Episode 188 Breaking The Silence With Menstruation & Menopause & The Impact Of Becoming An Author In Your Holistic Practice: Interview With Heather Hendrie

Jul 3, 2024

How can we begin to normalize conversations about menstruation and menopause? How can we break the stigma around these topics?

MEET Heather Hendrie

Heather Hendrie is a Whistler nature-based therapist and writer originally from Guelph, Ontario who has lived in Cusco, Costa Rica, California, Colorado, and the Canadian Rockies before calling British Columbia home. 

Heather holds a Bachelor of Kinesiology degree in Outdoor Pursuits from the University of Calgary, and a Master of Arts in Clinical Mental Health Counselling with a concentration in Transpersonal Wilderness Therapy from Naropa University. 

Heather is also an author, and her intimate writing style draws on her varied life experiences and works as a clinical counselor to remind us all that in our tough or embarrassing moments, we are not alone. Heather’s first best-selling anthology, awfully hilarious: stories we never tell, won the Canadian Book Club Awards for Best Anthology in 2023. The second anthology in the series, period pieces, tells truths in an attempt to end shame around menstruation and menopause.

Heather considers herself to be an expert in play and JOY, and her inner child is obsessed with wearing all of her favorite patterned clothes at once.

Find out more at Heather Hendrie and connect with Heather on Instagram, and Facebook

awfully hilarious Instagram

awfully hilarious: period pieces by Heather Hendrie

awfully hilarious: stories we never tell by Heather Hendrie

IN THIS PODCAST:

  • Why are these topics so difficult to discuss in our society? 5:08
  • Self-publishing as a holistic Practitioner 15:03

Why Are These Topics So Difficult To Discuss In Our Society?

  • How is ignoring these topics harmful?
  • Why is menstruation so deeply stigmatized?
  • How is our mental health affected by not discussing menstruation and menopause?
  • The importance of asking questions about these issues as a practitioner

Self-publishing As A Holistic Practitioner

  • How can publishing a book help your practice?
  • How to market your book as a therapist
  • Finding the time to work on different projects
  • The importance of finding your passion
  • Resources for promoting your book

Connect With Me

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Sign up for my FREE email course: How to Build Confidence As A Holistic Counselor

Self-Care for the Counselor: A Companion Workbook: An Easy to Use Workbook to Support you on Your Holistic Healing and Counselor Self-Care Journey … A Holistic Guide for Helping Professionals)

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Resources Mentioned And Useful Links:

Find out more at Heather Hendrie and connect with Heather on Instagram, and Facebook

awfully hilarious Instagram

awfully hilarious: period pieces by Heather Hendrie

awfully hilarious: stories we never tell by Heather Hendrie

Transcript

Chris McDonald: In this enlightening episode of the Holistic Counseling Podcast, learn how mastering mindful breathing techniques can significantly boost your mental clarity, reduce stress, and improve physical energy, as well as rejuvenate your mind and body. Today's guests share their insights and experiences guiding you through various breathwork practices that can easily be integrated into your daily life.

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This is Holistic Counseling, the podcast for mental health therapists who want to deepen their knowledge of holistic modalities and build their practice with confidence. I'm your host, Chris McDonald, Licensed Therapist. I am so glad you're here for the journey.

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That's HC podcast.org/startup yoga today. Welcome to the holistic counseling podcast, Heather. Thanks. Great to be here, Chris. Yeah. So let's jump right in. So what inspired you to write this book?

Heather Hendrie: Oh, my goodness. Awfully hilarious period pieces. Well, the first book came after a series of online dates that went poorly and the book really took off.

And so I, we realized, Oh, there's an audience that likes to read this, these sorts of stories, these taboo stories. And I realized there's a particular story of been really wanting to tell as a clinical counselor in private practice, who has a condition called premenstrual disorder disorder, or PMDD that I went undiagnosed with that for about three decades and started seeing that long.

