Laughing Through The Pain: Navigating Wellness
Welcome to Laughing Through the Pain: Navigating Wellness. A podcast about the wellness industry, breathwork, bio-hacking, exercise, and mental health. Designed to help regular people and practitioners find their way through the confusing, conflicting, and often untrustworthy world of wellness. While at the same time trying to make you laugh. Hosted by Richard and Andy. Richard Blake, AKA the Breath Geek, is a PhD psychologist, breathworker, bio-hacker, and amateur CrossFit athlete. Andy, aka the the funny one, has his bachelor's in psychology and helps to avoid the curse of knowledge by asking the questions the experts don’t think to answer. They want to help you avoid making the same mistakes they made while trying to make their way through all things wellness - subscribe and like the podcast now.
Laughing Through The Pain: Navigating Wellness
Can women find true success without sacrificing their femininity?
Explore the intricate balance of nurturance, creativity, and energy within relationships. MC discusses how societal pressures push women to fit into a masculine-driven world, often leading to a disconnection from their true selves. We highlight the journey towards reclaiming one's desires for love and creativity, and the hurdles faced when transitioning from a work mode to a space of intimacy and connection. This episode also bravely critiques the life coaching industry, shedding light on the lack of integrity and embodiment in some of its practices.
Discover the profound concepts of radical acceptance and embodied leadership as MC guides us through the journey of connecting with our bodies and emotions. We explore how understanding and managing masculine and feminine dynamics are crucial for personal growth and healthier relationships. From the benefits of prayer and ceremonial work to addressing the mental health crisis among men, this episode offers a holistic approach towards achieving balance. Tune in and gain valuable insights on maintaining humility and integrity in both personal and professional arenas.
Find us on Instagram
Richard @The_Breath_Geek
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl_gOq4wzRjwkwdjYycAeng
Webiste - www.TheBreathGeek.com
Please leave us a review, like and subscribe.
Hello and welcome to Laughing Through the Pain Navigating Wellness with me, andrew Esam, my co-host, dr Richard L Blake, and today we will be speaking to MC Charette, who is a feminine embodiment coach, ceremonial guide and movement facilitator. I don't know about you, rich, but I quite like speaking to people who specialize in the feminine, because I learn a hell of a lot and it's not something we can ever speak to, really. So what do you think?
Speaker 2:yeah, we definitely gonna learn a lot in this episode about masculine feminine dynamics. You know this kind of trendy word. You know to be in one's masculine, to be in one's feminine. We're gonna find out why that's, that's good, and and what happens when you're not in your masculine or your feminine. Uh and yeah, mc is a real uh, she's a real wealth of knowledge around masculine and feminine dynamics and she is, uh, also a biohacker as well. So she's got that kind of perspective of a kind of modern approach to spirituality and wellness and things like that, which I think people are going to enjoy. I think they're also going to enjoy her accent. We had a lot of comments on the podcast recently. She's from the american south, she lived in texas, but she's got a real nice southern drawl and I think that's good for our English listeners.
Speaker 1:She speaks with a lot of integrity and authenticity and also she's very open and vulnerable and honest. I think that always comes across really, really well.
Speaker 2:We ask her some challenging questions about have men let women down? Has the feminist movement gone too far? We'll hear her takes on that as well as um what it means to be a somatic coach and ceremonial work the importance of ceremonial work. And also we ask our new classic questions what makes her laugh and what's about the?
Speaker 1:life coaching industry. So, and I also like that, we speak a little bit about prayer, which is something that's perhaps a forgotten art or something that people have rejected with more traditional religion, and actually I find it super helpful. So we'll get her thoughts and your thoughts and my thoughts on that.
Speaker 2:All right, enjoy, lesnar. We'll see you in about 55 minutes. Hey listener, quick favour, quick favour. Do you like my Stephen Bartlett impression there? Do you know? What would really help us is if you could share this podcast with someone you love, if you think it's good, and if you don't think it's good, share it with someone you don't love. Either way, we get more listeners, which is good for us and will be good for you in the long run, because of karma and going to heaven, maybe. So, yeah, maybe. Share that you are listening to it. Share on Instagram, take a screenshot of our episode and put it out there, and maybe we'll give you a shout out as well. Mc, you help hyper-masculine women embody their femininity. So have women become too masculine?
Speaker 3:Oh, wow, Okay great. Have women become too masculine? I would say women have since the you know. I mean they've really begun to rely on masculine ways of functioning in order to get ahead. And you know I work with really high performing women, so you know they're in the workplace, they're in, you know, high levels, you know whether they're a founder entrepreneur and oftentimes, in order to arrive at where they've arrived, they've a founder entrepreneur and oftentimes, in order to arrive at where they've arrived, the only thing they've known to do really is to kind of harness masculine ways of being. So, to answer your question, I would say it's so nuanced because I would hate to say, yes, they've become too masculine.
Speaker 3:But what I have noticed, and what I see across the board with my clients, with my friends, is that the dial on masculine functioning has been really turned up, whereas the dial on feminine receptivity has been really either turned down or not utilized at all.
Speaker 3:And so what I find to be really useful is to support a woman in first of all.
Speaker 3:Let's just turn the dial on these hyper-masculine functionings which, in another way of saying this, you could probably say like in just hyper-doing or over-functioning or over-giving, and I say the word over, because these qualities of the masculine are wonderful being a giver and a protector, and these ways of being and yet it's when it's just a little too high that I see a ton of ailments within the physical body happen and not getting what you want in sex and relationships.
Speaker 3:These are the things that women come to me and say they're experiencing and they don't even know that it's usually a result of the speaker system being so loud on how they're functioning in the world and that doing behavior, how they're functioning in the world and that doing behavior. And when we look to the left, let's just say the areas of being are really not utilized and so that's what we get to work at doing. It's like where's the being volume in your life? So I would say, to answer your question directly, knowing that it's really nuanced, but I would say yes, I believe that, on the whole, women are functioning far more like a man than is actually giving them what they want. Say yes, I believe that, on the whole, women have are functioning far more like a man than is actually giving them what they want.
Speaker 1:So, yes, and you mentioned that, like women are coming to you who realize this, I suppose how would you kind of reach out or help those who maybe don't know that that is the case or that they are kind of going that way?
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, it's funny because I don't actually use this language they don't. Well, sometimes they're aware enough to say, okay, I'm functioning in my masculine, but oftentimes they just come to me and they say I'm exhausted, I'm not having the sex I want, I'm not actually, I don't. I haven't called in that partner that I'm really longing for. You know, I'm in my late thirties, early forties and I've got all the success in all these other areas of my life, but something is deeply missing and specifically I want to partner in a family. I mean, this is an epidemic that we're facing here and we could go into deep conversations about the feminist movement that started in the 60s and the introduction of the birth control pill and how that really fundamentally transformed women in the workplace and what's happening there. But I think right now we're experiencing a pretty large net negative to that movement, to the feminist movement.
