021 – Chinese Medicine – Treating your whole self, and treating yourself well – with Brodie Welch
“If you take nothing else from this (episode), it’s recognizing that it’s actually quite a radical act and a feminist act of self-respect to allow yourself to rest when you’re tired.” -Brodie Welch
BIO: Brodie Welch is a Licensed Acupuncturist, board-certified herbalist, Chinese Medicine expert, holistic health coach, and self-care strategist. She’s the founder of Life in Balance Acupuncture in Corvallis, Oregon, where she has been treating patients since 2003.
Brodie helps caring, high-achieving, women put themselves on their own to-do lists so they can trade stress and burnout for energy, joy, and vibrant health. She has helped thousands of clients improve their digestion, sleep, and mood; dial in a regular bodymind practice, and step into the next version of themselves.
Some things we talked about:
- Benefits of Chinese Medicine
- How it can help each person
- Affordability of Acupuncture
- Yin and Yang, and how to keep them balanced
- Women who “Aren’t ready to let go of the bragging rights that come from being stressed-out and tired all the time.” And how to change that thinking.
- The Importance of letting yourself having a good day that you enjoy
- Why taking a self-compassionate route is important
- Brodie’s personal struggle with her inner voice and how she learned to speak more positively to herself, and you can too
- Why keeping a positive inner voice is important
Brodie’s quotes from this episode:
- “When are we out of integrity with our own energy, and when are we overriding our own inner wisdom? Because any time we do that, we are telling ourselves that we are not worth taking care of, and that is a lie”
- “Self-care is self-compassion in action.”
- “Most of us do not need more shoulds. More things that we feel like we need to be doing to be acceptable or worthy. What we need to be doing is having more compassion not more judgement. What we need to be doing is honoring our Yin; that which is restful, that which is rejuvinating, that which is soft, and femine, and intuitive, and inward. And be able to honor that. Because we can’t have good yang; productivity or outward anything, without good yin. That’s the definition of health in Chinese Medicine, the balance of yin and yang.”
“When are we out of integrity with our own energy, and when are we overriding our own inner wisdom? Because any time we do that, we are telling ourselves that we are not worth taking care of, and that is a lie.” – Brodie Welch
Brodie’s advice for moms with health issues:
Be good to yourself. Treat yourself with the same respect you would have for any other human on the planet, and radiate your self-respect with your daily actions.
Brodie’s superpower: 2 superpowers that she blends are compassion and strategy. She can bring in her heart and brain and come up with solutions for people, honoring a yin-yang wholeness.
-Listen to the episode to find out more-
You can find Brodie Welch:
Right to Take Care of Yourself Manifesto: http://brodiewelch.com
Calm and Centered Bundle: http://brodiewelch.com/opt-in-bundle/ Free 5-minute breathing meditation: http://brodiewelch.com/breathing-break/
Brodie’s website: http://brodiewelch.com
Podcast page: www.brodiewelch.com/podcast
Brodie’s Signature Program, Level Up Your Life: http://brodiewelch.com/level-up
What’s Your Chinese Element? http://brodiewelch.com/chinese-element-quiz/
On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BrodiewelchLAC
Podcast on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/a-healthy-curiosity/id1133292360#
A Healthy Curiosity Podcast on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ahealthycuriosity/
A Healthy Curiosity on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ahcuriosity
More about Brodie:
She also leads self-care bootcamp programs to help women bridge the gap between what they know they should be doing to take care of themselves and actually doing it. She’s also the creator and host of A Healthy Curiosity: the podcast that explores what it takes to be well in a busy world.
Thank you for joining us,
Jen
Like the show? It would be great if you could help us out by subscribing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app.
I’d love to hear from you personally! You can email me at jen@thesickmomsguide.com. I read and answer every one myself.
Special thanks to Brodie for joining me this week
Our music is “A New Day,” by Scott Holmes
This episode is sponsored by the book, “The Sick Mom’s Guide to Having Fun Again: If I can do it, you can too!” available on Amazon.
TRANSCRIPT – Episode 21 – Chinese Medicine
Jen Hardy: 00:00
You’re listening to the sick mom’s guide podcast, episode 21.
Welcome to The Sick Mom’s Guide Podcast., if my mom can do it, you can too.
I’m Jen Hardy and the mom of a seven children at the date of this recording. Their ages range from six to 28. I’m married to the man of my dreams and I have multiple eclectic chronic diseases. Throughout this parenting journey. I’ve come up with systems and ways to handle juggling it all while staying positive and moving forward, even when my body’s pushing back. I’ve created this podcast because I believe that if we start opening up, stop being ashamed and ditch the guilt than as a community, we will make each other stronger. Thanks for joining me.
Jen Hardy: 00:55
My guest today is Brodie Welsh, and when I found out that she does Chinese medicine, I thought, oh my gosh, I need to interview this woman. And so I looked on her website to try to find out a little bit more about her, and I will tell you what cinched it for me. On her website. She has this coaching service and she talked about who it’s good for and who it isn’t good for. And this is one of the things that it said about who it is not good for: “women who aren’t ready to let go of the bragging rights that come from being stressed out and tired all the time.” And I thought, “oh, that kind of hit a nerve with me.” Because who am I? I’m the sick mom. Right? That is literally part of my identity is being the sick mom and I don’t want to keep staying in the mindset of I’m sick, I’m sick, I’m sick all the time and think about myself that way. And the more I dug into what brody does and how she doesn’t transform just people’s outward health, but their inner health, the way they talk to themselves, the way they view themselves, the way they treat themselves, I knew I had to have her here and that is why we’re going to listen to her today.
