Alopecia Life

Thank you so much for listening to Alopecia Life. Without you, this show wouldn't be as much fun. This has already started out to be an exciting podcast season. Guests have included Skyler Weaver as he makes his way through central and south America to raise alopecia awareness, and authors Betsy and Suhani sharing about their debut publications. We've also talked about experiences with Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN) by patients who have had success, along with a follow-up interview with a compounding Pharmacist who explained the ins and outs of LDN. Suzanne with Hair-We-Share educated us about the proper way to donate hair to make it into a wig, and Heather told us all about the Helper Hair Box . The idea of beginning the school year with alopecia is a little less complicated after hearing 9-year-old Ohna and her mom, Skye, talk about what works for them. Annie Alopecia shared what inspired her to start her own online support group, and Dr. Angela and Dr. Thomason let us in on their vision of combining their medical training and their lived-experiences with their webinar series, Let's Talk. Danielle, Damon, and Connolly were especially excited to be featured in the Humans of New York piece that over 243,000 thousand people connected with, and they told us all about it. So far, it's been a great season!

I love podcasting, and am already looking forward to the 2nd half of season 2. With that being said, I am taking a little hiatus to schedule interviews, explore more topics, and take a much-needed break after the ups and downs of 2020, I would also love to hear from you. Please get in touch, post a comment here or on the Alopecia Life FB group page about topics you would like to hear more about. I can also be reached by private message if you prefer. I'll have contact information in the show notes for your convenience.

*What burning questions do you have?

*Who would you like to hear interviewed?

*What would you like to hear more about?

I look forward to exploring and sharing all of this with you in upcoming episodes.

https://headonlifecoaching.com/contact/

https://www.instagram.com/alopecialifecoach/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2048660141909847

Support the show

Alopecia Life provides free resources for school and home education, including a growing list of alopecia books, education videos on YouTube, links to support groups within the US, UK, Canada and more. You will also find access to Head-On, Stories of Alopecia, the Alopecia 101 free course, paid Alopecia Roadmap course for parents of children living with alopecia, and personalized coaching. Together, we can make a difference. To find out more, https://www.alopecialife.com/

Welcome to this episode of Alopecia Life. The time for gatherings is here. Holidays, work parties, get-togethers with friends and family that "should" be fun. But...sometimes these gatherings turn into colossal upsets due to well-meaning or misguided family and friends. Of course, there does tend to be one total ass-hat who likes to take up space too. The early days of being diagnosed can be increasingly difficult with all of these events that we're expected to attend.

Over the years, I've heard from others living with alopecia that they don't feel supported, and that holiday meals are overtaken with conversation about their hair loss, re-growth, what they are choosing to wear on their heads, and the new treatment options that are available.

For those who are listening and are looking for ways to support us...here are a few do's and don't's.

Don't - Touch our head unless you've been given permission. Don't stroke our wig, ask us to be free and take our hat or scarf off, and definitely NEVER lick our heads in a drunken gesture of affection. Yes, that has happened to me. Not cool.

Do - Ask us how our life is outside of our hair loss. We are so much more than our hair. Smile at us, include us in conversation about food, sports, television shows, and the things that interest us. Don't be weird.

For those of us who are on the receiving end of comments from colleagues, and family members who just don't quite get it yet, establish some boundaries. Not everybody is out to get us, as we know, but sometimes it feels like that. Determine whether it's time to educate, give them the bird, or just walk away and take time to yourself in a safe place or with a safe person. My hope is that you have a safe person who has your back. If you know there's always that auntie who just can't keep her comments to herself, roleplay with your safe person to come up with a response that feels right. Education can be taken on by family or a trusted friend too, and sometimes that may look like them taking that challenging person aside and telling them that google exists for a reason, and go look it up to get educated, point them to some helpful resources, or just tell them to shut the hell up.

However you choose to spend your holidays, know that your boundaries can be set and expanded on. You are not alone. Take your safe person, have some quick answers, and enjoy the season. I'd love to hear your good and bad holiday stories of things that have been said or done. Let's connect over all of these things over on the FB Alopecia Life group page, on Instagram or through reaching out to me in person.

If you're looking for resources to point family to, I have a FREE Alopecia 101 course that maps it all out for them. I've put that link here in the show notes. https://www.alopecialife.com/alopecia-areata-online-course/

Support the show

Alopecia Life provides free resources for school and home education, including a growing list of alopecia books, education videos on YouTube, links to support groups within the US, UK, Canada and more. You will also find access to Head-On, Stories of Alopecia, the Alopecia 101 free course, paid Alopecia Roadmap course for parents of children living with alopecia, and personalized coaching. Together, we can make a difference. To find out more, https://www.alopecialife.com/

Thank you for sharing your time with today's guest Nicolas Roman Srut and me. I can't think of a better way to round out Alopecia Awareness Month than having Nicolas as our guest. Throughout the episode, we talk about how he became an internet personality with over 5 million followers, how building confidence in others has the effect of building our own, and more about his alopecia story. You may be wondering how the popularity of "Puebes" came to be, and you'll definitely hear more about this during the interview.

More about Nicolas - "After years of being insecure about his baldness in his early life, he has transformed the confidence he now has into the comedic and inspirational content that motivates millions of people all across the world today. He has an organization known as The Naked Confidence Campaign, where he personally coaches hundreds of people with Alopecia to grow in their confidence and self-love. So far, he has helped numerous people get rid of their wigs, shave their patchy heads, ditch their fake eyebrows, and truly walk with Naked Confidence. He will soon transform The Naked Confidence Campaign into a live event that will be available to anyone, not just people with Alopecia, to learn to grow in their self-confidence, take charge of their lives, and change the beauty standards of society forever."

