The challenges of being a woman in medicine and a woman treated by the medical system are real. Dr. Somi Javaid shares her experience working in gynecology and sexual health, opening HerMD, and the dire need for better education, representation, and resources for women’s health.

Dr. Somi shares the challenges of balancing motherhood, working at a medical practice, and being a part of a broken healthcare system, which led her to quit her job. Though a frustrating trajectory, this path led her to open HerMD, an incredible comprehensive women’s healthcare practice specializing in menopause, sexual health, and advanced gynecology.

We discuss the major issues in women’s healthcare today, which consistently result in a lack of funding and disparity in research. The need for education is critical. Most women don’t know the difference between perimenopause and menopause, how their bodies change after pregnancy, or that hormones are good for them! We then talk about normalizing libido fluctuations, pelvic floor health, and testosterone therapy. Reducing the stigma around sexual health and women’s healthcare conversations is deeply important work!

Topics Covered:

• Quitting medicine to open HerMD
• The state of women’s health and sexual healthcare
• Perimenopause and menopause symptoms
• Sex is an intimate conversation
• Women’s health double standard
• Testosterone therapy
• Confusion around hormones

Guest Info

• Instagram: @somijavaidmd
• Website: drsomi.com
• Website: hermd.com

Follow Me:

• Instagram: @afinehuman
• Shop Dame: dame.com

This podcast was produced by The Wave Podcasting

Matthew Stefanko shares his journey from struggling with mental health and substance abuse to founding the company Manual. Manual helps young men aged 15-25 with mental health, sexual health, career planning, personal finance, and more. For Matthew, it's the organization he wishes he had had when he was that age.

We talk about avoiding burnout, being a leader with anxiety, and recognizing one’s own strengths. Matthew reflects on the hyper-masculine environment he grew up in and how that manifested in him later on and in other men. Ultimately, young men are experiencing a crisis of not being heard or understood and not knowing what to do about it, which can have negative long-term consequences.

Though it's sometimes easier said than done, being honest with yourself about your mental health struggles and seeking appropriate support is so important to learn how to deal with them and access a state of thriving.

Topics Covered:

• Balancing entrepreneurship and well-being
• Serving yourself to serve the mission
• Male disconnection and loneliness
• The male crisis
• Substances and social anxiety
• Rise of erectile dysfunction
• Men’s roles in partnerships

Guest Info

• website: manual.care

Follow Me:

• Instagram: @afinehuman
• Shop Dame: dame.com

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This podcast was produced by The Wave Podcasting

Ready to deepen your healing capacity? Sarah Seely, a somatic bodyworker, and I discuss interconnectedness, the power of touch, and the wisdom of grief.

Sarah explains the importance of somatic work. We discuss ways to honor the interconnectedness of mind and body, including her primary offering, Thai massage. She shares her journey through trauma and realizing what she didn’t want from her work. Boundaried evaluations of purpose, such as this, tend to bring transformative results.

Sarah describes Thai massage as a form of communication, a healing mechanism, an intimacy practice, and even a yogic guide. Bodywork has the power to support the nervous system's return to realignment and address touch-related traumas through safe touch practices.

Sarah shares what it was like to lose her fiancé. The experience illuminated what self-care practices she had and which she actually needed. Ultimately, her grief led her to reevaluate her career and focus on somatic work. We discuss how powerful healing in community can be and the many shapes it can take. She concludes by sharing her favorite, juiciest pleasure practice: mindfulness.

Topics Covered:

• What is somatic work?
• Becoming a healer
• Flight, fight, and fawn
• The language of touch
• Massage, trauma, and safe touch
• Grief and healing in community
• Mindfulness as a pleasure practice

Resources Mentioned:

• The Heart Speaks by Mimi Guarneri
• Hardwiring Happiness by Rick Hansen

Guest Info

• Website: thaibkny.com
• Instagram: @thaibrooklyn

Follow Me:

• Instagram: @afinehuman
• Shop Dame: dame.com

Title Options:

This podcast was produced by The Wave Podcasting

How in touch are you with your period? Nadya Okamoto, the co-founder of August, a lifestyle period brand working to reimagine periods to be powerful, has dedicated her life to ending period poverty and improving period care for all women.

