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Siobhan Azgharzadeh joins us on this week’s podcast for a walk with grief.
When she was in her early 30s, Siobhan’s best friend died suddenly. Siobhan followed her beloved friend into the underworld, fully consumed by grief. A month into her grief, she woke up one day unable to see. Doctors looked at her double vision and headaches, her loss of motor function in her legs, and brain scans showing lesions and concluded she had Multiple Sclerosis. Siobhan had trouble accepting this diagnosis, as to her, it seemed obvious that her symptoms were an expression of her almost unendurable loss.
Steroids and immunosuppressant drugs could neither cure nor heal Siobhan, and so she undertook a healing journey guided by myths and stories. She learned to walk with her grief and MS as teachers and companions. Now she walks this sacred path with other pilgrims, as an elder.
More information about Siobhan can be found at Grief Pilgrim. She has multiple offerings coming up soon, including a year-long mentorship program culminating in a pilgrimage of the Camino de Santiago. A grief retreat working with story is open to all in July and will feature land sojourns and kintsugi, among other medicine. In August she hosts a retreat for mothers who have lost their children. You can also work with her in an upcoming group container or one-on-one to find a place for your grief to belong.
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit howihealed.substack.com/subscribe -
On today’s episode, we talk to Laura Delano, mother, writer, and peer-to-peer psychiatric support advocate. Laura was like many teenage girls, crushed under the pressure of perfectionism. She was diagnosed at fourteen with depression and prescribed psych meds, even though she knew in her heart that her rage, pain, and grief were logical, natural reactions to the society in which she was contorting herself to fit.
So began decades of psychiatrization, learning to identify her mental landscape as broken, ill, and disordered. Psychiatry became a gateway to medicalization in other ways, and she developed an autoimmunity, low libido and other conditions. She was chemically castrated with birth control for many years, with no understanding that this could actually worsen depression symptoms.
In this episode, Laura takes us through her journey and brings the research of many scholars that she learned along the way. She debunks the serotonin theory of depression, and lays out the truth of how depression and its treatments are marketing terms for the pharmaceutical industry. In a special bonus episode, we will be talking about tapering. We’ll make this bonus episode available free to all for a very limited time, and only on Substack, as it will get censored on other platforms.
Laura is the founder and Executive Director of Inner Compass Initiative (ICI), a non-profit organization dedicated to helping people make more informed choices about today’s mental health industry, and about taking and coming off psychiatric drugs.
Separately, Laura consults with individuals and families looking for information, guidance and support during the medication withdrawal process. She has spoken and led workshops in Europe and across North and South America and is at work on a memoir about her experiences called UNSHRUNK, which will be published in the US, UK,and Commonwealth countries later this year. Find out more at www.LauraDelano.com.
* Twitter: https://twitter.com/LauraDelano
* Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_lauradelano_/
* FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/laurafdelano
* FB Account: https://www.facebook.com/lfdelano
* Learn more about Inner Compass Initiative and about safer psychiatric drug tapering
* here: https://www.theinnercompass.org
Are you feeling the call to work with the plants? Check out Mary Lou’s three-hour deep dive into herbs for psycho-spiritual wellness. Learn about many herbal allies for psychological well-being and how to incorporate them into your life and sign up here.
Are you looking to move in closer relationship to the cosmos? Ready to tell all-new stories to the myths you’re used to telling about your life, your health, or relationships? Check out Jocelyn’s new 1:1 astrology container, As Within So Without.
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit howihealed.substack.com/subscribe -
Saknas det avsnitt?
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Mikiala Spadaro was skeptical of the medical system — a crunchy, granola type of girlie who did yoga and meditated and didn’t immediately reach for meds whenever she felt ill. She thought she was awakened to life, but she would soon be humbled after finding a huge lump in her breast that seemed to grow overnight, and which was diagnosed as an aggressive, potentially deadly breast cancer. She had thought that she would never do chemo or anything like that, but she softened into the possibility that her highest knowing, not that of doctors, was actually telling her to use Western medicine. She decided not to fight cancer, but to fall in love with it, to see it as her greatest teacher. And by breathing into this relationality with cancer, so began the initiation into the depths of spirituality she had previously only imagined that she understood. She came to a dissolution of her ego, of her self-hood, and from this dissolving, she merged with Love.