Now, her official bio is that she’s a licensed acupuncturist, a board certified herbalist, Chinese medicine expert, holistic health coach, and self care strategist. She is the founder of Life and Balance Acupuncture in Corvallis, Oregon, or she’s been treating patients since 2003. She also knows Qigong and yoga and several other things that she’s learned. She’s amazing, so please join me in welcoming Brodie Welch. Hi Brodie. I’m so happy to have you here today.
Brodie Welch: 02:38
I’m looking forward to this conversation. Jen.
Jen Hardy: 02:40
Thanks. Well, I have talked a little bit about what it is that you do and I’m so excited to talk to you today because I really love Chinese medicine. It’s a somewhat of a passion of mine. I just wanted to know, how did you decide to get into Chinese medicine?
Brodie Welch: 02:57
It was not a straightforward path at all. It was the kind of thing that I discovered almost by accident. I thought that I wanted to change the world all at once. I wanted to have a positive impact on the planet and because I was really close to my values to be doing something that’s giving back, and I felt like, also just sort of burdened existentially by just existing without being a positive force on the planet. And I was totally running myself into the ground doing way too much and trying to change the world all at once and, and doing all this volunteering and social activism and, realizing what that was going to set myself up for a life I was not going to enjoy. And thank God there are people doing that work. But uh, it was, it was not going to be the path of happiness for me. So as I was trying to figure out life, I was, after I graduated from college, after I’d kind of played out and saw that road was going to lead.
Brodie Welch: 03:51
I ended up taking an eight to five day job and going to massage therapy school at night because I’d always been told that I had a gift of touch. And so, and it was in massage school that I fell in love with Chinese medical theory in class, so the idea of being exposed to the Meridians, the channels of energy, the concepts of Yin and Yang, and balance and the fundamental philosophy and Chinese medicine that if it’s out there in the universe exists here in our bodies as well. And this whole, original body, mind, Spirit medicine that Chinese medicine was revealed to me and I just felt like it was remembering something true and I just knew that I wanted to study more. So I went onto get my masters in oriental medicine directly after massage therapy school and work. And worked as a massage therapist as well in acupuncture school and then opened my practice, back in 2003. Wow.
Jen Hardy: 04:45
Well that’s awesome. Yeah, it’s amazing, isn’t it? The things you think you’re going to start off with when you’re graduating college and everything, doesn’t always have to be where you end up.
Brodie Welch: 04:53
Yeah. Right. Government history, economics, and philosophy do not form my current day practice Chinese medicine a very much.
Jen Hardy: 05:04
But you have that desire to help people.Absolutely. So that’s awesome.
Brodie Welch: 05:06
Yeah. It’s to help people and, and, and, and also to empower them, you know, that they, the original, I think what’s so disempowering in, in our current medical system that most of us were raised in that, in that paradigm is that the doctor’s the authority and that you do what you’re told and that, that, that basically, the true medicine, it comes in the form of chemicals from pharmaceutical company.
Brodie Welch: 05:33
And when, when we know that the things that we do every day are actually the most powerful levers we have over how we want to feel. And so it’s like, I suppose that I still have a little bit of that political countercultural streak in me because there is a lot that I want to change about the way that we think about health, and just especially to give people the tools of self care, that are so powerful in determining how we want to feel. That Chinese medicine is inherently applied philosophy. It’s not about slinging needles and dispensing herbs so much as it is about this philosophy of getting young, and bringing the body into balance, and looking at our lives and looking at the energetics of life. The energetics of food, the energetics of everything around us, and seeing what kind of effect is this having and it does. Is it contributing or taking away from how I want to be feeling?
Jen Hardy: 06:27
And that is exactly what led me into Chinese medicine. So I had been sick. I’ve been sick for awhile, but it was about three years ago. Little less than three years ago that I was getting sicker. Nobody could figure out why. I was misdiagnosed with something. So the treatments were pretty harsh, and they weren’t working and so I looked into this book of classes near me because I thought, you know, I’m just going to get something to take my mind off it and one of them was Chinese medicine, and that’s how we found it. And through that I found acupuncture, which honestly I think going to see this man who taught the class really saved my life at that time. Because our medicine was not. It was doing the opposite and I really, really, I felt so much better and my husband was a critic in the beginning, but by the end he saw – after a few months he’s like, oh my gosh, this has literally saved you. So he was a believer, but I’ve talked to a lot of people whose insurance doesn’t cover it and they’re really struggling financially. Do you know of ways that they can still seek a practitioner, or are there a cost effective ways that they can try things like this?
Brodie Welch: 07:28
You know, that’s, that’s a really tough question because there’s so much that’s wrong with our healthcare system. You know, they. There’s so much that’s broken because really it’s unconscionable that people can’t get the care that works. Um, that said, um, it’s the way that the way that, that even the insurance model is structured, it is, I don’t think is necessarily serving patients or practitioners for that matter. Certainly if what is needed is a whole bunch of acupuncture treatments, there is something called community acupuncture, which is a model where people can get low cost treatments without the kind of personalized lifestyle and diet advice that you might get in seeing a clinician one on one, but you do get the benefit of being in a really healing environment and having at, where there’s usually it’s recliner chairs, and the practitioner will just use points in the hands and feet and a lot of times just that parasympathetic chill out.