Our society has many important issues, and one of them is that the world is not designed for vulva-body people. Alchemizing this frustration into a passion, as 26-year-old Nadya so admirably has, is truly innovative and actually making the world a better place. She co-founded the period product brand August, started an organization at 16 called Period to end period poverty and stigma, and is one of the most prominent educators on social about periods. Definition of a powerhouse!

Nadya shares the gold she has mined from her borderline personality and how she approaches mental health in her business. She opens up about her journey to reaching a point of acceptance about her diagnosis and now is confidently sharing on TikTok about her experience. We get into how sex, periods, pleasure, and being a woman are deeply interconnected and the beauty of engaging over ignoring your period.

Topics Covered:

• Periods, period care, and period stigma
• Borderline personality disorder (BPD) in business
• Sex cravings, masturbation, and stress relief
• Relationship between periods, sex, and pleasure
• Engaging with your period
• Social sharing as an external processor

About Nadya Okamoto

• Website: nadyaokamoto.com
• Instagram: @nadyaokamoto
• TikTok: @nadyaokamoto
• August: itsaugust.co
• Period: period.org

Follow Me:

• Instagram: @afinehuman
• Shop Dame: dame.com

This podcast was produced by The Wave Podcasting

Have you ever been to couples therapy? Dr. Alexandra Soloman, a licensed clinical psychologist, and I discuss what it’s like to be on the other side of the couch, toxic relationship patterns, and how to balance self-development work with reality.

Most people have heard of couples therapy, could benefit from it at some point in their relationship, yet likely have never been to a session. Between the societal stigma and misconceptions about it, it’s not surprising that couples therapy is often considered the last resort to save a partnership.

In our conversation, Dr. Alexandra shares what to expect when visiting a therapist with your partner, how she approaches it as the one facilitating the experience, and why it’s not scary. So much of couples therapy as a psychologist isn’t acting as a referee or judging, but rather inviting people to listen differently to each other.

Dr. Alexandra talks about how to navigate relational ambivalence, AKA whether a couple should stay together or not, and how to grow in your relationship as you dig deeper in your own self-actualization work. She challenges the idea that everything must constantly be improving and offers strategies for getting comfortable with non-linear growth.

We also discuss the four communication patterns that emerge behind most couples that continue on to divorce (and once you know them, they are easy to spot). Finally, we wrap up by diving into relationship superpowers and growth edges.

Topics Covered:

• How a psychologist approaches couples therapy
• What to consider when you ask the question, “Should I stay or should I go?”
• Tools to decide if a relationship is worth working on
• Understanding and addressing “The Four Horsemen” patterns: Criticism, Contempt, Defensiveness and Stonewalling
• Reframing weaknesses as “growing edges” and how to use them to your advantage

About Alexandra Soloman

• Website: dralexandrasolomon.com
• Instagram: @dr.alexandra.soloman
• Podcast: Reimagining Love
• Newsletter: sign up here

Follow Me:

• Instagram: @afinehuman
• Shop Dame: dame.com

This podcast was produced by The Wave Podcasting

My very special guest today is my grandmother, Rochelle Dreeben. Her experience surviving and escaping Poland after World War II has been immensely informative. She has taught me so much about pleasure and peace, and I’m very happy to introduce you to her.

A few years after Rochelle was born, the Nazis bombed the Warsaw Ghetto where she lived. She recalls how the Nazis took away the rights of Jews, and people began to disappear. As a child, her strongest memories are loneliness, hunger, and extreme tension. She recalls how her parents made one brave decision after another. Her stories from this time are remarkable, filled with courage, and just… incredible.

