Sick and Seeking : Recent Episodes
Leslie Field
Sick and Seeking is hosted by Leslie Field, who for 20 years has been on a journey of managing and seeking healing for her chronic kidney disease. In this podcast you will hear the stories of women who are managing the long-term effects of sickness, disease, illness, syndromes, or other conditions that have manifested in their body, and how these multifaceted women find a path to living full lives even in the face of managing an uncertain medical future. This podcast is also an exploration in healing and shares the work and experience of healing practitioners across the spectrum, from the spiritual and mystical, to scientific researchers and medical doctors.
CLICK HERE TO CONNECT! I'D LOVE TO KNOW -- What keeps you listening? Ideas for future episodes? Something that landed on your heart or mind you needed to hear? Looking forward to connecting with you! --Leslie
In this episode of the Sick and Seeking Podcast, I have an intimate conversation with Tessa Muldoon, also known as the Spoonie Ninja. Tessa shares her inspiring journey through chronic illness, particularly the management of dermatomyositis and other autoimmune diseases. Our discussion explores the emotional complexities of living with invisible illnesses, the impactful role of IVIG treatment, and the significance of self-advocacy and community support. Tessa emphasizes how sharing personal stories can foster connections and promote understanding in the face of chronic health challenges.
Conversation Highlights:
Tessa's Health Journey: Tessa shares her health struggles starting in 2012 with severe itching, leading to her diagnosis of dermatomyositis.
Understanding Invisible Illness: We explore the challenges of living with an invisible illness, often invisible to others.
Transformative IVIG Treatment: Tessa explains how IVIG has significantly improved her quality of life.
The Spoon Theory: This concept is discussed as a useful tool for energy management for those with chronic conditions.
Humor as a Coping Mechanism: The importance of humor in coping with chronic illness is highlighted as a key source of resilience.
Multiple Diagnoses and Impacts: Tessa shares her experience with multiple diagnoses, including congestive heart failure, and links them to her birth defect and autoimmune issues.
The Importance of Advocacy: We talk about how self-advocacy and education empower those managing chronic conditions and promote awareness.
Emotional Impacts on Loved Ones: The emotional strain on families and caregivers is discussed, stressing the significance of supportive networks.
Redefining Independence and Empowerment: Tessa emphasizes the importance of self-advocacy in empowering individuals in the chronic illness community.
Creating Community through Storytelling: Sharing personal stories fosters a sense of belonging and mitigates isolation.
Quotes:
"IVIG is life-saving."
"It's like liquid gold."
"I had to be very intentional about protecting my energy."
"My goal is to help at least one person."
Connect with Tessa:
Instagram |
🌟 Connect with Leslie and Sick and Seeking Community: 🌟Website | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram
Join an Embodied Movement Class or Wild Women's Circle!🔥 CLICK HERE for details 🔥
🌟 FREE Support Group: Chronic Conditions - Coffee & Connection🌟 --> For people who are managing a long term health issue
-->We meet on ZOOM once a month at 12pm PT
Like The Show? Show Your Support With a Donation!
Sick and Seeking Disclaimer
CLICK HERE TO CONNECT! I'D LOVE TO KNOW -- What keeps you listening? Ideas for future episodes? Something that landed on your heart or mind you needed to hear? Looking forward to connecting with you! --Leslie
In this episode of the Sick and Seeking Podcast, I share a ‘fly on the wall’ style conversation with my two chronic illness soul-sisters: Stacie and Yoli. We candidly discuss the complexities of living with chronic illnesses and mental health challenges. Our conversation sheds light on the essential role of friendship and community support in navigating these health battles.
Join us for this insightful discussion that highlights the resilience required to manage chronic illnesses and the importance of self-advocacy, body awareness, and finding humor amidst struggles.
Conversation Highlights:
Stacie's TMS Journey: Stacie shares her experience with TMS or Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation treatment, emphasizing its positive impact on her chronic pain and mental health.
Yoli's Battle with Endometriosis: Yoli opens up about the challenges of endometriosis and the misconceptions she faces while seeking medical opinions.
Leslie's Ayurvedic Practices: Leslie provides an update on her health and how incorporating Ayurvedic practices has influenced her self-care routine.
The Emotional Toll: The trio discusses the emotional challenges associated with living with chronic conditions, including grief and isolation.
The Power of Self-Advocacy: They emphasize the importance of standing up for oneself in healthcare and seeking multiple perspectives when navigating their health journeys.
Building Connections: The conversation highlights the vital role of community and connection in healing, including the joys and difficulties of maintaining relationships.
Finding Humor: They explore how humor can be a powerful tool for coping with the realities of chronic illness life.
Quotes:
"A lot of people with chronic illnesses don't completely understand that there's a mental health aspect that goes along with it." - Stacie M
"If I'm already at rock bottom, there's only one way up." - Yoli Jimenez
🌟 Connect with Leslie and Sick and Seeking Community: 🌟Website | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram
Join an Embodied Movement Class or Wild Women's Circle!🔥 CLICK HERE for details 🔥
🌟 FREE Support Group: Chronic Conditions - Coffee & Connection🌟 --> For people who are managing a long term health issue
-->We meet on ZOOM once a month at 12pm PT
Like The Show? Show Your Support With a Donation!
Sick and Seeking Disclaimer
CLICK HERE TO CONNECT! I'D LOVE TO KNOW -- What keeps you listening? Ideas for future episodes? Something that landed on your heart or mind you needed to hear? Looking forward to connecting with you! --Leslie
In today’s episode of the Sick and Seeking Podcast, I sit down with Casey Butterfield, a practitioner of the Alexander Technique and somatic movement educator who helps people recognize and release tension in their body. Together, we discuss the importance of body awareness, the impact of chronic pain, and how the Alexander Technique can help individuals use their body in the most functional, optimal way. Casey shares her personal journey through pain, which ultimately led her to discover the Alexander Technique.
Conversation Highlights:
Understanding the Alexander Technique: Casey explains how this practice helps individuals use their bodies efficiently and without pain.
Chronic Pain's Impact: We discuss how chronic pain can affect overall quality of life, work, and daily activities.
The Role of Body Awareness: Understanding how to move effectively begins with heightened body awareness.
The Importance of Touch: We explore how touch can create deeper connections to body awareness and healing.
Lessons from Infants: Infants learn to move through trial and error, informing how adults can reconnect with their movement.
Posture and Movement: We delve into the connection between posture and movement, and how practice can improve both.
The Head-Body Connection: The head plays a critical role in movement, and restoring this connection enhances body function.
Somatic Practices: These practices can help restore healthier movement patterns that many lose due to sedentary lifestyles.
Knowledge Equals Empowerment: Understanding body mechanics can lead to pain relief and improved well-being.
Quotes:
“We can move with more ease and freedom just by knowing a different way about how our body works.” - Casey Butterfield
Connect with Casey:
Website| Instagram
🌟 Connect with Leslie and Sick and Seeking Community: 🌟Website | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram
Join an Embodied Movement Class or Wild Women's Circle!🔥 CLICK HERE for details 🔥
🌟 FREE Support Group: Chronic Conditions - Coffee & Connection🌟 --> For people who are managing a long term health issue
-->We meet on ZOOM once a month at 12pm PT
Like The Show? Show Your Support With a Donation!
Sick and Seeking Disclaimer
CLICK HERE TO CONNECT! I'D LOVE TO KNOW -- What keeps you listening? Ideas for future episodes? Something that landed on your heart or mind you needed to hear? Looking forward to connecting with you! --Leslie
In this episode of the Sick and Seeking Podcast, I have a heartfelt discussion with Vanessa Fierstadt, a licensed marriage and family therapist and founder of the Kintsugi Grief Center. Together, we explore the deep and often complex themes of grief, loss, and healing, drawing from Vanessa’s personal experience as a young widow and her commitment to supporting others through their grief journeys.
Join us for this enriching conversation that navigates the intricate landscape of grief, providing insights and support for anyone experiencing loss.
Conversation Highlights:
Vanessa’s Path to Grief Work: Vanessa shares how her own experience with loss inspired her to dedicate her life to grief support.
The Mission of Kintsugi Grief Center: We discuss how this organization was created to bridge the gap in available resources for those navigating grief.
Understanding Grief as a Lifelong Process: We talk about how grief evolves and shifts over time, highlighting its persistent reality.
Societal Stigma: We touch on the discomfort surrounding discussions of death and grief in society.
Anticipatory Grief: Vanessa emphasizes the significance of anticipatory grief as a valid and intricate experience.
Pet Loss: We address how the loss of pets is often overlooked in grief discussions, and the deep emotional bonds we have with animals.
The Physical Manifestation of Grief: We explore how grief can affect the body and overall health.
Acknowledging Emotions: It's crucial to express grief and honor all feelings, including anger, as a natural part of the healing journey.
Continuing Bonds: Vanessa provides insights on how grief does not erase our connections to loved ones.
Emerging New Self: We talk about how grief can lead to new realizations and aspects of ourselves that come to light post-loss.