Thank you for listening today. Now that we all know about the origin of Puebes, we'd love to hear if something like this has happened to you, and how you chose to respond. I know how I've responded to super inappropriate questions in the past, usually with my eyes pretty squinty and a pregnant pause. Feel free to share your thoughts and experience in the comments on Instagram, or over at the Alopecia Life FB group. For those of you who aren't already following Nicolas on TikTok and Instagram and would like to, you can find him @xtheromanempire. To find out more about The Naked Confidence Campaign, check out the show notes for the link to his website.

https://www.thenakedconfidencecampaign.com/

Support the show

Alopecia Life provides free resources for school and home education, including a growing list of alopecia books, education videos on YouTube, links to support groups within the US, UK, Canada and more. You will also find access to Head-On, Stories of Alopecia, the Alopecia 101 free course, paid Alopecia Roadmap course for parents of children living with alopecia, and personalized coaching. Together, we can make a difference. To find out more, https://www.alopecialife.com/

Today's guest, VJ Hamilton, shares about her journey with multiple autoimmune conditions, and how it led her to pursue a combined passion of science, nutrition, and helping others as an autoimmunity nutritionist. The conversation took a couple twists and turns around the gut, cellular health, and an online community where others with autoimmunity can share their tips, tricks and bounce ideas off of each other.

*More about VJ: After 25 years of suffering from multiple autoimmune conditions that affected her energy, skin, hair and joints, VJ discovered after studying immunology, Functional Medicine and training as a Nutritionist that by uncovering the root cause of her issues, she was able to transform her health, and now lives free of symptoms.
VJ now uses these same principles in her nutritional therapy clinic, The Autoimmunity Nutritionist, to help strong-willed women with autoimmune disease regain their strength and live a whole and symptom-free life. VJ is a keen health writer and has been featured in Cosmopolitan, The Telegraph, Glamour magazine, and many health magazines. VJ has also co-authored a book with other wellbeing therapists, called Empowerment in Health & Wellness, which provides practical wellness tips to thrive after a life challenge. In her free time, VJ seeks out culinary experience at home and away, and loves to recreate dishes at home with her friends and family. VJ is dedicated to her two twin pups and enjoys long walks in the country, Pilates practice, and singing with her local choir.

Thank you for listening to today's episode. To learn more about VJ, join her online community, or be part of her self-paced online or LIVE Hair Growth Reviver Program which happens twice a year, check out the show notes for those links below. Feel free to ask any questions or comment in the Alopecia Life podcast FB group or on Instagram. VJ is tagged in those posts.

Website: http://www.theautoimmunitynutritionist.com/

Hair Growth Reviver Program: https://bit.ly/Hairgrowthreviver

FB: https://www.facebook.com/groups/theautoimmunitycommunitie

IG: https://www.instagram.com/theautoimmunitynutritionist/

Support the show

Alopecia Life provides free resources for school and home education, including a growing list of alopecia books, education videos on YouTube, links to support groups within the US, UK, Canada and more. You will also find access to Head-On, Stories of Alopecia, the Alopecia 101 free course, paid Alopecia Roadmap course for parents of children living with alopecia, and personalized coaching. Together, we can make a difference. To find out more, https://www.alopecialife.com/

Today's guest is Janelle Hardy. She is the creator and teacher of an online transformational memoir-writing course called the Art of Personal Mythmaking. This process uses body-based trauma-informed writing prompts, fairytales and themed modules to support creative folks who are interested in healing from their lifestories as they write their memoirs.

So many times we talk about healing - healing from trauma, healing from schoolyard bullying, and from the pain inflicted on us by comments from our peers, and during episodes of Alopecia Life, we talk about effective ways to heal, to move through the feelings, and guests have talked about what has helped them, saved them, allowed them to move forward. Sometimes that's sports, or art, music, or dance. Other times, it's writing. Whether it's fiction or non-fiction, writing is another art form that allows many of us to process. I'm super biased when I say all Alopecia Life guests are awesome, but Janelle is an extra shot of amazing. She has found the balance of knowing who she is, using what she's learned, and then returning that by giving us insight into how we can tell our own stories in ways that allow us to remove the self-sensoring, reframe negative feedback, and to have it become a piece of ourselves that we can then share with others or keep it all for ourselves.

• Website: http://www.janellehardy.com/
• Personal Mythmaking Podcast: https://www.janellehardy.com/podcast/
• The Art of Personal Mythmaking - online course: https://www.personalmythmaking.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/janellehardyart/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/janellehardybodylove/

It’s time to stop waiting for inspiration to strike and get started now! https://www.personalmythmaking.com/10-impactful-writing-prompts

10 trauma-informed tips so you can write and heal. https://www.personalmythmaking.com/writing-through-painful-memories

Workshop: Outline Your Memoir: a free 2-hour on-demand workshopUse fairytales and your body to identify themes in your life, organize your thoughts, outline your memoir, and start writing!https://www.personalmythmaking.com/oym-ondemand

Support the show

Alopecia Life provides free resources for school and home education, including a growing list of alopecia books, education videos on YouTube, links to support groups within the US, UK, Canada and more. You will also find access to Head-On, Stories of Alopecia, the Alopecia 101 free course, paid Alopecia Roadmap course for parents of children living with alopecia, and personalized coaching. Together, we can make a difference. To find out more, https://www.alopecialife.com/