Healing the Tigress

Iris Chen, a recovering tiger mother and founder of the Untigering movement, explores the transformative journey of peaceful parenting. She shares her experiences as an American Born Chinese raising children in China, highlighting the effects of authoritarian parenting on mental health. Iris emphasizes the importance of 'unschooling' and adapting education to a child’s interests. She also discusses the cultural challenges AAPI mothers face while redefining their parenting identities, advocating for empathy and understanding in familial relationships.

TW: We do discuss suicidal thoughts and miscarriage in this episode.Even though Healing the Tigress is about maternal mental health, we cannot have these conversations with just moms. Men, dads, partners all play a role in the healing process as well, and they themselves also deserve the same support and care for their own mental health as they step into parenthood. Their mental health ties in closely with maternal mental health too. So we really wanted to feature a male voice on our podcast, and who better to talk with than J.S. Park —a Korean American hospital chaplain from Florida.J.S. Park has a MDiv and a BA in Psychology. He is a published author (The Voices We Carry) with another book on the way in a few months, a viral blogger/influencer, and a father to a 3-year-old daughter with a second child on the way next month! For eight years, he has been an interfaith chaplain at a 1000+ bed hospital that is designated a Level 1 Trauma Center. His role includes grief counseling, attending every death, every trauma and Code Blue, staff care, and supporting end-of-life care. He also served for three years as a chaplain at one of the largest nonprofit charities for the homeless on the east coast.Together we sit down and talk about how J.S. did not think he wanted children at first, for fear of passing down his generational traumas. Eventually he did decide to have children, and unfortunately, his wife experienced severe postpartum depression. We talk about their journey to getting her help at the beginning and height of the pandemic. J.S. also admits that he himself also ended up having depression and anxiety after burning out from being the sole caregiver of his wife and his daughter, who they were concerned had other health problems.We talk openly about taking antidepressants and going to therapy and couples’ therapy. We also discuss his views on “grief anxiety,” as a person who constantly sees death at work. There are many instances of grieving in motherhood/parenthood, and J.S. talks with us about how this grief ties in with social and cultural forces too.This conversation is rich with thought-provoking ideas that challenge our stigmas against Asian males, dads, mental health, generational trauma, grief, and more. Please take a listen to this wonderful discussion with J.S. Park, dubbed the “grief catcher” or “therapriest,” and we hope you’ll enjoy listening to our first (but not last!) male guest!Find more of J.S. Park at:Instagram: @jspark3000Website: https://jsparkblog.com/Book: The Voices We Carry Pre-Orders for Next Book: As Long As You NeedIf you enjoy our podcast and our mission to shine light on conversations and stories of AAPI mothers, please take a moment to leave us a review! Reviews help us become more visible and we really want this podcast to reach more AAPI mothers who may need it. You may also follow us @healingthetigress on Instagram and TikTok. Thank you for tuning in!Note: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speakers' own. This podcast is not a replacement for therapy or professional/medical advice. If you need more support or advice, please reach out to your own medical professional who can answer your questions with your individual medical history and background in context.Support the show

Please help us welcome our first international guest! Tisha Kachhapati, MBPsS, MBACP, is a Nepalese American psychodynamic counselor now living abroad and based in the United Kingdom for the past decade. She is what we would consider an ex-pat, but as we discuss, she mentions that because she is a person of color, people often call her an “immigrant” instead.In this episode, Tisha describes her experience giving birth in the UK and the traumatic birth that followed, which left her getting an emergency C-section and barely conscious enough to realize a Code Blue had been called. Tisha tells us how it felt like the mother was forgotten after the baby was delivered and how her postpartum depression and anxiety weren’t as apparent until 8 months later because she seemed so high functioning. Even when she asked her general practitioner for antidepressants, she was dismissed and told she just needed to “go on a holiday.” Eventually, Tisha took the antidepressants and got better. But when her son was two, Tisha was trying to ask her GP if they had more help for maternal mental health to offer her. She was turned away and told there was nothing they could offer her. Tisha was shocked. But she turned that disappointment into her personal fuel to change her career completely and pursue a degree in psychodynamic counseling. Please tune in to this inspiration story from a mum across the pond. We think you’ll find it relatable, enlightening, and funny, as Tisha’s humor and wonderful British accent really shine through. And the bigger message is that perinatal mood and anxiety disorders do not discriminate; many of thesame themes and societal stigmas and shortcomings are the same in the UK as they are in the US. Find more of Tisha at:Instagram: @tmktherapyWebsite: www.tmktherapy.comIf you enjoy our podcast and our mission to shine light on conversations and stories of AAPI mothers, please take a moment to leave us a review! Reviews help us become more visible and we really want this podcast to reach more AAPI mothers who may need it. You may also follow us @healingthetigress on Instagram and TikTok. Thank you for tuning in!Note: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speakers' own. This podcast is not a replacement for therapy or professional/medical advice. If you need more support or advice, please reach out to your own medical professional who can answer your questions with your individual medical history and background in context.Support the show

