Dr. Jo, a women's holistic healer and founder of Tula Soul, launches her debut podcast to have raw conversations beyond small talk. She's a former psychologist, yoga teacher, and author who recovered from anorexia and built her work around self-love. She wants to ask guests what lights them up, not what they do.
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Hello friends, my name is Dr. Jo and this is the first episode of what I'm gonna call the Dr. Jo Show because why not? Uh, totally unscripted and I started today because why not? I have been thinking about this podcast for a long time and just haven't started and I'm doing this Momentum series with my teacher, mentor, friend, just all over wonderful person, Adi Shakti from Soul Work. And I figured, why not today? I don't have a guest, I don't have a topic, but I'm just going to introduce the idea of my podcast. So in thinking about this for, I don't know, a few years, 5 years maybe, I've thought about a lot of different topics that I want to cover, so I'm just going to spit them out. I am a women's holistic healer. I own a women's wellness business called Tula Soul. The word Tula means balance in Sanskrit, and after I opened my business, several months later, a client I have from the Philippines informed me that it means poem in the Philippines, which is lovely because I'm a poet. So very serendipitous., and a couple years later after that, I was in a training called Yoga Behind Bars because I wanted to teach yoga to women in prison. And the woman who was teaching, she said, "Oh, come here, Tula," and it was her daughter's name. So I said, I told her the story of my business, and she said, "Oh, well, Tula means wind in Finnish." And I'm like, oh my goodness, I'm finished. And the wind has always been important to me. I remember when my long-term boyfriend broke up with me, um, right before I went to graduate school. I just remember kneeling and looking out the window and watching the, the branches and the leaves swaying back and forth and thinking to myself, I'll always have the wind. And that was enough to keep me going. And I'm also an air sign, so it's a beautiful gift from the universe, the name Tula. And I'm also an energy healer, yoga teacher, meditation teacher. Psychologist in, in the past. I had a private practice for 13 years. Certified spiritual life and wellness coach. I'm an author, poet, activist, ally, proud feminist. Uh, I'm a lot of things, but that's not what's important because those are just, um those are just details. What's important about me is that I'm a very passionate person. I love fiercely, and I find something to love in every person that I meet, even those that I staunchly disagree with. That is something that I take a lot of pride in, and I think the only way that I've been able to do that is because I love myself. That statement is sort of shocking that I can say that because when I was 12 years old, I struggled with anorexia and had to be hospitalized. Now, I didn't know what an eating disorder was. I just knew that I wouldn't eat again unless I was forced to. I'll talk more about that in later episodes. But it was a lifelong condition. I found recovery finally in about 2022, '23. So loving myself took a lifetime of therapy, of medication, of self-awareness, of spiritual, uh, journeys, of all kinds of things that it took me to go through. A lot of, a lot of, um, gift, gift trauma. I think that people who struggle a lot have the gift of, um, extra compassion and empathy, and they just, they get to dig and dig and dig into the psyche. And what is more fun than that? So I'm looking for guests who have stories, you know, real stories. I'm not interested in small talk because I want to know people on a real level. I want to know your shit, you know. I want to know what you've survived, and I want to know— it doesn't all have to be trauma, I'm not talking that. I just want to know what makes you tick, like what is your passion. When I meet people, I don't say What do you do? I say, what is your passion? And usually people start saying, well, I do this, I love doing— and I'm like, no, no, I don't want to know what you do because we too much define in our culture our worth by what we do. I want to know what lights you up, what makes you— what brings you to life, what makes your belly tickle. You know, like when I'm reading, reading is a passion of mine. And when I read a good, you know, sentence or paragraph or whatever, I get up and I twirl around and I say, oh, life is good. You know, bring me more. That, that is my passion. And so if we can find, and trees, trees, I've just learned so much about trees from this book. Um, what is it called? The Overstory by Richard Powers. I will be recommending a lot of books and talking about books because that's who I am. And I learned that trees, they color, they communicate, they have senses, they look out for one another. They can communicate with trees miles and miles away so that if they're being attacked by a predator like a bug or something, they can warn trees way far away so so that they develop immunity. Tell me, is that not fascinating, right? And in many ways, you know, we came from trees. We have the same genetic, same kind of thing. And we think that we are so much wiser than trees, right? Because we have all this complex things going on and we're so complicated and we can think so But trees have been around a lot longer than we have, and they can survive a lot longer than we can in terms of lifespan. And there's a lot of just different things in this story, in this book, that will make you just, whoa. So I highly recommend it. Let's see what else to cover in my first episode. Well, I just wanted to introduce myself to you. I am not for everyone, so if, if you're just like, whoa, that bitch is crazy, that's fine. I don't need to be liked by anyone or everyone. Um, I speak to a certain person who is looking to be authentic and who doesn't feel seen and who feels, um, who feels like they're a little bit too much or, uh, you know, a little bit off the charts in terms of— I don't know. I mean, I grew up feeling too much of everything, but the more I step into my authenticity, the fewer people tolerate me and the less shits I give. So if that's how you're feeling, you know, and you want to hang with somebody who, who does give a shit about you, because I give a shit about everyone and I don't judge. I'm not going to care about anything about what you do or think, or I, I accept everything. I accept all people. I'm not going to judge who you are. Then this is the place to be. Not to mention, I'm gonna, I'm gonna give a lot of really cool information because I'm smart and I know a lot and I've had a lot of education. Most of my education through life experience. But I will say, I just— I know a lot of shit, and I have a lot of good things to talk about, and I'm going to have a really cool guest. So welcome, thank you, peace out.
