WHAT THIS EPISODES ABOUT…
Hello and welcome ladies, sisterhood. I am so excited to welcome to our podcast today!
A woman who has made her life about healing and the human body, and since I’m all about helping to heal the soul, we thought let’s join forces for an awesome and enlightening podcast. Let me tell you a little bit about Andra Millian. Andra holds a masters of traditional Chinese medicine and Chinese herbal medicine from the top TCM university in the United States. She has used her skillset in acupuncture in her biology, working in integrative medicine alongside the pediatric surgeons and anesthesiologists at UCLA medical center for pediatric pain. For the past 20 years. Andra has been in private practice in her beloved Austin, Texas, where she treats the whole person with a focus on chronic ailments and healthy aging. We all could use that, huh ladies?
Since 2001 Andra has been the featured acupuncturist for the ballet Austin and served on the board as president of Austin Herb society for the last two years.
Listen in…
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE CONTENT DISCUSSED…
• Guy Free Podcast: https://guyfree.com
• Guy Free Facebook Group: https://guyfreeworkingonme.com
• Shauna’s website: https://www.workingonme.com
WHEN DOES IT AIR…
May 04, 2020
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
Hello and welcome ladies, sisterhood. I am so excited to welcome to our podcast today, a woman who has made her life about healing and the human body. And since I’m all about helping to heal the soul. We thought let’s join forces for an awesome and enlightening podcast. Let me tell you a little bit about Andra Millian. Andra holds a masters of traditional Chinese medicine and Chinese herbal medicine from the top TCM university in the United States. She has used her skillset in acupuncture in her biology, working in integrative medicine alongside the pediatric surgeons and anesthesiologists at UCLA medical center for pediatric pain. For the past 20 years. Andra has been in private practice in her beloved Austin, Texas, where she treats the whole person with a focus on chronic ailments and healthy aging. We all could use that. Huh ladies. Since 2001 Andra has been the featured acupuncturist for the ballet Austin and served on the board as president of Austin Herb society for the last two years.
Ladies. We are so very lucky to have someone of Andrea’s expertise joining us today and I promise to tell you later how to reach her at the end of the podcast. All right, please everyone take note. This podcast is for information purposes only and is a no way intended as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. It’s so important to always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified healthcare professional with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. All right. Welcome. Andra.
Hello Shauna. Happy to be with you.
Thank you so much for joining us. I thought it would be great to kick off our discussion around the topic of women and self-care, so we all know so often that this topic is one that I always have to delve into with my clients because they always put themselves last. Do you find this true in your practice?
Yes, and maybe not in the way that we think. In my practice I found that a lot of people, men and women who have others to care for do put themselves last. People that have children to look out for people that are taking care of an aging parent, they tend to really put themselves on the back burner. Single women that I see more than men even actually. I mean, but, but everybody, we’re all kind of conditioned and especially women to take kind of a passive role in our healthcare. And so, when somebody finally gets into my office, I find that women to look for ways a lot to get nurtured and to get some help. But you know, we’ve been conditioned to, the doctor knows everything, and you should just sit in your chair and listen to them.
And if they say, take a pill, take the pill. And if they say cut something, cut something and you don’t ask questions and then that’s it. So that creates a very passive and it ends up being not really caring for yourself that much. If you don’t come in with some questions, if you don’t think that it’s, it’s appropriate for you to get second opinions and third opinions. So I find that a lot of times in more more women than not men, they’ll tend to, they don’t want to go to the doctors at all. So by the time they finally come to see you, they’re ready to go. They want some answers, they want to feel better, they’re good. You know, you have to remind them a little bit to keep on with the program, but they’re like, okay, let’s get this done. Let’s get this over.
And they’re pretty good patients. Now with women, it’s a little harder to get them to really say what’s going on with them. To really make a commitment, to follow up with the protocols, to ask good questions so that you actually really even know what’s going on or how they’re feeling about the treatments. And then I find that there’s another type of woman. A lot of times, single women who are looking for nurturing some kind of care, they don’t really know what it is. They’ll come in, they don’t really know why. And we can get into that in a minute. They have a lot of ailments. They’ve seen a million people. They come in with bags of supplements that they’ve gotten because their neighbor said to do it and their best friend said to do it and they saw it online and the last person they went to give them a whole protocol but they don’t know what it’s for.
