As we're coming to the close of a particularly difficult year, we're all probably feeling pretty stressed. For kids who have been thrust into online school, an uncertain world, and an equally uncertain future, the stress can be even more pronounced. If you're a parent, or really anyone, navigating stress, distress, and anxiety, you'll definitely want to listen in to this conversation with Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge. Roseann primarily works with helping kids connect to body sensations to find...

What does it mean to be embodied? To start cultivating embodiment, we can often begin by bringing more focus to what it's like to inhabit our body rather than just where we are. The body does a lot more than just act as a vehicle to move the brain around from place to place. Brooke Thomas uses a variety of methods and media to help others onto the path of embodiment. As she joins this conversation, she brings lots of excellent insight into that process to help us start connecting to our...

As we continue to investigate ways we can use our bodies to affect our minds, we're taking a deeper look at qi gong and how we can use the practice to change how our energy is flowing. An energy exercise that blends intention, breath, and the shape of our bodies, qi gong is a powerful tool to help realign both the physical and energetic systems. Febrice Piché is here to teach us more about qi gong in a really grounded, down to earth way that's easily accessible. With the wide ranging...

The answers we get about trauma often depend on the questions we ask. If you're feeling stuck in your healing process, sometimes the best way forward is to trust that the body has its own story to share. Trying to force an understanding of what's going on can miss the clarity of embodying those sensations. By bringing together mindfulness with somatic therapies, Andrew Hahn works to tap into the body's deep wisdom. Drawing on lots of things being practiced in different spheres, Andrew...

If you've been looking for a different approach to cultivating emotional wellness and wellbeing, you will definitely want to catch this conversation. With influence on essentially every system in the body, the heart is the conductor of our inner orchestra. The heart is also capable of healing on a deep, programming level. Carine Camara identifies the heart and its energy as the most powerful force in the body. By using heart centered healing along with a blend of other paradigms, she helps...

Our responses to stress can often be habituated in ways we may not like. With practice, however, it's possible to hack our limiting beliefs and subconscious patterns in a way that allows us to show up with more presence and kindness to ourselves and those around us. Stacy Claxton is an expert in helping people use their body as a bridge to the mind, with Emotional Freedom Techniques, to get to the root causes of emotional and physical suffering. By taking our own fingertips to our own...

In a time when a lot of us are dealing with strong, difficult emotions, it can be easy to slip into bad patterns to try and cope and these patterns can spiral to harmful levels and addiction. On top of that, some of the most popular addiction treatments often end up reinforcing the idea that someone's identity is "addict" which only serves to feed the pattern. Michelle Dunbar has a different way of looking at addiction. Through the framework she helped to develop, Michelle and her team...

In challenging times, taking the time to make sure we take care of ourselves can be especially difficult. As the changes brought on by COVID continue to affect us, we're all coping with more stress which can lead to increased anger and irritability. Given these constraints, how can we work to ensure we're meeting our own needs in order to keep our relationships peaceful and harmonious? Melissa Wolak provides some excellent, practical advice for naming, claiming, and processing our anger so...

The hormonal shifts women experience later in life, namely perimenopause and menopause, aren't talked about very often. This lack of education and awareness can lead to women feeling out of control and confused when their bodies start changing, sliding away from things they used to be able to count on. Dr. Amy Zahm has helped many women navigate these shifts in identity and she brings a lot of useful wisdom to this conversation around the benefits that Chinese Medicine can have for women...

If you suffer from chronic pain, migraines, ongoing concussion symptoms, or really anything related to neurology, you'll definitely want to check out this conversation with Dr. Ayla Wolf. Dr. Wolf blends the paradigms of functional neurology, Chinese Medicine, and acupuncture to bring a unique healing perspective to her patients. By looking at people in real time, rather than just a snapshot of their conditions, she's able to analyze and apply differential diagnoses to treat the whole,...

Seeing herbs in action is a powerful reminder of why we can find roots of herbal medicine in basically every culture. Through a couple different ventures, Chloe Weber has done lots of great work to make Chinese Medicine and herbs accessible to more people, particularly in underserved communities. Chloe has dedicated her life to blending her passions for public health and Chinese Medicine and she joins us to share her knowledge on herbs, the benefits they bring to public health, and so much...

Fibromyalgia is an incredibly complex syndrome that involves multiple, intertwined systems in the body. The collection of symptoms and expressions of fibromyalgia can often confound the conventional, allopathic medicine approach, leaving patients frustrated and disheartened. In order to unravel that complexity, Chris Volesky has created a protocol to treat fibromyalgia that builds on itself rather than trying to treat individual symptoms and systems of the body separately. Chris shares some...

If you're curious about trying acupuncture or know someone who may benefit from it, it can be helpful to understand some of the background science for how acupuncture works. At a high level, Mark Whalen describes it as working with patients' own internal mechanisms to heal the body. Since our bodies are always seeking homeostasis, sometimes they just need a stimulus, like acupuncture, to draw the attention of the central nervous system to the affected areas. Mark guides us through how he...