Brodie Welch: 08:24
Relaxation, reminding the body of what it’s like to relax in addition to getting the energy to where it needs to go. It’s like is certainly a profoundly healing option. But I’d actually like to speak to the question behind the question about that. Just that there is, or like the mindset behind the question maybe is more specifically, is that what, what do we think of as expensive versus inexpensive, right? That like if we look at what people were paying for food costs like 30 or 50 years ago to now versus healthcare costs, they’re basically flipped. Food has gotten cheaper, and healthcare has gotten more expensive now. In like, almost that exact ratio, right? People used to pay like 20 something percent of their income for food. There is, what we think of as, as valuable.
Brodie Welch: 09:16
If we think about like, if you could think back to when you were literally losing your life force to a misdiagnosis and some medicine that was tearing your body down unnecessarily. The, the, I don’t know obviously what you exactly we were dealing with, but I imagine that you were not feeling very energetic, that you were probably in some sort of pain. It was probably not very pleasant, and like, what would you have given to like what sort of like how valuable would it have been to feel better in just a few months. So like a few months worth of acupuncture treatments. Okay. Like, let’s just go with like if a treatment is about 100 bucks, give or take wherever you are in the world and it’s maybe going to take six to 10 visits to achieve, uh, substantially life altering results in most cases. It’s like you’re talking $600.
Brodie Welch: 10:01
Is, is the idea of having like triple or quadruple or 10 tenfold the amount of energy or having beforehand or like a dramatic reduction in the amount of pain you’re in, is that 600 to a thousand dollars worth of value? Like, my guess is that it’s probably a bargain compared to like if you were to put a value on like how you want to feel. So I would say, while I have tremendous empathy for the fact that people like there’s a very real cost struggles, I would also challenge the notion that we aren’t worth taking care of proactively, and an advance and you know, we can be resourceful, we can look at what we’re investing in that’s taking us actively away from the health outcomes we want to achieve and put that directly into something that’s going to work.
Brodie Welch: 10:45
Whether or not it’s covered by insurance, whether that’s a functional medicine lab test or whether it’s acupuncture or other, it’s therapy like it, you know, there’s all kinds of things that we need that work that nobody’s going to fund but can make a tremendous difference in how we ended up feeling in might even save our lives. And it’s like I don’t know if the values and the transformation acupuncture is a bargain and which, and that’s the decision that we made, you know, for our family. So. But I think that’s really good for people listening because I think there’s a lot of things that pull at people’s finances, but they don’t really realize they’re pulling. And you’re right, like if it saves your life and gives you a quality of life, then it’s something that’s worth investing in. And it’s also not prohibitively expensive. I mean really, it’s like if we think about the cost of an MRI, you know, it’s like that you’re not paying that cost.
Brodie Welch: 11:31
But we as a society are paying like what, $500, $600 for like for a diagnostic test where it’s like, that actually could be six weeks worth of treatment from a, from a Chinese medicine standpoint. So just even even objectively, our healthcare system can be saving billions of dollars if, for example, acupuncture, where something paid for by whatever singer single payer model or an insurance model that we would choose to have. And, and really it’s not technological medicine. It’s something that can be profound and in a relatively short amount of time, but also the benefit of seeing someone who is doing one on one treatments, as opposed to the community acupuncture setting, is that you’ll get tips about how to apply Chinese medicine philosophy to your daily life and Chinese herbal medicine can be also be an incredibly profound way of treating internal conditions.
Brodie Welch: 12:25
So whereas I love needle magic for things like shoulder pain, and back pain, and arthriti,s and fibromyalgia and it’ll like these kinds of chronic conditions that can be certainly debilitating. That it’s like you’re going to get there so much faster if you can be taking to treating the root of the imbalance in the body with as many tools as you are able to use. And so like a month’s worth of personalized herbal medicine is like 30 bucks, 40 bucks, you know, that’s, that’s nothing compared to mean. Most people are willing to to take supplements that are at least that expensive that have been prescribed by somebody with zero training that they meet at whole foods or you know, or just like what happens to be like fatty fish and in the news, as opposed to something that’s personalized and that’s treating a whole suite of symptoms.
Brodie Welch: 13:10
Like what? Another beautiful thing about Chinese medicine is that we, that you might be having digestive issues, and headaches, and a concentration or memory stuff, and hormone imbalance, and in Chinese medicine that might all be one pattern that we treat all at once. And so you might see improvements on all of those levels at the same time, and it doesn’t have to be sequential. It’s not like it’s going to take 10 treatments for her headaches and then 10 treatments for your digestion. It’s like everything gets better at the same time because we look at the body as a whole and we treat the whole person. And that’s, I think, just one of the strengths and beauty of this medicine, is that we are not looking at a bunch of parts and a bunch of separate systems. We’re looking at the whole and we’re looking at the inputs into the system that can include that which is emotional, spiritual, dietary, lifestyle, toxicity.
Brodie Welch: 13:58
It just add anything; viruses, bacteria, you know, all of that. We, that we’re looking at to figure out an individualized plan that’s gonna make everything better. That’s awesome. And you talked in the beginning about how people were saying you have a healing touch and I think the one on one has a lot to do with getting that to you. That person’s a look you in the eye and really focus on you. Absolutely. And that’s really, an important thing that I think we missed in traditional healthcare, because the doctors are so busy now, they’ve got so much paperwork to do. New patients can be seen in seven minutes according to the allopathic paradigm, you know, and it’s not that the doctors don’t care, it’s just that that’s what insurance will pay for is the tests and not the conversations that can be life changing.