Speaker 3:But again, going back to your question, they don't necessarily know I'm hyper-masculine functioning. If they could say anything, andy, they would say something. And they do say something, like I feel like I need to get into my feminine because they've heard it somewhere. But they don't even really know what that means. And that's okay, you know, I understand that, but the real thing that has them come crawling to me in some sense is like I'm freaking exhausted. I'm exhausted and I don't have the relationship I want Tends to be the things. That's really the high pain point for these type women who are very successful in other areas.
Speaker 2:Yeah, going back to that first question, I did kind of make it a black or white and you did give us a black or white answer. I think that there is nuance. I think the you know, the feminist revolution has worked for a lot of people, but not necessarily everyone, not necessarily these burnt out women, these women who come to you with unhappy in their relationships, and I sometimes I've heard it say before, like in um sort of uh, black women have said you know, white women, why do you get to speak to all, for all? Feminists? And I think, further to that, like it's not just you know, going back to just all women, I think feminists shouldn't speak for all women, because there certainly are women who don't necessarily want to be ceos or presidents or prime ministers or soccer players or whatever they they want to be doing.
Speaker 2:There are a lot of women who really value the traditional role and why is that not okay? Why is it not okay to to aspire to be a great mother or a great housekeeper or a great you know parent or wife or things like that? I think that's become so undervalued. It's almost now like the past. It was like you were shamed if you wanted a career. Now you're shamed. If you want to be a great mother, are you in agreement with that?
Speaker 3:I am in full agreement with that and I think that's exactly what we're seeing here and it's really beautiful to see a return to wait a minute. I actually am nurturing and I want to express that nurturance in the world, and that might be through having giving birth to a child, and that might also just be through really activating and opening into the creative potential that I am as a woman and creating the space and time to preserve that part of me, the part of me that longs to nurture and create that I've really had to put aside, or chosen to put aside because of the cultural narrative that in order to win in this world, you need to basically override your body's signals for what you need to work more, push more, be more. You know and again I love what you're saying, richard that's gotten us to a certain place. I really believe that we had to, and again, I can't speak for all women, but the women who did choose this narrative and chose to like you know, and God bless, because it's gotten us so far as in equality, if you want to call it that but they really had to disconnect from I'm thinking in this moment I don't want to sound but disconnect from their womb space in order to forget again when. So, yes, I agree with that, I agree that with what you're sharing about the difference there, and I'm seeing a lot more women.
Speaker 3:Just, it's really beautiful to see these otherwise high-powered women saying I want to be in love and I want a child. It's like, yeah, man, and that's beautiful and natural. And if that's not what you want, then that's beautiful and natural as well. But you get to be in that choice. And I think we're seeing a lot more of that, a really beautiful moment of women being like okay, you know, the boss girl era is kind of dying. Calm down everybody. What do you, as an individual woman, really want and what does that mean to you? And so, again, the ones who find their way to me are the ones who are yeah, there's a longing inside for more.
Speaker 1:Has there been any kind of pushback to the work you're doing then? Any opposition.
Speaker 3:Not that I've experienced. I think the first thing that comes to mind, andy, on that is just that I have my tend to run my work by referral base, and so I haven't yet I'm just now in the positioning of myself into a more front, facing messaging, and so I will have to get back to you on that, because up until now I've been enjoying the luxury of just getting to, yeah, people who love my work recommend me, and then we just keep going down the river, yeah.
Speaker 1:You seem a lot more likable than Rich. He's constantly getting bashed for his work, so you know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, and I was. Another thing that I thought, andy, is that I have yet to really take a stance that would be polarizing. Is that I have yet to really take a stance that would be polarizing? I don't know if that's really my style, but if it ever is something I feel called to do, I will speak to it. I think the place where I'm really feeling called to be polarizing if it does occur is that when I begin to speak of the coaching industry as a whole, you know, and the lack of integrity I see and the lack of embodiment I've experienced and, yeah, people are really good marketers- but not necessarily good practitioners, but don't get me started on that in the moment.
Speaker 2:We will. We're rich, yeah, we will get you started. Brilliant, excellent. We've got more questions to come on that. I do want to talk about the coaching industry now that you've brought that up, but I also just want to continue on the masculine feminine dynamic. So I do see people, friends, who have really bought into this idea of you know there is no such thing as gender roles and, uh, you know, we women are just the same as men and men are just the same as women. Men need to be more feminine and more emotional and women need to be more masculine and more like presidential and ceos and they often they don't have great sex lives because, you know, the woman is more masculine than the man and the man is more feminine than the woman and the woman is standing in the masculine space and there's no space for the man to be a man and hence there's no sexual attraction. This is coming from the work of David Deida, but that sounded like what you were speaking to there. So what do you prescribe for that kind of problem?
Speaker 3:You opened up a whole thing. I mean just the narrative happening right now in gender identity. That would be speaking way out of my depth. But going to your direct question regarding how do I speak to this, I work with this in a really practical way. What you're really referring to, and I guess what I see more in my practice, is women who have been at the computer all day, who have been functioning in that masculine way. What you're really referring to, and guess what I see more in my practice, is women who have been at the computer all day, who have been functioning in that masculine way, who have been doing what they do, building their empires, let's just call it, you know, for lack of a better term. And then they expect themselves to be able to switch instantly into openness and connection and intimacy with their partner, whether it's a female or a male partner, but let's just say it's a partner that holds that masculine energy. But they've been in this masculine space. Well, now you've just got like the polar opposites, trying to connect. And so you know again, they've been working all day, they try to go to in the kitchen and making dinner, for instance, and what I've found so often, even though there's love let's just call it love between the two of them.
Speaker 3:Women like this. They will get like, be touched and their whole nervous systems will contract and they don't want any touch. And yeah, there's just a narrative that we're expected as women and we put this pressure on ourselves and we just haven't been taught, quite frankly, like, how to do this whole thing. And so I have a practice that I, for instance, like I have a really specific 15 minute, almost 20 minute practice that I give my clients and I can actually share with anyone who would want it which is from moving from computer to connection is what I call it, or really what it's doing. It's actually coming back into an erotic reset, resetting your erotic energy. It's not necessary that you're using your erotic energy when you're working during the day, so in a practical sense, it's really helping women to begin to dispel the energy from being on the computer all day to really just letting go of that part, so that they can then begin to awaken into and back home to their true essence and then begin to connect with their loved ones and family.