They haven’t really done it. They haven’t really given themselves time. I always ask when a person comes into my office in their initial intake form, you know, why are you here? What’s your goal? Where have you gone? And I ask them, this other practitioner that you went to wasn’t helping. And a lot of times they’ll say, yeah and a lot of times I’ll go, well why aren’t you still seeing that person? And they don’t know. So, there’s a, there’s a sampling, there’s a shopping that goes on with a lot of single women where they’re looking for something to help them. But it’s a pretty passive way to do it because they don’t really, they don’t really ask themselves why. That’s so interesting to me because do you think it’s because you mentioned it, that they don’t really know why they’re there in the first place?
Is it because they have not followed through enough with a specific practitioner or doctor?
I think it’s a goals thing. I think it’s, it’s, I always ask in my intake form, what is your goal for this treatment? Why are you here? What is your goal? What is your health wellness goals so that we actually have something to follow up so that we can get on the same track with what we’re trying to accomplish? And a lot of times, especially with women, it’s a little diffused and I say, look, even if it’s just I want to feel better. We talked about, you know, the good news is that this is, you are the boss of you and a lot of women aren’t giving themselves that empowerment because of the way we’ve been brought up. And because of the way the medical care system is actually set up.
We’re actually set up in allopathic medicine, especially in the olden days. You do what the doctor says. The doctor says this, why are you doing this? Because the doctor says, well, did you have any questions to why the doctor said this? Or is this a good doctor, or did you get a second opinion, or do you need a second opinion? Do you even know, you know? No, they said I have to be on this medication for the rest of my life and that’s that. So, the good news is that it’s your body, it’s your mind. But the bad news for some people, and I want to ask you about this, is that it’s your responsibility, right? I mean, what? What do you think about that interesting piece? Because of course we talk about it all the time. Your own happiness is your responsibility, your own self-awareness and work on yourself and ability to look for tools and find new tools and stick with those new tools is completely your responsibility.
So, this is no different. However, what I think is happens with medical and physical is that I think people start something and they think, wow, this is great, and then they just stop it.
I’m totally, totally guilty of that. I got into shape. I was turning the big old 60 and I went home the hell I am going to get myself in the best shape because I am not getting old like this. And I literally had gained 11 pounds in. That was way overweight for me. I’m five foot two so I spent four months doing everything, my yoga, my exercise, dieting properly, dieting, which I always talk about. And that’s another thing I’d love to talk to you about because I think people misuse the word diet. To me it’s all about what’s proper for your body. You know, you don’t give an elephant the same diet as you give a monkey.
So, for me it was finding out, right, what was the proper diet for my body? Guess what? I turned that 60 I look freaking fabulous. I was great for six months and it’s all out the window now. My habits have gone back to what they were before because some things are short term fixes.
You know, Brad Pitt doesn’t even look like Brad Pitt all the time. J-lo doesn’t even look like J-Lo all the time. They get in great shape. They get their trainer, they get their whole thing, they get their six packs going because they’re going to be on, you know, in the next Oscar winning whatever. But nobody can sustain that. So, I mean, there’s dieting and then there’s nutrition, there’s a sustainable long-term wellness nutrition. And that’s, that’s really kind of two different things.
That’s like a fine tuning for the Olympics and what you’re going to do the rest of the year. And that’s really absolutely, you know, normal. You know, if you’re going to go into a really hyper mode for a while to try and get that 11 pounds off, but then you have to figure out what’s going to sustain it. To want to get in great shape is great and it is taking care of yourself and part of it is not beating yourself up because that type of fine tuning is not sustainable for a lifestyle. So, I mean, there’s all kinds of diets. They’re not meant to be. Then people make it sound like if you don’t live this way, you’re a failure somehow and you’re not taking good care of yourself.