Brodie Welch: 14:38
And so yes, I think that , it can be incredibly healing to be seen and heard and respected and to have somebody say like, you know what? This doesn’t really make sense to me, but I believe you. I understand that what you’re is real and that and we’re going to get to the bottom of this. And so there, there is the kind of thing where absolutely when I don’t know what’s going on from an allopathic standpoint, I’ll definitely encourage people to get this tests and figure it out through that Lens. But it doesn’t stop me from being able to go, Huh, this ecosystem in this person before me needs more heat or cool, or you know, yin or yang, or like, this is the system that’s being challenged. This is the system that’s weakest and here’s how we can amplify. What is working and help bring the whole system back into balance and so, it’s the kind of thing where like I’ll take an hour with a new patient and get their entire medical history and try to understand everything that’s going on in their lives, because I don’t know how you can possibly make it better otherwise.
Jen Hardy: 15:34
And that that is exactly why you’re here because I’ve done, like I was telling you before we talked, before we started recording, I have looked into everything about you that I can find, and I just love the way you view the people that you treat. And you know, I can just say the last neurologist I went to, he’s my tenth neurologist in five years and he walked in and the first thing he said was, “I just want you to know that I will never have a chance to look for your whole chart. I only have a couple minutes and, I’ll never get to everything that you need me to get to.” And he’s the best one I’ve had so far.
Brodie Welch: 16:09
At least he’s being honest about his limitation.
Jen Hardy: 16:13
On a side note is that when my husband came in, he sat down and listened and did what he needed to do, which I think is also a really sad state of affairs, but that’s for another day. But what I like is people like you that do the kind of things that you do, like you said, you take the hour, right? And so that same money that you’d spend on a copay and the drugs and the tests.
Brodie Welch: 16:35
And that’s not counting the acupuncture, right? Then we get person on the table and actually do a treatment, uh, which is, which is part of that first visit and you know, and so it is, it’s a, it’s a longer amount of time, but it sets the ball rolling in the right direction and it is absolutely time well spent.
Jen Hardy: 16:54
Well, yeah. And I think there’s a lot of people that just need that just need that. Like you were saying that you give validation. Like I believe you have these things because for a lot of moms that I’ve talked to, no one believes them, even their spouse, or their parents, or sometimes they’re kids, they just don’t have that person and anybody saying it doesn’t make sense. But I know that it’s true for you a lot.
Brodie Welch: 17:19
Yeah. And sometimes it’s, sometimes it’s not only like I see you and I believe you and I honor your experience, but it’s also. And Chinese medicine totally has a name for this because there’s some weird things that people have experienced in thousands of years of history that people have been that Chinese medicine clinicians have written about in the classics. And so, so the idea of like what. So we’ll get exposed to these beautiful phrases in Chinese medicine like running piglet. She. Right. So that’s the idea. The sensation of like a piglet galloping up from the, from the pubic bone up through the chest. Well that’s a panic attack for some people. You know, it’s like, so, you know, so it’s like, it’s different language, but it’s like some people experience the sensation of rushing. That happens up in the middle of their bodies as though there’s like a stampede happened, you know, and it’s like, oh, well that’s a phrase from the classics or sensation in the throat of a plum plumpish ci as is like something stuck in my throat that I can’t quite swallow or spit out and it’s just kind of there.
Brodie Welch:
18:18 It’s like, well ,let’s it so we know what to do for that. You know, not every symptom, but it’s a lot of times, we have a way of looking at it or a way of at least constructing a story about what might be happening within the ecosystem based on the organ systems as we understand them, which is not just like your liver that you know and love or your heart that you know and love, but these organs that are responsible for a pathway on the surface of the body, a sensory organ, a dimension of your emotional life and your intellectual life. Really I mentioned to the entire universe is qi, your energy, and you refract it through a prism, you can see all the different colors, right?
Brodie Welch: 18:55 And so you can look at, and that’s basically what Chinese medicine does is, all the energy in the body, we’re going to break it down into these different systems that that encompass body, mind and spiritual stuff and we’re going to figure out what’s what. And so a lot of times it becomes really clear just because it’s such a different lens or a framework that you’re seeing yourself in and then instead of thinking of, I’m this sack of meat and this is not working within my body. It’s like I’m a living river of energy and I’m changing all the time and right now this is the system that’s out of balance and here’s what I can do to get back in balance. And so it’s a much more empowering view. Both are equally valid in the realm of physics. Just one is Newtonian and one is quantum.
Jen Hardy: 19:40
Well, that’s awesome. Wow. I love it because it’s such a different way of looking at things and it’s just so it’s exciting to me, and listening to you is so exciting to me because you got,
Brodie Welch: 19:55
Well, you know, I never want people to stop looking for answers, and it may not be that Chinese medicine has those answers for each and every human being out there. Sometimes it’s seeing the right chiropractor, or physical therapist, or the right structural integrator, the right craniosacral person. I mean there’s a zillion stripes of healing out there, but some are well known in some arts, but the idea that there’s not one path and that really when we t think that sort of like our current dominant system of medicine that, that is in control and calls the shots is neutral, you know, and like isn’t influenced by, for example, pharmaceutical companies is, is really kind of naive. And so, why not just why not be advocates for ourselves and our own wellbeing, and look outside the box and which is not 100 percent like western has saved my life for sure? You know? And the lives of many people I love, I’m not knocking it, it’s just not the only game in town. And I think it’s really, really important for, for patients at people, people in their capacity as patients to to figure out what’s gonna work for them.