Speaker 3:Does that make sense? Yeah, and these are practices. My whole practice is based on practice and I think, without practices like literal embodiment practices, practices where we get into our body, we move, sound breath. For women especially that's who I work with yeah, we're just, we are doomed because the energy will stay primarily in our heads. And then we think we don't understand why we don't want to have sex. We don't understand why we don't feel pleasure. We don't understand why we're not actually experiencing what we want in intimacy. It's like, well, all of your primary energy is in your head and that's let's get it into the body.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you mentioned a bit about practices and your practice is all about practicing. Can you talk a bit more about how you, how you start working with someone, how you kind of introduce some of this?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know the way I've found and I've been coaching for you know I took a large. I took about six years off from coaching, but I did start in like 2010, but the time in which I took off because I was in no space to be coaching anybody. So it was time for me to get my own medicine and deepen in my own embodiment what it was I wanted to teach. So, anyway, what I've discovered in the past couple of years is that when a client comes to work with me, one of the most profound ways that we can actually ensure transformation happening is by setting a very clear container as to the work we're setting out to do. And I really work in a ceremonial way. It doesn't mean I need to be using plant medicine, but ceremonial speaking up to we are like really calling your soul and your body, like in your future, to the forefront of this intention, and so one of the first ways in which I work with women is really getting clear on that and coming into like a prayerful, ceremonial opening to our work together. Then, practically speaking, you know, one of the places that I've found we always start is in really approving of exactly where she is like, helping her to really arrive in absolute approval of exactly where her body is, exactly where her nervous system is, exactly where her relationships are, finances, and we do that, you know, obviously through talking. But I have a couple of different practices in which working with her live. Of course, we do some somatic work together, but ultimately, giving her some things that she can do when we're not together, that is really just bathing in the okayness of exactly where she is. I found that, to set out on any journey, that this is exactly where we need to start, because so much of the issues that we as women face are because of the criticisms we place on ourselves, and I found that this really does. About 85% of the work is actually just accepting where we are. And then, ultimately, that's the work that we're doing is I'm really supporting a woman into being in an embodied place of no matter what is occurring in her life. She's able to be in full acceptance and non-resistance to what is, and so we start there and we kind of continue there.
Speaker 3:Does that answer that question? And then we build from that, yeah, yeah. And then we build from that. We see, okay, how do we get into the deeper nuances here? Okay, so what are some practices that we can stack on top of radical acceptance, and then how? Skill depends on how developed the woman is in personal development and her skills. We can go as deep into going into alchemy, where we're now, we're utilizing and we're kind of accessing feelings of stress and anxiety and overwhelm and she's able to now tap into those feelings that have otherwise, you know, pervaded and ruined her life and now she can actually expand into them and be a non-resistance to them and utilize them for the turn on in her body. That's a pretty high level but, depending on the level of woman I work with, this is where we can go. And now she's just the alchemist of pure sensation and then her everything begins to open up. That's where it gets really fun.
Speaker 2:So you mentioned about sort of like calling in a future self. I think so what does the ideal modern woman look like? You know, someone who does want a successful career but then may also want a family. What are they embodying? What practices are they doing? What values do they hold?
Speaker 3:I love this question so much. It reminds me of when Hillary Clinton was running for president and I remember watching her speaking of like let's talk about, like the ultimate embodiment the president of the United States and I remember, without any shade to Hillary herself personally, I just thought, well, this wouldn't necessarily be that we had an embodied feminine leader. We would have a woman leader, but it's not that she's necessarily embodied in her feminine. My experience at least, of her from afar is not a woman that is operating in the connection to the intelligence and wisdom of her body, heart and mind. My experience was there was a lot of mental from Hillary. So I'm just kind of giving that more gross example to suggest that what I really am excited to support, I work with female leaders.
Speaker 3:I'm really excited to see more female leaders on the quote front lines of whatever they're doing, whether it's leaders of their families and their homes or leaders at a large level like Hillary Clinton, but being women who are leading from a place of deep, deep, deep embodiment and connection with their bodies at all times. So they're able to have a conversation and even now I can drop into deeper myself. It's like staying connected to my breath inside of my communication. That's just one example, but I think, yeah, I'll just kind of speak to that and say that I'm excited to see more female leaders who are deeply embodied, which means that they are deeply connected to the seat of themselves within themselves.
Speaker 3:You know, so many women lack that we don't know where we are, and so we get into big rooms and we get around people and we get lost in the sauce. As I say, we get lost in other people's opinions and our children's needs and other people's needs, and meanwhile we are so disconnected from our true essence and we've lost ourselves. So I'm excited to see, but we're brilliant, women are freaking brilliant, and so I really think that, as women can deepen in their ability to stay present with themselves, inside of themselves, we're going to see a lot of radical, cool leadership and collaboration with men as well. It's not just the future is not female, in my opinion, the future is union and we're all you know. But the women get to do this work and so do men. There's some stuff for men, I'm sure, as well, but you know, that's my thought on that.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, you mentioned men there, and do you think that one of the reasons that women feel the need to be more masculine is because they've been let down by men?
Speaker 3:Yeah for sure. I mean, my gut response is like yeah, on a subconscious level, on an embodied level, I felt it in my body when you said that. I felt you know, dad, let me down Dang. I felt it in my body when you said that. It's like I felt, you know, dad, let me down Dang, you know. Okay, now I'm going to get to step into what he was meant to protect me, he was meant to provide, and that's not here.
Speaker 3:You know, there's so many different. Everyone has a unique story as to where and how they've been let down from the masculine, but it would make sense that we would internalize that and feel like we need to give it to ourselves, you know, and so I think that speaks to what I find to be one of the greater epidemics we're facing in our culture right now, which is just, you know, if we're talking about men, I think men really, and women, but men specifically are, they're not too feminine. I don't think that there's a lack of fathering. There's not a. They haven't been fathered and so they don't have a role model, and so they don't have a role model and so they can't give from that place, and they're doing their best to figure out how to do this in this modern life and how to be a man and how to be a good man. I also think our culture has become really soft and I think men really need an initiation of sorts. That's hard. I used to have. This is going to sound bad. Okay, I don't even know if I want to share this, but I used to say this I'm like bad. Okay, I don't even know if I want to share this. I used to say this I'm like I think this was what I was speaking to the fact that what I've now understood to be deeper, which is, I think, in so many cultures. I'll just let me start with this In many countries Israel being one men at 18 years old, they all go to the military.
Speaker 3:I'd be interested to see the statistics of what's happening there within marriages and family. I don't know, but I think there's something to be said for a man and his unique, typically like his unique that part of him that needs something hard to do, to feel and you guys can speak way more to this, but this is what I felt. So I used to have this thing that I would say I'd be like. I feel like a man. This sounds so bad because I love men and this wasn't coming from that.