Whether you're feeling tight and stressed, listless and exhausted, or generally just not at your best, one of the most immediate levers we can pull to start feeling better is breathing. The effects of breathwork are so extensive that essentially all systems of the body benefit from improving how we breathe. Since our breath affects every aspect of our being, Jen Broyles shares why using it optimally is so powerful and so accessible. On Today’s Episode of A Healthy Curiosity: How her own...

As we're taking a brief pause from the regular podcasting schedule, Ali Shapiro gave us permission to rebroadcast this interview on eating triggers and what it means to embody self-respect. Originally aired on Ali's podcast, Insatiable, this conversation delves deep into the relationship between self-care and self-respect. As a systems thinker and someone interested in blending paradigms, Ali engages with how societal factors play into our ability to take care of ourselves and live healthy...

Operating with a sustainable level of energy is not exactly a practice that's encouraged in our culture. Particularly in times of intense, prolonged stress, finding ways to feel nourished by what we're creating in the world and avoiding burnout are vital aspects to our health and happiness. Eileen McDargh joins us to help define what burnout is, who it affects, and how we can work on cultivating resilience in order to move from feeling burnt out to breaking through. As she says, crafting...

In a yang addicted society, particularly in the COVID era, falling asleep and staying asleep can be a serious challenge. Unfortunately, there's no one size fits all solution to better sleep, but if we start to treat our symptoms as places to get curious, we can begin to recognize some of the patterns that will lead us in the right direction. Dr. Damiana Corca joins this conversation to discuss some whole body approaches to getting better sleep. She encourages us to balance our yin and yang...

Understanding our traits and tendencies through a framework like the Five Elements can allow us to step beyond allopathic identifiers and change the framing. Doing so often helps us to steer ourselves in the direction of health rather than disease by connecting with what we're specifically experiencing. Mindi K. Counts shares a ton of great insights for how we can start to get in touch with and nurture our health by applying the Five Elements to both our physical and emotional wellbeing. On...

Do you suspect that you could have more energy or feel better than you currently do? Viewing our bodies as interconnected ecosystems, it follows that these feelings and symptoms are often indicative of different kinds of stressors and upstream problems that are difficult to identify. Reed Davis agrees and he brings a fascinating perspective to this conversation where we can blend the holistic paradigms of Chinese Medicine and Function Diagnostic Nutrition. In doing so, we start to peel back...

As we age, our bodies can send us messages about what's happening and what we need to do in the form of symptoms. With the proper investment of time and energy along with guidance from someone knowledgeable in the field, we can bring drastic transformation to our lives. Dr. Kyrin Dunston, M.D. is one such guide helping people along this path. If you're interested in learning about how to adapt your diet and lifestyle as you age in order to function optimally, and especially if you're a woman...

There are any number of reasons that you may be experiencing heaviness right now. Fortunately, there are methods available to all of us for altering our physiology through the breath, blasts of cold, and sound that can help to alleviate those feelings. Josh Solar has been tinkering with different aspects of his biology in order to affect the mind and consciousness for years. What he's learned, from breathwork to binaural beats, can help us to transform the heaviness we're experiencing, the...

One of the greatest strengths inherent to Chinese Medicine is the focus on getting specific to the individual and the symptoms they're expressing, rather than only focusing on the predetermined diagnosis and treatment. Brehan Crawford brings this lens to treating chronic conditions like Lyme Disease. Through Chinese Medicine and acupuncture, Brehan helps patients not only support their immune system with the specific changes they need, but learn to maintain it as they would other functions...

Trauma is unfortunately an all too common reality. This leads to unknowingly connecting everyday triggers to life threatening feelings which can have drastic effects on our well-being and the trajectory of our lives. Liz Mullinar is committed to the vision that everyone deserves a good life and to heal from their trauma. To that end, she helps people find meaningful, permanent healing and trains others to be able to help as well.  On Today’s Episode of A Healthy Curiosity: A challenge for...

With so many personality assessments and indicators out there, it can be easy to fall into a rigid idea of what traits you feel you have to embody. Dr. Benjamin Hardy is here to discuss why you aren't just who you are, though. He encourages us to see ourselves as being far more dynamic than a Myers-Briggs or Enneagram type might make you feel. By viewing our purpose and goals as ongoing shapers of our personality, we can influence who we are and what we're heading towards. On Today’s...

Given the frenetic pace of life we deal with today, it's useful to mine the wisdom traditions for ways to slow down and embody feelings like contentment and inner peace. Dr. Rick Hanson is dedicated to connecting western psychology, the contemplative traditions of the world, and the latest brain science to craft accessible ways for everyone to cultivate lasting qualities of mind and heart to carry with us. In this conversation, he discusses some of his findings as well as 7 ways of being...