Jen Hardy: 21:03
That’s great. I noticed on your website that you also do some coaching, and I was looking through the kinds of things that you do and one of the things you listed who it who it is for and who it is it for. And one of the people you said it isn’t for, “people who aren’t ready to let go of the bragging rights that come from being stressed out and tired all the time.” And I thought, well I’m so glad that isn’t me. But then when I really thought, it hit a nerve in me for some reason. And the reason was because to some degree that is me, Right? Because I’ve written a book called The Sick Mom’s Guide and you know, my podcast is the Sick Mom’s Guide, and that’s kind of my identity right now. Right? Is being the sick mom.
Jen Hardy: 21:40
And so I do try to focus on the positive and all that, but I really stopped and kind of thought how much of my time do I spend thinking about whether it’s, , and sometimes expressing it outwardly more than I should, about being that sick person and complaining about stress and all that kind of stuff. And it’s definitely more than I would like to think. So I wanted to talk to you a little bit about that. Because I think if someone is listening and that kind of strikes a chord with them to, do you have a way to help them change that thinking?
Brodie Welch: 22:15
That’s a really rich question. And I first of all want to just honor your honesty. I really, I think that being willing to be vulnerable. And be like, wow, there actually might be some secondary gain to my identity as a sick person, right? Like that. Really, identity identity can mean a lot of things. But the way that I’m going to think about this, this word is like that, that if is our sense of who we are in the world. It’s not truly who we are in the world, it’s, but it’s a belief about ourselves, right? So like, I identify as a woman, a mother, a sick person, a healthy person, a florist an architect, like whatever it is that we do, you know, these, any labels that we put on our hobbies or our career, our roles in life, they don’t encompass our entire being, right?
Brodie Welch: 23:08 None of them describe who we are professionally is very different than who we are and our social lives or who we are and our families. And so, when we get too attached to these labels, we limit our potential for being other things, right, you know, like, so and, and, and when we. So when we over identify with, for example, like wearing, like of like being busy for example, like, well what does that do for us? Like, okay, well if we’re busy we know that we’re doing enough because our society, if we’re going to break it down into Yin and Yang really values the young much more than the yin. I’m trying to define these terms a little bit. Yang being the active, the external, the hot, the productive that you know, so like the, how it looks over how it feels, the, the doing over the being of the speed over the rest, the etc.
Brodie Welch: 23:59 Right. The, there’s, there’s, we can, we can think about how young addicted our society is and that goes from materialism and ,the idea that you can buy your way to happiness too. Like The, you know, capitalism idea of that our self worth is predicated on how much we get done in a day. And when we say that we’re busy, you know, like even if we’re busy, not in the economy at large, but we’re busy with our kids or we’re busy, we’re doing a with the people in our lives or with our projects or you know, whatever it is that, gets our time. This idea of frenzied activity that isn’t necessarily purposeful and that feels it depleting and exhausting. It gets in the way of us being able to make the decisions that are truly in alignment with what we know. Right? So it basically.
Brodie Welch: 24:46 So for me, you know, I’m a busy person. I like being a busy person. I like being type A. And you know, I consider myself a recovering type A because I’ve really had to put those, those tendencies in check in order to not run myself into the ground. And ended up in the position of that I see way too many of my patients. And so it’s like you’ve got to be able to, to let go of the approval. You get the, the accolades, the societal admiration for how much you get done. Right? You know, that there’s, respect paid to people who are working themselves into the ground. Whereas if you were to be chatting with the other moms afterschool or you know, like just waiting for a, watching a kids game and you’re, on the field and you’re chatting with the other moms.
Brodie Welch: 25:34 What if somebody was like, “I had the best day. I did exactly what I felt like doing. I rested when I was tired. I did my joy. I made dinner for the, the people that I loved”. What kind of response would that be likely to get? Would that person be cheered, or would that person be looked at with suspicion and jealousy, you know, like just that all sorts of judgment would go up? And this is from women, right? We’re socialized. I, this is my self care is a feminist issue, stump box speech coming up here. But, but I fundamentally believe that in a society where women have to work harder than men to get the same amount of money and where women are expected to do the second shift at the end of the day after work have kids and, and housework and all that.
Brodie Welch: 26:18 I’ve seen moms with stage four cancer who still feel like they have to make their kids lunches and breakfast and show up to all the, you know, like the afterschool stuff, even when it’s like absolutely depleting to them. Part of it is because their heart’s in it, and they absolutely want to. But the other half is what I have a problem with. And that is they know they’re overextending, they know they’re doing too much and they know they’re going to pay a price for it. And that’s the part that I really want to solve the question of. When are we out of integrity with our own energy? And when are overriding our own inner wisdom? Because anytime we do that, we’re telling ourselves we are not worth taking care of. And that is a lie.
Jen Hardy: 26:58
I’m just letting that sink in for a second because that is so, I think that’s a societal thing that we have, right, is that we shouldn’t really take the time to take care of ourselves because we shouldn’t be busy and taking care of other people.
Brodie Welch: 27:10
You should be giving your life force to everything but you.
Jen Hardy: 27:14
You’re lazy if you don’t.