The Importance of Community: We discuss the vital part that therapy and group support play in the healing process.
Quote:
“I’m one of the people who believe that we grieve for the rest of our life, but that it changes shape and it changes weight and it changes size. It doesn’t go away.” -Vanessa
Connect with Vanessa:
Website | Insta
🌟 Connect with Leslie and Sick and Seeking Community: 🌟Website | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram
Join an Embodied Movement Class or Wild Women's Circle!🔥 CLICK HERE for details 🔥
🌟 FREE Support Group: Chronic Conditions - Coffee & Connection🌟 --> For people who are managing a long term health issue
-->We meet on ZOOM once a month at 12pm PT
Like The Show? Show Your Support With a Donation!
Sick and Seeking Disclaimer
CLICK HERE TO CONNECT! I'D LOVE TO KNOW -- What keeps you listening? Ideas for future episodes? Something that landed on your heart or mind you needed to hear? Looking forward to connecting with you! --Leslie
In this episode, I have a revealing conversation with Dr. Bill Rawls, who shares his inspiring journey from chronic illness to wellness through a targeted herbal protocol. Dr. Rawls emphasizes the crucial need to identify and address the root causes of illness while prioritizing cellular health. He explains that our symptoms stem from stressed cells and that true healing involves helping these cells recover.
Join us for this enlightening discussion that bridges the gap between ancient wisdom and modern scientific understanding of health!
Conversation Highlights:
The Role of Cellular Health: Dr. Rawls emphasizes that to achieve wellness, we must focus on the root causes of illness and the health of our cells. He shares how symptoms are merely manifestations of cellular stress.
Microbes and Chronic Illness: We dive into the impact of microbes on our health, discussing the concept of micro-dormancy, where these pathogens can linger and reactivate during stressful times.
The Healing Power of Herbs: Dr. Rawls highlights the exceptional cell-protecting and antimicrobial properties of herbs, which have been utilized for centuries. He explains how herbs can aid in cellular protection and overall wellness.
Nutritional Insights: He underscores the importance of incorporating whole foods, vegetables, and herbs into our diets to compensate for the nutritional deficiencies caused by modern farming practices.
Practical Wellness Strategies: Dr. Rawls provides practical tips for maintaining optimal health, which include filtering water, using air purifiers, and managing stress effectively.
Quote:
"Drugs don't affect cellular stress, so they don't promote healing. The herbs that I'm referring to block all these cellular stress factors." - Dr. Bill Rawls
Connect with Dr, Bill:Website | Instagram | Community
🌟 Connect with Leslie and Sick and Seeking Community: 🌟Website | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram
Join an Embodied Movement Class or Wild Women's Circle!🔥 CLICK HERE for details 🔥
🌟 FREE Support Group: Chronic Conditions - Coffee & Connection🌟 --> For people who are managing a long term health issue
-->We meet on ZOOM once a month at 12pm PT
Like The Show? Show Your Support With a Donation!
Sick and Seeking Disclaimer
CLICK HERE TO CONNECT! I'D LOVE TO KNOW -- What keeps you listening? Ideas for future episodes? Something that landed on your heart or mind you needed to hear? Looking forward to connecting with you! --Leslie
Welcome to Season 3, Episode 3 of the Sick and Seeking Podcast! In this enlightening episode, I sit down with Dr. Shivani Gupta to delve into the ancient Indian system of health and healing known as Ayurveda.
Dr. Shivani outlines how Ayurveda is a holistic lifestyle that aims to harmonize the body, mind, and spirit.
Join us for this insightful conversation that bridges ancient wisdom and modern health practices!
Key Discussion Points:
- Understanding Ayurveda: Dr. Gupta details how Ayurveda serves as a lifestyle practice that prioritizes alignment between the body, mind, and spirit.
- The Six Pillars of Elemental Design: We explore the essential components of Ayurvedic practice: knowing your dosha (mind-body constitution), living in harmony with nature, ensuring gut health, adhering to a Sattvic diet, engaging in self-care, and incorporating healing spices into your routine.
- Dr. Gupta's Personal Journey: She shares her own path to discovering Ayurveda, highlighting the critical roles of sleep and gut health within this traditional medicine.
- The Importance of Gut Health: Our conversation emphasizes the foundational significance of gut health and how dietary choices affect overall wellness. We discuss the widespread normalization of poor gut health and stress the need to pay closer attention to our dietary habits.
- Mindful Eating and Health: The episode also touches on the concept of mindful medicine, exploring how supplements, herbs, and spices can support well-being. We wrap up with a look at Fusionary Formulas—Dr. Gupta’s line of products designed to enhance wellness.
Quotes:
"Ayurveda is a lifestyle. It is a practice."
"We must live in rhythm with nature if we want to have balanced and great health.” -Dr. Shivani Gupta
Dr. Shivani has also provided a special code just for YOU, my listeners: use SICK AND SEEKING to get 15% off at FusionaryFormulas.com!
Connect with Dr. Shivani:
🌟 Connect with Leslie and Sick and Seeking Community: 🌟Website | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram
Join an Embodied Movement Class or Wild Women's Circle!🔥 CLICK HERE for details 🔥
- In-Person:
- Tuesday, 8:30am PT in South Pasadena, CA
- Wednesdays, 6:00pm PT in San Marino, CA
- Virtual/ ZOOM
- Thursdays, 5:30pm PT on ZOOM
🌟 FREE support group: Chronic Conditions - Coffee & Connection🌟 --> For people who are managing a long term health issue
-->We meet on ZOOM once a month at 12pm PT
Like The Show? Show Your Support With a Donation!
Sick and Se...
CLICK HERE TO CONNECT! I'D LOVE TO KNOW -- What keeps you listening? Ideas for future episodes? Something that landed on your heart or mind you needed to hear? Looking forward to connecting with you! --Leslie
Welcome to Season 3 of the Sick and Seeking Podcast!
On this Episode, Priscilla Elzen, host of Hand Me The Megaphone Podcast, shares her personal journey with PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome) and the challenges she faced in her 9-year wait for a diagnosis. She discusses the impact of childhood trauma, her busy lifestyle, and the lack of education and awareness around PCOS.
Priscilla also shares her personal experience navigating Lyme’s disease, and mold illness – emphasizing the need for holistic and personalized care, advocating for oneself and seeking alternative healthcare options.
Conversation Highlights:
- Learn why it's crucial to be your own advocate when seeking a diagnosis and treatment for health conditions like PCOS.
- How social media can offer support and information for health challenges.
- Understanding the different manifestations of PCOS.
- The gaps in the current medical system regarding women’s health
- Importance of considering lifestyle, mental health, and trauma in women’s health.
- Recognizing the emotional challenges that come with chronic illness and the common desire for quick fixes.
- Understand the significance of a personalized approach to health and wellness.
Quote:
“...the average woman goes nine years undiagnosed with PCOS. That's how long it takes from onset of symptoms to diagnosis.” -Priscilla Elzen
“Just getting knowledge and voices from other women and collectively raising, I think even within my own family, it's an honor to know that my sisters are going to fight a little harder because their sister's been diagnosed. And I would hope they would.”
-Priscilla Elzen
Connect with Priscilla:Website | Instagram
🌟 Connect with Leslie and Sick and Seeking Community: 🌟Website | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram
Join an Embodied Movement Class or Wild Women's Circle!🔥 CLICK HERE for details 🔥
- In-Person:
- Tuesday, 8:30am PT in South Pasadena, CA
- Wednesdays, 6:00pm PT in San Marino, CA
- Virtual/ ZOOM
- Thursdays, 5:30pm PT on ZOOM
🌟 FREE support group: Chronic Conditions - Coffee & Connection🌟 --> For people who are managing a long term health issue
-->We meet on ZOOM once a month at 12pm PT
Like The Show? Show Your Support With a Donation!
Sick and Se...
CLICK HERE TO CONNECT! I'D LOVE TO KNOW -- What keeps you listening? Ideas for future episodes? Something that landed on your heart or mind you needed to hear? Looking forward to connecting with you! --Leslie
Welcome to Season 3 of the Sick and Seeking Podcast!
Thank you for being listener and joining me on this journey of sickness and healing. Please share and forward this episode to anyone you know who may be interested in donating a kidney and giving me the gift of life.
I would love to speak to you about kidney donation and naming me as the recipient. Email me: Leslie @ sickandseeking.com
To start the evaluation process go here:https://www.uclakidneydonor.org/
For more information on kidney donation:https://www.uclahealth.org/medical-services/transplants/kidney-transplant/living-donor-transplant/how-become-kidney-donor
🌟 Connect with Leslie and Sick and Seeking Community: 🌟Website | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram
Join an Embodied Movement Class or Wild Women's Circle!🔥 CLICK HERE for details 🔥
- In-Person:
- Tuesday, 8:30am PT in South Pasadena, CA
- Wednesdays, 6:00pm PT in San Marino, CA
- Virtual/ ZOOM
- Thursdays, 5:30pm PT on ZOOM
🌟 FREE support group: Chronic Conditions - Coffee & Connection🌟 --> For people who are managing a long term health issue
-->We meet on ZOOM once a month at 12pm PT
Like The Show? Show Your Support With a Donation!
