The Masterful Art of Self Care

This is needed right now, we are in a  global pandemic and what is needed is real self-care. Caring for ourselves so that we can be there for others, whether you are a mother or a healthcare professional or teacher. I have dubbed Jill Miller, one of my first influential yoga and movement teachers, as the queen of self-care, because she has truly helped me bring ore body awareness and self-soothing that my body needed when all I was doing was punishing it. With intuitive self-care, you are introduced to you with the work of self-myofascial release (via Yoga Tune Up therapy balls) as well as many other facets of self-care, both the beautiful and the ugly.     

Bethany Drohmann is one busy woman, with three kids and a business, maintaining a regular movement practice for a dancer and mover like herself would seem pretty challenging. Listen in on ways that Bethany has been able to find a creative and novel way of integrating movement/self-care into her busy life with kids. 

***Apologies for the sound quality, this was recorded in a cafe last year during the power outages in the Bay Area when I had no power in my home, so I apologize for some of the background noises :(***

Another episode of Self-Care Practices Gone Wrong and I am talking about hair. If you don’t know me or haven’t met me, I am a woman of color and have loc’ed hair. Growing up, hair has definitely been a big part of my life, which helped me define beauty unfortunately and was also the wellspring for change in my life. How does our hair define self-care for us? Can the damaging effects on what we do to our hair speak to the care and love we give to ourselves if we may actually be poisoning ourselves?

First, I want to apologize about the recording, I had my hair down and it was moving around my microphone and that is the sound you are hearing, sorry ☹, I hope it isn’t too annoying. Help support this podcast so I can start recording in a professional space, right now, it is done in my living room!

Also, I made a faux pas when I talked about my miscarriage, it wasn’t at 20 months! It was actually at 20 weeks.

For the 50th episode, I have Dr. Carrie Pagliano, a PT who specializes in women's health come on to the podcast to talk about her own journey through self-care before becoming a mom, as a mom and now as a mom to two children while also holding down a very successful PT practice. We then spend some time discussing how some of the myths that women are fed during postpartum (diastasis recti, prolapse) can actually be damaging and how changing that narrative can be meaningful to how they perceive their own healing. She shares her own journey as a PT while also struggling with her own postpartum diagnosis and how she has gone to overcome them and still move and grow in ways that step away from the norm.

A self-care practice that has been in use for ages and was still done by immigrants to the US and other Western countries but popularized in the last 10 years. We delve into what yoni or vaginal steaming is, the process of this practice, what conditions this self-care practice can help with and some of the theories or claims for and against it.

Welcome back and welcome to a New Year! As we kick off off Season 4, I am happy to have Sukie Baxter, a posture and movement specialist come on the podcast to discuss various aspects of posturing, alignment, how posturing affects our brain, and her perspective on chronic pain and where the focus should lie. Even though this was recorded in the fall and we talk about the holidays, she shares some great self-care tips that can carry you through all year round.

In this episode, I had the opportunity to interview Dr. Jessica Drummond, the founder of Integrative Women's Health Institute, a physical therapist as well as a functional nutritionist. We discussed various facets of women's health with a focus on the role that stress, insulin and cortisol play in our health. If you are one who subsides on a "coffee and wine diet", have a hard time staying asleep at night or no longer feel the same as you did when you entered your postpartum period, this is the episode for you. 

I want to start by apologizing. this episode was supposed to come out last week, but my computer had other ideas and I was not able to get it out on time. Additionally (you can tell I was clearly not altogether for this episode) I forgot to wear my microphone, so for the first 2/3rd of the episode, the sound me be off and I apologize. One of the challenges of doing the audio, recording and editing all your self :)

Today's episode highlights some of the dangers when it comes to using nail polish or having it applied when at a nail salon and the detrimental effects it can have on your body and overall health. If your self-care practice is one that could cause harm, is it really a practice to continue when it will only cause harm in the end?

Consider joining or being a part of this self-care challenge! Not only is this helpful to establish a self-care routine before the holidays but can also be used all year long.

Dr. Gabbi Whisler is no stranger to anxiety and depression. After years of struggling to find her path, she landed on physical therapy and has been combining the two worlds together, the use of physical therapy to help treat and coach patients with anxiety. No system ever works alone and when the physical, the mental, emotional and spiritual can be all addressed, then that is when true healing can be found.  

Having anxiety gets a really bad rap...I could safely say that all of us have at one time or another dealt with an anxious situation or event and lived to tell the tale. How about looking at anxiety as just another normal human emotion and then even reframing how we see that emotion as one that can help us instead of deter us from what we need. As mothers, we are just as guilty of having this on the daily, so let's reframe what anxiety can look like for us.

Have you ever wondered what a pelvic floor physical therapist actually does? Are you a mom who might have some urine or fecal leakage or just not feel right "down there" after giving birth? Well, Dr. Juan Martin is here to answer those questions and more in today's episode. Not only does she treat these issues, but she has experienced them herself. She goes in-depth into what she considers to be self-care for the pelvic floor and how she has been able to incorporate self-care into her busy life as a mom and a full-time PT!

How in tune are you with your cycle? Is it something you dread or maybe even avoid until it is all over? This is, among other things, is what DeNicea Hilton calls Period Bypassing. It is something that she helps young girls, teens, and women who are struggling with their cycle help bring connection and intuitive awareness through the use of Eastern Medicine. 

You can find out more about her work, her upcoming podcast and more opportunities to work with her at: 

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Dr. Henderson is a true pioneer. The founder of BLK+GRN, a beautifully curated online virtual store with products by black-owned businesses, she helps to encourage and inspire more women to think more critically about the products that they use on a daily basis. With a background in public health, she has seen the disparities that are still present in communities of color and how the current maternal health crisis affecting WOC may be tied to environmental toxins that they are putting on their body as part of their beauty and self-care routine. 

