strong>lineage repair, reparenting, and reclamation</strong></p><p>* A loving but firm challenge to modern postpartum norms that prioritize independence over connection</p><p>This episode is for women who are:</p><p>* Pregnant, postpartum, or preparing for motherhood</p><p>* Curious about postpartum doulas and how to work with them in integrity</p><p>* Ready to dismantle bounce-back culture and reclaim rest</p><p>* Willing to sit with discomfort, decondition patriarchal narratives, and choose embodied truth</p><p>This is not a soft conversation—but it is a loving one.And it’s a call to put mothers and babies back at the center.</p><p><em>Thank you for being here today.</em>If this episode landed, if it stirred something, softened something, or lit a little fire inside you—I’d love to hear about it. You can leave a review, share this episode with a woman who needs it, or send me a message and tell me how it felt in your body. These conversations matter, and they ripple farther than we know. Until next time, take care of yourself, stay close to your body, and trust what she’s telling you. Sending you so much love.</p> <br/><br/>Get full access to Embodied Ecstasy at <a href="https://embodiedecstasy.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_4">embodiedecstasy.substack.com/subscribe</a>]]></description><link>https://embodiedecstasy.substack.com/p/the-first-40-days-postpartum-is-not</link><guid isPermaLink="false">substack:post:185970136</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Lauren Segalla]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Tue, 27 Jan 2026 16:45:25 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/185970136/0bb4a6516645c5ae1d65c1ee4f958215.mp3" length="38045895" type="audio/mpeg"/><itunes:author>Lauren Segalla</itunes:author><itunes:explicit>No</itunes:explicit><itunes:duration>2378</itunes:duration><itunes:image href="https://substackcdn.com/feed/podcast/4727834/post/185970136/10c3a7d33fbd0195a406ec7dcd6c0900.jpg"/><itunes:episodeType>full</itunes:episodeType></item><item><title><![CDATA[An Ode to the Mother Who Called Her 14 Month Old a Bully]]></title><description><![CDATA[<p>I read a thread recently where a mother had referred to her 14 month old as a “bully” for not being able to go to sleep without nursing. How she’s “so over it” but will reluctantly continue because the threat of her baby bullying her is just too great. <em>(Okay, I might have embellished the last part, but you catch my drift). </em>This created a visceral reaction in my body akin to tires screeching pavement on a dime stop. Once the wince wore off of my face, the rush of heartbreak awaited to be felt. I say heartbreak, not because I’m a queen of drama, or hoping to win an oscar, but because I take great pride in my ability to feel things deeply. A quality, that unfortunately in today’s world, is not the sought out experience.</p><p>The consequence of feeling deeply means that I actively allow my heart to break open in response to seemingly “miniscule” issues. Some might label this as a problem, nuisance or a “mountain out of a molehill-itis”. <strong>This is to be expected in the echoes of a numbed out society, because when we are severed from our true feeling state, access to our instincts are blurred creating an optical illusion where the big ruptures are seen as </strong><strong><em>miniscule</em></strong><strong>. </strong>And this woman calling her baby a bully <em>(even if sarcastically)</em> is anything but miniscule. Let me try and paint this picture for you, so that you might see the mountain too.</p><p>Imagine all access to your words and self-sufficiency escape you, and you have no way of communicating your need for safety, comfort, or nourishment other than body movements and sounding. Now imagine that an unstoppable force–a primal urge–surges up through your body, propelling you toward the only source in existence of those aforementioned needs. This urge is so powerful that you’ll stop at nothing in order to feel safe and satiated. The stronger you propel, the stronger the resistance gets, and all of sudden you have the thought “I might not get what I need to survive!”. A spiral of fear flushes your entire system, pulling you down into a dark tunnel of panic while your amygdala sends you into autopilot alarm–with the only way out being the very source that sent you into the spiral in the first place. Finally after what seemed like fighting for your life, you attach to this one source with a sigh of relief, and are met–reluctantly–with the energetic tone of annoyance, disgust, and perhaps even being called a bully.</p><p><p>Tired of pretending you're fine? Good. Let's rage, cry, birth, and rise—together.