A Healthy Curiosity

Emily Vaden is an incredible young woman with a powerful story to tell. She shares her transformative self-care journey from chronic migraines, through moving and unemployment, the birth of her child, and her husband's suicide -- and how she developed an indomitable resilience.

We delve into what has helped her weather the storms with strength and grace, including:

• Letting go of the need for constant control
• How she makes time for self-care even as a single mom of a toddler in addition to her full-time job
• Lessons of grief
• Things that help: acupuncture, massage, friends, and people who get it
• Learning to say no when you need to
• Having an identity apart from just that of being a parent, and role-modeling happiness and self-care for her kid
• Permission to have a back-up plan

I hope you find her story as inspiring, and that you love Emily as much as I do.

Resources:

TheGiftOfSecond.com for people who have lost a loved one to suicide.

Chinese Medicine is a big umbrella term that encompasses not only acupuncture, but Chinese Herbal medicine, bodywork, lifestyle and diet counseling, and "energy exercise" like qi gong, tai chi and meditation. As practitioners of Chinese Medicine, once we make a diagnosis, any of these branches can be used to help restore the energy in the body.

Just like Chinese herbs, which are essentially very powerful food that you only a small quantity of to get a powerful effect, anything we put in our bodies can keep us alive, move us towards greater health and balance, or move us farther away from it. And since most people eat at least 3x/ day, that's multiple opportunities to keep steering in the direction of health.

Listen as Brodie and fellow Chinese Medicine expert Ellen Goldsmith, L.Ac., explore the dietary branch of Chinese Medicine. Ellen teaches on this very topic: Chinese Dietetics and its application in western society and in their Masters of Nutrition program and in the Classical Chinese Medicine Department at National University of Natural Medicine. She's a Licensed Acupuncturist has been in the field for over 25 years a recognized educator, health advocate, and practitioner of all the branches of Chinese medicine. Ellen Goldsmith is a co-founder of Pearl Natural Health in Portland, Oregon. She's also the creator and host of Health Currents Radio and co-host of Healthwatch on KBOO in Portland, Oregon.

In this episode we explore:

• Intuitive eating
• How Chinese Medicine conceives of food differently than the West
• Yin and Yang as related to food and body type
• Bioindividuality
• Respecting the energy of digestion
• Warming vs. Cooling foods
• The importance of rhythm in our diets
• Eating on the go vs. at the table
• Trying new foods in new ways
• Like increases like and what you're craving isn't necessarily what you need
• Balanced taste = balanced meal

Resources:

Babette's Feast

Rouxbe Cooking School

http://www.cookwithwhatyouhave.com/

To contact Ellen, you can e-mail her at [email protected], on the Pearl Natural Health Facebook page, or on Twitter @goldsmith_ellen.

For more information on Chinese Medicine and to stay in touch with Brodie, visit brodiewelch.com. For a deep-dive into Chinese Medical theory including the energetics of food, check out her Basics of Chinese Medicine course. You can also follow her on twitter @brodiewelch or shoot us an email at Brodie at brodiewelch.com

Chinese Medicine expert and host Brodie Welch talks with colleague Joe Moceus, L.Ac., about one of the central principles of Chinese Medicine: the notion that the body is an ecosystem rather than a machine to be fixed.

Like a tree with lots of branches, the same root cause can give rise to a number of very different symptoms.

In this episode, we touch on:

• Why Chinese Medicine focuses on patterns of disharmony rather than symptoms
• If it's happening in nature, it's happening in us as well
• How everything in the body affects everything else
• The cycles of 7 and 8 and the phases of our lives
• The Imbalance Continuum and the importance of treating beforehand
• Brodie's acupuncture orbit
• Treating to balance the energy within but also to balance it with our lives.

Resources:

Beinfield and Korngold Between Heaven and Earth

The Basics of Chinese Medicine, with Brodie Welch, L.Ac.

For more information on Chinese Medicine and to stay in touch with Brodie, visit www.brodiewelch.com

Brodie talks with her sister, Sam, about being well in a busy world. Covering topics the likes of perfectionism, procrastination, self-care, self-compassion and the inner critic, and the challenges to making progress on bigger goals while dealing with the demands of daily life.

