The Modern Phoenix Podcast
To be a modern woman is to have unique challenges born from the conditioning of the generations before us, and unprecedented opportunity to choose differently.
How to Connect with Your Heart (And Get Out of Your Head) with Katie Hendricks
What if the reason you struggle to speak from your heart isn’t because you don't know what to say, but because you've forgotten how to connect with yourself first? Most of us want deeper connection, but we’re so stuck in our heads, running on adrenaline instead of presence.
This week, Gervase sits down with best-selling author and international consultant Katie Hendricks to explore how to make the journey from head to heart and discover the practical tools that make authentic connection possible.
Katie reveals why most of us are walking around “from the neck up,” running on adrenaline instead of presence, and how this disconnection affects everything—from how we show up with our partners, to how we navigate conflict, to how we experience our own lives. She shares practical tools for reconnecting with your body, giving yourself nourishing attention, and moving through the world with your heart open, even when it feels scary.
Listen to this episode now to discover:
The simple “hmm” technique that shifts you from criticism to curiosity (and opens the pathway between your head and heart)
Why most people live “from the neck up” and how this keeps you running on adrenaline instead of true presence
Katie’s “loop of awareness” practice—how to circulate attention between yourself and others so you don’t get lost in your head, or lost in others
How to ask yourself “How am I experiencing this in my body right now?” and why this question changes everything
Why opening your heart feels scary and how to move around the fear instead of forcing through it
The difference between giving attention from adrenaline versus presence and why one nourishes while the other depletes
How to separate “stuff talk” and “heart talk” so business doesn't block heart connection with your partner
How to shift from seeing your partner as a “fixer upper” to an evolving work of art
The game-changing concept of a “no blame relationship” and how to create one
Stay or Go? Healing Relationship Patterns with Katarina Polonska
For this week’s podcast, I brought along a friend… high-performance relationship coach and gender dynamics social scientist, Katarina Polonska! In this episode, we discuss how to make the difficult decision of whether to stay or leave a relationship, how to navigate messy power struggles, and how to move from individualism to collaboration to build stronger, more connected relationships. Yep, we cover it all!
Watch this episode now to discover:
The #1 way to get clarity on whether you should stay or leave a relationship (hint: the result is win-win: you either transform the relationship or you leave and find someone who is more aligned)
The 6-month strategy to "clean up your side of the street" and find undeniable clarity
The blame game that often happens in the power struggle phase of a relationship when our wounds (aka: sneaky unaddressed demons) like to come out
The responsibility we have to try and understand our partner's needs and to hold them AND ours with equal importance
How we've moved away from being collaborative in relationships to being individualistic and believing our needs matter more than our partners
A mindset shift that can help you have a better relationship with your in-laws and extended family (even if you couldn't be more yin and yang!)
About Katarina Polonska:
Katarina is a high-performance relationship coach and gender dynamics social scientist who specializes in helping people make clear relationship decisions. Her expertise in attachment theory, behavioral science of attraction, and the cultural influences on relationships provides a unique framework for understanding and transforming relationship patterns.
Goodbye, Hyper-Independence. Hello, Community
Gervase shares an inside look at how she creates space for dimension and transformation within her in-person retreats and walks us through the most recent retreat experience in Charleston. Keep listening for two examples of how she is creating intentional wellness in her life right now and the different ways you can heal and grow with a community of other women seeking depth in their lives and relationships.
Reimagining Boundaries Using the It’s All Me Mindset
‘Boundaries’ has become quite a buzzword over the past decade (for good reason!), but what do you really know about them? On this week’s solo episode of the It’s All Me podcast, Gervase dives below the surface level of boundaries, covering what they can look like, how to set them from a place of love and deep discernment, and why they are the most loving action you can take in your relationships. Join G as she shares boundary examples around toxic friendships, sibling dynamics, and parental relationships.
How Do We Survive and Thrive Together with Kerri Kelly
In this complex conversation with Kerri Kelly, the author of American Detox, Kerri shares with Gervase the event that disrupted life and forever changed her as she strove to find meaning, healing and understanding of who she was and how she got to this place.
Understanding Childhood Trauma that Doesn’t Feel Like Trauma with Chelsea Green
Gervase is getting publicly therapized this week with soul mate and licensed professional counselor Chelsea Green. Chelsea speaks such wisdom about how the systems that we are surrounded by as children, translate into our adult life. The conversation is sprinkled with mic drop moment after mic drop moment from the choices that women, and individuals face everyday to how we can calibrate our roles in the patriarchal society.
I AM connected to my partner and sexually satisfied with Dr. Viviana Coles
Listen in on this juicy conversation as G interviews Sex and Relationship Therapist and star of the hit TV show, Married at First Sight, Dr. Viviana Coles, and they unpack the moves and mindsets critical to a healthy, sexy and intimate monogamous partnership.
Unlocking a Woman's Pleasure: A Conversation with Angie Byrd
Dropping some P bombs! On this episode of The Champagne Society, Gervase sits down with Angie Byrd, an intimacy coach focused on reconnecting women and couples to their wild nature.
Disappointing my sister and how it made our relationship fireproof
On this solo episode of The Champagne Society podcast, Gervase is setting fire to the dynamics of our childhood relationships and she is burning it TO. THE. GROUND. Gervase talks us through the relationship revelations she’s had with her sister and how their biggest fight allowed them to love each other for who they truly are.
Inside Gervase & Kevin’s Marriage: Fighting Better and Setting Intentions as a Couple
In this episode of The Champagne Society podcast, Gervase and her husband Kevin give you a peek behind the curtain at how they parent, argue and communicate. They candidly share what they’ve learned and work hard on (daily) after 11 years of marriage and three kids.
“I got sober, why can’t she?”
On this special coaching episode of The Champagne Society podcast, Gervase sits down with the winner of a free session, and they explore the often-painful angles of loving and protecting oneself from an addict.
Creating an Epic Partnership
On this solo episode of the podcast, Gervase shares a personal story from that time she and her hubby got in a fight late at night and she was up stewing about it until she journaled it out and had the profound realization of the unconscious trigger from a childhood wound she was bringing into her marriage…
The New Paradigm of Female Friendships
The old paradigm of "mean girls," competition, jealousy and back-stabbing is ending. Covid has kind of made it non-negotiable to take our friendships to the next level or let them go entirely, but most women haven't actually been taught HOW to do this. Until now (drum roll) . . .