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The Be Fully Alive Podcast On Patreon
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"We all carry the potential to realize, in real time, that the vibrant energy we experience
when we feel truly loved, seen and met, is who we actually are." Dawn Cartwright
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Episode 300 . Wilhelm Reich Upset the Status Quo
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The Be Fully Alive Podcast
In this special 300th episode, we embark on a transformative journey into the world of Wilhelm Reich—a controversial pioneer whose revolutionary ideas about the body, sexuality, and personal liberation challenged the very foundations of 20th century thought.
Tracing the vibrant, tumultuous history of Vienna in the 1920s, through the aftermath of world wars and the birth of psychoanalysis, we'll unpack the uncomfortable questions Reich dared to ask.
Why do we feel disconnected, even when we understand relationships and intimacy?
What blocks us from the kind of ecstatic aliveness we crave?
We'll explore how Reich’s theories on “body armor” reveal deep truths about the ways our culture shapes our bodies, our desires, and our capacity for authentic connection.
Although there were those committed to suppressing Reich’s work completely—burning his books and imprisoning him—his legacy lives on in the practices of NeoTantra, somatic psychology, and trauma therapy, offering modern day pathways to authenticity, integration and freedom.
When we bring awareness and softening to the armor we carry—seven segments of tension woven into our muscles and our minds—we recover the joy, clarity, and wild potential that is our true nature.
I hope you'll enjoy listening.
Dawn
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"Once we open up to the flow of energy within our body, we can also open up to the flow of energy in the universe."
— Wilhelm Reich
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 | The Return To Authentic Desire
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Live Practice Session . Zoom . NeoTantra Workshop
We are tracing the deep history of desire — following the sacred thread of erotic intelligence all the way back through the partnership cultures of Çatalhöyük, through the wisdom of the Tantric lineages, to today's exploration of NeoTantra. It's time to bring it all into our bodies.
We'll melt into practice together.
In this workshop, together around the world on Zoom, we'll dive into the history, the neuroscience, the poetry, the practice — and we'll meet our desire. As connection. As feeling. As homecoming.
Most of us have learned to, quietly and thoroughly, manage our desire. To put it on a shelf. To wait for the right conditions, the right relationship, the right version of ourselves before we allow ourselves to feel what we feel. We've been running the dominator culture's most intimate program — the one that lives not in history books, but in our own minds.
The partnership cultures of the ancient world were not ashamed of their desire - desire wasn't a problem to manage. It was the sacred thread itself. Desire is our connection to our most natural selves. Our body's most direct way of knowing what is true and what is real.
Let's stop waiting.
Through gentle movement, breath work, somatic body scanning, guided visualization, and a beautiful paired practice, we'll turn toward our authentic embodied desires with curiosity and welcome. We'll allow our erotic intelligence to lead. We'll invoke the sensual intelligence that is already here.
The Return To Authentic Desire
Be Fully Alive LIVE Practice Session
TODAY . Tuesday . April 7th . 11:45-12:45 pm PDT
Via ZOOM . A Recording Will Be Available
In this workshop we'll explore . . .
• Arriving in the body A somatic scan that dissolves stress and distraction, awakening our erotic intelligence from the inside.
• The sacred thread practice Gentle movement and breath work to attune to the partnership thread that exists within us — the desire, aliveness, and knowing — that is already alive in our bodies right now.
• Releasing the inner dominator A guided visualization to see, name, and gently dissolve the conditioning that has kept our authentic desire on a shelf.
• Turning toward desire A guided inner landscape practice — meeting desire with presence rather than management.
• Partner practice A beautiful paired exercise in which we practice connecting with and sharing our desire.
• Integration Breath, poetry, and a closing practice to carry the thread into everyday life.
Who is this workshop for?
This session is for anyone who is ready to move from understanding these teachings to living them — and for anyone new to NeoTantra who is curious about what it means to have a truly embodied relationship with desire.
No prior experience is necessary. All practices are gentle and can be done from anywhere. All genders, all relationship structures, all bodies are welcome.
What Time Is This Workshop In My City?
Join Our Monthly Practice Community
Monthly live practice sessions are one of the most intimate and transformative ways to deepen your NeoTantra practice. Every first Tuesday of the month, we gather live on Zoom for 60 minutes of guided practice, community, and connection.
EMBODY TIER MEMBERSHIP
$40/month
- Full Access to the Be Fully Alive Podcast
- Monthly Zoom Workshops with Dawn
- Zoom Workshop Recordings
Join EMBODY Now
EVOLVE TIER MEMBERSHIP
$125/month
- Everything in EMBODY +
- Private Coaching Sessions with Dawn
- Personalized NeoTantra Guidance
Join EVOLVE Now
A recording of each session will be available for all members.
