Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Well Connected Twin Cities podcast. I’m your host, Lilly Zaborowski. And this is a bonus episode of our podcast. I am going to be doing these once a month to kick off our month of content and give you a sneak peek of what’s to come some highlights of the things I’m really excited about, just to make sure that you’re just as excited about them as I am. So I mentioned this in my first bonus episode that I did just around  the transition between 2020 and 2021.

[00:00:37] It’s a really quick episode. If you haven’t listened yet, it’s like a nice 10 minute listen, so you can go back and check that out if you haven’t already, but for February, we are really focusing our content around some key themes. And this is something that we’re going to include going forward. So every month we’ll have kind of a loose compilation of themes that all sort of fit together.

So for February, we’re really going off of Valentine’s day and the theme of love. But we’re really kind of pulling that apart and looking at it from a bunch of different ways. So. We’re going to start with some content around self-love and things that you can do to either pamper yourself or get more in touch with your own feelings and emotions. There’s a class coming on alignment and we also have a class that just released on February 1st that is all about creating at home bath products you can use, to really pamper yourself.

So that class is available already. From Sabrina Jones of Body Love Products. She does a really cool tutorial of three different products that you can make. So she teaches you how to make your own bath bombs.

[00:01:58] Which are actually surprisingly easy to make and very accessible. I think to a lot of people, I am a mom of two small kids. I have a six-year-old and a four-year-old. And, I was watching her make these bath bombs and thinking to myself, wow. My kids might really like doing this too. So that might be a project that we take on in our household during this…

[00:02:22]Second or first week of February, that’s supposed to get super cold. We’re just looking at the polar vortex about to hit here again. So that might be an activity that we do. So you can learn how to make your own bath bombs. Super cool. And she teaches you how to customize it to your own preferences. So, if you want to use specific essential oils to fragrance, The bath bomb or, special add-ins like rose petals or, dried lavender or different things like that.

[00:02:55] It’s super, super cool. She has her whole own line of products too. So if you are not interested in doing it yourself and making your own products, You can check out her products too, I’ll link those in the show notes of this episode. Um, but you can find her at sjcbodyproducts.com. And she has some really great products that use natural ingredients that are safer and are free of parabens and phthalates. And some of those chemicals that a lot of us are trying to avoid.

[00:03:27] So we’re going to be talking about self-love this month.  So another class that’s coming up that has to do with this theme of self-love is a body appreciation yoga class with Elizabeth Pletcher. She teaches at Yess Yoga. She also teaches on her own. Um, but it’s a really beautiful practice. That’s…

[00:03:46] just designed to get in touch with your body and send some love to yourself. So that’s a nice class that’s coming up next week. The second week of February.  We also have aromatherapy for self-love with Sammy Boerner. She is an aromatherapist who teaches a class about creating your own little self-love ritual and incorporating aromatherapy and some aromatherapy products that you can make yourself.

[00:04:16] Into that ritual. It’s a really beautiful class. That’s coming out the second week of February. So we’re also going to be getting into relationships. So we started with relationship with yourself because that’s so important. And it’s an important foundation before you can show up in a romantic relationship with someone else.

[00:04:35] Um, but for people that are in romantic relationships, we have some really great podcasts guests coming up. Mike  is a licensed marriage and family therapist. And we recorded a podcast episode where we talk about some of the most common relationship difficulties, which I know a lot of people are experiencing during the pandemic. We talked about kind of some of the common things that are coming up for couples right now.

[00:05:05] And how couples and people in relationships can approach conflict differently. And he gives a lot of great words to use and tactics to just have more heart centered conversations with each other and, just have some more tools in your toolbox to kind of solve these conflicts on your own. But then we also talk about, you know, how do you know when things have gotten to a point where you may need some outside help?