Sick and Se...
CLICK HERE TO CONNECT! I'D LOVE TO KNOW -- What keeps you listening? Ideas for future episodes? Something that landed on your heart or mind you needed to hear? Looking forward to connecting with you! --Leslie
❣️ My name is Leslie Field, and I’m a Somatic Practitioner of Embodied Movement and I help people reconnect to their innate body wisdom through therapeutic movement practices.❣️ I am also the creator and host of the Sick and Seeking Podcast - Hi!
I created a gentle body meditation and guided somatic movement practice to give you better insight into the work I do outside of podcasting.
Why do I feel the desire to be a Somatic Practitioner? Well...
We live in a culture that is depressed, anxious, and unwell. Most people are living from the neck upwards and are cutoff from their body sensation and emotional experience. There's a destructive shoving down of feelings leading to illness and a loss of knowing who we are and what we want. So how do we come back to ourselves and find wholeness? Somatic Embodied Movement.
Embodied movement is about coming back to the body and becoming alive to the signals, messages and sensations as a compassionate and curious witness. This type of movement practice helps us map our sense of self both internally and externally. Feeling ourself grows our sense of self.
Being open to the full array of sensory and emotional perception -- from awe, wonder, and pleasure, to pain, sadness and grief -- allows us to savor the full human experience in body, mind, and spirit. So that we can come back to feeling our strength, aliveness, vitality and ultimately: wholeness.
I offer small, intimate classes in Pasadena, CA as well as work one-on-one on zoom. If you are curious and want to know more, let's chat! Email: Leslie@LeslieAField.com
***"I felt balanced and a zen-like calm after class."
"Leslie has a gift for creating a safe, comfortable environment in to help heal the nervous system through movement. I noticed an immediate difference in my general well-being and even my digestion following her class." *"I was able to ground myself and attune to my body's needs, accessing emotions that can be difficult to open up to."
🌟 Connect with Leslie and Sick and Seeking Community: 🌟Website | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram
Join an Embodied Movement Class or Wild Women's Circle!🔥 CLICK HERE for details 🔥
- In-Person:
- Tuesday, 8:30am PT in South Pasadena, CA
- Wednesdays, 6:00pm PT in San Marino, CA
- Virtual/ ZOOM
- Thursdays, : 12-1pm PT on Zoom
🌟 FREE support group: Chronic Conditions - Coffee & Connection🌟 --> For people who are managing a long term health issue
-->We meet on ZOOM once a month at 12pm PT
Like The Show? Show Your Support With a Donation!
Sick and Seeking Disclaimer
Well, here we are! The final episode of Sick and Seeking Season 2!
After you listen to this episode, I invite you to go BACK and listen to any episodes from season 1 or 2 that you may have missed. They are still wonderful episodes, even if they are from a year or two ago.
AND, I’m going to ask a favor - can you rate and review the Sick and Seeking Podcast whenever you listen to your podcasts? It helps the podcast to be more easily discovered by people who it may support and serve on their healing journey.
We’re doing something a bit different this week. If you’ve listened to this podcast, you know that I share about myself here and there, but I’ve never done an entire episode all about me. Well. Today is the day!
Before we hop into the episode, context is important: I recorded this over a year ago, not really knowing where this content would land. And it feels a bit rambly in the end so forgive me there. And let me tell you there is a part of me that wanted the episode about me to be this to be super clean and well thought out story etc. but you know what? I don’t have time for that, and as an entrepreneur I’ve learned that ‘good enough’ has to be good enough sometimes.
I will give you an in the moment health update as things have changed since this was recorded: I still have chronic kidney disease. I’m not in dialysis nor have I had a transplant, however, my kidney function numbers do look to be in decline. As you will hear, my function was steady for over a decade, but it appears this is not the case any longer. This has been causing a lot of fear and uncertainty in our house as we navigate this change and do our best to know what the next step forward.
I’m physically feeling pretty darn good right now in body, mind and soul and I’m grateful for the days I feel good on all of these levels. The mental toll of thinking through what may lay ahead for my body and my family is difficult, but this is my life. There will be good days and bad days. I’m fortifying myself with more knowledge, a loving and supportive group of friends and family members, giving my body the rest, love , and compassion with both demands AND deserves, and teaching my embodied movement classes to people who want to find their way back to the fullest sense of self.
So with that all said, on to the episode!
🌟 Connect with Leslie and Sick and Seeking Community: 🌟Website | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram
Join an Embodied Movement Class or Wild Women's Circle!🔥 CLICK HERE for details 🔥
- In-Person:
- Tuesday, 8:30am PT in South Pasadena, CA
- Wednesdays, 6:00pm PT in San Marino, CA
- Virtual/ ZOOM
- Thursdays, : 12-1pm PT on Zoom
🌟 FREE support group: Chronic Conditions - Coffee & Connection🌟 --> For people who are managing a long term health issue
-->We meet on ZOOM once a month at 12pm PT
Like The Show? Show Your Support With a Donation!
Sick and Seeking Disclaimer
On this episode I speak with Rebecca Tolin, Mind Body Coach and creator of the Be Your Own Medicine Program
“...I found myself in this impersonal medical system that was only addressing the physical symptoms with things like supplements and medications. And what I really needed was to process that emotional trauma and know that that was the underlying cause of my symptoms so I could address it at the root.” - Rebecca Tolin
Highlights:
- Rebecca’s traumatic experience while working abroad as a journalist, and her 13 year attempt to cure her Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and other health conditions through allopathic medicine
- Dr. John Sarno, mind body healing, and somatics led to Rebecca’s eventual remission of her symptoms and health conditions
- The importance of self-compassion and unconditional love of self when managing a health condition
- How Mind-Body Coaching helps people find safety in their mind and body
- Learning to be with sensations in the body through mindful awareness and somatic tracking
- Paying attention to our belief systems & finding compassionate truth in our experience of illness and health
- Often people hold something inside of themselves that wants to be honored or heard, and without its recognition it can manifest in a physical way
- Learning to tune in and honor the deeper wisdom in the body, mind, heart, and soul
- The concept of outcome independence and participating in practices with curiosity instead of revving the nervous system for a specific outcome
“...These sensations in my body that I had called labels and names and diagnosis were looking for my attention, and when I gave them loving, even neutral attention, the underlying emotion could surface and almost always there was some sense of relief after that...I could feel it was medicine to me.”
Connect with Rebecca:Website | Facebook | YouTube
🌟 Connect with Leslie and Sick and Seeking Community: 🌟Website | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram
Join an Embodied Movement Class or Wild Women's Circle!🔥 CLICK HERE for details 🔥
- In-Person:
- Tuesday, 8:30am PT in South Pasadena, CA
- Wednesdays, 6:00pm PT in San Marino, CA
- Virtual/ ZOOM
- Thursdays, : 12-1pm PT on Zoom
🌟 FREE support group: Chronic Conditions - Coffee & Connection🌟 --> For people who are managing a long term health issue
-->We meet on ZOOM once a month at 12pm PT
Like The Show? Show Your Support With a Donation!
Sick and Seeking Disclaimer
**On this episode I speak with Doctor of Physical Therapy, Gina Calderone at C Force Studio.
“Because the longer a wound sits in the body, the more it just decays and it causes more problems.” - Gina Calderone
Conversation Highlights:**
- Gina’s 20+ year career as a physical therapist and how she came to be known as ‘The Body Detective”
- Noticing the connection of physical pain to people’s emotional pain, adverse childhood experiences and trauma
- Headaches as connection to intellectual overload and energy being pushed up into the upper parts of the body and head
- Paying attention to what is happening in our lives and listening to that inner voice when symptoms and signals from the body are sent to us
- Carolyn Myss’ work on energy medicine and archetypes and how it influenced Gina’s understanding of illness and pain in the body
- How our life experience and choices can drain or enliven our physical energy
- The unwinding of patterns and stories that Gina unearths until she discovers the core, root issue in people’s bodies which explains where the illness/pain/condition first came from
- Polyvagal theory and how trauma usually tracks along the back line of the physical body
- Gina’s plan to develop and teach physio-energetic anatomy which shares how life experience deposits into the physical body and what symptoms are telling you
Quote:
“And our bodies usually give us clues. The symptoms are the clues. They're the map. They're giving us all the information that we need to know. We just have to learn how to tune in.” - Gina Calderone
“So as a physical therapist, it helps to have certain kinds of modalities like that with craniosacral work, pranic healing, such as I mentioned, and being able to move the energy that way. But the work that I learned in medical intuition and sacred contracts, and energy medicine is helping people understand why they're at where they're at and how they can make those shifts to feel free, improve their bodies, improve their lives.” - Gina Calderone
“Because the longer a wound sits in the body, the more it just decays and it causes more problems.” - Gina Calderone
Connect with Gina:Website |
🌟 Connect with Leslie and Sick and Seeking Community: 🌟Website | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram
Join an Embodied Movement Class or Wild Women's Circle!🔥 CLICK HERE for details 🔥
- In-Person:
- Tuesday, 8:30am PT in South Pasadena, CA
- Wednesdays, 6:00pm PT in San Marino, CA
- Virtual/ ZOOM
- Thursdays, : 12-1pm PT on Zoom
🌟 FREE support group: Chronic Conditions - Coffee & Connection🌟 --> For people who are managing a long term health issue
-->We meet on ZOOM once a month at 12pm PT
Like The Show? Show Your Support With a Donation!
