The Wellness Wonderland Radio: | Self-Help | Health | Creativity | Spirituality | Yoga | Fitness | ...

This week is a conversation with style expert Stacy London. You might know her as the co-host of TLC’s iconic show, “What Not to Wear." Following that success, she’s gone on to host and executive produce, write books, and create a podcast. Last year, Stacy founded State of Menopause, a holistic line addressing the symptoms associated with menopause. And while it might seem like a twist, she’s doing what she has done her entire career as a stylist: helping people who are struggling feel better. She’s honestly so cool—we explored the connection between style, eating disorder recovery, and negative body image and also talked about career transitions. She gave me style advice and I loved speaking with her and I’m curious to know what you think, so let me know if you listen. Show Notes:-IN PROCESS Semester 4 starts October 20th--learn more & sign up here-Follow Stacy on Instagram-Check out State of Menopause-Subscribe to our newsletter to get show notes + essays, etc. sent to your inbox-Follow @letitouttt on I

This week: musician Courtney Marie Andrews on songwriting, relationships, vulnerability, touring, making music videos, collaboration, and more. She started her career performing and busking up and down the West Coast; now, she’s toured all over and released several records, including 2020's GRAMMY-nominated Old Flowers. Her newest record, Loose Future, comes out in October. She also wrote a book of poems called Old Monarch. We talk about her writing process and the method she calls “chunk writing”.We both happen to be only children and latchkey kids who lived with our single mothers so we talk about that as well as our shared love of walking. Let us know if you listened and go see her on tour. Show Notes:-Find Courtney on the Web | Instagram-Pre-order her new album, Loose Future-IN PROCESS launches this October--learn more & sign up here-Subscribe to our newsletter to get show notes + essays, etc. sent to your inbox-Follow @letitouttt on Instagram. I'm @katiedalebout-Photo credit: Brett Warren If you like

Instead of the usual interview, this is a casual conversation I have with writer Maggie Harrison and Brian Stoothoff, co-founder and owner of the Brooklyn coffee shop Daughter. They each introduce themselves and explain how we met, cover creative process (including how crucial focus is to creativity), loving and leaving where you grew up, seasons and lacking them, and more. They are both founding members of the workshop I started in the fall of 2020--then called Creative Underdogs. It’s a place that encourages connection while making projects. They talk about what happened to them as a result of the group and I tell why I stopped hosting it so abruptly. For the three of us talking about foods we’ve eaten lately morphs into a deep dive into the minutiae of our palates and flavor preferences—from our love of smoked flavor to oatmeal. If you want learn more about any of what we talk about, it’s in the shownotes … or just email me: [email protected] Show Notes:- Learn more about Creative Underdogs/In Process h

This week I have a conversation with award-winning storyteller and audio producer Megan Tan. You may know Megan (like I do) from her first audio series from 2014—a wildly successful documentary/memoir show with Radiotopia called Millennial. I’ve always admired her unique style of storytelling, and since Millennial she has gone on to produce shows and episodes for Gimlet Media’s The Habitat, TED, WNYC’s Radiolab,All Things Considered, Pineapple Street Media, and more. In 2020, Megan was named Producer of the Year by Adweek. An episode she made of the podcast WILD (which featured Megan’s personal story about love during the pandemic) is my favorite of her recent work, so we began this conversation talking about love and dating in the pandemic.  Then, we get into how her career has transitioned and talk about her most recent podcast, Snooze, a documentary-style show about tackling the things people put off – including something big that Megan’s been snoozing on herself. I love it—I listened to it all in one day

This week I spoke to my friend Carolina Mesarina. An artist with a background in production, she's currently in the midst of a career pivot, which we unpacked in this episode. After studying acting at NYU and attending grad school, she found herself on what she calls, "the other side of the call sheet": producing. We talk about her transitioning to a more creative role through the lens of Julia Cameron's term (from The Artist's Way): “Shadow Artist”. As a Creative Producer, Carolina now makes videos and visuals for brands and individuals to help them stand out. We met in New York and have collaborated creatively over the years. She’s so genuine, smart, and creative—and one of my close friends—making the episode unique. We've had many conversations about creativity, identity, money, support, feeling on the outside, procrastination, and career transitions—only this time we recorded our conversation. Show notes-Find Carolina on the Web | Instagram- Carolina was a guest on Creative Underdogs/In Process--here's a