[00:05:35] Like working with a marriage and family therapist and. If you get  to that point, you know, how do you talk about it? How do you bring it up with your partner? What does it look like when you go to therapists for couples? And so we really kind of demystify what all of that work is about. It’s a really great episode for anyone…

[00:05:56]who might just be experiencing some difficulty in their relationships right now to have some more tools to improve communication and deal with any conflicts that are coming up in a really healthy way. We also have Joe Molinari, a certified sex therapist, on the podcast and he’s talking about how we can cultivate healthier communication around sexual needs.

[00:06:25] We also talk a lot about some of the common problems that couples are facing again, with this backdrop of this long year of a pandemic and a lot of people kind of feeling cooped up or maybe in a rut, or maybe having conflicts that are coming to a head similar to the episode we talk about with Mike.

[00:06:48] And so we talk about, you know, How, how to navigate these things, how to have better conversations. One of the common issues that we talk about is like when one partner’s feeling like they’re just not as interested in sex as they used to be in the other partner is maybe feeling frustrated that their sexual relationship has changed.

[00:07:12] He gives some really great tips and tools for working through that and having conversations and things you can do to work through that together. So that’s a great episode to catch mid month when that comes out. And then towards the end of the month, we’re also bringing in Jillian Lydell. She’s a divorce coach. So she helps clients…

[00:07:35] navigate this really enormous life event of divorce, because the reality is there are many couples whose marriages end in divorce and she makes a really great point about how so many people support couples when they’re getting married. There’s so much ritual around it. You know, we have weddings, we have.

[00:07:57] Bachelorette parties and bachelor parties, and we have bridal parties and there’s all these people who show up and there’s just so much around getting married. And when people go through divorce, it can be very isolating and it’s a huge life transition. And of course, you know, there’s a lot of things to cover in this. Um, but we’re going to talk about, you know,

[00:08:22] What is the divorce coach do? How can they help? And how do they kind of fit into a team of support partners for people that are going through divorce? And then, um, we also talk about kind of the stages of divorce when you’re contemplating it, when you’re actually going through it. And then afterward how you’re processing it, how you’re telling the story.

[00:08:42] And so we’re going to talk a lot about all of that. And, we also talk about what to say. If you find yourself, you know, knowing someone who’s going through divorce, how do you support them? What are things that are helpful to say, what are things that you probably shouldn’t say or should think twice before saying? So we talk about that as well. I think that’s going to be a great episode for anyone who’s contemplating or has been through, or is going through a divorce.

[00:09:14] It’s also really great for people who know people that are going through divorce, um, to just understand it more, really understand the whole process of it, all the things that are involved and how to show up as a support person. For someone in your life who may be going through that type of a transition.

[00:09:32] And then towards the end of the month, we are going to be covering a little bit about fertility with a proactive fertility class coming out, um, taught by a naturopathic doctor, Danielle Vogler. We also are going to have a podcast episode. That is the first of this kind. We usually interview experts and wellness and holistic wellness practitioners.

[00:09:57] For this episode, we’re going to be interviewing someone from the community who’s sharing a story of their healing. And it’s a story around fertility and experiencing fertility difficulties. So I’m really excited about all of this content and ending the month with fertility is going to be a segue into March when we’re going to be talking all about birth.

[00:10:21] So I’m really excited about the experts that we’re featuring and all of this content we’re bringing in. Make sure you’re on our email list to get weekly updates on new classes as they’re coming out is they’re being released. Make sure you’re on our email list to hear about podcast episodes. Another way to make sure you can hear about podcast episodes is just by hitting subscribe on Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Just making sure you’re getting notifications. When we have new episodes that come out.

[00:10:54] We’re also going to have some great blog posts coming out this month around some of these games as well. So make sure you’re on our email list to get all of those updates and you’re staying connected with us. Thank you so much. I can’t wait to hear what you think about all of this month’s content. And since this is the first time I’m doing a bonus episode like this, I’d love to hear what you think about it. So you can comment. You can, messaged me on Instagram @wellconnectedtwincities.

[00:11:24] And I’d love to hear from you. Thanks for being here.