Bellas ad Bellum podcast

Our special and extremely knowledgeable guest for this episode is our good friend Erin, from Empowered Nutrition.  Erin is a registered Dietitian and Nutritionist with a passion for women's health.  She is former Active Duty Air Force, spouse to an Air Force flight surgeon, mom of three,  leads her own private practice and is part of a functional medicine clinic near her family's duty station!  Erin is working on her Ph.D. in Clinical Nutrition, hosts her own podcast, Empowered Nutrition (which we borrowed for the title of our episode!) and manages her private practice through her site Erin Skinner Nutrition. Erin started as a human performance specialist in the USAF and after a life-changing personal health experience, dove deep into academics, course work and the subjects of digestive, metabolic and hormonal health.  In this episode, Erin talks to us about the military health care system, the state of medicine and health in the US and how busy women can prioritize their health in this environment.  This is a must-listen episode!  We loved talking to Erin, and you'll love hearing her compassionate and pragmatic thoughts on an extremely important topic.

In our second interview with a Bellas Alum, we interview Michele, a very recently retired Active Duty officer with over 20 years of time in the uniform. Michele spent a large part of her career in academia and professional development along with a command tour as a BMT commander.  In this episode, Michele reflects on the importance of reflection, intentional leadership philosophy development and developing interpersonal skills.  As a life-long learner, Michele is perfectly suited to help listeners think about intentionally developing themselves and we thank her so much for sharing her wisdom with us in this episode!

The first installment of our new mentorship mini-series! Bellas Alum is an ongoing conversation with women who have spent 20+ years serving in uniform or on the home front. In this episode we talk with Pam, a reserve officer with over 30 years in uniform. The Bellas discuss success, challenge, career choices, transitions, motherhood, marriage, and all things life.  

Just a tad late for Mother’s Day, but in honor of nonetheless, episode 13, a great talk with a very special guest – Julie’s mom, Debra. As a spouse of a military member and a mom to a military gal, Debra shares her perspective on guiding young people as they consider the option of joining military service, and her perspective on supporting your military member spouse. Listen in for a viewpoint you probably haven’t considered: your mom’s! Then, call your mom for Mother’s Day and thank her for supporting you in your decisions and tell her you realize she may have sacrificed some of herself to do so.

Let’s be honest – some base functions and organizations are more important to us personally than other base functions or orgs: The base/post finance office, the clinic, and the legal office are some examples. Nothing turns up the stress volume in our lives like money, health and legal issues, so these base functions and organizations are ones with which we interact with some urgency. Knowing what they do – and critically, what they don’t – how we can help them help us, and knowing how to be prepared whenever we interact with them is critical knowledge for any military member or dependent. With this episode on the Base Finance office, we introduce our “Know Your Resources” mini-series to bring you just that information, and help you…well, know your resources. In this episode, we talk to a finance officer who has worked in several base finance organizations and hear her “insider” perspective on what you need to know most about the Base Finance Office.
* Note: Our apologies for the poor audio quality in places. Due to the nature of recording in separate locations as well as interviewing a guest on neutral turf, the quality of the initial audio recording was diminished by background ambient noise, some of which we were unable to mitigate in post-processing.

Whatever your motivations for joining the military were, or whatever your feelings about military service are, most likely, you’re thinking about the future and what your life will look like after military service. Do you know how much your dream future will cost? Do you have a plan for getting there? If you know the answers to all of those questions, you’re going to love this episode! If you don’t have answers to all of those questions, you’re going to love this episode! Why? Because in this episode, we’re going to talk about Financial Independence, or the freedom and ability to afford the life you dream of living. In our last episode, our special guest, Airman MilDollar talked about aspects of planning and saving for retirement unique to military members. As a follow-up to that conversation, in this episode, we’re going to talk about the Financial Independence Retire Early or FIRE movement. 

We are so excited to welcome as our very special guest in this episode, Airman MilDollar, a military officer who runs a blog about military finance, retirement, Financial Independence and a variety of personal finance topics. Her knowledge about this vast breadth of topics is so impressive, you will come away from this episode smarter just by osmosis! If you have no idea where to start as you plan for retirement, or if you’re comfortable with your plans and you’re graduate-level, we promise there is something in this episode for you, including pointers to a ton of great resources for more knowledge!

Introducing…Segments! In this episode, we premiere a new episode format, the Segment Episode! We introduce and describe several segment ideas – including Ask Us Anything, Bellasaurus Rex, In the News or Bell-INT, Tales from the Front or Listener Feedback, and A Few of Our Favorite Things – and share a few examples of most of our new segments. Future Segment Episodes will feature a collection of several segments and are intended to be shorter in length. Most importantly, Segment Episodes are designed to leverage and share the feedback and experience of our valuable listeners – you! Please help us craft future Segment Episodes by sharing stories, experiences, questions and feedback!

In this episode, the last part of our deployment mini-series, we focus on the final phase, called “re-deployment” by some, but which we term “reintegration.” Specifically, we address reintegration from several viewpoints, including the viewpoints of Bellas who support military members who deployed, and Bellas who ARE military members returning from deployment. We also dive deeply into what to expect emotionally, physically, and mentally from all viewpoints during the three phases of reintegration, which include The Honeymoon Stage, The Sandpaper Stage, and The New Normal. We provide recommendations to help identify behavioral or emotional changes that might be interfering with the healthy functioning of a member and provide encouragement to our community to identify when you need help and where to get it.

This episode is the third part of the Bellas ad Bellum podcast deployment mini-series, and in this episode, we talk about surviving and thriving through “during deployment” phase. In this episode, we talk about actions and mindsets important to deployment success for both solo deployers, leading ladies deploying away from spouses and kids, or ladies holding down the homefront during a military spouse’s deployment. The three major categories we cover include setting realistic expectations, communicating effectively and leaning on your support network. We also talk about the emotional cycle of deployments, the deployment “wall,” the “cone of sadness” and cover resources to help all Bellas thrive during extended separations.