Essential Alchemy

About Essential Alchemy

Alchemy is defined as a power or process changes or transforms something in a mysterious or impressive way. My hope with this podcast is that the information shared helps you transform your mood, your energy, and your physical health. Or even connect some of the dots to shift your mental and emotional state.

Publisher

Vibrant Blue Oils

Category

health & fitness

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

8 Feb 2021

Latest episode

19 Aug 2026

Latest episodes

113 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   19 Aug 2026

   The Missing Layer in Chronic Illness Nobody Is Addressing

   When chronic symptoms refuse to improve, it’s easy to feel as if your body has turned against you. But what if those symptoms aren’t evidence of failure—and are instead clues pointing toward a deeper imbalance? Dr. Michael Karlfeldt joins Jodi Cohen to explore how stress, trauma, belief patterns, gut health, cellular energy, and detoxification may intersect in complex illness. Drawing from three decades of clinical experience, he challenges the symptom-first model and offers a radically different question: What is your body trying to hold, protect, or communicate? You’ll leave with a more compassionate way to understand your symptoms—and a broader vision of what supporting healing can look like. Connect with Dr. Karlfeldt here: https://www.thekarlfeldtcenter.com/ Key takeaways: Stop viewing the body as the enemy. Persistent symptoms may be signals of unresolved physical, emotional, or environmental stress—not proof that your body has failed. Look upstream from the diagnosis. Treating symptoms alone may overlook contributing factors such as chronic stress, trauma, gut dysfunction, inflammation, impaired detoxification, and low cellular energy. Build capacity before pushing detoxification. Karlfeldt emphasizes supporting energy production and drainage pathways first because repair and detoxification both place demands on the body. Treat gut health as foundational. Nutrient absorption, immune signaling, inflammation, and neurotransmitter activity are closely connected to the condition of the gastrointestinal system. Make healing a whole-person process. Emotional work can complement appropriate medical care by helping people examine the beliefs, relationships, and experiences that may be keeping their nervous systems under stress.

2. 

   12 Aug 2026

   Could Unresolved Trauma Be Keeping Your Immune System on High Alert?

   An autoimmune diagnosis can feel like receiving a verdict: your immune system has mistaken you for the enemy. But what if your body isn’t betraying you—what if it’s still obeying survival instructions written years ago? After facing rheumatoid arthritis herself, functional medicine practitioner and trauma-informed psychotherapist Dr. Keesha Ewers began investigating the connection between autoimmunity, perfectionism, people-pleasing, unresolved pain, and chronic hypervigilance. Her answer challenges the idea that trauma must be erased—or that healing means remaining defined by what happened. This conversation reveals how childhood coping strategies become adult health patterns, why sensitive people can repeatedly enter power-imbalanced relationships, and how a simple pocketful-of-pebbles practice can expose the thoughts keeping your body on alert. You’ll leave seeing your symptoms differently: not as evidence that your body has turned against you, but as an invitation to transform survival into awareness, agency, and greater inner safety. Connect with Dr. Keesha here: https://www.drkeesha.com/ Key Takeaways: Your symptoms may represent protection, not betrayal. A body shaped by chronic threat can continue operating as though danger is present long after the original experience has ended. Trauma is not defined only by what happened. Dr. Ewers defines it as an experience you did not yet possess the skills to navigate—meaning healing comes through developing greater capacity, not denying the past. Childhood strengths can become adult stressors. Perfectionism, people-pleasing, sensitivity, and hypervigilance may have helped you stay safe, but the same patterns can keep your nervous system activated and undermine your relationships. The first boundary may need to be internal. Before trying to control difficult people or eliminate every trigger, learn to recognize the thoughts and perceptions repeatedly signaling danger to your body. Practice awake awareness. Track constricting and expansive thoughts with dark and light pebbles throughout the day, then consciously replace recycled fear-based patterns with thoughts connected to gratitude, safety, and joy.

3. 

   5 Aug 2026

   Why Your Body Won’t Let You Keep People-Pleasing

   Your body may be telling you a truth you’ve spent years trying not to confront. The exhaustion, tension, resentment, or symptoms you can’t quite explain may be connected to the boundaries you haven’t set, the emotions you haven’t expressed, and the relationships that demand far more than they give. Dr. Christiane Northrup joins Jodi Cohen for a provocative conversation about the body’s hidden language—and why people-pleasing, suppressed shame, and self-abandonment can become impossible to ignore. Together, they explore why doing what’s right for YOU can initially feel so wrong, how the body can hold unfinished emotional experiences, and why movement, sound, tears, aromatherapy, fascia work, and nervous-system regulation may help loosen their grip. You’ll walk away with a radically different way of viewing your symptoms: not simply as problems to silence, but as signals calling you back to your energy, your integrity, and yourself. Connect with Dr. Christiane Northrup here: https://www.drnorthrup.com/ (https://www.drnorthrup.com/) Key Takeaways: Your symptoms may be messengers, not enemies. Instead of asking only how to eliminate a symptom, consider what was happening emotionally or relationally when it appeared. People-pleasing has a physical cost. Continually giving your attention, money, time, or emotional energy to relationships that are not reciprocal can leave you depleted and resentful. A boundary can feel wrong while still being right. If you were taught that protecting yourself was selfish, guilt may be an old conditioned response—not evidence that you made the wrong decision. The behavior you’re fighting may once have protected you. Overeating, overworking, overgiving, or clinging to a relationship may be attempts to avoid emotions that once felt too painful or unsafe to experience. Emotion needs a pathway through the body. Northrup recommends movement, sound, and tears as practical ways to process stored emotion, while Jodie highlights nervous-system regulation and bodywork as tools that can help interrupt defensive reactions.

Who has been a guest on Essential Alchemy

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Dr Henry Ealy
• Heather Aardema
• Kim Vopni
• Julie Schiffman
• Cynthia Thurlow

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

14 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

2 ratings

Contact Essential Alchemy

Guest appearances

Does not typically book guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

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