Hello, My Dear,
Welcome — we’re so glad you’re here.
You have some spring goodness in store for you this month:
Hot Off The Press: Evergreen Women’s Holistic Care is Celebrating One Year!
April in The Haven:
Read & Enjoy: Spring Is in Full Swing
Recommended Read of the Month: The Hormone Cure by Sara Gottfried
Body Care Recommendations: Shampoo — Is It True?
Active Duty & Veteran Corner: The Link Between Your Foot and Pelvic Health
Gratitude: RECAP: Women’s Wellness for the Waterfront Workshop
Upcoming Events: Virtual Women’s Wellness Workshop and more!
Hot Off The Press
We’re celebrating one year of Evergreen’s Women’s Holistic Care!
I opened Evergreen last April in San Diego, California. My goal was simple: To create a safe and compassionate space for women to feel supported and cared for in their holistic health journey.
Now, we are one year into offering holistic care, women’s health-focused integrative massage and holistic bodywork, and women’s health education.
In that time, I’ve felt so honored to support women as they:
Learn about their body, their hormones, and the beautiful convergence that makes them women, so they can make informed decisions about their health (with the help of The Haven and Women's Wellness Workshops)
Make intentional lifestyle changes to transform their health and ensure long-term vitality
Learn more about Endometriosis and how to alleviate their pain and symptoms
Gain confidence in their bodies as they recover from surgery and injury
Find balance in postpartum with compassionate conversation and integrative massage
Grow to understand the interconnectedness of their mental, emotional, and physical bodies, and how to establish balance for themselves
Establish a harmonious relationship between their mind and body with holistic bodywork and personalized guided meditation
Find a safe space to fully relax and release deep, chronic tension, tightness, and stress
I feel blessed to have found my calling and grateful beyond words to know I will do this for the rest of my life.
In celebration of our one-year anniversary, we’ve also launched something new to support you, your health, and your body.
Evergreen now offers Holistic Health Consultations and One-On-One Health Education Sessions, in person and drum roll, please…
Virtually!
We’re so excited to begin this new chapter of caring for all the wonderful women who are looking for Evergreen care but don’t live in San Diego.
Holistic Consultations
What can you expect from booking an Evergreen Holistic Consultation?
Holistic Consultations will feel like a caring, knowledgeable friend is compassionately encouraging, guiding, and exploring with you. These sessions are designed to help you find ways to invite in what energizes you, release what doesn’t serve you, and discover what you desire in life so you can be your healthiest self physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Over the last several months, I’ve had the joy and honor of supporting women with Holistic Consultations and personal education sessions, discussing things like:
Medical advocacy, education, and support
Endometriosis pre-surgery considerations and questions for their surgeons
Endometriosis post-surgery planning and support
PCOS
Perimenopause and menopause education and lifestyle changes
The why behind the best lifestyle habits and selections for you
Women’s health resources and educational guidance
Through these consultations, I’ve also provided holistic health plans and support for:
Improved sleep
Gut healing
Cycle healing
Hormone balancing
Creating safety within your body
Mind-body connection and body relationship healing
If you need support in any of these areas, please reach out so I can support you. You don’t have to figure out this holistic health thing alone.
One-On-One Holistic Health Education
A One-on-One Holistic Health Education Session is your personal retreat to learn about your health through the lens of your unique experience as a woman. This is where we get to the why — to build a foundation of understanding your cycles and other aspects of your overall health — so you can feel empowered as you navigate the ebb and flow of seasons in your life.
What do you want to learn about? We can cover a range of topics, including:
Cycles, cycle symptoms, and cycle syncing
Hormones and how they impact your day-to-day life
Stress
Gut health
Establishing safety within your body
The mind-body connection
How to better communicate with medical professionals
This is a personal workshop open for your learning, where you can ask questions and collect resources that will equip you to move forward with your health confidently — however that looks for you.
If you missed us last month or are new to The Haven —
READ:
LISTEN (Our Most Popular):
April in The Haven
Spring has sprung!
What do you notice? As the sun is out more often and taking its time to set in the evenings, do you sense a lighter air around you? Do you feel yourself and your body awakening with new energy? Do you have a growing desire to be out more often?
Take a moment to reflect on what you feel around you and within you. How can you make the most of this magical season?
Read & Enjoy —
🗓Mark your calendar!
What’s in store for you for the rest of April?
Tuesday, April 15th: 7 Health Practices that Lowered My Stress & Balanced My Hormones
Tuesday, April 22nd: Mother Earth & You (by Mira)
Sunday, April 27th: Guided Meditation & Breathwork — Create Safety Within Your Body For Transformative Sleep
Tuesday, April 29th: Part II: Endometriosis — There’s Hope: Healing Your Gut
Recommended Read of the Month: The Hormone Cure by Sara Gottfried
If you want to get to the science behind women’s hormones, understand your own symptoms, and find the best recommendations for your hormonal health, this book is a one-stop shop for all of that.
What I love most about Dr. Gottfried’s book is her choose-your-own-adventure style layout for the book.
If you want to take a deep dive into the science behind hormonal balance and imbalance, you can.
If you only want to learn the high-level concepts and get to the solutions, you can.
This book is packed with actionable tools and takeaways, including a personal assessment you can take to learn about your hormones (based on your systems), as well as recommendations for bloodwork, supplements, and overall best practices for women’s hormonal health.
Add this one to your women’s health toolkit and enjoy!
Body Care Recommendation: Shampoo — Is It True?