When Emily Gellis hears rumors of people suffering horrible side effects from a trendy diet she springs into action. Armed with over a hundred thousand Instagram followers, Emily launches a social media crusade to expose F-Factor and its founder, Tanya Zuckerbrot. It’s the start of a feud that will attract trolls, lawyers, and, eventually, national media all because of fiber. From Wondery, this is a story about wealth, wellness, and influence hosted by Casey Wilson. Listen to Fed Up: http://wondery.fm/LIO_FEDUP

This week marks the 400th episode of this podcast. For this celebratory episode, I have a conversation with my friend and fellow podcast host Alyssa Benjamin. She’s a brand strategist who has worked with values-based brands from Eileen Fisher to Buffy on meaningful experiences and compelling content. Her podcast, Our Nature, explores the methods, systems and practices that bring us into greater alignment with the natural world.Alyssa and I tell the story of how we met in New York, collaborated on a project, and both ended up here on the west coast. We recorded this conversation in person and it covered finding what she calls “inner stability”, tolerating emotions, our relationship to nature, career pivots, creative process, naming projects, celebrating milestones, leaving New York, storytelling, unique aesthetics, connection, dating, romantic relationships, and more. Show Notes:- Find Alyssa on the Web | Instagram- Listen to Alyssa's podcast, Our Nature, on Apple Podcasts | Spotify- The Podcast Kit is 50% off

This week I spoke with Jennie Edgar, who has led (as she says) many lives, from starting a pie business to working as a freelance editorial and art director. Since 2018, Jennie has been writing and designing for thoughtful brands to refine their editorial voice and aesthetic expression. Additionally, she’s a visual artist and the founder of So Textual, a platform that promotes community around reading, so we talk about her style of reading and how that varies from her husband’s and mine, and how the way we read, as well as what we read, is unique to each of us. We also cover effect theory, book culture, and literary artists we love like Eve Babitz, Adrianne Lenker, her grandma, and Nora Ephron. She talks about looking at one’s life like a project and answers a question from our mutual friend Maddie on what it means to be a narrative-led person. I loved this wide-ranging conversation and am eager to hear what you think of it and how you read. Show Notes:- Follow Jennie on the Web | Instagram- Check out So Text

This week, I had a conversation with Jocelyn Kelly Reid. With 15 years of sales and marketing experience, she now helps women around money and finance in a unique way. She’s personally lost everything and built it back up and now she has the ability to help others do the same. She’s sensitive, sweet, and honest, as you’ll hear in this conversation. We talked about trauma, burnout, needing open space, working through financial blocks, her embodiment practice, the importance of directly communicating needs, how you can be addicted to a person, and much more. Jocelyn talks in depth about her background and upbringing where she felt different from those around her, recovering from an eating disorder, and feeling “too much”. This episode also features my lovely conversation with midwestern mattress maker and father of five Tim Masters, founder of My Green Mattress. I genuinely loved speaking with Tim as much as he loves making mattresses for people. He talks about taking over a mattress business when he was young,

This week’s conversation is with Virgie Tovar: author, activist and one of the nation's leading experts on weight-based discrimination and body image. She holds a Master's degree in Sexuality Studies with a focus on the intersections of body size, race and gender. She is a contributor for Forbes and she’s written several books. Her podcast, Rebel Eaters Club, is now in Season 3 and is Transmitter Media's first original production. Virgie has been featured by the New York Times, BBC, MTV, Al Jazeera, NPR, and many more. Part 2 features the end of our over-two-hour Zoom conversation as well as clips from previous conversations and a special guest, our mutual friend Isabel Foxen Duke.If you missed Part 1 last week, be sure to tune in: Virgie and I cover dressing rooms, letting go of a normative timeline, control, markers of success, happiness research, and more. Show Notes:- Follow Virgie on the Web | Instagram- Check out Virgie's Books | Podcast: Rebel Eaters Club- Take the friendship breakup survey from me and