</p></p><p></p><p>One can only assume that it wouldn’t take very long to associate <strong>“</strong><strong><em>my urges</em></strong><strong>are annoying, disgusting, and bullying”</strong> with <strong>“</strong><strong><em>I am</em></strong><strong> annoying, disgusting, and a bully”</strong> because I do not yet understand that my primal urges are distinct <em>from</em> “me”. That they are not simply “good” or “bad” but merely an instinct to survive. Over time this dissonance plants seeds of distrust, and the invasive vines begin to grow out of control, coiling around, suffocating, and ultimately injuring your instincts, and access to your authentic feelings all together. But it’s totally okay, because you’ll have your mother’s, father’s, teacher’s, lover’s, neighbor’s, and society’s approval instead. <em>*Winks in sarcasm*.</em></p><p>According to neuroscientist Dr. Kirshenbaum, our babies are exposed to emotional experiences that <em>change their epigenetics and gene expression</em> at two specific times in life: early development in utero, and in infancy (first 3 years of life). She explains that stressful experiences (such as the aforementioned scenario) during early development actually changes mental health genes in a baby’s DNA; and that these early experiences may increase susceptibility to both mental wellness and unwellness. Aka, nurturing our babies is a revolutionary act, and ultimately works as a cycle. We may inherit legacies of trauma, violence, poor mental health, and low nurture DNA, but we are not completely powerless against genetics, in fact, we have more power than one may think. When we learn to nurture ourselves and our babies, we are nurturing the future health of humanity and the planet. Do you see yet, how this mountain is anything but a molehill?</p><p>To undrained eyes, It might seem like I am pointing my keyboard-warrior finger at this mother who called her baby a bully. That I’m shaming her in the proverbial streets like ‘Cersei’, shouting “Shame!” as I metaphorically throw rotten tomatoes at her head, remaining completely blind to the pain and hardship of how <em>she</em> might feel being a mother <em>(especially a nursing one)</em>in today’s world. But that’s the thing about optical illusions, they are never quite as they seem.</p><p>Would you believe me if I told you that I consider this woman a beautiful muse? That I deeply care for this woman, and women like her? That I’m grateful she chose to–<em>knowingly or unknowingly</em>–project her unresolved trauma onto her baby, so that her words might find their way to me and I could bring them to light? Would you believe me if I told you that I’ve grieved for the babies who ever felt that their needs were a nuisance? That I’ve sobbed for the babies that cry for their mothers at night that never come? That I cry for the mothers who were once babies themselves, and never knew what it was like to feel unconditionally loved?</p><p>And would you believe me if I told you that in order for me to see this woman through a lens of compassion that I’ve had to grieve my own ruptures with nurture? That I’ve had to feel my own pain, and the pain that has been passed onto me through genetic lineage? That the cracks in my heart I so willingly allow to remain open; usher in grief so that I may feel compassion over dogma? I believe shame is an inside job, that no one can place shame “onto” someone else, and once we can learn to nurture ourselves, we can then build the capacity to <em>be with</em> the shame or any and all of the emotional spectrum discomfort.</p><p><strong>This world would be a vastly different place if we saw babies for what they were: </strong><strong><em>the most intelligent ones in the room</em></strong><strong>, that their connection to their instincts is to be modeled and gleaned from.</strong> So let us pause before we call a baby a bully. Let us soften into the beauty of their neediness, the sacred wisdom of their instincts, and the wild holy cry for connection that lives in all of us. Let us remember that every demand for closeness is really an invitation to return home to nurture ourselves. Because when we choose to tend to the places within us, that once felt like too much, we no longer see need as a nuisance. We see it as an opportunity. Not to fix, shut down, but to love deeper. One cry, one feed, one cuddle at a time.</p><p><p>Your feelings are sacred. Your pleasure is power. Subscribe if you're ready to remember.</p></p><p></p> <br/><br/>Get full access to Embodied Ecstasy at <a href="https://embodiedecstasy.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_4">embodiedecstasy.substack.com/subscribe</a>]]></description><link>https://embodiedecstasy.substack.com/p/an-ode-to-the-mother-who-called-her</link><guid isPermaLink="false">substack:post:161396165</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Lauren Segalla]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Tue, 15 Apr 2025 16:56:50 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/161396165/71e319dd57c83d5a45864342a8487d22.mp3" length="6023672" type="audio/mpeg"/><itunes:author>Lauren Segalla</itunes:author><itunes:explicit>No</itunes:explicit><itunes:duration>502</itunes:duration><itunes:image href="https://substackcdn.com/feed/podcast/4727834/post/161396165/7be386b7b1ef11a7dd2e811877c3714f.jpg"/></item></channel></rss>