As I began to explore and invest in clean body care, shampoo was certainly not one of the first products I looked into.
But I became really interested and dialed in when my face started breaking out in ways I’d never experienced.
I think I reexamined my whole life during this time! Funny how one small aspect of your life can completely derail everything else (can you relate?).
In all seriousness, as I explored what the cause of this acne could be, some common irritants in shampoo, like fragrances and sulfates, came to my attention.
It’s true: The ingredients in your shampoo can either support or damage your health.
It makes sense when you think about it. The shampoo you use doesn’t just stay in your hair — it soaks into your skin through your scalp, and the run-off inevitably seeps into your face and the rest of your body.
My body was clearly telling me that something needed to change. I explored switching to a clean shampoo to avoid the common irritants I’d researched.
I wound up buying a style of shampoo that, as a natural hair girlie, I couldn’t have imagined I’d try in a million years — a shampoo bar.
And I have to say I love it.
I love how it lathers. I love how clean my hair feels without drying out. I love the ingredients, and I feel good about how they support my health.
After trying some of their other products, too, I trust and adore the brand I chose.
Suspenseful enough?
I’m in love with Moon Valley Organics Shampoo Bars, and I’m never going back! I’m currently into Peppermint, but in due time, I’m going to give them all a go.
Product Description: Dense with beneficial herbs and essential oils, our shampoo bar with yield twice as many washes as a liquid shampoo bottle. For all hair types. No Parabens.
Ingredients: Purified Water, Organic Sustainable Palm oil, Organic Safflower oil, Organic Coconut oil, Sodium Hydroxide*, Organic Castor, Organic Calendula, Organic Nettle, Organic Horsetail, Organic Tea Tree and Organic Peppermint essential oil, Green Bentonite clay, Organic Sustainable Red Palm oil and Organic Lavender essential oil. That’s It!
*None remains after saponification of oils into shampoo and glycerin
If you try them and love them as much as I do, you’ll have to let me know!
Gratitude: Women’s Wellness on the Waterfront was a SUCCESS!
In less than 30 days, we raised over $4,000, which allowed us to host active duty and veteran women at a workshop on women’s health, hormones, gut health, and pelvic health. We also have funds for more impactful events in the future (coming soon)!
I’M SO GRATEFUL!
Thank you to all of our donors who believe in the power of community, women’s health education, and creating safe spaces for women.
I had a blast during this workshop, and what meant the most to me was the connections I made with a beautiful community of women — women who, like me, are interested in learning more about their bodies, finding ways to care for themselves daily, and supporting their long-term health.
Upcoming Events:
Virtual:
April 17th, 5–6:30 p.m. PST: PCOS Educational Workshop
May 1st, 5–6:30 p.m. PST: Perimenopause & Menopause Education Workshop
Active Duty & Veteran Women’s Corner
As you navigate the demands of service or prior service and how it has challenged your health, we want to ensure you know what resources are available to you so you can learn more about your body, support your health, and begin to heal.
Are You Wearing Boots Every Day?
Did you know the shoes you wear can impact your pelvic health?
I had no idea until five years ago, during pelvic floor physical therapy post-surgery.
If I had to guess, you’ve likely been walking around wearing boots — specifically steel-toed boots — for a long time. The issue is that the weight of those boots forces your body to compensate in ways that place a major strain on your pelvis.
You know, your foot bones connected to your leg bones, your leg bones connected to your hip bones (I hope you read that sing-songy in your head).
We all have a natural way our body moves when we walk barefoot, called our gait. Like me, you have a unique gait that can be impacted and changed due to things like past injuries and tight muscles. When we have shoes on, our feet have to subtly adjust to the weight and restrictions of those shoes, which ultimately impacts the way we walk and how the rest of our body moves.
When your feet consistently compensate for the weight of boots over a long period of time, they become less pliable, the muscle chain from your feet to your pelvic muscles compensates, and your pelvic floor and surrounding muscles become tight (fatigued) and stressed.
TLDR: Your shoes impact your foot health, and your foot health directly influences your pelvic health. But not to worry — I have some tips to help you counterbalance your boots’ impact on your health.
5 Ways to Improve Your Foot Health
Buy Custom Insoles: Insoles custom-made for your feet support your body’s ability to stay as close as possible to its natural gait while supporting the weight of your boots.
Roll Your Feet Daily: Rolling your feet with a tennis ball or foot roller helps relax and release your foot muscles. This practice is accessible and will take you only a few minutes per foot. (Pro Tip: Try adding this to your morning routine before you put your boots on — this will help promote blood flow.)
Get a Reflexology Foot Massage: Massages support the relaxation and release of tired, tight muscles. You can do a self-massage or have a friend or family member massage your feet for a few minutes. ( Pro Tip: Visit a Licensed Massage Therapist to maximize results.)
Try Pelvic Floor Relaxation Modalities: Do deep diaphragmatic breathwork, or consider pelvic floor physical therapy, abdominal massages, or hip-opening specific yoga poses.
Strengthening Your Glutes: Your glutes are your main walking muscles. You want to make sure they are strong and healthy and can consistently support the added weight of your boots. Drop into those squats, do those RDLs, throw in some Good Mornings, and walk it out with some walking lunges.
Remember: The effects of heavy boots are usually subtle at first, but their long-term impact can become more pronounced if you don’t counterbalance their effects now. Prevention now is always better (and easier) than intervention later!
I’m jumping in the comments to share my favorite part of April in The Haven and my favorite thing about springtime; come with me and share yours!
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