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Addiction, recovery, mental health, relationships, parenting, infertility, and self-care…
Erin Khar (Managing Editor at Ravishly and author of the popular weekly advice column Ask Erin) joins guest host Jessica Brodkin [Episode 11] in the MouthMedia Network studios powered by Sennheiser.
In this episode:
- Khar’s addiction to heroin for 15 years starting at 13 years old, and how she didn’t look like drug addic,t had straight As, lots of friends, no warning signs, etc.
- How her love for child was stronger than her hatred of self
- Learning how to take care of herself and walking through shame and depression that drove to use drugs
- Healing is confronting the parts of ourself we don’t want others to see, we let go of shame and that’s where healing starts
- How Khar lost her baby due to premature birth, and met Brodkin after having had four miscarriages prior to that,
- Khar’s incredible emotional pain, and it wasn’t about her head, it was about her soul
- A psychic medium suggested she needs to go to Reiki
- Khar’s believe that a silver lining of pain was growing closer to a spiritual connection than before, and how her family bonded than before
- Getting tested and being able to make her way through that, and people won’t able to confront things, so they will stay in toxic patterns,
- Part of self-care is to tell people “I feel __________”
- How Khar had a successful clothing line, and had challenges and stopped caring about it
- A chance encounter with a writer that led to started a blog called Rarely Wrong Erin (and eventually Ask Erin), due to her ability to recall random information, and then she got a job at Ravishly, ad is now the managing editor
- A lot of #METOO questions — of 60 questions per week 10-15 are about that topic
- The tricky topic of conditioning around consent
- Taking things people struggle with, so consent is frequently topical in her advice column
- The need for conversations about consent
- How fear is always worse than actually doing something
- Khar was feeling unlovable and living like the room was on fire until a switch flipped
- How she wants to bring hope because she was hopeless for a long time
Dr. Anna Yusim, a psychiatrist with private practice in New York City and author of the 
Yusim shares how in her past she hit a bump in the road, and a lot of darkness, and despite knowing healing tools she couldn’t pull herself out of it. Then her spiritual journey started. And she explored and learned new tools. She studied in India and Thailand and South Africa, and more, understanding how the world works, and gaining a new perspective on life. And her own darkness started to lift. Spirituality and shamanism, and beliefs and methods unusual for a psychiatrist. About the direction medicine and psychiatry are going. When someone is acutely mentally ill, they may need medication, but that s a minority. Most people come in with a more spiritual approach or psychiatric approach, more patients are finding medications have side effects and they want to have alternatives.