Sick and Seeking Disclaimer
Welcome to Episode 8, Season 2 of the Sick and Seeking Podcast
On this episode I speak with somatic practitioner Emma Gordon, of Body As Compass.
Conversation Highlights:
- Emma’s personal journey healing a traumatic past
- The body is always operating from a place of wisdom and what’s best for survival
- A starting place to befriend the body: self-compassion
- Getting the mind and body to work together instead of against one another
- Healing trauma from a place of safety, so finding safety in the outside environment before connecting to the body
- What is the nervous system, why it matters, and how it can become dysregulated
- How neuroaffective touch is an approach that can help people who have trauma patterns stuck in their body
- Human touch is essential to people’s overall wellbeing
- The negative feedback loops that occur with trauma
- Stepping into joy and pleasure to heal the body and build resilience
Quote:
"You know, you can't think your way through trauma, and you can't think your way into regulating your nervous system. And so I think there's a lot of shame for people around being traumatized, and trauma in and of itself creates shame, and then people have shame around having shame, and it becomes this terrible feedback loop for people. But it's not a conscious decision. We can't choose for our nervous system to be in a different place." - Emma Gordon
Connect with Emma:Website | Instagram
🌟 Connect with Leslie and Sick and Seeking Community: 🌟Website | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram
Join an Embodied Movement Class or Wild Women's Circle!🔥 CLICK HERE for details 🔥
- In-Person:
- Tuesday, 8:30am PT in South Pasadena, CA
- Wednesdays, 6:00pm PT in San Marino, CA
- Virtual/ ZOOM
- Thursdays, : 12-1pm PT on Zoom
🌟 FREE support group: Chronic Conditions - Coffee & Connection🌟 --> For people who are managing a long term health issue
-->We meet on ZOOM once a month at 12pm PT
Like The Show? Show Your Support With a Donation!
Sick and Seeking Disclaimer
**Welcome to Episode 7, Season 2 of the Sick and Seeking Podcast
On this episode I speak with Kristina Evans, Functional Nutritionist Counselor at Annyssa Wellness.
Connected to my health and overall wellness, looking at my diet was the last place I’ve ever wanted to go. And if you can believe it, for a few months now I have personally been working with Kristina to make changes around what I’m eating. I’m here to tell you that making these shifts to improve your gut health and overall health has been worth it.
For me it was key to have the support and guidance of this wonderful woman, Kristina. She has a knack for meeting you where you are, without judgment, and holding you with delicate compassion and care on your journey with food.
Conversation Highlights:**
- What it’s like to work with a functional nutritionist counselor
- Kristina’s role in helping people break down the barriers so that they can eat well and heal their bodies
- Inflammation in the body and how the gut often plays a central role
- Gut health and its impact on health conditions
- A description of digestion, the role each part plays in the process, and what happens when a part breakdowns or is not functioning optimally
- Creating a healthy microbiome by eating the greatest variety of food that is high in soluble fiber and doesn't upset your system
- The gut to brain messaging system, and the importance of reconnecting the mind with the body
- Long term health conditions often take long term healing, and having a support along the way is key
- Kristina’s 80/20 rule in guiding clients how to think about food
Quote:
**“We don't talk about it. Why would I be excited about it? Because I have seen healing occur. If you can get the gut working correctly, then you will heal. You will be able to dare I say, go into remission from a lot of conditions. You will calm them down. The distance between flares will extend and the severity of flares will decrease. That's the beauty of working in the gut.” - Kristina Evans
Connect with Kristina:*Website* | Instagram | Facebook**
🌟 Connect with Leslie and Sick and Seeking Community: 🌟Website | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram
Join an Embodied Movement Class or Wild Women's Circle!🔥 CLICK HERE for details 🔥
- In-Person:
- Tuesday, 8:30am PT in South Pasadena, CA
- Wednesdays, 6:00pm PT in San Marino, CA
- Virtual/ ZOOM
- Thursdays, : 12-1pm PT on Zoom
🌟 FREE support group: Chronic Conditions - Coffee & Connection🌟 --> For people who are managing a long term health issue
-->We meet on ZOOM once a month at 12pm PT
Like The Show? Show Your Support With a Donation!
Sick and Seeking Disclaimer
Welcome to Episode 6, Season 2 of the Sick and Seeking Podcast
On this episode I speak with Dr. LJ Johnson, Holistic Endometriosis and Hormone Expert. Her passion is to empower, motivate and educate women so they too can have quality of life despite their symptoms or diagnosis.
Takeaways:
- LJ’s 16 year personal experience of chasing down her own endo diagnosis and being told by her doctors that there aren’t many options available to ease her symptoms.
- LJ’s realization that conventional medicine wasn’t providing what she and others needed, and retrained in functional medicine and holistic health
- Endometriosis is uterine-like tissue found outside of the uterus. The endo lesions inflame and the surrounding tissue can inflame as well
- Endometriosis has stage one, two, three and four and they do not equate to the level of pain, discomfort and inflammation you will have in your body.
- Symptoms of having endo is different for everyone, with many people having GI and digestion issues
- Endo is often difficult to diagnose, and it can often be a process of exclusion to make the diagnosis
- Lj shares that the best way to confirm if it’s endo is to work with a endometriosis excision surgeon
- Ablation versus excision surgery to treat endo.
- Finding and doctor and surgeon you can trust; not just the first person that could get you in
- Lifestyle changes that can support your body to feel better, such as learning your trigger foods that set off inflammation, bloating, loose stool etc. and logging this information
- How functional medicine can help you look for the root cause of the issue you’re having in your body
Quote:
“ I really and honestly turned my pain into my passion. It took me 16 years to be properly diagnosed with endometriosis, yes, 16. So that was 16 years of blaming myself, blaming my doctors, hating my body, hating my doctors, doctors being very dismissive of me, you know, begging, bleeding, literally bleeding out of every orifice of my body, and begging to be heard, pleading for help.” - Dr. LJ Johnson
Connect with Dr. LJ:Website | Instagram |
🌟 Connect with Leslie and Sick and Seeking Community: 🌟Website | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram
Join an Embodied Movement Class or Wild Women's Circle!🔥 CLICK HERE for details 🔥
- In-Person:
- Tuesday, 8:30am PT in South Pasadena, CA
- Wednesdays, 6:00pm PT in San Marino, CA
- Virtual/ ZOOM
- Thursdays, : 12-1pm PT on Zoom
🌟 FREE support group: Chronic Conditions - Coffee & Connection🌟 --> For people who are managing a long term health issue
-->We meet on ZOOM once a month at 12pm PT
Like The Show? Show Your Support With a Donation!
Sick and Seeking Disclaimer
On this episode I speak with movement teacher and mentor Amber Ryan, co-founder of The 360 Emergence, an embodiment, free-form, spirit-driven movement practice.
“And numbing is also one of those vibrations that the movement practice can help assist moving people away from. Because numbing comes in for different reasons, whether it's we're stuffing something down, or I just can't even anymore. I've gone on overload. It's too much. Lots of different reasons for how numbing can come in… And so through the movement practice, we can start to warm that freeze, or we can start to draw and bring people back into the body.” - Amber Ryan
Takeaways:
- Energy can become stagnant in the body and movement can shift the energy into flow and vitality
- Using breathe as a way for people to come into better presence and awareness with themselves
- How Gabrielle Wroth’s 5 Rhythms ecstatic dance method helped Amber re-pattern into healthier ways in support of her body
- The powerful changes that can happen from a full, deep breath into the body
- The shift that can happen when participating in embodied movement: feeling freer, awake, connected to life’s goodness, lighter, additional vitality, greater sense of aliveness, rejuvenated, tension and stress release, surrender and letting go
- How dance gives space for people to be in the raw, real expression of emotion and allows this energy to move
- Movement can provide a sense of support and community for those experiencing illness or chronic pain
- Tears and crying as a healing release that softens us
- Numbing in the body and how through a movement practice, the body can warm that freeze and draw people back into their body
Connect with Amber:Website | Instagram | Facebook
Resources:The 360 Emergence: Remember Center (Free!)Calm Your Nervous SystemAmber’s Sound Cloud Music and Mixes That Inspire Movement
🌟 Connect with Leslie and Sick and Seeking Community: 🌟Website | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram
Join an Embodied Movement Class or Wild Women's Circle!🔥 CLICK HERE for details 🔥
- In-Person:
- Tuesday, 8:30am PT in South Pasadena, CA
- Wednesdays, 6:00pm PT in San Marino, CA
- Virtual/ ZOOM
- Thursdays, : 12-1pm PT on Zoom
🌟 FREE support group: Chronic Conditions - Coffee & Connection🌟 --> For people who are managing a long term health issue
-->We meet on ZOOM once a month at 12pm PT
Like The Show? Show Your Support With a Donation!