And I don’t think that’s right.
I love that you’re saying that Andra, because I think there is a lot of pressure from other people about how we should quote unquote should eat or how everybody’s body is different. I love that you work with the Austin Ballet. Here you have pros, physical pros who are still women still going through the everyday life. How do you find that they followed through with their protocols with you?
That’s a really tough one because when you’re dealing with endurance athletes. That’s a completely different way to deal with nutrition than us regular folks. You were saying the monkeys and elephants have a different diet. So, we’re the elephants. They’re the monkeys. It ain’t the same. Right? So, they’re usually very young. They’re usually, they’re working out eight hours a day.
They have completely different set of issues than we do. I’m over 60 I ain’t going to be doing what they’re doing. It’s just not the same. So, to think that you’re going to eat the same way as an endurance athlete who’s 20 years old, when you’re 60-year-old post-menopausal female, you’re dreaming and don’t even try. What should be our expectations of our self? Well, I mean you want a sustainable thing. So, there’s a great book and we’ll talk about this later, but in Chinese medicine there’s, there’s two things really. You want to just eat real food. You want to, I believe that it’s really good to learn to cook for yourself. A lot of people really don’t like to cook, but it’s really good to, to know what your taste buds are. At least know how to fix yourself. A few things that you like really basic, but really, it’s to eat real food, which means you know, not in boxes, not junk food.
The basic shopping, the outside of the files you can look at, you know, the dirty dozen and the clean 15 environmental working group for what you actually should get organic. You really need to make something regular and sustainable for yourself. Chinese medicine, one of the reasons I got into it is because it has a whole way of actually then eating for an ailment. So, if you have for example a cold or a flu or something like that, you’re going to eat certain things to help you get rid of your mucus to help you not make things worse. There is a really great book for the lay person. It’s not written by a doctor. It’s written by a wonderful journalist named Michael pollen. It’s called food rules and eaters manual. I absolutely love it. I keep it in my office and it’s basically each little page, you know, basically he says eat food, not too much, mostly vegetables.
And that’s basically, that’s a good place to start. Right? So, it’s, it’s a very doable, what is food?
Wait, give the three again because I love that.
This is really not in the order that he says, but it’s called food rules and eaters manual by Michael Pollan. You can get it anywhere and he says something like eat food. Mostly vegetables, not too much. I love that. Then he gets into what is really food like if it comes in through your car window, it’s probably not food. If there’s a bunch of stuff on a box that you can’t pronounce, that’s probably not food. You know, it really gets these little tidbits, little pages that are very, very easy to follow that aren’t a specific dietary protocol and that just gets you eating healthier like a normal person.
Ladies, I will put that on the Facebook group so you can go there. I’ll put a link to the book so that you can find the book that Andra’s talking about. Question for you because I love this concept, but there are women who are by themselves and tend to not sit and cook big meals and the mothers who are home with three children. I find that my clients that come in and talk to me say they don’t have the time to cook properly for themselves because they’re so involved and so busy with the kids and cooking for them.
Well, so my sister’s one of those people she’s at home, she works full time, her husband works full time. She’s got a 10 month old and a four-year-old. She’s never been a cook, so, and he does most of the cooking. So they get, and they have the income to do it, but they get the box meals that with all the recipes, with all the ingredients that they can then sort of make a home cooked meal at home with just throwing some things together. I know at my grocery store here in Austin, there’s so many prepared, fresh meals, fresh food. If you get fresh frozen things, even if it’s fruits and vegetables, you know those a lot of times are better than stocking the refrigerator with produce that’s going to rot because those things, even a fish that’s been frozen onsite and things like that, they’re very fresh and the very easy to just sort of fix, put them in if you’re going to have meals delivered from out, if you eat out a lot, just keep those food rules in mind and make sure that you’re not overeating heavily processed foods and things like that. Nobody’s going to be a hundred percent on it, but a lot of it is just allowing your taste buds to be part of the natural environment. And a lot of it too is this time thing that we’re really going to have to re view how much outside, and this is a whole other subject, but how much outside help do you actually need to get the fresh air that you need to get the minimal amount of exercise that you need to feed yourself real food to hydrate yourself.