Yeah. Yeah. And there are a lot of reasons for that, of course, based on the society we live in and I was. Yeah. Yeah. Seeing that more and more in my clients undetected, sick with disorders, and so I felt that if we could get that story out to a wider audience, people may not have to wait as long for diagnosis.

So, hence, hence this book here, which is the 2nd in our series that began with awfully hilarious stories. We never tell about. the awkward dates and bodily functions. And then this is an anthology gathering the stories of 26 different writers from first experience of first menses through to menopause, telling their true stories on these pages.

And it's, it's just been incredible. The number of people that came together to contribute their stories and then readers who have afterwards really related to it and share their stories back with us.

Chris McDonald: What's been the feedback on this

Heather Hendrie: book? Oh, it's been incredible. It's, it's been just amazing folks saying, Oh, these are the stories.

If only I had these when I was younger, or I can't wait to give these to my daughter, or this would have changed everything for me at one stage in my life, or, oh, my goodness, I didn't know that, you Somebody else had this experience too. So people have been literally dying for these kinds of stories for a long time.

And it's a very exciting time to be alive and writing because more and more conversations are happening to end that menstrual shame and stigma that have kept us all, well, those of us who have been unwell for that reason, unwell for a very long time didn't have been really missed.

Chris McDonald: Yeah. Why is it so hard in our society to talk about these issues?

Heather Hendrie: Yeah, isn't it hard? And that's actually why it's awfully hilarious to tackle those taboos that keep us keep us from really thriving. And as the local counselor in private practice, as many of you listeners are, and I know, you know, this intimately, Chris, is we often see, you know, The ways in which people have been hurt by the conditioning that has been at play or the boxes we live in that bang against who people just really are.

And that's what awfully hilarious came to do was start to tell more truth and maybe navigate and poke at the edges of taboos that have been very harmful for us.

Chris McDonald: And they are harmful, aren't they? Because I think back now, because you think at the beginning, right? When girls start their menstruation and I know, I know I had no, but my mom never talked much about it.

And it just felt this shaming. I don't know where that shame comes from. If that's society, it's like, I felt like I had nobody to talk to. And, and you think that if, if more girls had like places to talk and have this openness, how different this could be.

Heather Hendrie: Yeah. And Chris, I'm so sorry to hear that. That was your experience.

And unfortunately, that's really been the case for our exceptions. And now we're coming to the stage two where so many different menstruating bodies and the conversation is happening more and more. And a couple of months ago here in Canada, on the front cover of our Globe and Mail, which is our main national newspaper, there was a line that said, end menstrual shame, which delighted me no end.

And it was, it came with the publication of Dr. Jen Gunter's book called Blood, which was published just a month and a half before ours. And it made me think, uh, also just menstruation has been. Deeply stigmatized for a very long time, and Shaleen Gupta, who's a journalist and writer, did an amazing job of addressing why that's the case in her recently published book called The Cycle.

And she speaks specifically speaking about confronting pain of periods and premenstrual dysphoric disorder, but she does a great job laying out the context for why that is. Why menstruation has been so deeply stigmatized. Yeah. Why is it? She'd speak to it far better than I would, but there are multiple layers.

A lot of it has to do with living, currently living in a patriarchal culture. There's a lot. This is deep. It's very, very deep seated. Yeah. And not, and it's important to note that not all cultures have stigmatized menstruation over time, but that currently the dominant narrative is that it is something not to be spoken of.

even though 50 percent of the population at some point likely goes through this.

Chris McDonald: Yeah, exactly. And that's crazy to think about and, and how different, what a difficult time for young girls that, that go through this and many that probably keep it to themselves too. And just feel that alone with this process and not understanding what's happening and how hard, but it's so great that you have this book too, that this could maybe speak to them.

Yeah,

Heather Hendrie: and that's the hope and actually the, the 1st poem in here, it's very fascinating because it's their contributions from folks from 11 years old up to folks in the 70s and the poem, um, by Yale lectured who's 11. it's it's a very colorful poem called I want my period gone down, but she also says 1 of the lines here, Chris speaks to what you just said, she says, Periods have stigma.