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 | Episode 301: Reichian Breathwork
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The Be Fully Alive Podcast
In this week's practice episode we'll settle into a gentle, guided breathwork exploration of the seven armor rings Reich identified in his work.
Conscious breathing is a pathway to gently soften our body’s habitual armoring, unlocking a deeper sense of vitality, arousal, and authentic self-connection.
This is a practice that invites us to slow down, listen to our body’s wisdom, and reclaim those vibrant parts of ourselves that have been held beneath the surface.
To meet parts of ourselves that have been kept locked away.
You're invited to settle in, bring a blanket, and prepare for an adventure into your own aliveness and freedom.
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 | Episode 302 . Neve & Beckett . The Practice Opened What Understanding Couldn’t
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The Be Fully Alive Podcast
Neve is a family therapist deeply acquainted with attachment theory, Beckett is a philosophy professor specializing in the lived experience—a couple in love who find themselves unable to truly connect beyond a very sophisticated, yet superficial, level of intimacy.
Despite their combined expertise, they've spent years in frozen animation suspended in the gap between intellectual understanding—and embodied desire.
Through breathwork and intentionally stepping out of their habitual need to process everything through words, Neve and Beckett discover what it means to finally let their bodies speak, moving beyond theory into authentic desire.
Their story illuminates the transformative power of somatic practice. Neve and Beckett find the courage to move from analysis into experiential practice, rediscovering true intimacy—one breath at a time.
Episode 302 . Neve & Beckett . The Practice Opened What Understanding Couldn't
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 | NeoTantra: A New Introduction
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The Be Fully Alive Podcast . 8-Week Series
We are living in a remarkable moment of convergence.
For centuries, our world has been divided into two perspectives:
The scientific — expressed as formulas, data and peer-reviewed research.
And the intuitive — expressed as oral tradition, poetry and sacred story.
We are now discovering, through neuroscience, somatic research and quantum physics, that the songs and stories of the ancients carried knowledge that no formula or graph could contain.
The practices and the history. The 25,000-year arc that reveals that the sacred erotic was once celebrated, then buried, and is now, in our lifetime, being re-membered.
This is that introduction.
WEEK 1: NEOTANTRA: A NEW INTRODUCTION
The split, the re-membering, and the invitation home.
Episode 285 (Mon): NeoTantra: A New Introduction
The origins of sacred sexuality. Seven thousand years of evidence. Why our relationship with the sacred erotic is an act of cultural reclamation.
Episode 286 (Wed): Sacred Encounter
Arriving in the body temple. Body, breath and energy. A practice in arriving so completely that something long forgotten awakens.
Episode 287 (Fri): Aiden & Zara's Progressive Marriage
They've aced couples therapy. Read every book. Zero sex for three months. What happens when ancient repression unconsciously clouds our own values?
WEEK 2: THE ANCIENT TECHNOLOGIES
The practices ancient cultures lived by — and what neuroscience, somatic research, and physics are finally catching up to.
Episode 288 (Mon): The Forgotten Arts & Eros
Some of us find our way home through devotion. Some through data. NeoTantra embraces both — and in that embrace, something awakens.
Episode 289 (Wed): The Gap: Entering the Still Point
There is a space between thoughts. Between breaths. The mystic's doorway. We'll practice finding the gap - and entering it.
Episode 290 (Fri): Marcus’s Story: The Professor, the Spreadsheet & the Practice That Changed His Mind
A professor. A spreadsheet. The story of Marcus' nervous system activation, the shattering of his concept of who he was - and his integration.
WEEK 3 A LIFE REIMAGINED
What partnership cultures, Maslow, and the neuroscience of flourishing tell us about how we might actually live.
Episode 291 (Mon): Partnership Cultures: The Original Thread
Partnership cultures found power in the body — in pleasure, in desire, in erotic intelligence. Does that thread still exist?
Episode 292 (Wed): The Sacred Life Design Practice
Extraordinary moments hidden in our seemingly ordinary lives. A practical practice for attunement.
Episode 293 (Fri): Kaia's Thread
The sacred thread runs through rushed mornings, full days and moments that feel compressed. This is Kaia's story.
WEEK 4: EROTIC CONNECTION & SACRED UNION
The Sacred Marriage, Buber's I-Thou, and what attachment research is finally confirming about erotic connection.
Episode 294 (Mon): The Authority Of Desire
Not just a concept — a cosmology, a psychology, an archaeology, and a science. How desire was shaped, why it went quiet, and what it takes to hear it again.