Sick and Seeking Disclaimer
On this episode I speak with Holly Wodetzki of Sensual Embodied Dance about the richness of life that can arise in the body through dance. Using her signature dance methodology, Holly helps women come back to intense aliveness in their bodies.
Topics Discussed:
- Holly’s decision to shift her personal daily practice from yoga to free-form dance
- Noticing the tightly held places in women’s body become more pronounced when you ask them to move towards pleasure and sexuality in using movement
- Exploring the erotic and sexuality in the body, and what that means as a pulse of life
- Using a practice like dance to dissolve boundaries and feel the unity and interconnection with life and nature
- Sensitizing and becoming intimate with feelings in the body to allow life and emotions to move through you
- Using dance as an opportunities for women to let go, release, unfold and unravel tension in the body so they can be more open to embodying the full spectrum of life
- Many women feel disconnected from their lower body and have chronic pelvis tension
- Embodiment and dissociation, and pendulating in-between these states
- How music can invoke different emotional states and open their body to new ways of moving
Quotes:
“But when we have that capacity to let life move through us, then things don't get stuck. We don't get the residue of unexpressed experiences and emotions stuck in our body…” - Holly Wodetzki
“But the question is always, will you dance with this too? And I think for people who are sick and or have loved ones that are sick or going through very difficult things, the question is still, can I dance with this too? Even when it is so painful, would I also dance with this too? but in the biggest sense of, this being part of my story that doesn't define who I am, but this is part of this moment. And can I dance even when it's so hard and I'm in pain?” - Holly Wodetzki
Connect with Holly:
Website | Instagram | Facebook
🌟 Connect with Leslie and Sick and Seeking Community: 🌟Website | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram
Join an Embodied Movement Class or Wild Women's Circle!🔥 CLICK HERE for details 🔥
- In-Person:
- Tuesday, 8:30am PT in South Pasadena, CA
- Wednesdays, 6:00pm PT in San Marino, CA
- Virtual/ ZOOM
- Thursdays, : 12-1pm PT on Zoom
🌟 FREE support group: Chronic Conditions - Coffee & Connection🌟 --> For people who are managing a long term health issue
-->We meet on ZOOM once a month at 12pm PT
Like The Show? Show Your Support With a Donation!
Sick and Seeking Disclaimer
On this episode I speak with Functional Medical Health Coach Dawn Karwoski of the Well Rooted Life about managing various health issues and mystery illnesses before a full blown health crisis in 2017.
Over the years Dawn sought out dozens of Doctors, Specialists, and Practitioners, and after much trial and error, she found true healing by connecting to her roots, reigniting her faith, and finding community. Dawn has reached a place where all of her chronic conditions are currently in remission
Topics Discussed:
- The recurring health issues in her 20s and 30s that led her to floating in and out of the traditional medical system and seeing various functional medical doctors and collecting diagnoses
- Her health crash in 2017 from a rare condition called hashitoxicosi
- Foodie Dawn’s journey with food: elimination diets, healing protocols, and finding her way back to a healthy relationship and love of food.
- The learning curve in gaining confidence in the ability to be an expert of your body
- How medical diagnoses come in twins and triplets, meaning, if you have one condition, there’s a high likelihood you will have multiple follow
- Often it’s a culmination of a variety of factors that lead to a health crisis, and your body does something extreme for you to take notice
- The power of intuition and and advocating for yourself in a medical setting
- Dawn’s journey back to her faith and regulating her nervous system
Quotes:
"***I started doing nervous system regulation…so that coupled with my functional medicine practice really got me to a healthy place so I was able to kind of bounce back from that major health crash and within a couple of years went off all my medication." - Dawn
“And just because a doctor tells me to do something doesn't mean I have to, you know, really trying to reframe that like that's a recommendation. Like, I don't have to follow blindly, whatever they're telling me. - Dawn
Connect with Dawn:*Website | LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook
Resourc
🌟 Connect with Leslie and Sick and Seeking Community: 🌟Website | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram
Join an Embodied Movement Class or Wild Women's Circle!🔥 CLICK HERE for details 🔥
- In-Person:
- Tuesday, 8:30am PT in South Pasadena, CA
- Wednesdays, 6:00pm PT in San Marino, CA
- Virtual/ ZOOM
- Thursdays, : 12-1pm PT on Zoom
🌟 FREE support group: Chronic Conditions - Coffee & Connection🌟 --> For people who are managing a long term health issue
-->We meet on ZOOM once a month at 12pm PT
Like The Show? Show Your Support With a Donation!
Sick and Seeking Disclaimer
Sick and Seeking Episode 2 of Season 2 features author and professor Ed Cohen who shares all about his new book: On Learning to Heal - What Medicine Doesn’t Know.
**At thirteen, Ed Cohen was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease—a chronic, incurable condition that nearly killed him in his early twenties. At his diagnosis, his doctors told him that the best he could hope for would be periods of remission. Unfortunately, doctors never mentioned healing as a possibility.
In On Learning to Heal****, Cohen draws on fifty years of living with Crohn’s to consider how Western medicine’s turn from an “art of healing” toward a “science of medicine” deeply affects both medical practitioners and their patients. He demonstrates that although medicine can now offer many seemingly miraculous therapies, medicine is not and has never been the only way to enhance healing. Exploring his own path to healing, he argues that learning to heal requires us to desire and value healing as a vital possibility. With this book, Cohen advocates reviving healing’s role for all those whose lives are touched by illness.
Topics Discussed:**
- Ed’s Crohn's Disease diagnoses over 50 years ago at the age of 13
- His self-proclaimed “adolescence on steroids” when he was treated with high doses of prednisone
- His life-changing healing trances that spontaneously occurred while severely sick and recovering in hospital
- Ed’s 40 year quest to understand why medicine knows a lot about being sick, but not a lot about getting better and healing
- How healing is our birthright, and in our culture we don’t give healing the respect that it’s due
- How we are made into an ‘anybody’ for medical purposes when really each disease is particular and specific to each person
- The idea that medicine is a fee-for-service enterprise, and it sells itself to us as being the best treatment by using diagnosis and prognosis
- How medicine was first considered an art of healing, and one way this was practiced was through Asclepion Temple Healing
“And then when I finally got out of the hospital, I had an exit interview with my surgeon and he said this thing that just seared itself into my brain. He said: You were the sickest person I've operated on in five years who's still alive and I have no idea how you got better so quickly.”
🌟 Connect with Leslie and Sick and Seeking Community: 🌟Website | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram
Join an Embodied Movement Class or Wild Women's Circle!🔥 CLICK HERE for details 🔥
- In-Person:
- Tuesday, 8:30am PT in South Pasadena, CA
- Wednesdays, 6:00pm PT in San Marino, CA
- Virtual/ ZOOM
- Thursdays, : 12-1pm PT on Zoom
🌟 FREE support group: Chronic Conditions - Coffee & Connection🌟 --> For people who are managing a long term health issue
-->We meet on ZOOM once a month at 12pm PT
Like The Show? Show Your Support With a Donation!
Sick and Seeking Disclaimer
Welcome to Season 2 of the Sick and Seeking Podcast!
**For this season’s first episode I decided to bring back Naturopath Debra Lee who I interviewed on Episode 7 of Season 1 where she shared all about the toxins we may be exposed to in our daily lives. She was quite the fan favorite (meaning, tons of downloads!) so I had to have her back on to share more of her naturopathic wisdom.
This time Debra and I spoke about the the Essential Elements and Nutrients We Need to Function Properly and Create a Healthy Self-Healing and Self-Regulating Environment in Our Bodies and those things are: clean water, good salts, minerals, probiotics, and clean produce.**
We speak about:
- How 80% of your health is lifestyle - not genetics!
- There are essential elements and nutrients that we need for our body to function properly and for it to create a healthy self-healing and self-regulating environment and that is: clean water, good salts, minerals, probiotics, and clean produce.
- Water: how much to drink, when to drink it, what type we should be drinking and why
- Sodium Fluoride vs Calcium Fluoride: what’s the difference and why it matters
- The importance of minerals in our diet and the fact that our bodies can manufacture some vitamins, but they cannot manufacture minerals so must get them from your diet or supplements.