Speaker 3:I feel like every man needs to get punched in the face one time in their life. It in the face one time in their life. It was more speaking to this nuance around like they need life to fucking hit them and they need to come back from it. So all that to say, as the culture has gotten softer as going to the military, if something hard like that has become less required or not required, I'm not saying I think we should bring that back, but what I'm saying is I think that provided for, yeah, maybe greater role models of like masculine. So I'd love to know your thoughts on that, richard, as I share that. Yeah, well, I've got a lot.
Speaker 2:Rather than the punch in the face. What I'm thinking about is rugby. You know, we played rugby in high school and I was actually thinking about this yesterday, like so.
Speaker 2:I was a good rugby player. I was the captain of my team when I was actually thinking about this yesterday, like so. I was a good rugby player. I was the captain of my team when I was like 13 and then we, you know, I'd be better than the boys at my school and then we would go and play a bigger school and some of these boys age 13 would have mustaches over six foot and I would just get absolutely crunched and it was just humiliating. It was just like, oh my God, I thought I was good at something, but there are people out there who are so far superior than me. It just really was like where is my place in the world? And you know, yeah, I did get hurt.
Speaker 2:You know I would have bruises and things like that and concussions and things like that, and I think bouncing back from that was definitely just like getting punched in the face effectively, but kind of legally, in a kind of just way. That's, I think, makes it easier by, you know, a boy who's four times your weight. I think that's good for people and it's probably the same with american football. I know there are a lot of people who think the risks that way there were rewards with concussion and things, but I disagree on that. The other thing I would say is um, I went to a private you know privilege. Excuse me, sorry, apologize for that, but we had military service as a part of that. So for three years we were in the cadet force. Andy, did you have that as well?
Speaker 1:I did yeah.
Speaker 2:So you're in the cadet force. I was in the army in my school and it was only one day a week but it definitely did sort of do something to you. It taught you about discipline. It taught sort of do something to you. It taught you about discipline. It taught you about standards and I hated it, but I think it was useful. I think that's a good part of um, of the sort of the british boarding school tradition. Andy, do you want to add anything to?
Speaker 1:that I was just going to say, like I think, does that? Do we? Are we just talking about physically then? Are we talking about metaphorically, being punched? So, like some people have a rough times, but it's not necessarily in the physical sense.
Speaker 3:Oh, of course. Yeah, I do feel that to Richard's point, that there is value in any kind of container or dojo for a man and a woman. But it's been valuable for me because it's helped me to what do you call it? Strengthen my masculine qualities. Any dojo that requires discipline, you know, and requires overcoming something challenging. This forges our character and our strength of character, and I think these are qualities that a good man I mean, for lack of a better term really embody.
Speaker 3:And what I'm suggesting, andy, is that I just feel like our culture has softened in those areas and that men are not having as many dojos that they can. Really you have to seek them out. And then, in addition to that, the fathers are more absent, and I wish I knew the statistics in this moment, but fathers are not in the household. So now these men are being reared without an example. So, going back to Richard's point, it's like are women more masculine because they've been let down by men? And I would say, yes, it's like that we're trying to find that we need that scaffolding, we need that, that fortifying, and it's good for us to find it within ourselves. But this, going back to the beginning, it's like the speaker is like about to bust on that, it's too loud. You know the masculine function.
Speaker 3:We've overcorrected in that way I think as women.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think a big problem is this sort of the lack of place for men. You know, it seems like men are just not wanted and and that's, I think, was a message of feminists. So I had a feminist in my life when I was growing up and and she would tell me we don't need you men, we're gonna get, uh, cloning soon and the world is gonna be a better place when we get rid of all men. I was a very young child so I did absorb that. I was very impressionable. But that's some of the feminists out there. They absolutely hate men and I don't think it's a very good thing. I mean, you look at the statistics on male suicide and things like that and they are depressing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was just reading something about the male statistic on suicide, richard, and it also was discovered that in the suicide letters that were discovered of these men who have been killing themselves were two words that were common amongst the suicide letters that were discovered of these men who have been killing themselves were two words that were common amongst the suicide letters, and the words were useless and worthless. And I just get chills just thinking about it. It's like when men have that, their usefulness and their to be needed taken away, their desire to really be here can be very stripped, so much so, to the point of wanting to exit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we had an excellent guest on the podcast called Ryan Park who was talking to this point. He was saying that high testosterone in men is a good predictor of good mental health, basically, and he said one of the key drivers of high testosterone is that sense of purpose for men. So, whatever you do, it matters the reverse. You're saying people felt useless or worthless. I mean, that is literally the opposite. So exactly, it's interesting.
Speaker 3:The research bears that out yeah, yeah, so this makes my work all the more important? I think, absolutely. I was actually into.
Speaker 1:He mentioned, I think, that you, uh, he started coaching in 2010, if I'm not mistaken. That's right. Could you talk a bit more about that journey and how you've come to specialize in feminine embodiment?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so gosh, yeah, I was not always like this. You know, I was not always in a position to be able to support anyone in this way. In fact, obviously, like any story goes, I deeply required the support myself. And so in 2010, well, I should say in 2008, I got married, and I was 23 at the time and I had saved myself to have sex until I was married, which is a really pretty unique story for anybody these days. But the point of that is that I'm now in this marriage, thinking that we're going to be having this great sex, and that was definitely not the case, and in fact, it was almost completely not there for us, and my body began to really shut down even more, you know, and this was a product of, like, religious conditioning and just societal conditioning, of why I chose to do this. But anyway, long story short, here I am at age 25. I haven't had a period in two years, I'm not having sex in my marriage and I feel really not well.
Speaker 3:And at the time, I was a personal trainer. You know, I'm 25. So I'm a personal trainer in Los Angeles, california, but I'm very, very successful as a personal trainer, and so on the outside it would have looked like I was fit, healthy and doing well, but I would get home and just draw my curtains and be like I'm hoping for the next day to come, you know, because I'm just crippled with anxiety and my husband doesn't want to have sex with me and my hair is falling out, my period's gone and my womanhood I have no connection to. And that's when I was working as a personal trainer and my clients wanted more support in a more holistic way. I knew that they needed more support in their emotional eating patterns and things like this. So I went to school to become a health coach at the time and it was through that school that I found my teacher. Her name was Jenna LaFlemme and she came on stage at one of the conferences for the school and she said I'm Jenna LaFlemme. She had 60 seconds to speak and she said my name's Jenna LaFlemme.