Episode 295 (Wed): Practice: Our Body Knows First
A practice for softening the brake, finding the compliance yes and the full-body yes — and learning to trust what we hear in the quiet that follows.
Episode 296 (FRI): Yuki’s Yes
She was extraordinarily good at yes. It took her years to discover she didn’t know what she wanted.
WEEK 5: THE BODY RECLAIMED
Wilhelm Reich, body armor, and what somatic research reveals about blocked energy — and how to release it.
Episode 297 (Mon): The Erotic Intelligence of Two
Freedom as the real longing. The internal dominator. The Copernican shift. Buber's I-Thou, attachment research, polarity — three traditions, one event. Dawn's dream.
Episode 298 (Wed): Eye Gazing Practice
Solo centering → partner gaze → deepening → breath → integration. Solo variation included throughout. New levels of a familiar NeoTantra practice.
Episode 299 (Fri): Chen & Wei's Story: Two Traditions - One Bed
Taoist lineage. Kabbalah. Same longing, different maps. What if their difference is not the obstacle but the practice itself?
WEEK 6: THE BODY REMEMBERS
The breath that dissolves the armor. The body that has been waiting. What becomes possible when the managing mind finally steps back.
Episode 300 (Mon): Wilhelm Reich Upset The Status Quo (And Why That Matters)
A turning point in the history of human sexuality - 1920, Wilhelm Reich’s work revealed that the ungovernable aliveness of the body in genuine relationship with its own vitality cannot be centralized or owned. A fundamental restructuring of how power works.
Episode 301 (Wed): Reichian Breathwork Practice
The seven armor rings, where we learned to contract, brace, disappear. Gentle and thorough. Have a blanket nearby. Allow time afterward.
Episode 302 (Fri): Neve & Beckett: The Practice Opened What Conversation Couldn’t
They practiced side by side - then brought this into their lovemaking - revealing an opening in their bodies. The uncontrolled unknown. Surrender. The sacred space of sex.
WEEK 7: SOLO AS SACRED
The complete path. The neuroscience of authentic desire — and what the body communicates when we finally listen.
Episode 303: (Mon) Inhabited Desire
Our ancestors, the people of the partnership cultures, inhabited desire. A flow of erotic intelligence weaving human beings with the power and beauty of nature.
Episode 304 (Wed): Self-Pleasure . Unlocking Ancient Desire
A self-pleasure practice for finding Level 2 — the space, the place, the sensations where our authentic signal finally becomes audible.
Episode 305 (Fri): Yuki's Story: The True Nature Of Her Erotic Longing
She calibrated her desire externally for forty years. Level 2 practice gave her the quiet she needed to finally listen to the true nature of her own erotic longing.
WEEK 8: THE ESOTERIC DIMENSIONS
Classical Tantra's deepest practices — and what physics and cymatics are beginning to measure.
Episode 303 (Mon): Sacred Geometry, Sacred Sound & The Energetic Body
Sacred geometry. Sacred sound. What the classical traditions practiced — and what modern physics is beginning to confirm.
Episode 304 (Wed): The Inner Temple: A Visualization Practice
Building the inner temple, not metaphor but a real place the practitioner learns to inhabit. A home base for everything that follows.
Episode 305 (Fri): David's Story: Everything Was Performance
He knew every word. Practiced for years. Partners called him conscious, safe. One left and named what was happening. Practice begins there.
WEEK 9: LIFE AS PRACTICE: THE INFINITE PATH
Where technique ends and life begins.
Episode 306 (Mon): Beyond Technique: Life as NeoTantra
Flow states, transcendence, the practitioner who has forgotten they are practicing. And why embodied eros is among the most political acts available.
Episode 307 (Wed): The Returning Practice: Coming Home
Not a finale. A homecoming. Body. Breath. Ground. Return here when we forget. We will forget often. That is not failure. That is the path.
Episode 308 (Fri): Silas’s Story: The Workshop Was Always a Temple
He builds instruments — vessels designed to carry resonance. Silas, 62, never married, has spent forty years in devotion to craft without a name for it. The series doesn’t change his life. It gives him a new lens to see what his life truly means to him.
Join Our Be Fully Alive Podcast Community
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Subscribing is Easy . . .
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The Be Fully Alive Podcast
I look forward to welcoming you into the Be Fully Alive Podcast community. We're diving deep into the elegant systems that transform complex lives into embodied aliveness.
Subscribe To The Be Fully Alive Podcast
Thank you for being part of this evolution with me. I can't wait to share what's coming next.
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 | Making peak experiences a way of life.
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The Be Fully Alive Podcast
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