Brodie Welch: 27:15
Yes, exactly.
Jen Hardy: 27:16
Is the unspoken, is really the unspoken thing because I know even with me, um, I have muscular dystrophy. And so my muscles are like more rapidly wasting now and I know I should say and I know I should rest. But it’s the same thing as like the stage four. You know, I will last longer if I will just relax. But it’s, it is, it’s really hard, but it is in the back of my head. Are those women, like you were saying on the soccer field, right? And they’re saying, oh, well you just sat around all day, did what you wanted? And you know, good about it. Like who are you to sit or do you do that?
Brodie Welch: 27:16 Exactly. Exactly, right.
Jen Hardy: 27:48 Why shouldn’t I do that? Why shouldn’t you do that too? We should all do that.
Brodie Welch: 27:52 Exactly. And when we get to support each other,
Jen Hardy: 27:55 yeah, get a job you liked, so you’re happy during the day and you’re not frustrated during the day. So then you’re not judging me.
Brodie Welch: 28:03
Exactly. I used to take offense. When I would go on vacation for example, like my patients would. I remember this day, that’s one woman was like, you know, I was going on vacation and I was so overworked. I was like, you know, I was treating so many way more patients a week than I should’ve been. I was getting as not nearly enough sleep. I was a not sustainable situation. I was giving way too much away. And it was like the kind of thing where, it’s like burnout is real, you know, especially among caregivers. And especially among people, in the healing arts. We’re susceptible to it, especially as women. But I was going on vacation, and this person said what? She made some snide like, oh well that must be nice, and I was just, I was just so furious. I was like, you have no idea. And so the next time somebody said something like that, I vowed to answer differently. And so now I’m like, you know what? Yeah, like I’m going on vacation and so should you. You know? Like even if it’s a staycation, why not just take a day, read a book in your backyard? Just order some healthy takeout.
Brodie Welch: 29:06 Just just like take a day off and appreciate your being. Because none of us know how long we’re going to have on this planet and you know, like whether we identify as a sick person or as a healthy person by the way, don’t know which I am. Right? I’m 41 years old. I went through menopause at 36. I was delta weird gallbladder that like never had stones or gravel, but western medicine told me I was fine for 20 years. I was having attacks that would take me out for five days at a time, to the point of not being able to eat or breathe without pain, that I would work through because I was “fine.” And it wasn’t until I decent health insurance, they did the right tests and they’re like, oh, you don’t have stones or gravel, but your gallbladder doesn’t work at all.
Brodie Welch: 29:45 And by the way it’s totally inflamed. And yeah. So like I had it taken out. I haven’t had problems since, in five years. But it caused all these other problems. And so I’ve also had back pain since I was a teenager. But I’m wicked strong and I could do power yoga. And it’s the kind of thing where it’s like, yeah, when I identify as somebody who is vulnerable, it totally changes how energetically I’m available for other people. Versus where I try to amplify what is working about my body and listen to what it needs. Because those times when like I was in pain, it took me a long time before realizing that actually that, trying to hide the fact that I was in pain and trying to isolate from it.
Brodie Welch: 30:26
I felt like I was a burden on other people, because it was taking so much effort for me to show up with positive energy in my family. So I would like go hide. I would take myself away from the family. Now, of course, if I had bothered to listen, they would have said it’s okay to be in a bad mood. It’s okay to be irritable because you’re in pain. We still want you around. But I didn’t really even let them have that choice. I would just go isolate myself. and so it’s the kind of thing where , okay, yes, there’s nothing I could have done or taken that like ever touched the amount of pain I was in. I mean like acupuncture, drugs, whatever, nothing would help. But I was definitely shooting the second arrow myself of that judgment of like, you’re not worthy of being around other humans.
Brodie Welch: 31:12 It’s not okay for you to just be how you are. And so I feel like it taught me a lot about, about being willing to just be vulnerable. And be like, yep, you know what, I’m at like 10 percent capacity today. Maybe the best I can do is come home and collapse, you know. Maybe, that’s all I’ve got. But the quality of my presence, the quality of being able to, to be emotionally available to listen, goes away up when I am operating and respecting what my body is telling me on a day to day basis. And so anyway, what I’m saying is that is, I’ve also learned sort of like my wounded healer journey, you know, in, in the sort of, in a lot of regards that it judging myself harshly for it was not helpful.
Brodie Welch: 32:04 And, deciding that I’m actually taking a self-compassionate route is something that I’m a big fan of. And something that I teach a lot in my coaching program. That we approach everything with self-compassion because most of us do not need more, should shoulds, more things that we feel like we need to be doing in order to be acceptable or worthy, but we need to be doing is having more compassion, not more judgment. What we need to be doing is honoring our yin, that which is restful, that which is rejuvenating. That’s just that which is soft and feminine and intuitive inward. And be able to honor that because we can’t have good yang productivity outward. You know, anything without good yin. and that’s really the definition of health and chinese medicine, is that there’s a balance of yin and yang. And that, just that yin yang symbol that I’m sure most people are familiar with, that it’s not two rectangles side by side.
Brodie Welch: 33:00 It’s a model of the universe that involves interplay between yin and yang. And we all know that you can’t have a good productive day without a good solid nights’ sleep, you know? Or that, just at least multiply that times five, and you’re not going to have a productive day. You’re going to be running on fumes. And yet we look at the energetics of life. We want it to be daytime all the time. We want it to be summer all the time. We, expect that of ourselves, without seeing the beauty in going yin and really honoring our yin. So it’s the kind of thing where I would say, if you take nothing else from this podcast, is recognizing that it’s actually quite a radical act and a feminist act of self respect to allow yourself to rest when you’re tired, for example.
