Podcast
Embodied
Dig into the underdiscussed corners of the human experience. Each week, host Anita Rao leads intimate conversations with people unafraid to question what we think we know about identity, relationships and health.
Follow the show on Instagram at @embodiedwunc and on Bluesky at embodiedwunc.bsky.social. You can find Anita on Bluesky at asrao.bsky.social.
- Sexuality chart
- #70
- Episodes
- 300
- Releases
- Weekly
- Typical length
- 50 min
- On air since
- 2020
- Latest episode
- 5 days ago
Episodes
300 episodes, newest first
-
50 min
The Healing Power Of Horror
Show notes
Black horror writer Tananarive Due fell in love with the spectacle of horror when she was a little kid. But it was only after she was well into her horror writing career that she discovered that the genre can provide not just entertainment but healing. Tananarive talks to Anita about why she believes horror can help folks process real-world fears and trauma, using her most recent award-winning book “The Reformatory” as a case study.
Meet the guest:
- Tananarive Due is an educator and the author of several horror novels, including "The Reformatory"
Read the transcript | Review the podcast on your preferred platform
Follow Embodied on Instagram
Please note: This episode originally published February 26, 2026.
Update: Tananarive Due's latest novel, "Mazywood," is available now.
-
50 min
Coming out as Trans in Later Life
Show notes
Jillian Celentano felt that something was different about her gender identity when she was five years old. But this was in the 1960s. “Transgender” wasn’t a part of popular vocabulary, and trans folks who were in the public eye were often ridiculed…even arrested. So Jillian kept her identity hidden…until she was 55 years old. Jillian talks with guest host Carvell Wallace about why she finally transitioned in adulthood, and the joys and challenges of embracing a new identity. She also talks about the lessons she passes on as a trans elder to younger trans people.
Meet the guest:
- Jillian Celentano is a social worker, psychotherapist and the author of "Transitioning in Later Life: A Personal Guide"
Follow Embodied on Instagram
-
50 min
Navigating Chronic Insomnia In A Sleep-Obsessed Culture
Show notes
For almost 29 years, journalist Jennifer Senior was a self-described “brilliant sleeper.” Then, one night, something changed…and Jennifer has struggled with chronic insomnia ever since. She talks to Anita about insights on insomnia from both her reporting and personal life. Then, we meet a couple who share suggestions for navigating insomnia in a romantic partnership.
Meet the guests:
- Jennifer Senior is a staff writer for The Atlantic and the author of "Why Can't Americans Sleep?"
- Gabrielle Moss and Jesse Rifkin are writers living in New York City
Follow Embodied on Instagram
Please note: This episode originally published October 9, 2025.
Update: Gabrielle Moss has a new book, "The Midlife Plot Twist: How to Reboot Your Life Without Burning It Down (Even If You Really, Really Want To)."
-
50 min
What It Takes To Make Art Your Life
Show notes
Building a life as an artist is an uphill climb. After decades of hustling to make it work, writer Stephanie Elizondo Griest had one big question: How do you determine if art is worth all the sacrifice it requires? Stephanie tells Anita about traveling the world for answers and what she learned about what it takes to build a life as a female artist.
Meet the guest:
- Stephanie Elizondo Griest is a professor of creative nonfiction at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the author of “Art Above Everything: One Woman’s Global Exploration of the Joys and Torments of a Creative Life”
Follow Embodied on Instagram
Please note: This episode originally published September 11, 2025.
Update: "Art Above Everything" is now available in paperback!
-
50 min
Adapting in the Kitchen
Show notes
How do you keep doing something that you love after your body changes ... and you can’t do it the way you used to? Yewande Komolafe was a cook for two decades before a medical crisis and multiple amputations forced her to change the way that she worked in the kitchen. She tells guest host (and Embodied producer) Kaia Findlay about her process of coming back to cooking and reconnecting to her identity as a chef. Plus, Christine Ha, “the Blind Cook,” talks about how gradual vision loss affected her abilities in the kitchen and how relearning everything from boiling water to knife skills helped her establish new methods for navigating the future.