My friend got her period last year and still hasn't told her mom. Periods have stigma. I'm glad I can talk about periods with my mom. Periods have stigma. I'm glad my friend can talk to me. Shouldn't this just be an exciting, cool thing that happens with our bodies? Yeah.

Chris McDonald: Oh, I can feel, I know you put your hand on your heart.

I

Heather Hendrie: can feel that. That's really what's inspired me to pull this together is so that we can come back to that place of hope and togetherness in this thing that happens to many of our bodies. That's a really natural process.

Chris McDonald: And I'm just thinking through the lifespan, like how as women, our bodies change and our clients as well.

And, and it's always something to think about too, is if, if you work with older women as they get to menopause too, and that shifts a lot of changes and moods and, and menopause is another thing that people don't like to talk about. And we've talked about this on this podcast too, because. And I've started more conversations because in my family, nobody talked about it.

So I started to open up conversations on my own. I feel like the more we talk about this, the more we can de stigmatize it too. And so have you noticed that too, as even the other end of the spectrum, as far as age, like menopause is, is also difficult for people to address and.

Heather Hendrie: Oh, oh, absolutely. And quite frankly, it's one of the things I love most about this book is I'm at one stage in the process and the, a few amazing stories, I must say, were contributed about the hot sweats and menopausal experience.

Which I'm so grateful to read before I reach that milestone myself and we when we speak to our client experience menstrual experience. So intrinsically linked to mental health. Oh, my God. And what really compelled me to write this as I was saying is that. PMDD has, it can be a very dangerous diagnosis.

It has trigger warning here, but really high suicidal ideation and very, very commonly missed or misdiagnosed as in my case for three decades, even though I'm the daughter of a physician, our systems for a very long time to the detriment of many, I should say to the detriment of all, because speaking about menstruations.

It's not just helpful for folks who menstruate, but for the folks who love them for this is where we all come from. You know, we, we do certainly have to have these conversations.

Chris McDonald: Yeah, more of that openness and acceptance and and I'm glad you're bringing up PMDD because I think a lot of people aren't aware that I'm a clinical supervisor and I've had to talk to my supervisees about it because a lot of them weren't aware of it and bringing that up to clinical supervision too, because this is something that impacts so many.

I've had a lot of teenagers, teenage girls that they've gone through this and had, like you said, the suicidal rate is so much higher. And if we can address this when they're younger and help them get control of this, it can be so helpful. I love that you're bringing this to the forefront.

Heather Hendrie: Thanks, Chris.

And of course, it deals with PMDD, which is an atypical response to progesterone. And of those folks, the suicidal ideation hovers around 34 to 36%, which is high. We're talking about a lot of people who are very impacted. And we're in a unique position as clinical counselors, especially clients regularly to notice.

Trends and changes and to be sure to ask the questions in our conversation in our intake about what are your cycles? Like, are you cycling? What's your relationship to that? Do you notice mood changes? We can have some really real conversations and potentially save lives. That's really well. This book was really fun and playful and ended up being really helpful.

This 1 was really motivated by the desire to really raise the conversation. Bring this conversation into the public.

Chris McDonald: Yeah. Yeah. That's so important to have these conversations and, and for therapists to be aware of this, because not everybody's going to be aware to, I think, and maybe the male counselors listening to, maybe they have no idea a lot of these

Heather Hendrie: absolutely.

And it's incumbent upon all of us, whether we were identify as women, men, non binary to become more comfortable having these conversations, especially in positions of authority and power. If you are a counselor, a physician, we have to become more comfortable having these conversations. If we don't, we can miss something very critical.

Chris McDonald: Yeah. And I think that, like you said, that might be something to consider for therapists on your intake to consider where are they on the lifespan as far as. You know, are they, if they're younger, where are they with their menstruation? If they're older, are they closer to men, this be impacting their mood?

Where are they with their cycles? And that's something to always keep in mind.

Heather Hendrie: Yeah, absolutely. And I've, I've noticed that by in writing these books, it's been really interesting because people have felt, I think, a lot more comfortable coming forward to me with embarrassing stories related to menstruation.