Now, Mikiala is more surrendered to life. She knows that cancer could come back any time, in any form. There is no need to fight the future, but there is a call to continue to hold the healing space she cultivated for herself, for others on a healing journey. You can check out her work on her website here. Follow her on instagram at @theamoremethod
Are you feeling the call to work with the plants? Check out Mary Lou’s three-hour deep dive into herbs for psycho-spiritual wellness. Learn about many herbal allies for psychological well-being and how to incorporate them into your life and sign up here.
Are you looking to move in closer relationship to the cosmos? Ready to tell all-new stories to the myths you’re used to telling about your life, your health, or relationships? Check out Jocelyn’s new 1:1 astrology container, As Within So Without.
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit howihealed.substack.com/subscribe -
Today on How I Healed we speak with beloved friend Kate Ater, a licensed doctor of Chinese medicine in New Mexico since 2001. She practices classical Chinese medicine and Chinese herbology. You may have heard us mention her name many times before on the podcast, she is our favorite source of knowledge on TCM and she is finally with us. A scientist and critical inquirer, she originally wanted to be a doctor or vet. As a young biochemistry student, she had a lingering shoulder injury that was unresponsive to physical therapy and allopathic medicine, and she was driven to try acupuncture. Her injury cleared at last, and her fascination with Chinese medicine began. Initially she balked at the ineffable and unquantifiable aspects — the spiritual component of this field. But as she committed further to learning, the path to her life’s work revealed itself to her.
On this podcast, we give you an overview of qi, yin and yang, and the TCM understanding of organs, meridians, seasons, and so much more. Reflections of the cosmos in the micro and macro, we as humans contain all the medicine we need to be in harmony and health, even as we navigate seasons of imbalance or illness. Kate tells the story of how we can stimulate our own qi to bring ourselves back into harmony.
Kate also offers stories of healing illness, injury, and even complications in birth. She is a mother of two beautiful, spirited girls. Look at for an expansion of this conversation, available only to our paid subscribers.
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit howihealed.substack.com/subscribe -
Alicen Grey’s vocal talent attracted attention from a very young age. The church in which she grew up put her on stages raising money for the church, not a dime of which she ever saw. Told that she would be punished by God if she refused, she burnt out her voice and associated singing with being entrapped.
The process of freeing and reclaiming her voice involved freeing her mind, body, and soul. Now, she has found her way back to God, and to her God-given gift of singing. For the whole conversation, make sure to upgrade to a paid subscription, as we’re diving in deeper on conspiracy, transhumanism, female spirituality and more behind the paywall.
She is writer and musician who muses on magick, mysticism, metaphysics, and mental freedom.
In her writing on Substack, she “collects perspectives” and explores the grey area in all ideologies, hence her self-chosen name meaning “Alice in the Grey Area.”
In her music, by the moniker When Humans Had Wings, she chronicles her in-progress self-liberation process with melodies and metaphors.
Alicen’s heArtwork is inspired by a desire to re-mind people that humans can (literally) fly — our potential is infinite, and we are free to choose a life of love and lucidity.
COMING SOON: Herbs for Psychospiritual Well-Being
Are you bracing yourself for the next chapter of the human story?
Feeling off center as the world rapidly changes around you?
Does “the new normal” seem anything but normal to you?
Come take a deep dive into how the plant world can help you find peace and balance.
We are all descended from people who lived through times of great change. Wherever your ancestors originated, they relied on plant medicine to stay healthy and centered. These same plants are available now to help navigate our crazy times.
This beginner and advanced-friendly class will empower you to know and use herbs for many physical and psychological conditions.
Come gather medicine wisdom for yourself and your community.
Taught by Mary Lou Singleton, herbalist, midwife and family nurse-practitioner. Mary Lou has been studying and practicing herbalism for over 30 years.
To sign up for this course or to book an appointment with Mary Lou, please visit www.enchantedfamily medicine.com
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit howihealed.substack.com/subscribe -
As an elite highschool and college athlete, Shannon Connolly was driven to win, to be the best, to master her body and what it was capable of. She carried a belief that her success was tied up in her fitness excellence, so when she pushed herself to the limit, it impacted far more than her wins in field hockey or track. Her relationships with friends and family, but most importantly, with herself, were pushed to the limit. Injury and plummeting self-esteem followed. While she reached for balance in sports, she also had to find balance in her career. Graduating college, she pursued a career as a doctor of chiropractic, in a fast-paced setting, churning through patients. She felt disconnected from that model of care, but it would take a major catalyst to put her on a different path. Now, she no longer sees the body as something to “fix,” but instead wants to help people build a relationship with their body-mind that unlocks wellbeing from now into old age.