Meet the guests:
- Yewande Komolafe is a recipe developer and cooking columnist at the New York Times
- Christine Ha is a MasterChef winner, the owner of two restaurants and an author
Follow Embodied on Instagram
-
50 min
Two Brothers, One Uncertain Future
Show notes
What would you do if you knew your brain would stop functioning normally in just a decade? For brothers Ansel Dow (31) and Cosmo Hinsman (26), this isn't hypothetical. They carry a rare genetic mutation that makes frontotemporal dementia almost inevitable by their mid-40s. It’s the same condition that has altered the lives and personalities of their mother and five of her siblings. In conversation with Anita, the brothers reveal how this genetic legacy influences their most personal choices about love, friendship and building a meaningful life against a countdown.
Meet the guests:
- Ansel Dow is a community organizer and an advocate for more research into FTD
- Cosmo Hinsman holds a MFA in fiction writing
Read "The Vanishing Family" from the New York Times here
Follow Embodied on Instagram
Please note: This episode originally published June 5, 2025.
Updates: Ansel and Cosmo's Aunt Christy, the first in her generation to develop FTD, passed away last November at age 72. Journalist Robert Kolker wrote "The Vanishing Family" about Ansel and Cosmo's family, which is set for release on September 29th.
-
50 min
Incarceration & The Physical Body
Show notes
Nearly 1.3 million people are held inside state and federal prisons across the U.S. What happens to a person’s physical body inside that carceral system — and after they get out? Those were questions Emile Suotonye DeWeaver has found himself up against through his life. Suotonye was in and out of juvenile hall during his adolescence before spending just over two decades in prison in adulthood. The activist and writer tells guest host Carvell Wallace how his time in prison affected his relationship to everything from exercise and nutrition to physical touch and desire. And he describes what the healing process for his mind-body connection has been since his release in 2017.
Meet the guest:
- Emile Suotonye DeWeaver is the author of "Ghost in the Criminal Justice Machine: Reform, White Supremacy, and an Abolitionist Future"
Follow Embodied on Instagram
-
50 min
The Tools You Need For Building Better Groups
Show notes
Priya Parker has spent decades thinking about what makes groups work. And she says keeping groups together requires skills most of us never learned. She tells Anita about her personal journey to unlearn the idea that “good people don’t fight” and why a group can be just as damaged by unhealthy peace as they can by unhealthy conflict. She offers guidance for figuring out whether a fight is worth having and then how to actually have it — whether it’s in your book club, work team or extended family.
Meet the guest:
- Priya Parker is the author of “The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters” and “The Art of Fighting: The Transformative Power of Conflict”
Follow Embodied on Instagram
-
50 min
Building an Early Foundation for Healthy Sexuality
Show notes
For many of us, a formal education about sexuality begins during puberty and only really gets going during adolescence. But in reality, exploration of our bodies and relationships can begin long before that — as early as our first years of life. So how can we set kids up to feel empowered, safe and free from shame when they are older? A sexuality educator shares advice for parents and caregivers on navigating some of the common challenges that come up as kids are learning about their bodies and relationships. Plus, a writer breaks down her childhood to determine where shame and desire became intertwined.
Meet the guests:
- Nadine Thornhill has a doctorate from the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality and is one of the hosts of the web series “Every Body Curious”
- Tyler Wetherall is the author of "Amphibian"
Follow Embodied on Instagram
-
50 min
Parenting Wisdom From An Interabled Couple
Show notes
When Jessica Slice was 28 years old, a bout of heat exhaustion triggered an underlying neurological disorder that led to permanent physical disabilities. In the 14 years since, Jessica met her now-husband David Yourdon and started a family. They talk to Anita about how their parenting experience has been one of adaptation and creativity — from learning how to separate their worth from external standards to accepting that all bodies have changing needs that require attention and care. They share the nitty gritty of their parenting life, with wisdom that’s relevant for all families.
Meet the guests:
- Jessica Slice, author of “Unfit Parent: A Disabled Mother Challenges an Inaccessible World"
- David Yourdon, Jessica's husband
Read the transcript | Review the podcast on your preferred platform
Follow Embodied on Instagram
Please note: This episode originally published July 10, 2025.