Speaker 3:If you've been trying the masculine approach to weight loss, I teach women the feminine approach and I was like because at the time also, I was trying to lose all this weight, thinking that if I were more perfect and pretty, that my husband wouldn't want to have sex with me. So I just I followed her on Twitter in 2010. I was like followed her on Twitter and I left the conference actually and I knew she was going to be my teacher and studied with her for four years and really immersed myself in what I discovered. She was actually definitely not a weight loss coach. She taught me Tantra and the feminine arts, and so once I got under her tutelage, I was like my whole world was opened up to how to get into this body, and so it was through her teachings that I began to deepen my breath and move my energy from my head to my body, that I began to look in the mirror. She had me looking in the mirror and dancing and then eventually taking my clothes off and doing the same thing, like little things to move me towards being here and now in this body. And so, yeah, that's kind of been my journey, and so I actually became an official ambassador of her work, started to bring that to my clients and I mean there are more certifications and things that have happened, obviously, since then, but that was really the impetus that got me into my body, and I remember in year two of working with her, I said to her on the email I said, if I'm going to continue in this work.
Speaker 3:I feel like I either continue in this work or I stay in that marriage. Basically, I was outgrowing my marriage, you know, and I wanted my marriage to work and ultimately she said, yeah, that probably could happen, it's your choice. I was like, well damn, and there was no looking back for me, but the feeling of loving yourself and connecting with my body, it liberated everything in me. I used to struggle with severe anxiety and it was actually a result of not being in my body, and this is what I see with so many women. They are crippled by anxiety and they think booze or naps or sedatives or something, or something's deeply messed up with them, and I always say I think it's a lack of breath. You just need to breathe, and so that's where we start. So, anyway, I hope that answered your question. Thank you for the space Really powerful.
Speaker 1:Thanks so much for sharing that yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So why should a woman learn to connect the vulva to the voice through the vagus nerve?
Speaker 3:Yes, and can you explain a?
Speaker 1:little bit about what that means.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so about six years ago I was shown this body of work that I wanted to create, called, and it was shown to me to be called V, and I was like that is interesting. And then it was like, oh, vagus nerve, vulva and voice, and I was like I don't know if I want to come front facing with the word vulva, like this is you know, this is you know anyway. So what ended up happening for me was I was really put through the curriculum within myself, you know, for the past couple of years of like what does this mean? What is this? So, to answer your question, this body of work it's kind of a somatic sequencing and we sequence sound and movement and breath to help a woman get into literally access, more accessibility of awareness and consciousness in her pelvic floor, really, which also is in her vulva, her vagina, her cervix, in addition to opening and relaxing our jaws, our voices. And this is done through our really using and utilizing the brilliance of the vagus nerve, which is a nerve that is a cranial nerve, the largest one that runs from the brain throughout the entire body, hitting all the organs. So it's like a tuning fork for the body. So if we can really learn how to increase our vagal tone is what it's called. But if we can learn how to really work with the vagus nerve, we can really learn how to increase our vagal tone is what it's called. But if we can learn how to really work with the vagus nerve, we can really begin to dislodge places of long held and chronic tension in the body and in that way we can begin to embody, like, actually take up residence in ourselves.
Speaker 3:You know, it's like we got to clear the pathways. I liken it to like a traffic. You know a highway that's got a lot of traffic. It's like through sound, tone and breath we begin to clear the pathways. I liken it to like a traffic you know a highway that's got a lot of traffic. It's like through sound, tone and breath we begin to clear the traffic. Clear the traffic, clear the traffic so that eventually we as women we can easily we have such a what I call lines of liberation that anytime we need to now we can actually just take one single breath and we're suddenly through those lines of liberation and that cleared traffic. We're in our yoni, we're in our vulva, we're in our hearts, we're in our voices, and so I like it. It's like taking a pickaxe. Sometimes it depends on how much.
Speaker 3:And so you ask why is it important, richard? I think it's important. I'm going to speak to women, but I think the same can be true for men. But we, as women, we tend to clench in our hips, we clench in our pussies, we clench in our seats and we clench in our jaws. These are the places that we hold, I believe, the most stress and they're also the places of our most aliveness. And so why is it important? Because this is where we hold a lot of tension and stress and shame. And so I just like let's go right to it and bring sound, bring your own voice, bring toning by whatever means necessary. Let's use dramatic, you know and I say dramatic, but Richard, you can speak to this where you use breath to go into specific places and bring sound to help kind of dispel some of the numbness there. Often for women is numbness. Hopefully that answers it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, often for women is numbness, hopefully that answers it yeah, so you ceremony in your work. Why is ceremony important?
Speaker 3:You know, the way I would define ceremony is just intention, really intention with ritual, and I think my experience it's bringing spirit into what we're trying to do. I've found, going back to what Andy and I were talking, or we were all talking about earlier is like I found that when we do anything in a more intentional way with ceremony and, for me at least, with prayer, it exponentially creates exponential results for myself and for the client. It makes it easier for me as a practitioner, which is great. I'm not it's not me, you know, I'm not the healer.
Speaker 3:I really believe I have studied and have learned how to create a space in which healing can occur, and I believe that there's one healer and that's spirit. And so for me and my style is creating the space and setting the ceremonial container for safety to be felt and for love to do what it does, which is heal. Yeah, so it just as a practitioner, it makes it a lot easier for me. I used to be like exhausted with this kind of work and now when, the more I bring prayer and ritual and ceremony into it, the more I've found that this is great. And I also can't take credit for most of the day either, you know which is also really good's like.
Speaker 1:Next, you know this is for those people who are, like sorry, less familiar with prayer, are we talking about a sort of daily practice here, is it? Or is it just the start of your work? Or, and can you talk a bit about how it might look? Did you say prayer? The prayer, yeah, for those, yeah kind of find that word quite difficult and maybe has religious sort of throwbacks to childhood and things. What are we talking about there, I suppose?
Speaker 3:Yeah, great question. Yeah, the way I relate with that I'm talking about, I'm thinking about indigenous cultures, specifically let's call it indigenous cultures to the Americas, which is, I feel, very drawn to and have studied with. And these are the cultures that the wisdom that they hold is. They work with spirit, you know, and they work with the elements and they work with nature. They invite spirit into everything, into everything that they're doing, whether it's eating, whether it's farming, harvesting, whatever they're doing. They're inviting, and we'll use the word prayer, but they're bringing in spirit to all of it.
Speaker 3:And I think these are the practices that we've become so disconnected from. Again, I'll speak to the Americas, but because of colonization and capitalism and the industrial revolution, we've been completely stripped of, and this is again and I don't mean this but that kind of masculine kind of coming in, build, build, build, build, build, losing the wisdoms of nature and spirit. And so, yeah, my thought with that is, even though we're setting out with the work that I do with women, we're setting out for a specific goal, but I would be amiss not to invite in spirit. And it's not God, it's not religious, it's not associated with any particular religion, it's just the acknowledgement that we have a lot more going on here than what we can see, and I just hold that peace and this is wisdom that comes again from indigenous communities that I believe is really wanting to be resurrected now so that we can have a hope of actually moving forward in a sustainable way. So I just try to bring that to my practice.
