Conversations With Your Chinese Auntie

Unconventional Bliss, Brown Papaya & Community with Isabel Bagsik

In this Conversations with Your Chinese Auntie podcast episode, we welcome Isabel Bagsik, a soulful brand designer and creative wellness guide. The conversation explores Isabel's journey, her lineage from the Philippines, insights into her work, especially with Brown Papaya, and her thoughts on building and finding community. The episode is rich with discussions on identity, ancestry, cultural intersection, and creative expression.
Connect with Isabel at unconventionalbliss.com/
Follow her on Instagram
Bio:
Isabel Bagsik (she/her) is a Soulful Brand Designer and Creative Wellness Guide. She helps heart-led healers, entrepreneurs, visionaries and revolutionary leaders like you to launch your innovative projects and get paid for your culture-shifting creative gifts. She designs authentic and attention-grabbing brand assets for your website and social media and helps you to prioritize the strategies that bring your creative visions to life while honoring your wellbeing in the process. Isabel’s unique methodology incorporates creative rituals, rest practices, and original, personalized design strategy. 
She spent 10 years designing for high profile businesses, brands like Google & Target, organizations like CAIR, LEAD Filipino, and University of California Davis, and changemakers like Stephen Curry and Michelle Obama. She also launched a successful magazine “Brown Papaya”.
During this time she also developed her wellness practices, leading her to discover an effortless and pleasurable branding process that she applied to successfully launching her current business! 
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Learn more about my offering, Community for Asian Women

What is Human Design? & Recovery from Eating Disorder

In this episode, my guest Shannon Keating discusses human design as a tool for self-discovery, a way to discover what makes you different from everyone else. She describes the five different energy types.
Shannon also shares her personal story of healing from an eating disorder, highlighting the importance of processing emotions, setting boundaries, and dismantling harmful societal beliefs related to body image. 
Bio: Shannon Keating is a certified Nutritional Therapy Practitioner (NTP) and Holistic Life Coach for Women and Girls.
She studied Biology, Psychology, and Sustainability at the University of Denver. Following her undergrad, Shannon enrolled in a holistic nutrition program through the Nutrition Therapy Association (NTA) to become a certified Nutritional Therapy Practitioner (NTP).
Shannon’s business began with a focus on supporting women in balancing their hormones and healing their gut challenges using food as medicine, lifestyle practices, and intentional supplementation while simultaneously healing their relationships with food.
Shannon's Website
Follow Shannon on Instagram 
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00:00 Welcome to Conversations with Your Chinese Auntie
00:16 Discovering Human Design with Shannon
02:01 Shannon's Journey: From Nutrition to Holistic Coaching
09:47 Deep Dive into Human Design: Understanding Your Energetic DNA
18:44 Exploring the Five Energy Types in Human Design
27:17 Manifesting Generators: Navigating Life with Multipassionate Energy
38:08 The Unique World of Manifestors
44:37 Human Design in Relationships: Insight and Compatibility
49:10 Exploring Projectors: Navigating Energy and Guidance
56:48 The Unique World of Reflectors: Embracing Empathy and Openness
01:08:10 Navigating Recovery: Insights into Overcoming Eating Disorders
01:19:28 Cultivating Connections: The Power of Community and Inner Healing
01:27:10 Final Thoughts

Dr. Jennifer Mullan on Decolonizing Therapy and Sacred Rage

Content Note: Discussion of intent to die.
Have you ever read a book that made you feel seen and heard from the first paragraph? 
My guest today is Dr. Jennifer Mullan. In this episode, we discuss Decolonizing Therapy, Rage, Community, and more. 
Dr. Mullan's book, Decolonizing Therapy, is a love letter and a call to action for helpers, healers, and spaceholders struggling inside the mental health industrial complex. It's a must-read for all clinicians, especially white folks. 
Jennifer Mullan, PsyD, is a major disruptor in the mental health industrial complex. Her work is an urgent call to dive to the root of global and generational trauma to unlock the wisdom of our sacred rage. 
Dr. Jennifer Mullan birthed Decolonizing Therapy®, a psychological evolution that weaves together political, ancestral, therapeutic and global well-being. She is also the creator of the popular Instagram account @decolonizingtherapy and recipient of Essence magazine’s 2020 Essential Hero Award in the category of mental health. Dr. Jennifer Mullan is the author of “Decolonizing Therapy: Oppression, Historical Trauma & Politicizing Your Practice” which has ignited a fervent wave of acclaim and community support as a National Best Seller.
Follow Dr. Mullan:Website: Dr. Jennifer Mullan & Decolonizing Therapy®
Instagram
In this episode, other important links:
The originator & creator of Rest Is Resistance framework by Tricia Hersey
Tuckman's stages of group development
 

Healing Your Inner Child - Who's In Charge?

Okay, it's time to get real. You have probably seen posts on social media, or your therapist has told you that you need to heal your inner child. Maybe you’ve even done the work with them, but your inner child is still running and maybe ruining your life.
When new clients come and see me, and they share that they have done inner child work, I find that they missed one crucial step. Listen to this episode to find out what are some things you can do to start healing your inner child.
If you want to read more, here is my blog.
Be good to yourself and your inner child. 