-
49 min
When Sports Betting Sucks You In
Show notes
More than half of American men between the ages of 18 and 49 have an active online sports betting account, and for the past year Atlantic staff writer McKay Coppins was one of them. But what started as a reporting assignment quickly spiraled into something else. Anita talks to him about how sports betting pulls you in, even when you think you’re immune. Plus, how the rise of sports betting culture is fundamentally changing sports and fandom.
Meet the guest:
- McKay Coppins is a staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of “Sucker: My Year as a Degenerate Gambler.”
Special thanks to Rob Minnick for his contributions to this episode!
Read the transcript | Review the podcast on your preferred platform
Follow Embodied on Instagram
-
50 min
The Case For Embracing Your Sweat
Show notes
This summer’s heat waves have been brutal. But there’s one thing helping all of us make it through the soaring temperatures: sweat. Our bodies need to sweat to survive – and yet we spend billions of dollars trying to combat it. Science journalist Sarah Everts explains why sweat is a biological superpower, and she and Anita dig into how it became so stigmatized. Then, Caryn Toriaga shares what it's like to live with hyperhidrosis, an excessive sweating condition that can take her hands and feet and from dry to dripping in 60 seconds.
Meet the guests:
- Sarah Everts is a science journalist and the author of “The Joy of Sweat: The Strange Science of Perspiration”
- Caryn Toriaga lives with hyperhidrosis and has blogged about her experience
Read the transcript | Review the podcast on your preferred platform
Follow Embodied on Instagram
-
50 min
Why Black Women’s Disordered Eating Is Overlooked
Show notes
Despite a decade of restrictive behavior and a career path in mental health counseling, Alishia McCullough had never associated herself with the phrase eating disorder. She’s not alone – while eating disorders affect all races and ethnicities at similar rates, people of color are less than half as likely to receive a diagnosis than their white counterparts. She talks to Anita about how an aha moment in grad school led her to better understand how to treat eating disorders in Black women’s bodies — starting with her own.
Meet the guest:
- Alishia McCullough is the author of "Reclaiming the Black Body: Nourishing the Home Within" and a licensed mental health therapist
Read the transcript | Review the podcast on your preferred platform
Follow Embodied on Instagram
Please note: This episode originally published March 20, 2025.
Updates: Alishia is creating a workshop around leaving the U.S., launching a weekly BIPOC postpartum moms support group and working on a clinical reflection card deck. You can keep track of all of these offerings on her Instagram page.
-
50 min
Matrescence: Motherhood As Metamorphosis
Show notes
What does becoming a mother do to your brain, body and sense of self? Anita — currently in her third trimester — puts that question to science writer Lucy Jones. Lucy spent years studying matrescence, a word for the shift that happens during pregnancy, childbirth and becoming a parent. They talk about Lucy's own path through motherhood and why we need new ways to support mothers through this transformation that never really ends.
Meet the guest:
- Lucy Jones is the author of “Matrescence: On Pregnancy, Childbirth and Motherhood”
Read the transcript | Review the podcast on your preferred platform
Follow Embodied on Instagram
-
50 min
Everyday Spaces Weren’t Built For Fat Bodies. So What’s The Fix?
Show notes
Imagine sitting down in a theater only to be distracted from the performance by armrests digging into your sides. Or arriving at the doctor’s office to find the patient gown won’t fit. For tens of millions of Americans in larger bodies, experiences like this are part of everyday life. Anita talks to two people who argue this is a design problem, not a personal one. Artist Suzy Hooker is building a free, searchable directory that rates the accessibility of everyday spaces and designer Margarita Zulueta is reimagining how places like airplanes could be built with fat bodies in mind.
Meet the guests:
- Suzy Hooker is an artist, fat activist, cohost of the podcast "Thunder Thighs and Bedroom Eyes" and the founder of Fat Fab Free
- Margarita Zulueta is a product designer whose thesis is about designing towards fat liberation
Read the transcript | Review the podcast on your preferred platform
Follow Embodied on Instagram
-
50 min
When Long Covid Rewrites Your Love Story
Show notes
When Philip Hoover and his wife Lauren Hill-Hoover tested positive for COVID-19 in 2022, they thought they knew what to expect. But then Philip’s symptoms persisted, morphed and intensified. They talk to Anita about how an illness that’s affected tens of millions of Americans upended their life and forced them to confront big, existential questions, like: What does caring for each other in sickness and in health *really* mean?