To be honest, when I started out researching this topic, I was pretty clueless and surprised at how prevalent skin bleaching is and is a continued practice in parts of the US, Africa, the Carribean, and Asia.  Despite this practice, that is going back several hundred years, and the known physical, physiological and mental damages that can occur from the continued use of skin bleaching, it is still prevalent and in some cases seen as necessary in order for a woman to be considered of worth or value in her society.

I hope that after listening you gain some deeper insight into this unfortunate self-care practice and develop a level of understanding of what skin bleaching is and how the practice has been perpetuated and encouraged for so long, a certain level of empathy for understanding their why and lastly a hope that you will go out into your communities and begin to respect and revere in the uniqueness of all women no matter their looks or skin color and see that deep down, essentially we are all the same.

Today's host is a pioneer in the yoga and Pilates world with her innovative and creative takes on traditional movements. We discuss everything from the new crop of yoga teachers finding their voice and making their mark in the yoga world, "yoga Daddy's" to her journey from a  small town in Oklahoma to being a soon to be author with her upcoming book, Yoga Deconstructed: Transitioning from Rehabilitation Back into the Yoga Studio, coming out December 2019. 

Welcome back to another episode of The Masterful Art of Self-Care! I am now a graduate of physical therapy (woo-hoo!) and so excited to jump back into this project of mine, bringing some wickedly smart and passionate folks into this space to help share, educate and empower you in your self-care journey. 

In today's episode, I have Dr. Perry Nickelston, DC of Stop Chasing Pain. There are so many great things that he shares on his Instagram page (you should follow it!) and he does so on this episode as well. I hope that after listening you will take away some "little tiny action steps" to begin to integrate self-care into your life...enjoy!

If you have ever considered minimalism, downsizing your closet or your home or just having a simpler wardrobe with clothes you will actually wear, you will be inspired by the likes of Christine Platt. Also known as The Afro-minimalist on Instagram, she has embarked on a journey towards minimalism and it has changed her relationship with "stuff" and thus has been able to create more space for quality self care in her life. How much of your stuff may be limiting you from pursuing a daily self care practice? Something to strongly consider after listening to this episode.  

Today's episode is meant to hopefully clear up some misconceptions on what incontinence is and isn't. I provide some basic definitions on the 5 types of incontinence: stress, urge, overflow, functional and mixed. 

I want to provide some more clarification on overflow and urge incontinence that I did not mention in the recording. I mentioned that it can be caused by prostate enlargement, but pretty much any type of obstruction to the urethra, the tubing where urine flows out, can cause an overflow, just like a backed up hose and create involuntary leakage. With urge, I mentioned that there can be a spastic bladder, but there will also be a continuous contraction or squeezing of the bladder to empty, sometimes, even when the bladder is not full. Lastly, the destrusor muscle is actually in the wall of the bladder.

On today's episode, I am continuing on the period wave as I now speak with the period revolutionary, Dr. Lara Briden, author of The Period Repair Manual and all around expert on all things related to your period. She drops a bunch of knowledge about the differences and characteristics of PCOS, hypothalamic amenorrhea and endometriosis as well as explains the myriad of hormones that are at play during a a typical cycle.  If  you are a young girl or woman who has periods, irregular or not, you need to listen to this episode! Our periods are literally one of the best methods of tracking our health on a monthly basis and she shares a few ways that you can do just that. 

The Scientific American magazine has just released its newest issue (May 2019) and one of the articles featured asks the question, what is the point of our periods? You would think that females have had periods now for hundreds of years and we would have a greater understanding of the reason why we bleed and the purpose of our menstrual blood, but research is not much closer to this answer as we are to knowing something that we do every month. But what if you are on some type of birth control and you don't bleed based on your natural hormones or you medically suppress your bleeding indefinitely, what consequences are there for changing around the make-up of our reproductive system? I provide a brief synopsis on certain points made in the article and provide some reflection on how we view our own periods.

In today's episode I have the honor of having Dr. Sallie Sarrel, a PFPT, an advocate for endometriosis patients and an educator for healthcare providers who treat women with endometriosis.  With endometriosis being one of the biggest women's health conditions that tends to go un-diagnosed for years, it is important to bring to light what this condition is and how it affects its sufferers.  We wade the water of this condition and the self care that is needed to manage it as Dr. Sarrel portrays what it is like to be an endometriosis sufferer since she is one after having been diagnosed after 20+ years of suffering its symptoms. 

In this episode, we go in deep discussing the history and the pros and cons of belly binding as well as the social stigma about the appearance of postpartum bodies.  The title may be a misnomer, and belly binding is not necessarily bad since there are many benefits and it is a practice that has been around for a long time. But I do want to bring up the discussion of how the word faja, which is a traditional wrap used during pregnancy and post-partum time, is also used as a term for modern day waist trainers. Belly binding can be seen as a self-care practice if it is used as it was originally intended, to provide support and healing after a vaginal delivery or C-section. 

If you have a self-care practice that has gone wrong that you would like to share and may have had some negative consequences, feel free to reach out to me at tia@themasterfulartofselfcare.com and we can feature your story on our next episode.

You may have heard of Ayurveda and know that it is the sister to yoga if you are a yoga practitioner. The practice of Ayurveda is more than a thousand year old practice that still has a lot of relevancy today and has many applications of self care for today's modern individual. I have Eden Tosch, an Ayurvedic practitioner based out of Oakland, CA to discuss the various aspects of Ayurveda, more than what you will just get in a dosha quiz that you will find in a health magazine. We discuss how Ayurveda has a focus on looking at the causative factors of disease, how there is an understanding that everything that comes into our body has a direct affect on it and the one self care practice you can start today that can help bring more awareness to your body by tending to yourself.