- There are approximately 102 minerals that our bodies need and one of the ways we can get many of them is through Celtic Sea Salt
- Calcium, Magnesium, Iron, Chloride, Iodine: their function in our bodies, and a description of what it might look or feel like if we have a deficiency:
- Prebiotic, probiotic, and postbiotics and their connection to a healthy gut
- Why you should be buying from your local farmer or farmer’s market, and not just because of the environmental footprint
Connect with Debra: Website
Resources
- Hannah’s Herb Shop: Purchase Trace Mineral Tablets (no affiliation)
- Premier Labs - They offer a client portal where you can set up and maintain your own account(For 20% off use
🌟 Connect with Leslie and Sick and Seeking Community: 🌟Website | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram
Join an Embodied Movement Class or Wild Women's Circle!🔥 CLICK HERE for details 🔥
- In-Person:
- Tuesday, 8:30am PT in South Pasadena, CA
- Wednesdays, 6:00pm PT in San Marino, CA
- Virtual/ ZOOM
- Thursdays, : 12-1pm PT on Zoom
🌟 FREE support group: Chronic Conditions - Coffee & Connection🌟 --> For people who are managing a long term health issue
-->We meet on ZOOM once a month at 12pm PT
Like The Show? Show Your Support With a Donation!
Sick and Seeking Disclaimer
Hello Sick and Seeing Listeners!
**I know it’s been few weeks…I ’ve been humming and hawing over how to close out my first season, and if you don’t know this about me, let me tell you that I’m the queen of over complicating things, hence the delay! I wanted to do this big, storytelling moment where I told you my chronic illness story and what it’s like living in my body. But honestly, it all felt a bit too much. Behind the scenes I’ve been working on completing a couple of certifications (more on that later) so that I can gather women in connection and movement. I’ve decided to keep this episode simple and first do a bit of a reflection on season 1 before I chat about what’s coming next for me and the Sick and Seeking Podcast.
Now, one of my mentor’s Sheri Rosenthal often says that heart-based entrepreneurs have a hard time asking their community for things, and I totally identify with this.**
**So as I close Season 1, I do have a few asks:
- Head to my website and sign-up to my newsletter to be alerted when I release a new podcast episode or open Wild Women’s Way Circles, Unstructured Movement Classes, and Transformational Wellness Retreats**
**2. Rate and review the Sick and Seeking Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. This is a huge help and helps my podcast get discovered by more listeners.
- Follow and like Sick and Seeking Social Media Accounts**
➡️ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sickandseeking/
➡️ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sickandseeking/
➡️ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@sickandseeking
➡️ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sick-and-seeking/
4. Share my podcast with friends or people in your network who may enjoy listening.
5. And join the Sick and Seeking Community group on Facebook so that I can keep you informed on things I’m doing connected to the podcast, unstructured movement and transformational retreats
Podcasting can feel like a lonely pursuit, so please do reach out via social channels or email me at Leslie@sickandseeking.com as I’d love to know why you listen, what you'd love to hear more or, or cool people I should check out in the healing space.
**Until September - Goodbye and thank you for listening!
xoxo
-Leslie**
Connect with Leslie and Sick and Seeking Community:Website | YouTube | Facebook | InstagramLike The Show? Show Your Support With a Donation!
Sick and Seeking Disclaimer
This is my second conversation with somatic therapist, embodiment guide, intuitive body reader, soul coach, and meditation facilitator, Erin Pace.
If you haven’t already listened to episode 12 titled, “The Body is a Realm of Wild Discovery”, I recommend you go back after this episode and take a listen.
Embodied, sensual movement is a deep passion of mine as I know first-hand, in my body, mind and soul, how supportive and healing it can be. I’m thrilled to have had these conversations with Erin in order to spread awareness about the positive impact this type of movement can provide, especially for women who are lacking trust and connection to their bodies.
We speak about:
- Honoring the depth of emotion women hold in their bodies, and embracing the experience of emotion in the body
- Feeling emotions requires a commitment to connection to yourself and embracing what is happening within you
- Emotion is held in the body until we escort it away
- How we desensitize as a way of survival and how our sensitivity in our bodies is a genius
- Honoring, forgiving and allowing our bodies when they ask for rest
- How inviting ease can make space for more energy in the body
- Being with the intelligence of the body and what may show up when you check-in and visit
- The remembrance of connecting with the divine and the sacredness of all
- When women awaken to aliveness and wholeness in their bodies, there may be another quest inside of them to connect that to their eroticism
- Women’s inability to receive
- Using Erin’s A.L.I.V.E acronym as a daily touchstone or affirmation practice, starting with the phrases “I am” or “Am I?” – Aware, Listening, Intentional (or Inspired), Valid, Evolving
Quotes:
- “Emotion can feel like a scary foe, and I invite that is should be a sacred informer” - Erin Pace
Connect with Erin:
Website | Instagram | Facebook | Linkedin
Connect with Leslie and Sick and Seeking Community:Website | YouTube | Facebook | InstagramLike The Show? Show Your Support With a Donation!
Sick and Seeking Disclaimer
On this episode of the Sick and Seeking Podcast, I speak with somatic therapist, embodiment guide, intuitive body reader, soul coach, and meditation facilitator, Erin Pace.
In this conversation Erin reminds us that wholeness, as well as trust in and with the body is possible in consciously chosen spaces that can provide support and safety.
We had much to discuss and many avenues to explore, so this is one of two conversations with Erin that will be shared on this podcast.
We speak about:
- How entering the body is a realm of wild discovery
- Taking the time to become present with sensation and emotion leads to an experience of aliveness
- Living with chronic illness can lead to body distrust and disconnection
- A simple conscious breath can serve the body
- Erin’s method for working with people who have for a long time disconnected from their body
- Exploring the re-attunement to the feminine essence as much as the masculine in one’s body
- Becoming the observer versus the judge
- How high functioning feminine bodies can become unsteady
- How grand or big feelings can activate fear, and learning how to befriend our feelings without judgment
- Visiting with your body through organic moment and sitting with curiosity on what is present
- How to come to know your body
Connect with Erin:Website | Instagram | Facebook | Linkedin
Connect with Leslie and Sick and Seeking Community:Website | YouTube | Facebook | InstagramLike The Show? Show Your Support With a Donation!
Sick and Seeking Disclaimer
On this episode of the Sick and Seeking Podcast, I invited shamanic practitioner Amy Dempster to speak with me about how nature can be a supportive and healing force.
We speak about:
- How Amy’s The Earth Keepers Podcast was a support for me when I was going through a tough time
- How Amy grew up on a farm but slowly lost her connection to the land after college
- Amy’s ‘remembering’ her psychic and intuitive abilities
- How nature communicates with us telepathically, and we all have the ability to communicate and receive information beyond the 5 senses
- Frequency and vibration - what it is and how it can impact you
- Tools you can bring into your environment to raise the vibration
- Why we enjoy being outside in nature
- Positive and negative ions in our environment
- Building trust with your intuition and inner knowing
- Why you should leave your phone behind and take a long, leisurely stroll around the block
- The ancient wisdom of plants
- The electromagnetic frequencies that are surrounding us like never before, and how this is impacting us and our environment
- We all have ancestors that were intimately connected to the land, but many of us have forgotten or lost this connection through generations and the passing of time
- We are all a part of nature
- Humans, psychoactive plants, and fungi have worked together for thousands of years
Connect with Amy:
Website: https://followinghawks.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/followinghawks/?hl=en Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/followinghawks Youtube: https://followinghawks.com/youtube/ Podcast: https://followinghawks.com/podcast/
Support the showConnect with Leslie and Sick and Seeking Community:Website | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram
Sick and Seeking Disclaimer
**On this episode of the Sick and Seeking Podcast, I speak with dear friend Nicole Moyer about what it’s like living with a variety of health issues including: Cystic Fibrosis; Type 1 Diabetes; Hashimotos Disease; Cervical Cancer; Chronic Kidney Stones and Kidney Failure
Even with these many health conditions, Nikki approaches life with humor, positivity and prayer. She shines a brilliant light into the world with her huge heart, and I’m blessed to call her my friend.
We speak about:**
- The different health challenges Nikki manages
- The question of: how much do we honor what our body is telling us and stay in bed, versus override the messages and force ourselves to get on with our day
- How we say we are "fine" when in reality we may not be feeling great
- Invisible illness and how people would never know about Nikki’s health conditions
- What is cystic fibrosis and how it impacts the body
- The miracle drug Tricalfta, released in 2019, which significantly helped improve Nikki’s lung function
- The life expectancy of people diagnosed with cystic fibrosis
- Fear and trauma connected to the hospitals
- How prayer and Jesus can be a powerful and supportive force in our darkest moments
- The Bible’s Psalm 91 and how Nikki believes that saying this prayer helped her avoid dialysis
- Nikki’s life as a foster parent
Support the showConnect with Leslie and Sick and Seeking Community:Website | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram
Sick and Seeking Disclaimer
On this episode of the Sick and Seeking Podcast I speak with coach and advocate Alyssa Truelove about what it’s like living with two chronic conditions: endometriosis and fibromyalgia.
We speak about:
- Alyssa’s diagnosis story and the shocking news she received at 19 years old that she has endometriosis.
- The importance of understanding that what you are feeling in your body is valid, even if your illness is invisible and others can’t see it
Connect with Alyssa Truelove (Founder & CEO of the Chronically Ill Society):
Email: support@chronicallyillsociety.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chronicallyillsociety/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@chronicallyillsociety Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Chronically-Ill-Society/100090535946726/ Website: https://chronicallyillsociety.com/
Support the showConnect with Leslie and Sick and Seeking Community:Website | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram
Sick and Seeking Disclaimer
On this episode of the Sick and Seeking Podcast, Abby shares the story of Cecil, the Grapefruit-sized Dermoid Cyst that was attached to her right ovary. Abby takes us through her harrowing story of how she came to the excruciating realization that she had such a large mass growing inside of her body.
