How to Find (and Practice!) Your Self-Care Routine

Born in Scotland, Angie Seckinger spent her childhood moving a lot all over the globe, from Pakistan, Columbia, Chile and Guatemala to Arizona, Washington DC, Maryland and Germany. Her dad was a foreign service officer and her life was never boring. Angie has been an artist and professional photographer for 40 years. I met her through my husband Pata when I first came to Cornudella in 2014. At the time, she was still living the double life, hustling as a well established photographer in the US, and spending her winters on her quiet piece of property tucked up against the Montsant. We have spent hours talking on her deck. Every time her insights resonate and I walk away inspired. Angie seems to always get me and understand my process. In this recording, we talk about feeling stuck, the cycles of life, the creative process and the importance of stopping. Angie also shares how she learned what ‘having enough’ means to her. In her own words: “Today, I am retired and living my best, peaceful life”.

When I first moved to Spain late last summer, I expected to jump straight into my new job at a local winery, guiding tourists and explaining the history of Priorat. I had prepared and studied for the position, but when I arrived the job fell through. Disheartened at first, I then welcomed the unplanned break I was given and realized how much I needed to just stop. After two years of moving things from one storage unit to another, from the US to Spain and finishing our house here, I felt tired, directionless and empty of any sort of inspiration. For a week or so I mostly slept. Then, little by little, I started picking up the pieces and slowly putting my life back together here in Cornudella de Montsant. With this very first solo episode, I would like to give a glimpse into my life here and what inspired me to start recording again. 

We recorded this episode with Laura Jolley late last summer. I had found her yoga class in Grand Junction shortly after moving there and it changed the entire experience of a difficult phase of my life. With deep stretches and breath work, Laura helped me sink into emotional layers beneath all the chaos. I always walked away feeling relieved and more grounded. This conversation is a great reminder that even when I think calmer waters are just around the corner, life continues to bring challenges, just different ones. And taking time for myself, whether three minutes or an hour, is not just appropriate, but actually necessary. During this episode, Laura actually guides us through a short meditation. It’s amazing what closing your eyes and breathing can do. 

We talk about how Yoga found her at age four, the pros and cons of in-class yoga versus hitting play on your phone, how empowering it feels to realize that we are actually in charge of our own happiness, and all the different ways and expressions of self-care, a widely used term that has become so cliche, and also a thread throughout my episodes. We so often live in the past or the future, trying to plan ahead, re-analyzing what happened, could have happened or should have happened. Ironically, all we really have is the present moment: Now. So how do we find the balance between being present and still functioning in society? Yoga is one method that brings us back into the body and the moment. But no matter what the practice, bottom line, when we slow down we stay in touch with ourselves and can learn how to fill our cup. 

To learn more about Laura please visit https://www.laurajolley.com/

If you happen to live in the Western Slopes, I highly recommend checking out her class at https://www.yogavstudio.com/home

Laura’s recommendations for online yoga platforms:

https://yogauonline.com/

https://www.glo.com/

https://yogainternational.com/

Christie Blackmon grew up in northeast Ohio. She studied marketing and psychology at Kent State University and started climbing in her twenties. Her new passion led her to travel throughout the US, Mexico, Thailand and Spain and eventually settle in Colorado, where we met. 

Though there have been stretches in our lives without seeing each other, last summer we spent a lot of time together in Grand Junction. Training at the gym was merely an excuse to talk for hours about all the things and with no filters. Christie feels like an older sister to me. I admire her, the life she has created with her family, the way she approaches climbing, how she treats her daughter Marissa and her relationship with her sweet husband, Michael. 

Christie sent the Path (5.13c in Rifle Canyon) at age 44, one year after giving birth to Marissa. At the time this was her hardest route. Then, at age 48, she did Magnatar and Tomb Raider, also in Rifle, both 5.13ds. Her family has spent a lot of time in Spain where we got to climb with them and also meet her incredible mom, Joni. Sadly, she passed away not too long ago, but thankfully within the comfort of Christie’s own home. 

It took time for Christie to be ready to speak about her mom’s death on my podcast. And when she was, she said: “I thought about what my mom would say, and she would have told me to do it”. Christie and I talk about things that probably most of us try not to think about: aging, death and losing a loved one. Topics that occupy many of our minds (whether consciously or not) but are hard, scary, yet inevitable. My dad is turning 80 this year. He is strong, his mind fresh, young at heart and his memory incredible. But the fact is, he is getting older. 