And it's. I think it's great that we can start to more freely talk about things we may have held with a lot of discomfort on our own for a long time. In fact, many of the writers on these pages said this is the first time that they've spoken openly about the story they wanted to share here. And some of them are very hilarious and some of them are very, yeah, that's, yeah, that's the idea of the awfully hilarious is.

These, we're talking about awful things, but trying to titrate it and bring in some humor by way of supporting people through something really hard and to let one another know that, Hey, you're, you're not in this alone.

Chris McDonald: Yeah. So I guess, so people know that they're not the only ones into to have that collective feeling, right.

That this is to give that support. How did you do this as far as that delicate balance between humor, but then this is kind of serious too. How did you bring that together in the

Heather Hendrie: book? A lot of it was what we asked for. So we were, we were seeking stories that told in a humorous way, which is very hard for a writer.

Actually, it's very hard to write humor and humor is really, it's very personal. Some people will find something really funny that others don't find funny at all. Um, but we also worked with a very excellent progressive writer located here where I am right now in Squamish, British Columbia named Meg Power.

She worked one on one with each of the writers to, to help make those stories the best they could be.

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Elevate your well being and become a more mindful counselor today. Check it out at hcpodcast. org forward slash workbook. That's hcpodcast. org. forward slash workbook today. So how has this helped your private, private

Heather Hendrie: practice? Oh, it's been fascinating. I think people are a lot more comfortable coming to me with questions or talking about that time of the month or all the euphemisms we might put around it.

But the other thing that's been really interesting is I think that a lot of people may never have heard of my book, but interestingly, my private practice has just been really full. I can't keep up actually, ever since having published these books. So while the books themselves haven't, I haven't necessarily sold in great numbers.

The first first was a bestseller. The second, we're really working hard to get into the hands of more people because we really love more people to be having these conversations. Whatever it's done, it has kept my practice very full. So I don't know if it's perhaps that it's increased my search engine optimization or it's boosting credibility in some way, but it's somewhat in some way acted as a calling card for other services that I'm providing.

I'm also getting a lot of people now asking me about That because we self publish, so the process of self publishing or writing a book or all the therapists out there or the many folks out there who feel ready to write a book and want to do so. So that's an area we're going to get more into is how to is consulting and supporting others in wanting to do what we've done because I've learned a lot along the way.

That's for sure. Yeah, that's true. And I know it's a dream that many, many folks have, but I do certainly want to pop that. bubble. But if anyone out there is thinking they're going to write a book and make their millions, maybe that's not the norm experience. And books are just such an important, amazing thing to do.

And I really, I really honor high quality books with great editing. With publishing now these days, you can, you can put anything out there with varying qualities, as you know, Chris, but I want to write a really good book, do it, but don't expect you will recoup the money you put into it. But I know. Well, you know, I'd love to hear your experience about this as a published author yourself.

You have a lot to say about it.

Chris McDonald: I have two books I have self published. Well, actually three, but one I didn't promote much. I didn't really make anything off of it, but, but that's the key. So people that are listening, it's cool because you can publish, but then the bad part, the downside is then you got to do all the marketing.

So you have to really put the time, effort. Maybe if you wanna put a lot of money into that as well. And it's a lot, it is a lot to do. And that's what I really try to promote. And, you know, it's a whole thing to, to really put that effort into that and, 'cause I, I just actually met with a local author and she's like, I haven't sold that many.

And so we, I started talking about marketing. I'm like, I think a lot of people go into this thinking, I'm just gonna put on Amazon. It. People are gonna buy it. Right. It's like a needle in a haystack. Mm-Hmm. . If you're not promoting,

Heather Hendrie: you gotta have an audience. It's, yeah. There, there are a lot of needles in that haystack.

Marketing is a whole different, that's a whole writing Yeah,

Chris McDonald: exactly.

Heather Hendrie: Skill than the counseling skillset. Right. I found it to be very interesting and exciting and Yeah, exactly. Also something I've been learning along the way, and of course there are a lot of like, quite predatory, uh, vanity publishers out there that will, you can pay a fortune for rocket.