We speak about:
- Investigating the horrible, stabbing-like pain that abruptly came upon Abby and her need to seek immediate medical attention
- Dermoid cysts: what they are and why they can be pretty weird
- Identifying an ovarian torsion, and the risks to your organs if this happens
- Potentially losing part or all of Abby’s reproductive organs when going in for surgery to remove the cyst
- Using humor to get through tough moments
- Sharing our experience of a having an extremely long list of doctors and medications
- Exploring the potential for alternative and complementary therapies that can sit alongside of or in place of prescription medications
- Discussing how medical insurance is confusing, and how to maximize the use of this benefit
- Intuitively knowing when medication needs to be adjusted
- Understanding and validating the need for rest
- Depression and anxiety, and how these and other mental health struggles can make it difficult to function
- Labral tear surgery
- Small simple goals to have in mind and that will keep you motivated after a tough body moment
*Update on Leslie’s IUD + menstruation comments in this episode *Leslie was spotting and having a mini-period over the course of a few months (even with an IUD) most likely because the IUD had shifted and was out of place! More on that experience will be shared on the Sick and Seeking Youtube page in due course.
Timestamps:
4:00: Abby introduces Cecil the dermoid cyst
9:22: Ovarian torsion
14:10: The potential surgical outcomes for removing the cyst
18:30: The moment we find out that Cecil the cyst was a blond
22:10: Leslie’s appendicitis story
30:00: The complexity of understanding health insurance
34:15: Abby shares her Hashimoto’s diagnosis
40:30: Self-care, rest and mental health
Connect with Abby:
| Instagram |
Support the showConnect with Leslie and Sick and Seeking Community:Website | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram
Sick and Seeking Disclaimer
**In this episode I speak to Debra Lee, founder of Middle Tennessee’s Wellness Bridge Consulting. Debra is a Traditional Naturopath, Certified Natural Health Practitioner, a Hanna Kroeger Practitioner, Lifestyle Coach and a NuVision Biofeedback Specialist. A teacher at heart, Debra thrives on educating and coaching people to make better choices for themselves. In this episode she highlights some of the over 500 chemicals we are exposed to daily, where they are found, and what symptoms may occur after exposure.
This is just the first introduction to Debra and her knowledge, and there is much more ground to cover. More conversations with Debra will be coming soon on the Sick and Seeking Youtube Page.**
We speak about:
- Why people seek out the support of a naturopath like Debra
- One of the causes for chronic illness relapse in our bodies is due to the environmental toxins lurking in the over 500 chemicals we are exposed to daily
- Commercial scents and air fresheners are not regulated and there can be unlisted ingredients in these products
- Selecting high-quality essential oils that are labeled therapeutic-grade
- The different organs in our bodies and what they do to help the body rid of toxic substances
- Environmental chemicals and toxins and how they may negatively affect you body
- Awareness and avoidance of formaldehyde, aluminum, sodium fluoride, parabens, sulfates, nitrites, nitrates, MSG and aspartame in products or foods that go on, in, or near your body
- The important difference between calcium fluoride versus sodium fluoride, and why this distinction is important.
- How to limit one’s exposure to dioxin, also known as glyphosate
- Chewing gums and mints are now sweetened with aspartame instead of sugar and why this is potentially an issue
- Debra’s suggestion to avoid harsh detoxes for the body and start with dandelion, parsley or cilantro teas
Timestamps:
**1:30: What is a naturopath?
9:50: Common symptoms of toxic exposure
18:00: Chemicals we are exposed to daily
27:45: Toothpaste and sodium fluoride
31:00: Sulfates and parabens and where you may find them
37:00: What we put in/near/on our bodies that we want to avoid
45:00: Nitrates and nitrites in processed foods
58:00: Types of detoxing teas
Quotes:
“Don’t become overwhelmed and do it a little bit at a time.” - Debra**
Connect with Debra:Website
Support the showConnect with Leslie and Sick and Seeking Community:Website | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram
Sick and Seeking Disclaimer
In this episode I speak with Sally Wolf, a wellbeing advisor, advocate and speaker who empowers others to flourish both personally and professionally through her company, LightWorks. Sally leaned into this work after studying positive psychology in 2016, shortly after her first diagnosis with breast cancer. Reflecting back on her seven years as a breast cancer patient, survivor, and now Stage IV thriver, Sally openly discusses dancing her way through cancer, finding deep meaning in difficult life moments, and choosing the lens through which we go - and grow - through our biggest obstacles.
We speak about:
- Receiving her first cancer diagnosis in 2015, and how dance has been a significant part of Sally's healing journey
- Identifying tools that enable us to flourish in life, and how building that foundation of self-awareness can support us in challenging moments
- Exploring a changing body during cancer treatment
- Riding the post-head-shave emotional roller coaster of adrenaline rush to paralysis, and how a friend helped her move again
- Feeling a responsibility to share and connect with those facing cancer in the same way others supported her during treatment
- Experiencing the local recurrence of a breast cancer tumor even after a double mastectomy
- Identifying people who can be sources of support
- Listening to and acting on intuition when something is off in one’s body, even if specialists and doctors aren’t concerned
- Choosing to seek - and see - the ‘light’ in life, even when living with Stage IV cancer
- Recognizing post-traumatic growth (PTG) and its connection to resilience
- Celebrating a career pivot: Sally’s work in bringing positive psychology to the corporate world
Timestamps:
1:11 - Dance as healing
13:26 - Cancer diagnosis
24:49 - Recurrence and spread
26:06 - Trusting your intuition: A lesson from Sally's hip pain
43:18 - Positive Psychology and human flourishing
Quotes:
“Dance helps you speak with your body and quiets the overthinking mind.” - Sally
“[I have the] responsibility to share and use my story to connect with others because other people did that for me.” – Sally
Connect with Sally:Website | LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook
Resources:Sally’s dance teacherSally in AllurePositive Psychology - Where Sally Studied
Support the showConnect with Leslie and Sick and Seeking Community:Website | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram
Sick and Seeking Disclaimer
In this episode I speak to storyteller and scholar Julia LeFrancois about her journey living with fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis. Julia identifies as a change-maker who strives for social and disability justice through her research and activism. We discuss many important topics including the societal invalidation of chronic illnesses, ableism, crip kinship, body neutrality and disability justice.
In this episode we speak about:
- How fibromyalgia is hard to diagnose and is often invalidated by the medical community.
- Finding our own way with both conventional and holistic therapies and trying different things to support oneself on their journey with their body
- How frustrating it can be that no matter what we do, our bodies have a brilliance of their own.
- How the feelings of self-loathing, shame, and anger can surface when attempting to be intuitive about one’s body and health.
- The concept of “BodyMind” and how we experience things both in our bodies and minds simultaneously
- The idea of physically "feeling your feelings".
- The idea of body neutrality vs body positivity.
- Disability awareness vs disability justice
- The crip community and their refusal to conform to society's unrealistic standards.
- Showing up in one's body as it needs to be, rather than conforming to societal expectations.
- The concept of ableism and how our world is set up for people who don’t have medical conditions.
- Patty Berne and her work in disability justice.
- Tricia Hersey and her book Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto
- Crip Kinship by Shayda Kafai
- How being in conversation about what you’re doing through in your body and life can be healing and cathartic
Timestamps:
03:06 - Julia’s diagnosis of Fibromyalgia and RA
04:21 - Fibromyalgia diagnosis and treatment
09:09 - Emotional Rollercoaster with Chronic Illness
10:16 - Sensitivity and Role as a Change-Maker
11:13 - Struggle with activism and self-care
18:08 - What is body neutrality
22:11- Disability awareness vs disability justice
28:42- The power and catharsis of storytelling
40:27 - What recharges Julia
Quotes:
- "It's this rollercoaster that just doesn't end. And I think unless you have mental illness or chronic illness, it's just something that it's hard to understand or wrap your head around." - Julia
- "We don’t experience things just in our bodies or just in our minds. I think we experience them simultaneously and together…" - Julia
Connect with Julia:Website
Resources:Shayda Kafai - Crip KinshipPatty Berne - Disability JusticeTricia Hersey - Nap Ministry
Support the showConnect with Leslie and Sick and Seeking Community:Website | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram
Sick and Seeking Disclaimer
In this episode I speak with Lizzie Redman, strategist and leadership coach. Four years ago after a beautiful NYC evening of oysters and champagne, Lizzie developed mysterious symptoms in her body. Still without an official medical diagnosis, Lizzie shares the powerful lessons and information she has collected over the many years of managing chronic pain in her body.
In this episode we speak about:
- How we are all going to undergo change in our bodies, and it can be deeply challenging but also bring gifts.
- When asking a person managing chronic illness or pain how they are feeling in their bodies this can be a heavy question, and it may be difficult for them to share.