I mean, those are just the, and to sleep enough and a lot of people can’t do those things without an extreme amount of outside help, if at all.
And so I really, really think that it’s, then you have to really look at what your lifestyle is asking you to do, because I think they’re so important, and I’m going to talk about balance in another podcast, but I think that is such a great list that we can, each, every woman that’s listening can go through this list and see where they are lacking. Can you give it to us again?
Yeah. I mean it’s just the things that we need for life, right? A certain amount of fresh air and sunshine, right? Because of our vitamin D levels and because of our mood and everything else, right? Pressure and sunshine, a minimum amount of exercise and walking food, that’s real food. So, a real nutritious diet. The appropriate amount of sleep, which means seven and a half to eight hours of night, fresh air, sunshine, all just the basic things that people are not allowing themselves to do without a huge amount of sacrifice or an unsustainable way. You know, things are so sped up and things are, you know, you really need to ask yourself, is my lifestyle contributing to my wellbeing? You know, and where can I just say stop a minute? It is doable. I mean, back in the generations, I don’t know exactly what I do. You know, in the generations before things were a lot clearer about who was going to do what job. Uh, you know, you might have to split time between, you know, your husband if you can, are delegated to an older child or something in order to keep things imbalanced, but balanced just in the basics of life, have to be there for you to maintain and be a healthy person.
I think that’s such an interesting point is that the roles, male, female roles have changed so much that now so many women are trying to balance all of the care, taking all of the things that you just went through, the caretaking of themselves and their children and hold down jobs and bring in a paycheck and I think that has become such a challenge for our genre for women. I think it’s become a big thing in the last 40 years that we have to take a look at and claim back if we are going to have to or choose to be in the workforce, then we need to figure out how to nurture ourselves as much as everyone else.
That was always our biggest role as women for the unpaid role unpaid.
Exactly, exactly. Except for the hugs and our grandbabies, but you don’t believe it or not under we’re almost out of time and we have so much to talk to Andra about.
We are going to have her back for at least one if not two or three or four sessions coming up because I can already see all of the questions that I’m going to get. I’m so grateful that you are here. Do you want to leave anybody with a last thought before I tell everyone how to get ahold of you?
I would say just from what we’ve been talking about today, set a goal for your wellbeing. Set a goal, figure out what it is that you really want to tackle, keep it doable and then go find your people. Figure out, can I do this on my own? Do I need help? Where do I get help and how much do I actually need? How much time am I going to give it? How many times am I going to have to redo the people I have around me, but set your goals, set your goals for your own wellness and then go.
I love that. We are going to have Andra back next week to talk about that, that team that you need to put together in order to sustain your goals in order to reach your goals in order to feel supported. Andra is going to come back and talk to us about that next week and I’m very excited because Andra is actually part of my team. In full disclosure everyone Andra is my holistic doctor, my nutritionist, my, I wish she was my acupuncturist. I wish she lived in California, but she is my, the person that I turn to with any questions that I have or ailments. How should someone get in touch with you if they want to follow through?
So, I do have a website. It’s a AOATCM.com that’s Austin, onsite acupuncture, traditional Chinese medicine.com, there’s a contact page there where you can email me any of your questions and I’m happy to answer you in that way. And then there’s some good information. There’s just some good information about what it is that I do.
And you know, if you want to do any type of a consult or anything, you really, everyone need to go to the site. She has videos, she has information. It’s a wealth of information. And then if you’re one of the lucky ones that get an appointment with Andra, then you will understand why I love her so much and why I’m going to have her back. She’s laughing at me. Thank you so much, Andra. We are so grateful.
Women take everything that Andra talked about today. Take a look at balance in your life. Take a look at your goals. Take a look at your health. Take a look at putting you first, making yourself a priority. I want you to go out, breathe, eat, sleep, drink lots of water and be good to yourself and I will pop back into your life again next week.