In this episode, she shares her own healing journey and finding movement that supports, challenges, and builds confidence. As Jocelyn’s real-life personal trainer, and a huge influence in her own healing journey, we dive into the power of consistent strength training in healing chronic pain and illness. Just in time to reality check any New Year’s fantasies of becoming a gym-rat, we break down what it really takes to develop a healthy relationship to consistent movement and how that can support you from now until you’re an old lady. Follow her on Instagram @livewellwithdrshannon or at her website https://livewellwithdrshannon.com/.
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit howihealed.substack.com/subscribe -
Romy inherited a love of dance from her matrilineal line. She has been studying ballet since childhood and became a dance teacher specializing in ballet and traditional African dance. Her business was successful, and yet she knew that there was a block preventing her from fully embodying all the power available to her in her body, in her relationships, and in her business. She attributed this block to her solar plexus, the chakra associated with will and dynamism.
Romy has always been careful about what she puts in her body. But after praying for solar plexus healing, she did something totally out of character and took Neem oil that was recommended to her, without doing the research she typically would. High doses of neem over time led to liver failure, and yet she felt confidence and peace that the process was unfolding exactly as it was meant to in order to heal her solar plexus: afterall, the liver and spleen (instinct) are associated with this energy center. On the other side of this experience she was able to access emotions that she previously internalized and repressed.
Now, her power is unlocked, and it’s transformed the way she shows up as a dance teacher. Her offering is imbued with magic, and she holds a space that allows her students to step more fully into their own power, too.
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit howihealed.substack.com/subscribe -
Content notice: This episode of How I Healed includes brief, but graphic, descriptions of rape, sexual exploitation, suicidality and suicidal ideation.
Olivia Ballard grew up homeschooled in the Church of Latter Day Saints. While this gave her a strong foundation of family and faith, it chafed at her self-expression, especially of her sexuality. When encountering identity politics for the first time, she found community and the security she needed to express lesbian sexuality. But her acceptance in this new community was conditional upon displaying overt loyalty to a new church, the church of Queer Theory.
This led her further and further from her family of origin, into the welcoming arms of Johns, pimps, drug users, and traffickers. Along the way, she began to express chronic symptoms like eczema, food allergies, depression, drug dependence and more. Her body was asking for her to slow down, to protect herself, but she was young and highly impressionable, and listened to outside authorities over her inner wisdom.
Nearly fatal experiences of pharmaceutical withdrawal and sexual exploitation were survived with the loving presence of Olivia’s ancestors. Through their support, and through reintegration with her living family, Olivia found the inner strength to pursue radical responsibility and self-acceptance. She turned to nature, herbs, body work, and a deep faith in God’s plan for her life, to transmute expressions of disease into incredible vitality.
Now, Olivia is building a life of service to families and children. She is an early childhood development specializing in ancestral childrearing. A songwriter herself, she also teaches music, cooking, and somatics to families. She believes in the sovereignty and wisdom of young children, and the messages they offer in the family constellation. She is in love with the act of laying beneath the flowers’ faces and listening to their tales. She seeks to combine her love of plant medicine with her talent for caring for families by weaving their magic into daily life. Her deepest satisfaction comes from anointing herself and others with holy, flower-infused oil and witnessing transformation take place.
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit howihealed.substack.com/subscribe -
When Tanya lost her father to a heart attack, she blamed herself. For years, she medicated her guilt and regret with meth and alcohol. While she tried many times to get clean, merely stopping these habits was not enough. Depression and anxiety set in whenever she got sober. Addiction was the surface level issue, and there was a deeper root to her sickness that would require a spiritual initiation for her to heal.
In this week’s episode of How I Healed, Tanya, who glows with vitality and exuberance in her crone years, tells the story of a recovery decades in the making. In finding her way back to her essential spirit, she was able to heal her body and soul, but also her lineage going back even further. The path began by getting back to the basics: good, nourishing food, walks in nature, coffee with her mother, and while it might sound idyllic, it was hard, and at times very lonely work.
