The Hardcore Self-Help Podcast with Duff the Psych · Robert Duff, Ph.D.

437: Multicultural Identity, Somatic Healing, and Embodied Code Switching w/ Marcia Bonato Warren

·1 hr 10 min·4 clips

Embodied code switching turns identity shifts into a conscious skill instead of “the mercy of the code switching.”

Marcia Benato-Warren joins the show as a trauma-informed body therapist, somatic counselor, interculturalist, and author. The host starts by asking about the path that led her to this work. Marcia says she grew up in a tricultural world shaped by Santa Clara Pueblo, Brazil, and the United States. Visits to the Pueblo centered on traditional activities and family connection. Trips to Brazil came every couple of years and dropped her into Portuguese-speaking spaces where she could only partly get by. Those gaps made culture feel physical before it felt abstract. Her father did not grow up speaking the native language, which adds another layer to the family story. She describes both cultural worlds as nonverbal, somatic experiences first. That leads directly into embodied code switching. Marcia uses that idea to describe moving consciously between culturally held identities while paying attention to what happens in the body. The work is about moving between those identities with awareness. She says the book felt strongly guided by ancestry and that the message to write it was unmistakable. The conversation then turns to the comparison piece that came from her family life. She talks about the shoulds, the rules, and the feeling that she had to measure herself against other paths. A big part of her growth has been asking whose rules those really are. She also reflects on her brother's decision to return fully to the community and learn the language, and how that changed the family's sense of continuity. The interview keeps coming back to the younger selves that need to be brought along into adulthood. Marcia frames that as literal translation work, not just psychology in the abstract. She also names the longing that comes from just starting to know a culture and then having to leave it again. The result is a grounded conversation about identity, longing, and healing that stays close to lived experience. Marcia closes by talking about the book, its publisher, and wanting to support local bookstores as well.

As heard by us

A grounded look at identity, belonging, and embodied code switching across cultures.

Marcia Bonato Warren speaks plainly about growing up between Santa Clara Pueblo, Brazil, and the United States, and about identity as something first felt in the body and only later put into words.

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Why you'd press play

If you've felt split between cultures, this gives that feeling names, context, and a way forward.

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