Oh, for sure. And it's still, it's still unlikely to sell your book unless they're really good at it.

Chris McDonald: There's a lot to it. They're really, there's more than you think.

Heather Hendrie: Yeah. Yeah. And it's interesting because we of course never got into this to sell books. It was really to just get the conversation and, and I'm sure the same with you, Chris, was to make some of these like validating important universal pain points.

We're accessible the tech that we might explore one on one in a counseling session, but for folks who don't have access to that, we'd be able to pick up these stories and find that connection there. And so, but, but marketing not only might sell a book, but it also helps spread the message further. And that's, I mean, our real hope for anyone listening here, if you could request copies of our books in your local library, that would delight us no end because our hope is to get in these books are sort of our audacious mission has been to get a book into the hands of all people, periods, which is.

a lot of people. That's

Chris McDonald: a lot of people. That's great. I love your goals with it. That's amazing. But I guess, how did you find the time to do this with your private practice? I know, I know most people will ask me that, like, Oh my gosh, how do you have a podcast? And you write books and you do courses. It's so

Heather Hendrie: tricky, isn't it?

I mean, I would love to ask you the same question. And it's always just a matter of like, what feels important at the time and Where you put your energy. I've just been so passionate about this awfully hilarious project that I kind of can't wait to work on it. And I will say they're both anthologies. So like in my hands here, I'm holding the combined true courageous stories of probably over 45 people.

And so that collective of humans were bravely telling their story. That's really inspired me and made me feel that's what's really kept me wanting to do it is to honor their stories and. Ensure they get into the right hands, but other things fall to the wayside, right? It's if this is what I've prioritized, I've ended up, I've been seeing less clients this year in order to find more of the time to write and compile the stories and bring them out into the world.

Yeah. It's, it's a great question because it seems we can't do it all at once anyway. No,

Chris McDonald: you can't. How do you do it? Oh, how do I do you have to, how do I say it? You have to make time. You have to open up opportunity and I tell that to people and people who are listening that want to start a private practice because I've, I've had people ask me about that too.

And, but they're not, they're like, oh, I'm tired at the end of the day, my job. And I'm on the weekend. I just want to relax. I'm like, well, then you're not going to start one. You have to make opportunity and time, you know, even if that's taking a day off. Do what you gotta do. Figure it out. You gotta make time for it.

Heather Hendrie: You know, and I've got to say, but also I'll say this because I have ADHD and I can, I can only tend to really follow the ball on something I'm very interested in. And I can tell,

Chris McDonald: I can tell you're very passionate. Oh, thank you. I was like, you can tell I have ADHD. No, I can tell you're very passionate. I can tell you're just like, you could get laser focused for this.

Heather Hendrie: Yeah, and so what I was going to say is like, it, you have, it has to really matter. So a lot of the things I might procrastinate, it's probably because it doesn't matter as much to me. I mean, I do care, but if something I've learned from this, and it's really helpful is because I care so much about this project, it wanted to be done.

To be done. It was the same thing when I started my private practice. It was like, for years, I said, all I want to do is walk with people in the woods. And that's what my little, um, my little calling for that. I can you just can you talk about your practice for a 2nd? Yeah. So my private practice for years, I was like, oh, I should start a business.

I should do this. I should do that. And then I started. I thought all I want to do is walk with people in the woods. And I ended up doing a wilderness therapy degree, studying at Naropa University. And fast forward a decade, I found myself walking with folks in the woods. And I suddenly remembered, I've been saying this for 10 years.

I just want to walk with people in the woods. So that was a great

Chris McDonald: affirmation.

Heather Hendrie: It really was. And it was really about listening to the calling of my heart, continuing to know that that matter. I love how Susan Cain writes about it in her book, Bittersweet around longing. And so there's that grief side of longing, but also that what happens if we let our longing lead us not as a thing you should do, or you're supposed to do, but what is it that you long for?