Speaker 3:What do you think, richard um, about the use of spirit in, in prayer, in prayer. What do I think about prayer? Yeah, well, breath, breath is spirit. That's actually the yeah, yeah, yeah, bringing spirit in. Yes, sorry, sorry to interrupt no, that's right.
Speaker 2:What do I think about prayer? Yeah, yeah, I pray. I pray almost every night. I don't know who I'm praying to, but it feels good to do it. There's a lot of benefits to prayer. You know, they've taken people's blood and shown that when people pray they can boost their. I think it's like maybe interleukin-6. It's some marker of immunity. Prayer can boost immunity. It definitely has effects and it can improve things like putting. You know, people have lucky charms and they gave people a lucky charm and when people had their lucky charm they improved their putting in golf. So definitely there is something to believing in a higher power. It helps people in some way. Whether or not there is a higher power or not, I don't know. Those studies don't prove the evidence of higher power. They just prove the belief helps people in some way. So I pray because I know it's going to benefit me. I hope there's a higher power out there, but if there's not one, I wouldn't be surprised. That's, that's how, where?
Speaker 2:I would stand on that amazing yeah so somatic and integrative coaching, that's something you practice. What is that?
Speaker 3:yeah, I think the somatic piece is, you know, what Peter Levine refers to in his body of work called somatic experiencing, which I think is one of the best gold standards of this kind of work, which is a bottom up approach, to quote therapy, you know versus a top down. So bottom up, meaning you know the way I am gifted and it just has always been a natural gift, but now I've like really refined it and studied in it, which is the ability to feel into the body, where something's living and bring, noticing to what you're feeling in your body and letting that be the access point to where we start the conversation, as opposed to let's continue to talk about the story of what's happening in your life. It's like where is it felt in the body? I find it to be a really I'm always about like what's the most efficient path and it's been really exciting to find somatic therapy as a way of really supporting someone and creating massive progress in their life.
Speaker 3:Somatic, again, meaning of the body and really working with what you're feeling in the body and amplifying those feelings so that we can make some progress. And then the integrative pieces. I think that's my way of saying you know, by whatever means necessary approach, you know, using from all the tools that I've studied in. So you know breath, sound movement, touch, gosh, chronic energy healing we can go into all kinds of the different modalities, but it's really just like what would be the most use for this person in this moment. So it's really fun because you get to create like a creative, customized approach in every moment.
Speaker 2:So you wanted to talk about the problems in the coaching industry and one of the criticisms of sort of modern day American, western, european spirituality, this sort of pick and mix spirituality you know we've got a bit of Buddhism, we've got a bit of Hinduism, we've got a bit of like earth based spirituality is that without like the container you know, like of's, say, you're just doing Christianity things get abused and mistreated. So, for example, spirituality you talked about being in your feminine. You see examples of people being like oh, I didn't want to go to work today because that puts me in my masculine, I didn't want to take the trash out, because it puts me in my masculine. And when we have capitalism mixed in with spirituality, narcissism comes into play. You know people on instagram are putting up like very sexy, provocative, suggestive photos of themselves, but they're like in prayer and there's no one to tell them. You don't wear sexy outfits to fish, okay, but what do you think about those criticisms?
Speaker 3:oh man, what do I think about? I'm sorry, I'm so into what you're sharing and just imagining this actual photo of this that I lost.
Speaker 2:I lost the storyline here, about which criticisms the criticisms that you can't have a pick and mix spirituality. You have to have one tradition, because within that one tradition there are checks and balances.
Speaker 3:Wow wow, brilliant. Okay, andy, what do you think while I do, you have thoughts on this?
Speaker 1:well I I personally quite like the multi-faceted approach of like drawing from different kinds of wisdom. I don't think I can really speak to the instagram. I'm not really in the instagram scene. I imagine lots of people are kind of perhaps misguided and the and obviously it's very famous. You have a picture and then you put across it and that could be quite cringe. But in terms of someone who's kind of not particularly affiliated to a religion, I find it really helpful to have a wisdom from lots of different walks of life. But I can see okay, it's a bit messed up with the new new wave of um influences and people perhaps in it for the wrong intentions.
Speaker 3:Yes, thank you. That helped open up something I was like I don't know what I think I'll miss. Here's what I can say. I think it's always best to speak from personal experience. So for me, I came from a Christian upbringing and I'll say this I never got too bogged down by it. What I loved about the religion that I was born into was the spirit that I really felt. I really enjoyed that, but, point being, the dogma had to go. So I got into the new age world around 2012. And the point is is that what I think is?
Speaker 3:What I feel is a really a cautionary tale right now is just this looking to the new age spirituality and looking to stones and it feels like it's creating a lot more confusion than it's actually doing any good. And it felt to me, being inside of the spiritual new age community, this feels a lot like what was bad about Christianity. It's like dogma, like if I'm going to actually get what I want, I need to make sure I manifest and do affirmations, and then I have to have this crystal, and then I have to put it out on the full moon and now, all of a sudden, most of my energy is swirled up in all these things that I need to do to hopefully not be feeling so crappy about how I feel. And why do I feel crappy about how I feel? Because I feel on a deep level that I am completely separate from God. I'm completely separate from life, and it's that feeling of separation that was handed to us through stories like Adam and Eve and sin that has us sick. It has us sick and desperately looking for something to cure that ailment. And ultimately, no crystal and no time in a monastery or anything can solve this deep time in a monastery or anything is it can solve this deep, deep, deep, deep illusion that we are separate not only from life and separate from God and separate from love, but we're separate from each other. So I think, going back to like really so anyway, I just think it's sad to see all the different ways in which we're trying to just arrive at we're okay, we're okay, I'm okay, you know, putting your hand on your heart, breathing, you're like I'm okay, I'm okay. Putting your hand on your heart, breathing, you're like I'm okay, I am connected, I've always been connected. I've never been separate, I've never been bad. I've never been wrong. I'm not wrong. It's a lie that I have been wrong. And then, from that place, what do you feel inspired to do? Maybe you do really like crystals, okay, but maybe you don't. Maybe you're like actually I'm good, I think I'm just gonna make some really beautiful food with my family and just enjoy this life that I've been given and chill the fuck out. So hopefully that answers your question.
Speaker 3:It's been really hard, and especially to see women in this way. We feel so much of our cultural programming has told us that we're bad and our bodies are bad and our sex is bad and being sexual is bad. So an effort to to counter that we've become hyper sexualized and we're really what we're trying to do is reclaim the sacredness of our eroticism. And so you know forever that woman in a sexy outfit at church. I think what she's really trying to say is I'm holy and this is holy and it's all holy, but it's distorted because we live in a distorted society, because we believe that we're separate from love.