- Fatigue and not honoring the need for rest and sleep.
- Dance and organic movement as a way to feel good, connect back to one's body, and feel joy.
- How when you hear someone share a journey that is similar to your own, it can bring up thoughts, sensations and emotions connected to what you’ve been through.
- The connection between our brain and what shows up in our bodies
- The suspicion that what is happening in Lizzie’s body may be related to her nervous system being in overdrive.
- The time and emotional labor to manage an illness.
- The potential pitfall of putting excess pressure on yourself and showing up with an intensity connected to your medical condition and desired outcome.
- The expectation many people hold that our body needs to function perfectly and is our tool to use.
- The healing process is deeply personal, and your relationship with yourself and your body on this journey is up to you.
- How our body reacts to emotion, and the importance of checking in with one’s body and being mindful of physical sensations.
- How our bodies hold many messages for us, and there are tools and practices that can help tap into them.
- The Curable App and Somatic Therapy.
- How an invisible illness can feel isolating.
- The valuable role of community in one's healing journey and finding support and understanding from people who are going through a similar experience.
**Timestamps:
2:52 – How are you feeling today?
6:54 – Leslie’s struggle with fatigue
16:08 – Lizzie’s sudden illness
18:00 – No clear diagnosis
18:51 – Finding solutions
19:03 – Brain and pain science
30:03 – Self-care
38:21 – Leslie’s diagnosis
42:21 – Lizzie’s response to pain
49:29 – Curable App
56:09 – Lizzie’s desires and wishes**
**Quotes:
“When our body doesn’t cooperate, it’s fighting for us.” - Lizzie**
“What I learned is that pain does come from our brain” - Lizzie
“How I respond to that pain, I have power over that. I do have autonomy and choice over that.” - Lizzie
Connect with Lizzie:Website | Linkedin
Support the showConnect with Leslie and Sick and Seeking Community:Website | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram
Sick and Seeking Disclaimer
In this episode I speak with my dear friend Reema Doshi who in 2017 was diagnosed with a rare form of breast cancer called inflammatory breast cancer (IBC).
In this episode we speak about:
- The importance of noting anything abnormal or strange happening in your body and taking the time to look into it.
- How life and being ‘busy’ often gets in the way of seeking professional medical help.
- When you start on a medical journey you’re collecting pieces of data about what’s happening to you in real time, and it’s often confusing.
- The need for a clinical and medical diagnosis to know if it is in fact IBC - inflammatory breast cancer.
- Remembering that medical practitioners are human and fallible too and they can make mistakes.
- How women can empower themselves in medical settings and become an advocate to get what they want and need.
- Small breadcrumbs of knowledge or random people that you come across in your medical journey, and in hindsight how impactful these moments or people are to your story.
- The intense and physically exhausting side effects of Reema’s chemo treatment.
- How the media mis-portrays what it may be like to go through cancer treatment.
- The realization that you are not broken nor is anything wrong with you for needing rest when going through cancer treatment.
- Ways Reema clung to normalcy during treatment and how she decided cancer was not going to be the defining theme of her life.
- How you can support someone or what to say to someone who is going through treatment, and how this can be different for everyone.
- Reema’s post treatment medical journey, life, chemo brain and being regularly confronted with the possibility of a cancer recurrence and how to manage this fear
- Listen to your body and take action if something feels wrong; early diagnosis can prevent more significant problems in the future
- The dozen symptoms and signs of breast cancer
- The most powerful tool in breast cancer treatment and survival is early diagnosis.
- When going through a medical journey, being someone with you who can be an extra set of eyes and ears and you may not be in your clearest frame of mind
**Timestamps:
0:15 - How Reema and Leslie met
2:49 - Just an itch
4:38 - Slew of symptoms
5:24 - Reema’s first check-up
10:56 - What is inflammatory breast cancer?
17:37 - Perspectives on cancer treatments
21:36 - Leslie’s medical story
27:05 - Reema’s diagnosis
30:28 - Treatments and side effects
43:19 - Important insights**
**Quotes:
“Women often lose months in getting diagnosed because they get stuck in this loop of not knowing how to advocate for themselves.”- Reema**
“I wasn’t sure if the chemo was going to kill me or the cancer” - Reema
“I am beyond my cancer.”- Reema
Connect with Leslie and Sick and Seeking Community:Website | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram
Connect with Reema:Website
Resourceswww.knowyourlemons.orghttps://theibcnetwork.org/https://www.linkedin.com/in/terrylynnarnold
SICK AND SEEKING DISCLAIMER
In this episode I speak with my dear friend Ceryn Rowntree, medium, therapist, writer and primal priestess who I had the lucky fortune of meeting several years ago in an online coven.
In this episode we speak about:
- Ceryn’s health scare with Toxic Shock Syndrome that led to her “human awakening” and brought her to a path of thinking more deeply about her menstrual cycle and internal body rhythms.
- Connecting with the unseen parts of ourselves and coming back to our bodies
- Opening up to our soul's power and all of the wisdom and the beauty it holds.
- How moving aside what may be stuck in our heads may be helpful for us to continue on a journey towards healing.
- How rituals can make tangible and allow us to act out something that we hope to bring into being.
- Ceryn’s work in researching and bringing forward goddess stories that often are overlooked, missing, or cast as the ‘bad’ women of history.
- How our physical conditions are often held emotionally and delving into our emotions can support what’s happening to us physically.
- Ceryn’s work with Sekhem Energy Healing and Primal Healing.
- Stepping into our power and fullness and playing big within ourselves on our terms.
- When we are disconnected from our true selves, we tend to live in a state of dis-ease.
- Ceryn’s medium-channeled Soul Integration Readings where she channels energies specific to her client and how this information acts as an energy activation, remote healing session, and spiritual roadmap for their life.
- How healing is a balance of action and surrender and this changes all of the time.
Time stamps:
01:44 - The origin story of how we met in an online witch’s coven and Ceryn’s magical witchy names
03:43 - Ceryn’s health scare and human awakening
06:46 - Ceryn’s professional work as a qualified therapist, medium and energy healer and how it connects together in a holistic way with the clients she works with
26:22 - What energy healing and primal energy healing is all about
33:12 - Soul integration reading
Quotes:
“The problem is when we've become so disconnected from our bodies or so distrustful of our heads or our hearts, for whatever reason, we can't follow that inner guidance.” - Ceryn Rowntree
“I believe you can heal yourself.” - Leslie Field
Connect with Leslie and Sick and Seeking Community:
Website | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram
Connect with Ceryn:
Website | Divine Feminist Community | Facebook | Instagram
Resources:
Spirit and Destiny Magazine
Project Earthwork
SICK AND SEEKING DISCLAIMER
In today’s episode I speak with Jessica Gillespie about what it’s like to live with the auto-immune and inflammatory disease called rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Jessica is a Marriage and Family Therapist and she also happens to be my best friend. Much to our surprise, we were both diagnosed with major medical conditions right around the same time. I hope you enjoy listening to her story while getting a sneak peek into our very long, weird and silly friendship.
In this episode we speak about:
- The frustration of knowing that something is off in the body, not having words or familiarity with it, and potentially second guessing yourself and your inner knowing.
- How over time certain sensations in your body become normal for you, and you may not remember or recall what it feels like to not be in this state.
- Invisible disease
- The shame, anger, resentment and that can come with having an illness/disease.
- The fear of a future RA flare-up.
- How your relationship with a disease can change moment to moment.
- The potential for long-term negative effects on your body when taking prescription RA medications.
- Quantity vs quality of life questions that can arise with managing an auto-immune disorder like RA, and how traumatizing this is.
- Feeling less alone on our medical journey when we have people in our lives who can relate, support and provide a light for us during a scary time.
- How trauma and emotional pain can be connected to arthritic flare-ups.
- The need for tough moments on your medical journey to be addressed, witnessed, or soothed and how a therapist can be supportive in these moments.
- The struggle with not being present with your body, the intolerance with being in your body, and the risks of this disconnection.
- Everything we feel emotionally is also felt physically
- How therapy can support people who want to find their way back to connection.
- Validating and recognizing the state of how our body is feeling versus rejecting and pushing this reality away.
- How resting and relaxing can feel like a rebellion against what greater society says is acceptable.
- The power of connection.
Time stamps:
2:00 - Jessica introduces what it’s like to live with Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA)
11:33 - Jessica’s headline for her relation with RA: coexistence
15:10 - Jessica’s thoughts on therapy and medications
39:20 - Disconnecting for your body
43:47 - What society expects from our bodies
**Quotes:
“Everything we feel emotionally is all physical.” - Jessica Gillespie
“Healing from trauma is going to give people…a greater access to who they really are or who they always were.” - Jessica Gillespie
Connect with Leslie and Sick and Seeking Community:*Website* | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram**
Connect with Jessica:Website Resources for Rheumatoid Arthritis:https://www.helpfightra.org/https://www.arthritis.org/https://www.rheumresearch.org/
SICK AND SEEKING DISCLAIMER