And for me, that's been the case with everything that's worked out my private practice, the books, they just wanted to be born. Yeah. If that makes sense.

Chris McDonald: Yeah, that's that passion too. It sounds like that drives you. And for me, it's just like, I'm organized. So when am I going to do this? And I make time for podcasting and Mondays because if I had a full caseload every day of the week, like when would I podcast?

I wouldn't have time. So I make time for it and it's important to me and I love it and it's fun and it's something I want to do. So it's being able to sit down and say to yourself, when am I going to do this in my schedule? But I do that. That's why I promote counselor self care. That's my book too, because I wrote self care.

Self care for the counselor, because that's what I promote and that's what I do in my life. And I make self care as part of my schedule and put that into my daily life. And I think that's really important as a business owner, as you know, how important that can be. I've really got to get a copy of your book, Chris.

Yes, we got a lot to juggle when we have multiple things we're doing too. And you offer different kinds of. I, on your website, I saw you different kinds of experiences to

Heather Hendrie: walking and ski. Yeah, and it's, I just feel so lucky. I've just returned from a really beautiful journey on the green river with a brand new organization called bloom river journeys.

And we did a six state therapeutic. River trip through the Labyrinth Canyon on the Green River in Utah. It was so, it was so potent to see how transformative, how empowering, also how fun it was. And this was specifically for women identifying and non binary folk. And it was, it was incredible. We're actually lining up another one on the Rogue River in Oregon in the fall.

And nice. Um, yeah, so wilderness therapy is really my jam nature based work where it's the river and the canyons and the cacti and the bloom that's doing the work. And I'm there to support and facility and hold the edges. But really it's in that case, it was the green river working her magic. You have so many cool things you're offering.

Thank you. I feel really very, very grateful and privileged to be able to do what I do.

Chris McDonald: Yeah, no, that's amazing. So I know just going back to marketing. So how do you handle marketing with your books? I

Heather Hendrie: self published the first one through Amazon. And then the second one, I used a different platform called Ingram Spark.

There's different tools you can use on those platforms, of course, to help promote them and advertise them. One of the things that's been really neat is, um, the Goodreads platform, which Connected to Amazon, but that's been a really neat place for people to discover our books. And there's, um, something you can pay a little money for.

It's called a good readings giveaway. And that's a place where you can actually give away copies of your book and people might discover someone who has an interest in menstruation or women's health might come across it and find it that way. The other thing is we've just been doing a lot of grassroots efforts.

I've been, anytime I go somewhere, I drop off copies in the little free libraries that we've been to. Doing readings at libraries and local bookshops, local bookshops have been absolutely incredible and supportive for us in keeping our books on their shelves. And there really has just been a lot of word of mouth.

Somebody might call up and say, Oh, my sister read your book and I'd really like a copy and where can I get it? And of course they're on Amazon worldwide, but it's the grassroots efforts and the people and the conversation that. That's where the books are really moving is through our local communities and through friends and sisters of friends or partners of friends who are asking for the copies in libraries or their own independent bookshops.

I don't know if you've seen this one, Chris, but there's a really great platform and they were, they had a great book list recently for Mental Health Awareness Month, and it's called bookshop. org. And they. Oh, I'd highly recommend using it. That's where I, for readers, readers and listeners in the U. S., I encourage folks to try and get copies of the books there, bookshop.

org, because you can choose that any profit or proceed get donated to your own local, local bookstore and also have the opportunity to take back a bit more of the money than they would through a service like Amazon, which For folks who haven't written or self published a book, might be interested to know it's usually a very, very small percentage that the writer takes home after the sale of a book, especially the bigger the beast you're working with, the less you generally take home.

But bookshop. org really supports the local writers and the Oh, that's good to know.

Chris McDonald: Yeah, I love this support. uh, local bookstores as well. I think that's something.

Heather Hendrie: Yeah. And as far as audiobooks go, Libro, Libro. fm is similar. They support the locals. So we're, we're also very keen on that. We did choose Amazon because it, it was the one way to get the book out to a worldwide audience right away.