Rochelle’s favorite things now, which are almost certainly directly inspired by her childhood experiences, are movement and peace. No matter the commotion around her, Rochelle will always be composed, at ease, and very likely smiling. Living an aligned life has much to do with knowing and understanding your ancestors' stories, and I count my blessings that I am so deeply connected to mine. There’s a lot to be proud of.

Topics Covered:

• Rochelle’s Holocaust experience
• Surviving the Warsaw Ghetto
• Exodus through war torn Poland
• Quest for personal peace

Rochelle Dreeben:

• Buy Rochelle’s memoir, One Dark Night

Follow Me:

• Instagram: @afinehuman
• Shop Dame: dame.com

This podcast was produced by The Wave Podcasting

Talking about gender can get very serious very quickly, but my guest, Rae McDaniel, squashes that. They are all about reinfusing gender with play, possibility, and pleasure. They show us how in their amazing book, Gender Magic, and share some of their gender wisdom with me today.

For Rae, gender magic asks how each of us can discover who we are and express our magic to the world in a way that doesn’t send her suffering. This requires a healthy dose of softening boundaries, doing away with rigid definitions, and eliminating dichotomies.

Instead, we must engage in one of the biggest adult taboos: play! Silly is subversive! No matter your gender and how comfortable you are with your gender, there is always something to be learned through gender play.

We then get into power stuff: exploring feminine power, masculine power, and how even striving to activate more power within oneself can be a gendered motivation. Nothing is inherently feminine or masculine. These are ideas from which we get to decide what the words mean to us as individuals.

One of my favorite things about Rae is that their ideas are rooted in the real world. Theory and sharing thoughts within our circles are well and good, but that is not the world. I guarantee you will learn something from this convo. Also, don’t forget to buy their book!

Topics Covered:

• The unsexy/sexy process of titling Gender Magic
• The play, possibility, and pleasure of gender play together
• How gender identity and power can interact, support, and contradict each other
• Feeling good as a style compass
• Releasing gender and affirming through gender

About Rae McDaniel

• Instagram: @theraemcdaniel
• Website: rae-mcdaniel.com
• Buy Gender Magic: Hachette Book Group

Follow Me:

• Instagram: @afinehuman
• Shop Dame: dame.com

This podcast was produced by The Wave Podcasting

Let’s talk about sex as we age! I am so excited to share this conversation with Maryjane Fahey, creator of Glorious Broads and all-around bad b*tch.

Maryjane is 74 and has never felt more alive. The revolution of openly curious women is on the rise, and I’m living for it! Curious about sexuality, open marriage, sobriety, both having kids and not having kids… it’s all about opening up communication with yourself and with the people you’re in relationship with.

Especially as women, we crave intergenerational friendships. Most of Maryjane’s audience is younger, 25-45, and love hearing her debunk myths about growing old. We absolutely don’t shrivel up and become irrelevant; we absolutely still want sex and can feel sexy, and we absolutely can live pleasure-filled lives!

Maryjane shares the juice on sexuality as we age. Once pregnancy is removed as an option after menopause, pleasure is at the forefront. If we choose, there can be the liberation of not needing the next partner or spouse, just the next wonderful person to be with. Power is no longer a performance.

This one will leave you feeling inspired and hot, no matter how old or young you are!

Topics Covered:

• Feeling lively AF at 74
• Maryjane’s daily practices to connect with joy and pleasure
• The rise of curious women!
• Sexuality as we age
• On being anti-retirement
• Menopause and hormones

Resources Mentioned:

• Instagram: @wednesdaymartinphd
• Hormone Studies: What Went Wrong?

About Maryjane Fahey

• Glorious Broads
• Instagram: @gloriousbroads
• TikTok: @gloriousbroads

Follow Me:

• Instagram: @afinehuman
• Shop Dame: dame.co

This podcast was produced by The Wave Podcasting