In this wide-ranging conversation, we explore:

• How a completely checked-off to-do list doesn't necessarily move us forward on the stuff that matters.
• Daily self-care habits
• Feeling selfish to want to be creative for a living
• Perfectionism and Imposter Syndrome
• Procrastination masquerading as productive work
• The problem with Facebook
• Stress is a health issue
• Two kinds of goals: Big and SMART
• Cycles of Change in Chinese Medicine
• Aging is when we don't think we can change anymore
• Good Orderly Direction
• Procrastination as Fear of the Bigger Goals
• Self-compassion
• Making it non-negotiable
• Jeremy's worst fear
• Needing support

Resources:

"Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day." - Mark Twain

For more on SMART goals, check out Smarter, Faster, Better by Charles Duhigg

Check out Brodie's learn-from-home course Calm Yourself: Self-Care Strategies for Stress and Anxiety for more practical tips about creating self-care habits and making them stick.

Imposter Syndrome

Chinese Medicine expert and host Brodie Welch, L.Ac. talks with guest Jennie Cramer about living in harmony with the seasons. The frenzy of summertime and the pressure we feel to take advantage of all the exciting opportunities we're presented with, even when our bodies might be telling us to take a break, can lead to disharmony and really throw us out of balance… if we allow it.

In this episode we explore:

• The nature of summer in Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda (full yang, pitta season)
• The ways our relationships with the seasons affect our daily wellness
• Symptoms as messages from the body
• Creating a life you don't need a vacation from
• Should we need an excuse to let ourselves rest?
• Is your anxiety a message from your body? What could that message be?
• The benefits of rhythm and setting a schedule
• Decision fatigue

Jennie is a farming yoga mom who is passionate about ancestral living, ecology, and living in accordance with her values.

Resources:

If you'd like to get in touch with Jennie, you can contact her at [email protected] and keep a lookout for her website to go live at www.gardenrhythm.com.

For more information on Chinese Medicine and to stay in touch with Brodie, visit brodiewelch.com.

Licensed Acupuncturist and host Brodie Welch talks with her colleague Joe Moceus, L.Ac. about one of the most common conditions they treat in clinic: lower back pain.

In this episode we explore:

• Brodie's octogenarian patient with spinal stenosis
• Osteoarthritis
• The toothpick study
• 2 ways to release the psoas muscle, an MVP in lower back pain
• What acupuncture feels like
• Acupuncture's positive side effects
• The importance of movement to integrate a treatment

Resources:

Corvallishealing.com

Toothpick Study, Archives of Internal Medicine, 2009

Chinese Medicine expert and host Brodie Welch, L.Ac., talks with colleague Joe Moceus, L.Ac. about the primary reason people resist getting acupuncture: needlephobia.

As recovering needlephobes themselves, Brodie and Joe understand the wariness, but they're also here to tell you that acupuncture needles are nothing like other needles you've encountered. Up to 40 acupuncture can fit inside a hypodermic.

Hear about Brodie and Joe's first experiences receiving acupuncture, what an acupuncture needle looks and feels like, what kind of sensations you might expect, potential alternatives, and more in the inaugural episode of A Healthy Curiosity.

The show begins with a 2-minute overview about Brodie's vision for the podcast: a blend of expert interviews that demystify natural healing modalities that could potentially help you, along with real, practical, conversations with people trying to walk a healthy, conscious path in a busy world, and what gets in the way.

We then explore:

• Brodie's first experience with acupuncture, in light of her own needlephobia
• Joe's first experience with acupuncture, in light of his needlephobia
• The size and shape of an acupuncture needle
• What acupuncture feels like (is it painful…?)
• What that needle is actually doing in there, and what you might feel after the needles are in
• An introduction to the wonderful world of "aculand," a magical place we'll revisit frequently in this podcast
• For other practitioners: what tools Brodie and Joe use to help put their patients at ease in the clinic

Resources:

For more information on Chinese Medicine and to stay in touch with Brodie, visit brodiewelch.com.