Dr. Gretchen Blycker introduces The Sacred Garden Mandala podcast as an invitation to cultivate holistic sexual wellbeing through compassion, curiosity, and embodied awareness of body, energy, and mind, joined this season by co-producer Dee Daniels and a range of guests.

Drawing from Tibetan lineages and Sol Rigpa teachings, Blycker connects ancient practices with modern neurobiology, including polyvagal theory, emphasizing personal inquiry, inner wisdom, and non-hierarchical learning. She shares her background in sexual trauma advocacy, massage therapy, holistic counseling, and clinical work with sexual trauma, compulsive sexual behaviors, and problematic pornography use, and explains how trauma can disrupt safety and pleasure through nervous system threat responses.

Using the mandala garden metaphor—rooting, tending, blossoming, harvesting, composting—she outlines a structure of sacred center, inner ring, and outer ring, guides a brief grounding and element-based practice, and emphasizes safety as foundational for healing and transformation.

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MEET DR. GRETCHEN BLYCKER

MINDFULNESS-BASED PSYCHOTHERAPY

AWAKENING APHRODITE AND ADONIS: THE ART, SCIENCE, AND SOUL OF LOVE, SEX AND RELATIONSHIPS

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CONTACT DR. GRETCHEN BLYCKER

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MEET THE PRODUCTION TEAM: DEE DANIELS MEDIA

FIND A FAVORITE SPOT IN THIS EPISODE:

00:00 Welcome and Invitation

01:52 Meet Dee and the Mission

03:39 Roots of the Mandala Garden

11:51 Dee’s Story and Podcast Intimacy

14:13 Gretchen’s Path to Sexology

20:26 Trauma Safety and Pleasure

27:16 Masculine Feminine Wisdom

33:24 Why the Garden Metaphor

38:38 Guided Mandala Practice

47:10 Closing Reflections and Next Steps