In This Body

What if the responses that seem most confusing after sexual violence are actually the body’s most intelligent survival strategies?
In this episode, Ailey explores how culture has taught women to doubt their instincts and how institutions have historically silenced survivors. She unpacks what truly happens in the nervous system during trauma, including tonic immobility, dissociation, the fawn response, and why arousal during assault can be a protective reflex rather than desire.
Through the lenses of betrayal trauma, complex PTSD, and the window of tolerance, this episode examines why awareness can be delayed, why leaving can feel impossible, and how survival patterns often get misread as consent. Ailey also explores the links between sexual trauma, hypersexuality, eating disorders, and intergenerational patterns.
This is a compassionate guide to understanding survival so shame can give way to clarity, and healing can begin from the inside out.
In this episode:
0:00 Setting Intentions For A Hard Topic
4:41 Why Disbelief Persists Culturally
12:43 How Culture Primes The Body
19:01 Betrayal Trauma And Not Knowing
25:23 Why Leaving Isn’t Simple
37:28 Delayed Disclosure And Shame
42:48 Institutional Betrayal And Justice
48:14 Complex PTSD And The Window Of Tolerance
53:56 Hypersexuality As Adaptation
1:00:48 Eating Disorders, Body Image, And Trauma
You can read the transcript here
Learn more about Ailey Jolie:
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What if the most radical thing you can do for your life and relationships is to feel your body right now? In this episode, we’re joined by somatic psychotherapist and movement pioneer Christine Caldwell to explore bodyfulness, the embodied counterpart to mindfulness, and why attention belongs in sensation, not just thought.
Christine shares how her work integrating dance therapy, body psychotherapy, and Buddhist practice led to founding the Somatic Counselling program at Naropa University. We explore how culture trains disconnection, how language reinforces the mind body split, and how returning to direct experience changes the way we act. She introduces the Moving Cycle of awareness, integration, and natural action, along with a simple practice she calls breathe, move, sense. We also touch on the influence of Thich Nhat Hanh and her book Conscious Moving.
If mindfulness has felt incomplete, this episode offers a grounded path back to your own skin. If it resonates, subscribe, share, and leave a review.
In this episode:
0:00 Welcome and Meet Christine
4:10 I Am My Body, Not In It
8:23 Synthesising Dance, Bodywork, And Psychology
12:59 Why Fields Became Siloed
17:43 Defining Bodyfulness Beyond Prescriptions
23:46 Technology, Consumerism, And Disembodiment
28:59 The Moving Cycle: Origins And Phases
33:51 Physical Free Association In Practice
38:40 Buddhism, Attention, And Everyday Practice
43:44 Enlightened Body And Sensorimotor Loop
47:55 A Doorway: Breathe, Move, Sense
You can read the transcript here
Learn more about Ailey Jolie:
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Email: [email protected]

What if the thing blocking pleasure isn’t technique, but a long war with your own body? In this episode, we talk with Emma-Louise Boynton, creator of Sex Talks and author of the forthcoming book Pleasure, about her journey from disconnection to desire, and the moment she realized pleasure and self conflict cannot coexist.
We explore how naming shame softens it, why body neutrality can be more sustainable than forced positivity, and how slowness and safety help the nervous system open to arousal. We also challenge cultural sex scripts and reframe sexual liberation as the freedom to choose what truly honours your body and heart.
If you’ve ever wondered if you are just not a sexual person, this episode offers language, tools, and hope. Start small. Pleasure grows where pressure eases. If this resonated, subscribe, share, and leave a review.
In this episode:
0:00 Welcome & Embodiment Mission
4:06 The Dinner Party Confession
12:53 Disembodiment & Pleasure Capacity
24:55 Shame, Silence, And Sex Scripts
31:15 From War To Body Neutrality
37:28 Learning Desire And Boundaries
41:49 Beauty Myths And Control
50:49 Debunking Sex Myths
You can read the transcript here
Learn more about Ailey Jolie:
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Email: [email protected]
To follow along with the In This Body podcast:
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What if the wisest part of you isn’t your thinking mind, but the sensations already alive in your body? In this episode, executive coach and Enneagram expert Courtney Smith joins us to explore how fear quietly shapes our choices and how learning to feel what’s here now can restore agency, presence, and pleasure.
Courtney shares her path from Yale Law and McKinsey to a body first approach blending the Enneagram, conscious leadership, and somatic awareness. We unpack three core fears: loss of security, approval, and control, and how they keep us looping familiar conflicts and drama triangle roles.
We move into practice by welcoming fear, tracking it in the body, and asking, If I weren’t scared, what would I be doing? We also explore pleasure as information, not indulgence, but a compass toward aliveness and truth.
You’ll leave with tools to notice sensation, spot fear driven patterns, and choose presence over performance. If this resonated, subscribe, share, and leave a review, then ask yourself: if fear disappeared for one hour, what would you choose?
In this episode:
0:00 – Opening And Embodiment Mission
5:14 – From Head To Body-Based Presence
10:02 – Enneagram Beyond Typing
16:42 – Presence Begins With Sensation
23:57 – Bypassing With Self‑Knowledge
28:53 – Why Growth Is Uncomfortable
34:55 – Socialisation, Fear, And Scripts
41:48 – The Drama Triangle Explained
You can read the transcript here
Learn more about Ailey Jolie:
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To follow along with the In This Body podcast:
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In this solo episode of How To Be In This Body, Ailey Jolie reflects on carrying breast implants for 15 years and the moment she finally had enough capacity to hear the “no” she couldn’t access almost two decades ago. This is a conversation about consent, power, and why trauma tools designed for single events often fail to address lives shaped by repetition, surveillance, and the gaze.
Ailey explores how trauma research centered on male bodies overlooks a common female experience: disembodiment without a clear origin story. From self-objectification to the dulling of interoception, she traces the cultural and clinical forces that teach bodies to doubt their own knowing.
Rather than chasing perfect regulation, this episode reframes healing as capacity—the ability to feel fear, grief, and hope while still moving toward what is right. Distinguishing “scoreboard” healing from “story” healing, it invites a different question: not what broke you, but what you were shaped to hold. This episode is for anyone who’s tried every somatic tool and still feels far from home.
In this episode:
Opening And Embodiment Mission
The Gap In Trauma Theory
A Child’s Wish And Split Survival
Patterning Danger And Adolescence
Violations In Medicine And Aftermath
Self‑Objectification And Losing Interoception
Beauty Culture’s Profitable Wounds
Choosing Explant And Choosing Trust
Repair Through Consent And Care
You can read the transcript here
Learn more about Ailey Jolie:
Find: Website
Follow: Instagram
Explore: Substack
Experience: Insight Timer
Sign up: InBodyMethod
Email: [email protected]
To follow along with the In This Body podcast:
Follow: Instagram
Find: Website
Email: [email protected]