My parents make jokes about how they are the ‘next ones on the line’. I get upset when they talk like that. But I guess for them it’s one way of dealing with the fact that they have lost a lot of friends their age and younger. Sometimes, it can feel as though death is just around the corner, waiting to take them away from me. Each time I get to see them is becoming more and more precious.

I don’t think anyone can prepare us for the moment we have to let go of someone we love so deeply. But sharing our stories helps us remember that we are not alone. No one is exempt from losing someone close. And though we will always miss them, with time, the pain becomes less.

IF YOU ARE CURIOUS WHY MY PODCAST IS CALLED ‘KEGELS AND COFFEE’ THIS EPISODE HAS THE ANSWER FOR YOU! 

Susan Vachon and I go way back to the California days. She danced for my company in 2009 and has been a friend for longer than that. Susan grew up in suburban New York. After completing her Masters degree in Health Science she became a Physician Assistant and made her way to the west coast where she felt more at home in the outdoor world. But this conversation is not about climbing or skiing, rather working less and sleeping more. Ironically, when we recorded this episode Susan had just thrown her back out after going full force for too long. We talk about:

We talk about:

• Sleep, or better, the lack of 💤
• How to create a cozy nest to rest 🛏️
• Why to keep it dark at night 🕶️
• Susan’s childhood terror of aliens grabbing her feet from under the bed 👽
• How at 4am our thoughts are totally out of control 🤯
• When we don’t stop, our bodies will make us 🛑
• What we would tell our 27-year old selves 👯
• Stepping out of the work life rat race 🐀

Janet Tsai grew up in Colorado and with parents from Taiwan always was a minority within the white world of the Front Range. In our conversation we talked about what it felt like to grow up in Fort Collins, where classmates mistook her adopted friends from Korea as her siblings, her older sister’s nickname was ‘the brain’ and hers ‘the little brain’. Janet knows what it means to be an outsider not only in the US but also in China. Becoming part of the robotics team during high school eventually led to her first job right out of college: Roomba, maker of the first robotic vacuum cleaner, asked her to move to Hong Kong to be the liaison between American design engineers and Chinese manufacturing engineers for the newest Roomba design. In our conversation, Janet shares outrageous experiences of gender discrimination and harassment during her time in China. When she returned to the US, she became a teaching professor in the department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder. In this role, she advocates for women and students from marginalized groups to pursue interests related to engineering and technology. She has tried to use her own experiences of gender and race discrimination and harassment in engineering as motivation to keep going, and inspiration to show younger students that things can be different. In her own words: “Being an engineer is a fun way to see the world, but I wish a lot of times that we connected more to the world.”

To learn more about Janet please visit:

http://www.janetytsai.com/

https://www.colorado.edu/engineering-facultystaff/janet-tsai

Colette McInerney grew up in Nashville, Tennessee. She fell in love with rock climbing, and the lifestyle that came with it, while she was in college. Colette is a talented climber and has a magic touch when it comes to capturing moments with her lens. She has filmed for National Geographic and in 2020 released her first feature length film with Never Not Collection called Pretty Strong. Climbing, film and photography have taken her to many places, including Europe. We talked about how going to Spain always reminds us to slow down, and how our gung-ho American approach doesn't really work there. We talked about how hard it is to be a minimalist when you really love shoes and how the constant moving around can feel chaotic. Having all of our stuff in one place sounds pretty nice right now. We also talked about listening to our bodies, learning to trust our own intuition and the consequences of ignoring a full-body NO.

To learn more about Colette, check out the links below:

http://coletteloc.com

https://www.nevernotcollective.com

https://www.blackdiamondequipment.com/en_US/athletes/colette-mcinerney/

Welcome back to Kegels and Coffee! I am excited to start off with the one and only Steven Dimmitt, host of The Nugget Climbing Podcast. Known as a passionate rock climber who interviews world-class rock climbers and coaches, bringing us new insights, the latest training trends and life wisdom, Steven in my conversation shared a vulnerable side and a recent story that was a bit of a wakeup call: His first ever panic attack. We talked about what led up to this moment, the pressure we put on ourselves hosting our own podcasts, the ‘resistance’ that any creator bumps up against (in our case editing block) and how to stay sane while still getting the work done. His show has reached over 1M downloads and has quickly become one of the top climbing podcasts in the world. You can learn more about Steven at thenuggetclimbing.com

I got back to the US on May 27th, three days after the Uvalde Texas school shooting where 21 children and teachers died. Five days later, four more people were killed in the hospital shooting in Tulsa Oklahoma. At that point, we had had 223 shootings in the US just in 2022. Since the 4th of July shootings, this number has crept up to 314.