This week’s conversation is with Virgie Tovar: author, activist and one of the nation's leading experts on weight-based discrimination and body image. She holds a Master's degree in Sexuality Studies with a focus on the intersections of body size, race and gender. She is a contributor for Forbes and she’s written several books. Her podcast, Rebel Eaters Club, is now in Season 3 and is Transmitter Media's first original production. Virgie has been featured by the New York Times, BBC, MTV, Al Jazeera, NPR, and many more. We met a few years ago through our mutual friend Isabel Foxen Duke and I’m lucky to call her a friend. This is her second appearance on the podcast. We recorded a conversation last summer and I’ve been eager to talk to her again ever since. We talked over Zoom for two hours and our conversation covered dressing rooms, letting go of a normative timeline, control, markers of success, happiness research, and more. Show Notes:- Follow Virgie on the Web | Instagram- Check out Virgie's Books | Podcas

This week I spoke to Brendan Francis Newnam, the former longtime host of The Dinner Party Download, who went on to create and executive produce The Paris Review Podcast. He is the author of the book Brunch Is Hell and (most relevant to this conversation) he’s the host of the podcast Not Lost. It's a travel show Brendan started after the end of both his long-term relationship and his decade-long radio show, The Dinner Party Download.Brendan "found himself on the wrong side of 35, unemployed, single, and with most of his friends ensconced in relationships and parenthood or both." So he took a microphone, hit the road with friends, and his adventure became Not Lost. The premise of the show is Brendan and his friends trying to get invited to a dinner party with locals in each city they visit.We talk about how he made the show and I picked out a few clips that particularly landed with me, including the balance between sharing vulnerably and holding back, how our trauma impacts our openness to relationships, and th

This week’s episode is part two of my conversation with visual artist Kimmy Quillin. In this second half of our nearly-three-hour Zoom conversation, we talk more about her process—how she creates conditions for creativity, incorporating chance in her work, and what she calls intentional chaos. We end the episode with questions I gathered from a bunch of our mutual friends to ask her.Kimmy is one of my favorite painters whose work can be seen on the walls of Good Move in Brooklyn (whose founder, Jules, has been on the podcast twice) as well as in Elle, Domino Magazine, and at Uprise Art. She presented her solo show Many Moons at Chinatown Soup in November 2019 (I was there) and at Spite Haus in January 2020. I was excited to talk to her and this conversation exceeded my expectations.In Part 1, we talked about coffee routines and being heliotropic, her influences from her Wisconsin roots and New York City, the realities of living as an artist, and how she takes care of herself through it all. If you haven't lis

This week’s episode is the first half of my conversation with visual artist Kimmy Quillin. We spoke for nearly three hours over Zoom, her from her home in Brooklyn and me here in LA. We begin by talking about mornings, her coffee routines and how being heliotropic, time of day, and color inform her painting. How both her Wisconsin roots and her love of New York City, the city she’s lived in for over a decade inform her work and personality. She talks about working in different mediums, the realties of living as an artist, our mutual love of Craigslist, highs and lows of releasing art and how she takes care of herself throughout it all. She’s one of my favorite painters whose work can be seen on the walls of Good Move in Brooklyn (whose founder, Jules, has been on the podcast twice) as well as in Elle, Domino Magazine, and at Uprise Art. She presented her solo show Many Moons at Chinatown Soup in November 2019 (I was there) and at Spite Haus in January 2020. We met before I left NYC and share a bunch of mutual

This episode is a conversation with art advisor, curator, and author Maria Brito about career and creative pivots when things aren’t working, reinvention, using intuition in work and art, the importance of solitude, and much more. She tells me about her trajectory of growing up in Venezuela, moving to the states to go to Harvard Law School and becoming a corporate attorney before making her own career pivot into the art world, where she eventually became a top art advisor.Maria's kindness is always evident throughout and especially in a section towards the beginning where she gives me a real creative advising session after I share about needing a career pivot myself. She gives me gentle and wise advice, which I’ve since been working on. We recorded this a couple of months ago over Zoom and since then, her new book called: How Creativity Rules The World: The Art and Business of Turning Your Ideas Into Gold is now available everywhere. Show Notes:- Find Maria on the Web | Instagram- Order Maria's book- The Let