Speaker 3:And so what do we do to return to our wholeness? Well, I mean, in my perspective and Richard's, you know, we do, we breathe, we breathe and we do the work of restoring the truth of who we are, which is innocent period done. That's what I believe and that might be ignorant, given what we're seeing on the world at large right now and just all the not so innocent seeming people and doing stuff. But I really believe that underlying all that is a belief that we're separate from each other, and that's the distortion and the craziness that we're seeing right now. So I'll just kind of pause there. Thanks for the question.
Speaker 2:Okay, then an easier one then. What are the problems with the life coaching industry that you?
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, I think on a high level, and you'll agree with this probably is there's zero regulations and zero, no one. There's no overarching institution or organization that says this is approved, you know, whereas with you know more traditional, what do they call them? Trades like being a lawyer or being a doctor. These are ones that have pretty high standards and like understanding of like what is required, and very similar to a doctor. I think coaches have the ability to heal or really fuck somebody up, you know. So it's sad to see the industry it's hard to see and it is what it is but it's hard to see an industry with zero regulations, because I believe coaches have as much possibility of again fucking up someone as a surgeon. This is just psychological fuckery, let's just say it, you know, and leaving them best, you know, dependent on them as a coach and, at worst, really really further from themselves than when they started. That's what I would say.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a theme that come up quite a few times, to be honest the lack of regulation. I think it's also really you touched on a bit there, but people are looking for coaching because they're searching for something and it's so it's almost like quite vulnerable people and yeah, I think that's kind of the. If you like, the makes it a bit sicker is that people are kind of capitalizing on the vulnerable.
Speaker 3:Exactly, exactly, and then you've got it. Well, it's exactly that. And then that speaks to what I'm noticing in the coaching industry, and I can speak to this for myself. The really good, embodied, integrous practitioners typically are not great marketers. They're not really good at that and the really kind of maybe they're kind of embodied in their practice but they just like they went to one ayahuasca ceremony and they had you know one, whatever, and now they're, but they're freaking great marketers. Now they've got down. They're selling 250 K programs a year and like now we'veK programs a year and now we've got an issue here and now we've got what do we have?
Speaker 3:I don't know. And am I suggesting that there needs to be regulation on it? That might come with some net negative benefits as well. I'm not sure, but it is good to be sober about what's happening, and so that's the piece that I find. So, yeah, I think that what I'd love to see more of, that I think, can help auto-correct.
Speaker 3:This is people who really are walking in integrity with who they are on this earth, walking with the earth, walking with themselves, who have great teachers and are deeply studied with these teachers that they learn how to market. Maybe that's a way of redistributing some of this and actually helping them. That's one way I could see of this going a little better. But I think it's exciting because I think we're also customers and consumers are getting a little bit more savvy and smart. So they're starting to see just like we're starting to see in our governments just the puppeteer show happening.
Speaker 3:I think that's happening as well on some level on Instagram and social media show happening. I think that's happening as well on some level on Instagram and social media. So it's interesting. I've got my popcorn out in a very spectator, judgmental type way right now watching what's happening. But I'm also deeply committed to stepping in the game at this point and being like all right, let me market myself, not because I really want to, but because I want to see a more whole world and trust myself at this point to to stay connected to my practices and be a good practitioner.
Speaker 2:So that's my thoughts on that yeah, I think you've said a lot of good things there. And to add to that and pick up on some of those themes of like innocence and the absence of religion, life coaches have sort of stepped in for priests in some regard. I mean, that is what you get taught in my psychotherapy training at university. They're like this is the progression of psychotherapy. You know used to be sort of tribal leaders, there would be the spiritual leader. Then we had religion, we had priests, and now therapists are effectively doing the role of confession that priests would do. So there is that kind of sacred spiritual aspect to the life coach that maybe they don't think about that when they're coaching a boss babe to 10 times her salary. But going back to that innocence and how do we change this, so something happened last week where a breath worker was advertising a breathwork training and he was kind of undercutting everyone else in the industry and he was using trauma porn.
Speaker 2:So trauma porn is, um, it's not, it's not like porn where people get beaten up, it's um, it's people like cathartic at leastartic during breathwork.
Speaker 2:So people crying and convulsing during breathwork and use that on his Instagram and a lot of it all kicked off in the breathwork industry. I posted a video on it and Natalia posted a video on it. But one of the things I was thinking about is this guy. I think he's probably quite well intentioned. He probably is just a little bit innocent and naive and no one's told him that posting trauma porn is inappropriate and and misleading, and I find it very easy to just go oh, look at this guy doing breathwork with his shirt off, or this woman doing breathwork, teaching it in a bikini, or this, you know, inappropriate use of sexuality to promote breathwork makes me angry. But actually I've probably done many, many I've definitely done many inappropriate things in my, uh, my career not, like you know, illegal things, but just things that probably, like night doing stuff with my shirt off. That's, you know, is not appropriate and I think to correct or up level the breath work in the life coaching industry, a bit of compassion and understanding for people is going to go a long way.
Speaker 3:That was very unexpected from you, richard, and I appreciate it, and I don't mean that in a I'm not a compassionate person and I'm not an arsehole. Well, you tend to hold a different lens, a lens of like no, this needs to be brought into integrity no matter what. And it's really beautiful to hear you say you know, actually there could be a dose of compassion, could actually support this whole thing and moving forward more effectively. I love that, Thank you.
Speaker 1:He's much softer than his tough, rugged exterior portrays. He's got a soft underbelly, this old wretch he hides it really well.
Speaker 3:Well, it's actually, it's nice, but it's also intelligent Compassion, and offering compassion to any situation is actually the best hope we have of it moving forward. So, yeah, and I, I tend to do that as well, but no, I really appreciate that.
Speaker 2:Inside this conversation, yeah, we're bringing in some sort of stock questions for our guests, so here's one we'll throw at you. What makes you laugh about your industry?
Speaker 3:What makes me laugh about my industry?
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh. I don't know if this is the answer, but honestly I still. This may not sound good, but, like I feel embarrassed to say I'm a coach. You know, maybe due to this entire conversation, I've tried to work around it. I'm like, no, I'm a guide. Definitely don't feel called to call myself a healer. I think that's just not a land I want to go into. But I'm like I'm a guide, the title coach, you know.
Speaker 3:If we think about it, it's like what is this? Are we on a basketball court? What are we doing? You know, I don't know. It's like a life coach, just like. This is great. Now, sorry, give me one more minute, because I really would like to talk about this. It's yeah, how and why everything in our industry needs to be so big. It's like now we're saving the world. That makes me laugh. We're change the world, the rhetoric of change the world. I'm like the world is changing always. What do you mean? It's just the lack of like intelligence around rhetoric. I don't want to say intelligence, the lack of intention around rhetoric.