Just a couple days after I returned to Colorado, I met Julianne Nagy in the yoga studio at the climbing gym. I was seeking a quiet place and some peace, so was she. Our chat quickly became deeper and I  shared my sadness around the recent shootings. Julianne brought a new perspective, encouraging me to look beyond my fear and anger. She recognizes the need for gun laws to change, and also, being a yoga instructor, reiki practitioner, and heart centered facilitator, comes from a more spiritual background. One of the things she said that stood out to me was: “The amount of suffering that is happening in this world is a direct reflection of our inner turmoil.” 

I am neither a politician nor a gun law expert. I do know that in 2016, the National Rifle Association spent more than $50 million dollars to back Donald Trump and several Republican Senate candidates. But this episode is not a political debate on gun law. It’s an honest reflection on how gun violence in the US is affecting me. 

I love the US very much and for many reasons. The land, the people, my family. I spent summers growing up with my grandparents in Montana and when I moved to California at age nineteen, I immediately felt welcomed. I have experienced how this country is based on innovation and self-motivation. It truly has been, for me, a land of possibilities. I mean, I own a school bus with a climbing wall attached to the side of it that my dance troupe performs on. And I have driven this bus through the most breathtaking landscapes, past desert towers, through canyonlands, mountains and vast plains. The US has so much to offer, and it just makes me sad to see innocent people die when it can seem so evitable, if only the right decisions were made. 

Dasha Kan was born in Ufa (Urals), Russia. Growing up, she spent a lot of time with her grandparents. Dasha fell in love with rock climbing at age nine and won four world youth championships in speed climbing. She moved to Tyumen, Siberia to go to University and continued training with her coach at a local gym. Dasha received a Bachelor's Degree in Engineering and Geology but soon got into organizing events, working for sport agencies. Before leaving Russia, she was based out of Moscow. 

Today Dasha is twenty-three years old and we met in Rodellar, Spain through my friend Ciara. While doing yoga in the sun, she began telling me the story of how she had recently left Russia. And on our drive back to Cornudella the next day our talk continued. While trying to process the intense stories Dasha was sharing, I couldn’t help but wonder whether she would be open to recording with me. I was hesitant to ask, but knew I would regret it if I didn’t. She instantly said yes. “I would love to. Thank you for giving me a voice.” 

Not too long after the war had started, international companies pulled out of Russia. The snowboarding competition Dasha was helping organize was postponed until further notice. She lost her job. In the meantime, people who were speaking up against the war on Instagram or going to demonstrations were being arrested for acting as “foreign agents”. Dasha’s desire to leave Russia grew, but she also knew that this would mean abandoning her country and becoming a traitor to those who supported Putin. “This regime that Putin built is really insane. It works and people are scared. And they are not safe, so they can’t really do anything. But I couldn't stay in the country with so many crazy people around, like zombies, brainwashed,” she says. “You try not to talk about political stuff with those you know support the war, because you don’t want to lose your friends. But then when everybody knows your opinion you get separated. It felt very wrong to be inside the country that started the war.” 

After jumping through many logistical loops in order to be allowed to leave Russia, Dasha finally made it over the border to Estonia on April 4th, 2022. She felt great relief, but was also terrified. “I found myself at a point where I didn’t understand what I was feeling honestly,” she says.

The support of the climbing community has played a huge role in her transition to Europe. “I was getting a lot of support from everywhere in the world and I was actually shocked about this because I’m Russian and it’s my country that started the war and is killing innocent people”. Some of her closest climbing friends who have helped her through this transition are from Ukraine. Despite the war, their bonds are stronger than ever. “The paradox of war is that the ugliest experiences can bring the most beautiful things to your life, human connection beyond all else,” Dasha explains. 

The gratitude she feels toward the climbing community is immense. Yet again, this particular group of people that many of us call family, amazes me with the love, support and immediate feeling of home it offers. And we climbers know, moving on rock is much more to us than just a sport. It is therapy, it is a way back home. “If I find myself climbing well on the wall again, I will find myself again as a human, not just as a climber. Climbing will help me find the pieces of myself that I have lost”, Dasha shares. But it is hard to let go of the deep seated guilt and shame she feels. “Every day I am working on this and try to detach myself from the blame and shame my country brought.”