Meet the guests:
- Philip Hoover is a writer who has long COVID
- Lauren Hill-Hoover is Philip's wife
Read the transcript | Review the podcast on your preferred platform
Follow Embodied on Instagram
Dig deeper:
Please note: This episode originally published August 7, 2025.
Updates: Philip and Lauren have now moved into their own place, and Philip is starting graduate school in the fall to pursue his Master’s of Social Work. He still lives with long COVID, and there are still no FDA-approved treatments for the condition.
-
50 min
Think Picky Eating Is Inevitable? History Begs To Differ
Show notes
Somewhere between 20-50% of children are picky eaters at some point in early childhood, and many of us assume that’s just how kids naturally are. But after historian Helen Zoe Veit spent more than a decade reading memoirs, cookbooks and parenting manuals from the past 200 years, she came to a radically different conclusion: picky eating is not inevitable. It is a modern cultural phenomenon. She tells Anita how we got here — to the age of bland kids’ menus and dinner tables ruled by toddlers yelling ‘yucky!’ Plus what lessons history has for modern-day parents.
Meet the guest:
- Helen Zoe Veit is the author of “Picky: How American Children Became the Fussiest Eaters in History” and an associate professor of history at Michigan State University
Read the transcript | Review the podcast on your preferred platform
Follow Embodied on Instagram
-
50 min
A Journalist’s Solution to Emotional Conundrums
Show notes
When Yowei Shaw got laid off two years ago, there was no amount of bad TV, fried food or even therapy that could get her out of a deep emotional rut. So, she turned to the one thing that had worked in the past: reporting on her feelings. That journey led her to starting a new podcast called Proxy and inventing a new journalism beat: emotional investigative journalism. Anita talks to Yowei about why and how she reports on emotions (both hers and other people’s) and the surprising discoveries she’s made along the way.
Meet the guest:
- Yowei Shaw is the host and creator of Proxy
Read the transcript | Review the podcast on your preferred platform
Follow Embodied on Instagram
Please note: This episode originally published July 31, 2025.
-
50 min
Money Trauma … And How To Deal With It
Show notes
Money problems are rarely just about money. In fact behavioral economists have shown that many of our financial decisions are driven by emotion, not logic. Anita talks to financial educator Chantel Chapman about her belief that before you can fix your finances, you have to deal with your trauma. Plus, financial therapist LaQueshia Clemons on a trauma-informed approach to helping couples deal with money.
Meet the guests:
- Chantel Chapman is the founder of the Trauma of Money Institute, a certification program for professionals to learn a trauma-informed approach to money, and the author of “The Trauma of Money”
- LaQueshia Clemons is a licensed clinical social worker and the founder and CEO of Freedom Life Therapy and Wellness
Read the transcript | Review the podcast on your preferred platform
Follow Embodied on Instagram
-
50 min
Native Fatherhood & Healing With Julian Brave NoiseCat
Show notes
For most of the first few decades of his life, Indigenous writer and filmmaker Julian Brave NoiseCat didn’t see much of his father, who left the family when Julian was 6. In the handful of times they did see each other over the years, that history of abandonment made it hard to connect. But when Julian was 28, he moved across the country and moved in with his dad to make a documentary and write a book about their family’s history. Julian talks to Anita about how the decision to dig into his family’s past and Indigenous history broke open his relationship with his dad and led to healing. He also shares how his questions about Native fatherhood have become more urgent now that he has his own son.
Meet the guest:
- Julian Brave NoiseCat is the co-director of the Oscar-nominated documentary Sugarcane and the author of "We Survived the Night"
Read the transcript | Review the podcast on your preferred platform
Follow Embodied on Instagram
Sexuality lists
More Sexuality shows picked out from the charts
More in Sexuality
Placed highest on Apple Podcasts' Sexuality chart right now