Now a clinical therapist, women’s circle facilitator, and a beacon in her New Mexico community, her karma has ripened. She has transmuted the sickness of addiction into medicine for the most vulnerable. In this episode, she offers that medicine to us, with practical, empathetic advice for anyone on a healing journey.
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit howihealed.substack.com/subscribe -
Podcast co-creator Mary Lou Singleton tells the story of healing her chronic asthma in our third episode. Born needing resuscitation, Mary Lou was born out of breath. She also didn't have the chance to bond with her mother in the first three days of life. Expressing her own and the grief of her lineage began early, through her weak lungs, asthma, and painful eczema. When wheezing for breath and covered in rashes, she got attention from her mother. She finally had the chance to bond with her mother and receive the nurturance they had both always longed for, only as her mother was dying of cancer. Mary Lou picked up a heavy smoking habit to hold and process her grief, which only exacerbated the disease. It was a long road to recovery, but however bitter the medicine, it brought Mary Lou healing for much more than her asthma.
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit howihealed.substack.com/subscribe -
On the second episode of How I Healed, podcast co-creator Jocelyn Macdonald tells her story of healing from decades of chronic health conditions including bipolar disorder, anxiety, rheumatoid arthritis, sjogren’s syndrome, psoriasis and endometriosis. Engagement with the medical system created and proliferated disease identities that then could only be treated with more and more engagement with the medical industry. Pharmaceutical prescriptions, with side effects often as severe as the symptoms they were intended to treat, became dependencies.
We discuss the psychic origins of disease. Lack of self love and poor boundaries manifest physically in disease states that offer protection of a kind. We explore some of the techniques Jocelyn used to heal her autoimmune disease over the last year, while being completely medication free.
More of Jocelyn’s work can be found at:
@auntflossy on instagram
Woodworking at solidsunstudio.com
Book a session with Jo here https://calendly.com/jocelyn-teal-macdonald
Mary Lou Singleton is a family nurse practitioner, herbalist and apprentice trained homebirth midwife. She has been caring for the health of New Mexican families for over 25 years. Mary Lou believes all health care modalities, from allopathic medicine to energy work and everything in between, have healing potential, that healing is always an individual journey to be supported by community, and that when it comes to healing effectiveness is the measure of the truth.
You can see more of Mary Lou’s work at:
Enchantedfamilymedicine.com
Enchantedfamillymedicine.substack.com
@marylousingleton on Instagram
@ML_Singleton on Twitter
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit howihealed.substack.com/subscribe -
Welcome to How I Healed.
In our first episode, Jocelyn and Mary Lou discuss why we created the How I Healed podcast. We share our critiques of mainstream medicine and discuss how the healthcare industry in the US would be better labeled the disease maintenance industry.
But we don’t just complain about the status quo! We discuss what true healing means to each of us and offer insight on liberation from chronic illness and pharmaceutical drug dependence. We delve into the mythic world, exploring how every illness has a psychospiritual as well as a physical origin. We talk about the primal importance of birth, the medicine of a good death, and the messy joy and pain of everything in between.
Jocelyn Macdonald is an artist and storyteller. She is enlivened by the infinite potential of humans to heal, and helps others to walk this path through her art and music. Her healing practice focuses on making and finding meaning out of the crises and major choice points of our lives. She offers one-on-one support through coaching, archetypal astrology and tarot. She specializes in assisting with psychedelic integration and pharmaceutical cessation.
More of Jocelyn’s work can be found at:
@auntflossy on instagram
Woodworking at solidsunstudio.com
Book a session with Jo here https://calendly.com/jocelyn-teal-macdonald
Mary Lou Singleton is a family nurse practitioner, herbalist and apprentice trained homebirth midwife. She has been caring for the health of New Mexican families for over 25 years. Mary Lou believes all health care modalities, from allopathic medicine to energy work and everything in between, have healing potential, that healing is always an individual journey to be supported by community, and that when it comes to healing effectiveness is the measure of the truth.
You can see more of Mary Lou’s work at:
Enchantedfamilymedicine.com
Enchantedfamillymedicine.substack.com
@marylousingleton on Instagram
@ML_Singleton on Twitter
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit howihealed.substack.com/subscribe