Speaker 1:It seems a little bit like it's a lack of humility as well in some respects, like you know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's cute, it is actually funny. It's like, oh, you know, our egos, there's a lot of ego in it, you know and I got back to Richard's point I can see it in myself and I still get to check all that part of myself, you know. And what I think is beautiful about it is mostly people who become coaches, is it's beautiful? They have that warrior archetype, that kind of galvanizer, savior archetype. They are the visionaries that help, want to drive us into a better future. But I think it'd be better to just, you know, be like I'm changing the world and you know, now, the thing that really brings me peace, I'm gonna have to scale it. The scaling, you know, everything needs to get scaled. It's like, wow, we're obsessed with scaling in this industry. You know, these are things that you know.
Speaker 1:I chew on all of that, yeah, you know, let's see capitalism for you.
Speaker 2:Okay, our next stop question is maybe it's similar. Uh, what makes you wince in pain about your industry? What makes you do that?
Speaker 1:that face again for rich people posting prayerful things in their bikinis.
Speaker 3:In their bikinis.
Speaker 1:That's what makes them read so many things.
Speaker 3:Honestly it is what you were just talking about, Richard it's the videos of these clips from hyper-dramatic experiences without any context, and it's like, oh, can you please not show that, because actually the work that we're doing is really meaningful and can be supportive. Yet when you show a clip of someone having this massive cathartic experience or something that looks like an exorcism, without context and all that, now people are going to come to this work and either expect something to look like that and if it doesn't look like that, they don't think they got what they needed, you know, from it or they're broken because they didn't have a cathartic experience. I looked like you know the demon was getting released from them, or they don't want to come to it. You know they don't want to come to this what otherwise could be a really, really meaningful community building experience for them. So that makes me ick and I'm like, yeah, let's not post things that don't have context and people. It might scare them off. Definitely.
Speaker 1:That's my thought on that so how do people find you? Sorry, we probably should have covered this off earlier. People listening, you want to find you online, or yeah, yeah, everything.
Speaker 3:You can find me everywhere with my mc charette. My last name is s-h-u-r-e-t-t and that's on instagram. That's mccharettecom. That'll find you towards me somehow. Those are the two primary ways, and then mc at mccharettecom is my email, you know.
Speaker 1:So just get down with the mc, you'll find me yeah I did wonder whether there was a double meaning to it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he also. It also works for a very cool brand called Qualia. We were going to ask her some questions about that, but she's going to put us in touch with someone from Qualia, so this is going live in the podcast, so she has to do it now. We've made it awkward in that regard. No, I think we're hoping to get someone from Qualia to come and talk to us about that as well. So that's very cool. We won't talk about that now because, um, I think we've covered some pretty interesting things.
Speaker 1:So thank you, mc thank you so much for your time. Yeah, it's inspiring to see that you've taken um some of your toughest times and turned it into um very, very meaningful work.
Speaker 3:So thank you so much. Y'all thank you for the. Y'all are wonderful, generous hosts, so I really appreciate the space to be able to share this stuff.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much welcome back listener. We hope you enjoyed that episode with mc shura andy. I enjoyed it. I know you enjoyed it, but can you just say whether or not you enjoyed it?
Speaker 1:it was brilliant. I honestly thought it was absolutely fantastic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what a nice person yes, she's very lovely, very sweet and, um, yeah, I think hopefully people learned something new there.
Speaker 1:There's some new takes, there's some hard-hitting questions and hopefully people are walking away with some new knowledge I said at the end of the episode she loved that she sort of like harnessed what was some obviously pretty challenging times for her and moved it into such a positive force, um for good. So yeah, good on her and hopefully we can all um meet in austin yeah, hopefully, yeah, she'll.
Speaker 2:She'll be able to the health optimization summit, like we will next april, and we're gonna do what we said we would do, which is read out some of our reviews, because we've been asking for, for reviews and we've got nine now which uh, I'm, I'm quite happy with I think more actually, but we've got nine on apple nine on apple and a lot on spotify.
Speaker 2:So yeah, um, we got a nice review from jd1546422, um, I think, I think it's nice let me just uh, andy, you're gonna read it, okay yeah, I'm gonna read it, um, because I think it's pretty accurate. I think, yes, the title is a rare plus unique insight into wellness and this book is written. Thank you, jd. I've I've learned so much listening to this podcast. Richard and andy are an epic duo. Does anyone on this planet know more about all aspects of health than Richard? I doubt it, oh no.
Speaker 1:JD man, All women. What have you said there? I?
Speaker 2:don't think we know JD, but I didn't pay for this review, that is, it doesn't sound like I did.
Speaker 1:It's ruined the whole episode for me. Oh gosh, no Well, gosh, um, no well. I didn't know where JD was going with that Cause. I was thinking I don't know a lot about wellness, but to to narrow in on you and feed your ego like that is almost unforgivable.
Speaker 2:Please don't listen to any more JD. This ego is like the cookie monster it just can't oh we had to read out jd's why.
Speaker 1:All right, next next episode, I'm going to read out one, maybe one that I've written. You're gonna write yourself so much more about wellness than richard, why no, it'll be more like it'll be more like richard thinks he knows loads about wellness, but it's a disappointing knowledge gap there and it'll just be ae151 or whatever. No thanks for the review, jd. That's very sweet and I'm sure richard will probably frame it and put it above his bed. So well done, yeah yeah, indeed, well listener.
Speaker 2:Um, we do appreciate the reviews. If you leave a review, we may read it out. So please do leave those reviews and share with your friends where do they find us? Rich, laughing through the pain, navigating wellness on all good podcast hosting platforms and at andy sam on instagram and at the breath geek on instagram for me and the breath geekcom and richardlblakecom and Andy has anything else?
Speaker 1:LinkedIn profile is that coming up Every time I log into LinkedIn I get more and more cross. It's basically just a format for brown nosing and boasting. I don't like it, but if it will forward our cause, then maybe I'll suck it up and do one?
Speaker 2:Yeah, maybe. Well, I guess that's kind of all. Is that not all instagram and social media?
Speaker 2:is brown yeah kind of and but I guess it's specifically career brown those yeah, it's all a bit. Yeah well, at least it's kind of, it's not, it hasn't got like a kind of thin veil. You know, sometimes people do that sort of like instagram thing of like boasting like the hashtag, humble brag type yeah, like you're bragging, but you're trying to make it normal, whereas in linkedin it's just like it's okay to brag on linkedin, because that's basically what.
Speaker 1:That's what it is yeah, okay. Well, if jd promises not to leave any more reviews, I'll start linkedin page. Uh, thanks for listening everyone.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna I'm gonna slip in that tenor, I promise grin all right.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening till next time.