Continuing with Asian Pacific Heritage Month, joining me in this episode is Emily Chui. Emily is a returning guest, having previously joined me in Episode 024 with an introduction to acupuncture.

Emily has been my acupuncturist for the past five years (and counting!) and has taught me so much about Traditional Chinese Medicine.

In this episode, Emily shares:

• Her immigration story migrating from Hong Kong to Southern California as a high school student

• What her transition to American schools was like

• Why she pursued a career in acupuncture (after getting her undergraduate degree in a different field)

• Similarities and differences between Western medicine and TCM

• What are ear seeds and how they can be beneficial for healing

AAPI is a commonly used acronym for Asian American Pacific Islanders. But thus far, my observation, not much attention is given to Pacific Islanders, which are entirely different ethnic groups of people.

So continuing with this month’s focus on sharing real people's stories for Asian Pacific Heritage Month, joining me in this episode is my friend, Luisa Mataele Tupea. Luisa is both an Asian American and Pacific Islander, being of Tongan and Japanese ancestry.

Luisa and I first met as freshmen in college. We lost touch after graduation but reconnected over a decade later when our paths crossed while we were both on work trips, and we’ve remained friends ever since!

In this episode, Luisa shares:

• Her family history, her experiences as a member of both the Japanese and Tongan American communities

• How her communities have evolved over the past 30 years

• Her experience as a professional Asian American Pacific Islander woman in the sports broadcasting industry

• Stories from her career at ESPN covering NFL and NBA games, and events like the Superbowl, World Series, NBA Finals, US Open for Tennis, & even the World Cup!

As I’ve previously said, it's so important to share our stories. So as you listen to Luisa’s story, think about your friends, and ask yourself how well do you know their stories? If you don’t, ask them to share it with you, and let them be heard.

This show has always been a place to share real people’s stories around health and wellness, and our communities and social support systems are foundational to our vitality.

This month, being Asian Pacific Heritage Month, and I, being an Asian American, am dedicating this month’s episodes to the stories we don’t talk about, and sharing Asian Pacific Islander stories.

Because if we don’t know each other’s stories, how can we support our communities in ways that they need to be supported?

Joining me today is my friend Julianne Chai.

Julianne and I became friends over a decade ago through the Bay Area running and blogging community but we really bonded when we both became dog moms to our rescue pups.

Despite being friends for so many years, I never knew her immigrant story as a first-generation Korean American. So in this episode, Julianne joins me to share her story of immigrating to the United States at 10 years old, what the cultural acclimation was like, and how she assimilated to American culture while still retaining her native Korean culture.

As you listen to her story, think about your friends, regardless of their ethnic backgrounds, and ask yourself how well do you know their stories? If you don’t, ask them to share it with you, and let them be heard.

In a society where we're expected to push ourselves to work and accomplish much as quickly as possible, it’s no wonder that burnout has become the accepted norm.

In this last installment of my three-part series on burnout, we explore Human Design and why you might be more susceptible to burnout than others.

I share with you how I use my Human Design to reframe my thought patterns and daily habits to avoid burnout.

Episode Highlights:

• A recap of Parts 1 and 2 in this series on burnout

• What areas of your Human Design chart can shed insight into whether you might be prone to burnout

• How you can use Human Design to your advantage to manage your energy and avoid burnout

Functional Nutrition is an approach where you address not just WHAT you’re experiencing, but WHY. What’s the environment that’s created your condition(s)?

In Part 2 of this 3-part mini-series on addressing burnout, I walk you through how to use the tools of Functional Nutrition to explore YOUR antecedents, triggers, and meditators (ATMs) and construct YOUR big picture to understand WHY you’re experiencing burnout.

I walk you through the methods I use to help myself (and others) recover from burnout.

There’s never a one-size-fits-all solution, but this approach helps you create one that works for you!

At some point in our lives, we’ve all experienced dreaded feelings of burnout. Be it from long periods of chronic stress from work, relationships, family, a pandemic, or anything that weighs heavy on us.

If you’ve ever experienced this, you’re definitely are not alone.

In this episode, I share my most intense moments of burnout from different periods in my life, and how I managed to relight the spark to keep on going!

Episode Highlights:

• What burnout is

• Signs, symptoms, and contributions to burnout

• Times in my life I’ve been burnout and what it was like

• Four steps to really addressing burnout

If you’ve ever seen your Human Design chart, you know that it’s very confusing. Without any knowledge of the basic foundations of Human Design, it’s hard to understand the basics, let alone the intricacies of your charts. As a Health and Human Design coach, I’m here to help you understand your design so you can determine how to best integrate your design, and live your life with the least amount of resistance.

In this episode, I aim to clear up a few questions and misconceptions of Human Design for you! Knowing your Human Design can help you understand yourself better, shed some light on your gifts that you can offer the world, and how we all function harmoniously together.

Episode Highlights:

• A summary of Human Design

• The foundational elements of a Human Design Chart

• A breakdown of my own Human Design

Just “listen to your body.” Haven’t we all heard this before? But what does it even mean? And more importantly, *how* do you even do that?

It’s a question I’ve asked myself for the better part of a decade while dealing with sports injuries, recovering from adrenal dysfunction, and a variety of circumstances.

In this episode, I share how confusing and overwhelming this question felt, how I came to realize that in many ways it’s a skill that not everyone has developed, and how I’ve come to learn what “listening to my body” means to me - and the tools that taught me how to do so.

Episode Highlights:

• Why listening to your body is confusing

• What it means to listen to your body

• How I learned to listen to my body

• The tools that taught me how to do so

Our skin is the biggest organ in the body, a big indicator of what might be going on internally, and one of the first things people see when they meet us -- so it's important to take care of it.

Today I brought along Sonia Vargas, a licensed aesthetician and skincare healer, who specializes in holistic treatment and practices. Her drive to keep learning and her passion for helping others manifest themselves in her certifications, namely; Sculptural Lifting Technique & Buccal Facial Massage, Vodder Manual Lymphatic Drainage, Connective Tissue Massage, and Reiki.

She believes that skin treatments go beyond the surface and that it’s deeply rooted in the systems of the whole body. She believes that our bodies are capable of healing themselves naturally, leading to improvement in many skin-related conditions.

Episode Highlights:

• The difference between Holistic aestheticians and traditional ones

• What Reflexology is and what it can do for you

• Sonia’s recommended daily skincare regimen

• How other body systems can affect our skin