Cultural Assimilation & Reclaiming Our Heritage

What a heartwarming conversation with my dear friend Thérèse Cator.
In this episode, Thérèse and I discuss the effects of assimilation on our bodies, healing, identity, and more. We also discuss how healing can emerge when we are in spaces where we can be in our full humanity and don't have to be in a state of hypervigilance.
Bio:
Thérèse Cator is the founder of Embodied Black Girl, a global community that centers the healing and liberation of Black women and femmes and communities of color. She’s also a mother, a Decolonial Leadership Mentor, a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, an anti-oppression facilitator, an artist and a medicine keeper from a deep lineage of scholars, medicine people and revolutionaries from Ayiti. 
Thérèse's work has been featured multiple times in both Forbes and Mashable, as well as Essence, Travel Noire, Jezebel, Authority Magazine, Mind Body Green, Motherly, and Yahoo News, among others. 
Over the past 15 years, she's worked with people from all backgrounds, and her work explores the intersection of spirituality, somatics and social change. Thérèse's work exists in the world to provide deep counsel and guidance to cultural shapers to heal intergenerationally, unearth their deepest expression of embodied leadership and birth revolutionary work and worlds. 
You can learn more at: www.embodiedblackgirl.com and www.theresecator.com and find her on IG @theresecator

Our marriage - The Ups and Downs, Conflicts, Repairs and LOVE.

In this episode, Kimen and I share how we met and the challenges we have encountered in our 18-year relationship. We talk about the importance of doing our own healing work so we can show up for each other and not repeat our parents' unhealthy marriages. We also share the non-negotiables in our marriage. 
As always, advice from Your Chinese Auntie, Yiyi, is at the end of the episode. 
Give up everything you think you know about relationships, and listen to your partner.
Patricia's website
Kimen's podcast

Quest, Self-Initiation & Egypt with Lara Therrien Boulos

My guest today is my dear friend, Lara Therrien Boulos. I met Lara through our dear friend Carmen Spagnola, as we were both Questers and Carmen's students. This episode discusses Lara's trip to Egypt, capitalism, Quest and the Return, and self-initiation. We talk about how the pandemic is like an initiation and that we are now in the Return. It will all make sense when you listen to this episode.
At the end of the episode, I discuss self-initiation and, yes, as always, advice from your Chinese Auntie. 
For those of you who are curious, The Numinious Quest was a self-guided solo wilderness retreat. 
Bio:
Lara Therrien Boulos is a community planner, facilitator, gardener, writer, witch, and artist of Egyptian and French-Canadian ancestry. She weaves all these threads of her life through her creative and spiritual practices and her animist orientation toward the world. She's also a cat lover and a Virgo.

Roxanne Francis on Navigating Life as a Person of Colour, and How Social Media Affects Your Teen's Mental Health.

My guest is Roxanne Francis, the award-winning CEO of Francis psychotherapy and consulting services. She runs a busy group practice and is a keynote speaker, leadership coach, and corporate consultant who addresses topics related to women's issues, such as race and equity, mental health, parenting, and wellness at work. She is also the founder of The Therapist's Lounge, which helps private practice social workers and psychotherapists meet their needs for community wellness and business support. 
In this episode, Roxanne and I discuss how to navigate life as a person of colour, how accent affects how we are viewed, and how we scan for safety. We also talk about how to navigate social media, especially for youths. 
Bio:Roxanne Francis is an adjunct professor at the School of Social Work at the University of Toronto, and in 2020, she was recognized as one of Canada’s 100 Black Women to Watch. She is a sought-after podcast guest who shares her mental health expertise in print and online publications like Essence Magazine and Today’s Parent Magazine, as well as multiple local and national media outlets, including CTV, CBC News, and Breakfast Television.
You can follow Roxanne on social media and her website. 

Taraneh Erfan on Recognizing Our Privilege & Showing Up Human

I am thrilled to welcome Taraneh Erfan to the show. In this episode, Taraneh talks about growing up in Iran during the Iran-Iraq war, recognizing our privilege, how to decolonize our practice, and how to show up human with one another. Of course, we talk about our puppies. We discuss whether it is ethical to volunteer abroad, and we talk about patriarchy, lessons learned, white supremacy, colonization and much more.
I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.~ Maya Angelou.
Bio:
Taraneh Erfan is a Registered Clinical Counsellor, Certified Expressive Arts Therapist, published author, passionate poet and yoga and meditation teacher. 
Her book Conscious Grieving: The Path of Awakening Through Loss helped me immensely to process my grief after my mother died. I recommend her book to friends and clients when they are in the grieving process.
Follow her on Instagram for insightful posts and beautiful poetry. 
Learn more about Taraneh's offerings on her Website 

Mardi Gras, Family Secrets, Therapy & more with Henry M. Pittman

I am so excited for you to meet Henry M. Pittman. Henry is a licensed therapist and counsellor. Henry assisted in my Somatic Experiencing (SE) three-year training. The training was all online except for the last level, so we met in person last year in Atlanta. Henry is passionate about his work; he is wise, knowledgeable and a great storyteller. Oh, and funny!In this episode, we talk about a lot of things! He explains how to do Mardi Gras properly. He shares his journey and how he realized when he was in an abusive relationship, and he gives excellent advice for new therapists.  Listen to the end as he does this jazzy trombone thing; I think it's called scat. It's awesome. 
Bio:Henry M. Pittman is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist, Licensed Professional Counselor, Licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor, and Acupuncture Detoxification Specialist licensed by the State of Texas Medical Board. Nationally, he holds the designation of National Certified Counselor (NCC), Master Addiction Counselor (MAC), and Substance Abuse Professional (SAP). Clinically, he is a Certified Anger Resolution Therapist, Certified EMDR Therapist Candidate, Certified Parent Coordinator, and Certified Somatic Experience Practitioner.Henry's website