Of course, wherever we can, we really try and support the local folks.

Chris McDonald: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So any other advice you'd want to say to any therapists that have an idea for a book but haven't started writing?

Heather Hendrie: Yeah, well, follow your heart. I mean, it's one thing that's been really helpful for me is to join different writers groups and, and take some courses on writing and, Put myself in libraries and around other people who are writing books.

That's been extraordinarily helpful. And the other thing is your story matters. Like, if you think about like, when these books were published, just for me, having the response, one person to respond and say, I'm really related. I've been waiting for years to hear somebody say that. That's everything. And it's what we do in private practice too, isn't it?

By in counseling to just let somebody know that we see them and that they matter too. So imagine if you were to publish your book, your words, if you could reach thousands of people, and that's why I'm inspired to do the marketing also is if these stories can get into the hands of thousands of people that will reach far more people than I would ever be able to see.

Sable handedly in my private practice in counseling work, you can reach a far wider audience in a very. Affordable way for folks, maybe somebody could just pick up a cheap copy of our audio blog and hear what they've been waiting years to hear when Schilling Gupta published her book, the cycle. I wept.

I've been waiting 3 decades to hear those words. I, I don't know what would have happened had I found it 10 years

Chris McDonald: earlier. A lot, probably. Yeah, that's incredible, isn't it? You just never know who you're going to reach and how many people you can really help and, and how this can help your private practice too.

If you, especially if you're writing in your nation. And aren't we

Heather Hendrie: so uniquely positioned as counselors that we, we hear so many stories at universal pain points too. So we can, we are uniquely positioned to write to some of the universal pain points that of course impact us all very differently, very uniquely, but it, we're It's a very interesting opportunity for advocacy to like, but these are individual stories, but I've published them with the hopes of systems change.

Chris McDonald: Yeah, exactly. So what's the best way for listeners to find you and learn more about

Heather Hendrie: you? Yeah, my website's the easiest. It's my name. Heatherhendry. com. We've also got fun social media with Awfully Hilarious is on Instagram. It's just at Awfully Hilarious or my wilderness therapy practice is called at True Nature Wilderness Therapy.

There's socials for all of those. Yeah. I'd be delighted to connect with you there or in any place. And certainly if anything I've said today about PMDD or writing interests you, appeals to you, those are great ways to reach me. I'd be delighted to chat further.

Chris McDonald: Yeah. And that'll be all in the show notes listeners.

And I highly recommend checking out her website is just so beautiful, especially if you're interested in wilderness therapy or outdoor therapy, but thank you so much for coming on the podcast. This has been great, Heather. Chris, thank you

Heather Hendrie: so much for having me here. And I really want to thank you listeners also for tuning in and caring for themselves, even as we care for others.

Absolutely.

Chris McDonald: And we all need that so much more. And I want to also thank my listeners. And I know a lot of you struggle with burnout and emotional exhaustion. And you struggle often to put yourself first, but now is the time to put you first. The self care for the counselor companion workbook is ready for you and written with you in mind.

It helps you power up your self care and provide simple strategies that are not only practical, but easy to integrate into your busy life. So dive deeper into the world of holistic self care with interactive supplementary activities, bonus content. Links to videos and audio meditation and yoga practices.

Check it out today at hcpodcast. org forward slash workbook. That's hcpodcast. org forward slash workbook. And once again, this is Chris McDonald sending each one of you much light and love till next time, take care. Thanks for listening. The information in this podcast is for general educational purposes only, and it is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher, or the are giving legal financial counseling or any other kind of professional.

If you need a professional, please find the right one for you. The Holistic Counseling Podcast is proudly part of the Psych Craft Network.

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Feeling stressed? My Self-Care Companion workbook is designed to guide you through practical exercises that promote balance in body, mind, and spirit. The Workbook provides easy-to-use strategies that are not only practical but profoundly beneficial. 

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Self-Care for the Counselor - a holistic guide for helping professionals by Christine McDonald , MS,NCC,LPCS