Jen Hardy: 33:43
That’s awesome. Yeah. And it’s not easy to do, but we know.
Brodie Welch: 33:48
No, it is not easy to do.
Jen Hardy: 33:50
Well. And along the lines of self-talk, you had mentioned on episode 100 of your podcast, that you used to struggle with what you called, a “vicious inner critic.”
Brodie Welch: 34:00
Oh yeah, she’s still there
Jen Hardy: 34:03
I had gotten a book called the Optimistic Child because I had a child who was not optimistic, so I was trying to help her. The whole first chapter was to the parent, about our own inner voice, and how we talk to ourselves. And how that decides who we are and then how we talk to our children. And then how they feel. So it just reminded me of that because that’s something that I’ve been conscious of. Still struggle with it a little bit. Like you were saying, do you have a way, or how did you overcome that more? Or do you have advice for people for how to tame that inner critic?
Brodie Welch: 34:40
Yeah. Oh, I’ve done several episodes on this on A Healthy Curiosity. My show. I also wrote an article for the Huffington Post about it. Basically, I became an an instaparent. I married a widower, and I suddenly found myself with fulltime step children who were eight and 12. And suddenly having these small witnesses in my home made me aware of just how negative my self talk was. I had always known that I sort of tore myself down internally, and be berated myself, for even the smallest infractions. And so I found the work of Kristin Neff. She has a book on self compassion. I forget the title exactly, but a huge shout out to that because I, really put myself through a crash course in self compassion practices. And took that to my meditation cushion, and to my yoga mat, and just started trying to have a kinder inner dialogue and trying to just recognize, first of all, my words. Do I talk to myself differently than I would talk to my best friend, or my sister, or my mother, somebody I really respected? And the answer was no.
Brodie Welch: 35:55
I say terrible things to myself. So it was like, first of all, just like getting impeccable with my words. And that’s that four agreements idea. Dawn Nichole Ruiz, I believe. Anyway, be impeccable with your words. So just not say, “oh, this is killing me.” or “that’s the worst.” Or, I’m a terrible human being, you know? Just to be really clear, only speak that which you believe to be true in your heart of hearts. And then recognizing the other piece of Kristin Neff’s work that I really like, is common humanity and recognizing that the expectations I had on myself were totally unrealistic. And in fact, my husband Jeremy, he jokes with me that, “someday you’re going to look at me with the same critical eye that you look at yourself and I’m not going to measure up and I’m terrified of that happening.”
Brodie Welch: 36:41
And I’m like, no, but I love you. And I’m like, oh, right. That’s the problem. ‘Cause I theoretically love me too. But in terms of my expectations for myself, are ridiculous. Because I am my own boss, as an entrepreneur, I’m like, if I actually were two different people, I would quit because my boss expects me to do the job of 10 people, and there’s no way. There’s not enough hours in the day. I can’t possibly do it all. So kind of thinking about my inner dialogue and my inner expectations of myself, is like, what if I were an employee employer relationship? Or what if I were in a partnership with myself? What if there was an inner me that I was responsible for caring for? Like one of my kids? What would I want her to believe is okay? Self compassion is an attitude.
Brodie Welch: 37:38
And really I think self care is self compassion in action, right? If we think about the yin and the yang, one is an attitude that we take are to ourselves and the other is the way that we demonstrate that attitude. It’s like, how should we act if we really believed that we were worthy of love? How would we act if we really believed that we were as worthy of care as our best friend? And, would I push myself to do as much on a daily basis? Would I stay up as late? Would I, overfeed myself things that aren’t necessarily nourishing? As opposed to, what I really need is rest? When I really need is companionship, or support, something like that? I probably wouldn’t do half the things that are not good for me, if I just am operating from a place of truly being on my side, which starts with a mindset.
Jen Hardy: 38:31
Great. Well that is very helpful. And I liked the boss employee thing. “Cause yeah, I would, definitely quit my job.
Brodie Welch:
38:41 We’ve got to negotiate with ourselves for like, you know, and, and, and really it’s that idea of, what do you need from me, \and how can I support you? Whether this dialogue is with our bodies or even with our illness. You know, it really is a pet peeve of mine when people have nicknames for their illness. You know, it’s like, oh yeah, I have fibro.Like you and fibromyalgia, you’re like tight, you know? And I say it as this hackneyed thing, But there’s a certain amount of, again, who would you be without your disease?
Brodie Welch: 39:28 In identifying with that disease, are you possibly limiting the potential for feeling better? You know, because again, like in chinese medicine, the first thing that I’m supposed to do is strip away the labels and just look at the person’s actual experience. And then put the labels back and understand it, differently. But, it’s the kind of thing where, you know, chronic fatigue for example, it’s like that looks different depending on who you are. And for some people it’s just, what is this? What is this version of this illness? How is it showing up for you? Anxiety, depression, these are big labels, big tents, you know? All of us are very unique, and how things show up in our bodies. And it is to be honored and appreciated and, and tended to in a unique way. Right? and so, so being able to talk to the parts that hurt. If your back hurts, what do you need from me today, you know? Do you need me to lie down for 15 minutes with my legs up the wall? And then we might be willing to do the dishes. Okay, I can work with you, you know, that kind of thing. Which is like enables us to be functional even with the kind of limitations that we might be dealing with.