This week, a conversation with Sam Salad. As you'll hear, Sam is not only hilarious, but he’s also humble, original, creative, and truly one of the best writers—and especially copywriters—I’ve ever met. As he says about himself, he writes and he makes clothes. Sam with his partner Rebma are the designers behind the LA-based clothing line MEALS. As Sam writes, “the brand prepares non-gendered clothing inspired by food. MEALS bakes ‘food culture’ into apparel, blurring the lines between the clothes we eat and the food we wear.” We talk about that blur between food, bodies, eating, and clothing, and the juxtaposition of these topics led the conversation into interesting and unexpected directions. We also speak about how the timing of their young brand was impacted by the pandemic, collaborating in business with your romantic partner, prizing experiences over objects, body image and food culture much more. We recorded the episode about a month ago from my kitchen table; Sam came over with a bottle of rum and we t

This week, a very important person in my life—Sacha Jones—hosts the podcast. Every year for nearly a decade Sacha has come back on to host the episode the last week of April (the week of my birthday). This year she really outdid herself: she shocks me with questions sourced from my friends and family and a special guest joins us to host a special rapid-fire round. I truly knew none of this was happening beforehand and it felt like the surprise party I’ve always dreamed of. Sacha is one of the most creative, wise, and gentle people I know and our annual catch-ups end up being time capsules of what we’re leaning this year. Prior to her surprises, we cover craving focus while being people who do many things at once. The through-line I keep returning to in answering her questions is how much the little things—like simple routines, easy moments—mean to me. I will be back on the other side of the interview next week but until then I hope this conversation offers you something, that you come away from it feeling the

This week, a conversation with iconic designer Norma Kamali. Recorded over Zoom from her office in Manhattan, we cover her 50-year career, from graduating from FIT with a degree in illustration to working for Northwest Airlines—which allowed her to fly to London on the weekends for only $29. It felt like a time capsule to hear her talk about the cultural revolution in London in the 1960s and how she would bring back pieces for friends, which led her to start a store, and eventually design her own pieces. Soon her designs were worn by Bianca Jagger, Bette Midler, and Cher. But at 29 Norma left her marriage, which meant walking away from the brand she’d quietly built with only $98 in her pocket. But starting over ultimately led her to create a brand with longevity and panache. From her unique sleeping bag coat design (worn by the doormen at Studio 54 and by those standing outside hoping it would increase their chances of getting in) to the now-iconic red swimsuit Farrah Fawcett wore on that famous poster, Norma

I'm sharing a special preview of A Slight Change of Plans, a podcast all about who we are and who we become in the face of change. Dr. Maya Shankar is a cognitive scientist who is an expert on human behavior, and she’s here to help us navigate the changes we all experience in our lives. She sits in intimate conversations with celebrity guests like Tiffany Haddish and Kacey Musgraves as well as everyday inspirations, like journalist Euna Lee, who was held captive in North Korea for 140 days, and Doctor Richard Harris, who rescued a boy's soccer team trapped deep in a cave in Thailand. You'll also meet change experts — including leading grief therapist Julia Samuel, psychologist Adam Grant, and author Michael Pollan— whose scientific insights will help us make better decisions and live happier, more fulfilling lives. In this preview, you’ll hear Maya in conversation with Christine Ha, the first blind contestant and winner of the reality TV show MasterChef. Christine talks about losing her vision and how she had

This week I spoke with herbalist and author Vanessa Chakour. At 17, a life-threatening accident led Vanessa to heal her eating disorder and work through sexual assault trauma, which in turn led to her becoming a professional boxer, eventually bringing her to New York City where she began studying herbalism. Now, she’s an author and educator who trains others in her field of helping people to connect to their environments. Her work is rooted in the natural world and what she calls our own inner-wild, or our intuitive connection to ourselves.   In this episode we cover the connection between eating disorder recovery and our bodies connecting to nature as well as how consent and anger relate to weeds like dandelion. We get into making herbal infusions and the creative process; writing for emotional wellness; navigating highs such as new relationships and career successes (Vanessa's in one of those highs now); and how to manage the nervous system during both highs and lows. We also discuss her new book, Awakening