About Odyssey & Alchemy: Conversations on Spirituality, Psychology & Inner Transformation
Odyssey and Alchemy is a weekly long-form interview podcast on inner transformation — men's work, spirituality, mindfulness, and depth psychology — for men ready to do the inner work.
Host Martin Prihoda, former Bollywood photographer and author of The Weary Traveller, sits down for deep, unhurried conversations with therapists, teachers, yogis, and healers — exploring how men heal, wake up, and build a conscious relationship with themselves.
No life hacks. No quick fixes. Real conversations about the inner life, for men in the middle of their own transformation — and anyone walking that road with them.
Publisher
Martin Prihoda | Mindfulness Podcast & Men's Work Expert
Ep 46: Your Inner Child Has a Security Guard: Dr. Julie Gowthorpe on Trauma & Self-Nurturing Therapy
What if the thing sabotaging your next big move isn't fear — it's a security guard who's been on duty since childhood?
Dr. Julie Gowthorpe is a registered social worker and founder of Gowthorpe Therapists in Ontario, where she and her team provide trauma-informed care for individuals, couples, and families — including specialized work with police, military members, and First Nations communities navigating intergenerational trauma. Her new book, Heal Childhood Trauma, lays out what she calls self-nurturing therapy: learning to become the parent your inner child never had.
In this conversation we explore inner transformation through the lens of attachment and the body — the four attachment styles formed in childhood and how they quietly run your adult relationships, why nervous system regulation (not willpower) is what actually lets someone stop bypassing pain through alcohol, humor, or compulsive behavior, the ACE study and how early trauma shows up decades later at the cellular level, why men specifically tend to be "fine, fine, fine — until they're not," and how intergenerational trauma gets passed down through parents who were never taught how to nurture in the first place. Martin and Julie also get into the Buddhist metaphor of the two bags we carry — one full of everyone else's shortcomings, one full of our own we can't see — and why your "villains" are often the clearest mirror into your own unhealed parts.
This is a conversation about what's actually on the other side of doing this work: not happiness, but freedom — the kind where your shoulders drop and you trust yourself to respond with wisdom instead of react from fear.
https://drjuliegowthorpersw.com/ (https://drjuliegowthorpersw.com/)
If this conversation moved something in you, a rating or review helps more people find this work. Martin's book, The Weary Traveller's Guide to a Life Worth Living, is available now.
24 Sept 2026
Ep 45: Channeling the Higher Self: Healing Trauma & Addiction With Taras Machula
What if connecting to the divine wasn't a mystery — just a signal you'd never learned to turn on?
Taras Machula is a certified hypnotherapist who works in the subconscious, treating addiction, trauma, and grief through a method he built himself: the Temple of Divinity. He calls hypnosis a "super highway" to the higher self — and midway through this conversation, he takes Martin through a live, five-minute distance healing on air.
In this conversation we explore inner transformation through the lens of the subconscious mind — the separation between the ego (the part of you managing anger, jealousy, and self-protection) and the higher self (unconditional love), why Taras believes every addiction traces back to unresolved trauma rather than moral failure, the shadow work involved in choosing which "wolf" you feed, how trauma can be released without re-living it, and what changed when Taras discovered his own life's purpose wasn't the credentials he chased, but the hearts he could help heal.
This is a conversation about the parts of healing that don't show up on a whiteboard — energy, frequency, and the compassion most men have never been taught to receive, let alone give themselves.
If this conversation moved something in you, a rating or review helps more men find this work. Martin's book, The Weary Traveller's Guide to a Life Worth Living, is available now.
9 Sept 2026
Ep 44: Your Inner Critic Is a Toddler With a Bullhorn: Peter Kenney on Shadow Work
What if your inner critic isn't a villain — just a toddler holding a bullhorn?
Peter Kenney calls himself a spiritual handyman — twenty years helping people move from stuck to unstoppable, after a spontaneous out-of-body experience during a kundalini yoga class rerouted his entire life. His book, The Inner Remodel, treats the self like a house, complete with rooms for fear, the inner critic, and the habits you've never actually stopped to look at.
In this conversation we explore inner transformation through the metaphor of a house you've never actually toured — the entryway where you decide how the world sees you, the basement where everything you've buried is quietly waiting, and the room shadow work actually lives in: not a beast to be feared, but "an angry, hurt, lonely, tired, hungry aspect of yourself" that just needs to be seen. We get into the real difference between pain and suffering, why understanding beats willpower when it comes to compulsive behavior, the Eastern concept of samskaras mapped onto Western nervous system science, and what it actually means to stop trying to love yourself and instead realize you already are love.
This is a conversation about redecorating from the inside out — one room at a time.
If this conversation moved something in you, a rating or review helps more men find this work. Martin's book, The Weary Traveller's Guide to a Life Worth Living, is available now.
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