Jen Hardy: 40:42
All right. So what, what advice would you give if you had one piece of advice to give to a woman with a chronic illness, what would that one piece of advice be?
Brodie Welch:
40:50 Be good to yourself. Yeah, just, I think I just said it, you know? Just treat yourself with the same with the same respect you would have for any other human on the planet, and radiate your self respect with your daily actions.
Jen Hardy: 41:07
That’s awesome. Okay. And then my big thing is, that there is no supermom, right? We have to get rid of supermom, superwoman or whatever. But that each one of us has a superpower. So what would you say your superpower is?
Brodie Welch:
41:21 It depends on the context. You know,? Like Walt Whitman, right? That I am large, I contain multitudes. So my super power I’m in clinic might be different than my superpower in leading a retreat, which might be different than my superpower having a conversation. But I would say that two of my superpowers that I think I blend really well. are compassion and strategy. Right? I can bring in my heart and my brain, and come up with solutions for people. And I’m pretty proud of that, you know? That in and of itself is honoring a yin-yang wholeness, right? Both the masculine and the feminine. And the more we do that, the more integrated we are, and the more full out presence becomes.
Jen Hardy: 42:04
Yeah, that truly is a superpower to be able to blend those two things because a lot of people have a strength in one or the other. But to be able to put them together, it was awesome. So if somebody is listening and they think, oh my gosh, this woman is amazing and I would love to work with her, how could they do that?
Brodie Welch: 42:21
Well, they can head to brodiewelch.com. Brodie with an ie, Welch with a ch. And that is where you can learn about all the ways that I potentially work with people. My signature coaching program is an opportunity to get together with other people who are serious about self-care, and actually bridging the gap between what we think we need to be doing to take care of ourselves, and actually doing it. And so it’s the kind of thing that, whether you are someone with chronic illness, or whether you are someone who does not want to become chronically ill, it doesn’t really matter. It’s all the same stuff that every health expert that I interview on healthy curiosity, says the same thing. Whether they’re a brain doctor, or a cardiologist, or a skin person, no matter what the expertIse is. The advice comes back to we all need to be eating nourishing foods, we all need to be getting enough sleep, we all need to be honoring our hearts, and being connected with our community.
We all need to be having a body mind practice, and a flow of emotions that allows us to be present in our daily lives. And so these are the kinds of things that are really easy to know, and really hard to do. Because life gets in the way, and because we’ve got these egos strategies that prevent us from actually doing the things. And so I combined a behavior science, habit change approach. With the wisdom of ayurveda yoga and chinese medicine. And the support of a community of people who are banding together, not to stay stuck in where they are with illness, which is another thing that can happen like in support groups. Even the most well intentioned, is that what happens when you get better? You know, do you lose all your friends? It can be nice to have people who are aligned around this idea of evolution and personal growth. In addition to feeling better, having more energy, having more mobility, losing weight, whatever it is. And so, yeah, I would say, listen to the podcast, head to brodiewelch.com. Feel free to reach out over email. I’m actually brodie@brodiewelch.com.
Jen Hardy: 44:18
Okay. And I have links to all of that in the show notes and more. Because, we’ve got all kinds of things! And so I just want to thank you so much for being here today. You have given me so many great things to think about, and I love it . So thank you for taking the time to do that.
Brodie Welch: 44:32
Oh, it’s been a pleasure, Jen. Thanks for having me.
Jen Hardy: 44:36
Thanks again Brodie for being with me today. That was an amazing conversation! Today I learned so many things, and things that I already knew were really reinforced. Like, taking care of myself should feel okay. Because I don’t know about you, but a lot of times I feel like I should be taking care of everybody else, and putting my needs last. And that really isn’t true. Because if I’m not well, then I can’t take care of anybody else as well as I could. Right? Also, spending money to take care of myself as important. I did do that when I needed the acupuncture, and what I was feeling really horrible, but sometimes when I’m feeling mildly horrible, I don’t want to spend the money to take care of myself. And thank you already for reminding me that yes, it’s important. I is more important than going and buying the kids’ toys, or all these auxiliary things that we’re all spending money on, when we don’t feel well. And we could potentially feel a lot better, if we focused on the things that make us feel better.
Jen Hardy: 45:35 Also, I really need to use a more positive inner voice. I thought I had conquered it, but when I really listen, I notice I’m telling myself a lot of negative things that I don’t need to. So if that’s you, I encourage you to join me in talking to myself better. Also, if you want to join me in my group, I have a group called Chronically Positive Moms. Right now we’re on Facebook. I think we’re going to move over to the website very soon. It’s a very exciting. So we have a little bit more privacy, but for right now you can jump in there. Join us, and then you’ll know about the move. And, I’d love to know what you learned today. If you want to shoot me an email, jen@hesickmomsguide.com. I read and respond to every single one of them.
Jen Hardy: 46:17 So if you want to connect with me, those are two great places to do that. I want to thank you again for listening, because I really value your time, and an hour is a lot of time for you to listen. So thank you for that. This episode was sponsored by the book, The Sick Mom’s Guide to Having Fun Again: If I can do it, you can too. I am the author of that book. You can find it on Amazon. There will be a link in the show notes. Our music is A New Day by Scott Holmes, and I look forward to talking to you next week.