This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional mental health care. If you are in crisis, call or text 988.

—NOTE: This episode includes discussion of depression and body image. Take care of yourself while you listen.

This week we talk about finding the audacity to begin healing and the nerve to keep going with someone who has been on a personal, and sometimes very public, healing journey. Yoga phenom Jessamyn Stanley joins Adrienne Michelle to talk inner child, imposter syndrome, and kink.

Jessamyn is a yoga teacher, content creator, and writer based in Northern California. She is the cofounder of The Underbelly – the coolest yoga community on the internet – and the author of Every Body Yoga and Yoke: My Yoga of Self-Acceptance.

Jessamyn teaches yoga and meditation all over the world, and shares about 21st century intersectional identity, and the pivotal role that self-acceptance plays in manifesting social change.

Read (by Jessamyn) Yoke: My Yoga of Self-Acceptance (Workman, 2021). Part memoir, part reckoning, on the daily practice of accepting yourself in real time. Her first book, Every Body Yoga, is the on-ramp for anyone who thinks yoga was never built for their body.

Listen to "I Weigh with Jameela Jamil: Jessamyn Stanley." A warm, honest conversation about her journey with her body and her mental health.

Read "Wellness Leader Jessamyn Stanley on the Power of Yoga and Embracing Your Feelings" (Modern Luxury). On leaving the performance at the door and remembering that the work is not all of who she is.

Listen to Dear Jessamyn, her advice podcast co-hosted with Jessica Blackwell, plus The Underbelly, her streaming

Watch Jessamyn’s experience with ancestral kink at the 2026 San Francisco PRIDE parade

Find Jessamyn Instagram: @mynameisjessamyn · Online: jessamynstanley.com

ABOUT THE HOST

Adrienne Michelle, LMFT, is a licensed marriage and family therapist, speaker, and the host of The Audacity to Heal. She is signed with Looking Glass Literary for her forthcoming memoir. She is a regularly featured expert in Essence, Cosmopolitan, and Betches, and the first lesbian therapist featured on Therapy for Black Girls. The podcast and the retreats are the on-ramp, and the memoir is where it all lands. Find her on ⁠Instagram⁠ and ⁠TikTok⁠ and at ⁠adriennemichelletherapy.com⁠.