We took a short break while Jasmine was studying for her PMH-C test, but now that she has taken it and passed (yay!), we wanted to throw in one last bonus episode for 2023. Pull up a chair and grab a mug of hot cocoa (or your drink of choice) to listen in on an open, completely unedited conversation between Peggy and Jasmine, reflecting on how this experience of starting Healing the Tigress has been. Find out what surprised us most after starting this podcast, what our favorite moments of the past 3 months have been, and even some confessions and realizations from our high school days! We inadvertently (briefly) recap all of the episodes from this year--what did they mean to us and what were the emotions behind some of them. Jasmine also shares a little bit about just what "PMH-C" really is and how it can be helpful for those seeking help with perinatal mental health. We end by teasing a little bit about the kinds of guests we have coming up in the next year! And then if you haven't seen our fun holiday giveaway yet, there's still a few more days to enter on our IG page! Check it out over at www.instagram.com/healingthetigress.We'll be back from the holidays around mid January, so look out for us then! Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for supporting us on this journey. We can't wait to share our upcoming guests with everyone. Happy Holidays! See you in 2024!Support the show

A lot of AAPI parents these days are breaking generational cycles by parenting differently. You may know KJ Althoff as "Gentle Healing Mom" on Instagram, and in today's episode, we have the honor to hear her share her story for the very first time about her Filipino background and how it plays a role in her childhood traumas and motherhood journey today.In this episode, KJ graciously opens up to us about how she was actually brought up to suppress her Filipino heritage to fit in with her American peers when she moved to the U.S. at a young age from the Philippines with her mother. She grew up with a white father who adopted her, but it took years to come to terms with her true identity as 100% Filipina. KJ discusses with us how she realized a lot of her childhood trauma contributed to her triggers in motherhood, and hence, she started a journey of self-healing to parent her child differently than how she was raised, as well as re-parenting herself.Over the course of learning how to parent in a way that felt right to her, KJ has built a community of over 100k followers on Instagram (@gentlehealingmom) sharing about her personal gentle parenting journey as well as healing from childhood wounds. She has a master's degree in mental health counseling and is also a certified parenting coach, as well as Director of Content for Big Life Journal. KJ and her husband Adam have been married for 7 years. They have a 6-year-old son who is the reason KJ began her gentle and conscious parenting journey more than 3 years ago.KJ also discusses with us the difference between gentle parenting and conscious parenting, which we think is important to distinguish. Please join us in this deeply personal and hugely relatable episode about parenting.Books recommended by KJ:Let's Talk About Body Boundaries, Consent and RespectMy Body! What I Say Goes!My Body Belongs to Me from My Head to My ToesI Said No! A Kid-to-kid Guide to Keeping Private Parts PrivateYou can find more of KJ at:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gentlehealingmom/ (@gentlehealingmom)Big Life Journal: https://www.instagram.com/biglifejournal/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gentlehealingmomWebsite: https://gentlehealingmom.com/If you enjoyed the episode, please subscribe and follow our show! We would also love a rating and review to help our show become more visible to other AAPI parents who would benefit.Note: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speakers' own. This podcast is not a replacement for therapy or professional/medical advice. If you are in need of more support or advice, please reach out to your own medical professional who can answer your questions with your individual medical history and background in context.Support the show

Leah Kim has been a long-time writer and champion of mental health, narrating her personal stories and essays so poignantly about her childhood trauma, growing up a daughter of a mentally unwell mother, and then battling postpartum depression (PPD), anxiety, panic disorder, and PTSD when she became a mother. We were so fortunate to sit down with Leah to dive deeper into her long-term experience with mental health in this episode.Leah is a second-generation Korean American, born in Chicago and raised in the Bay Area. But she has traveled worldwide and may be better known for her admirable career as Nike's former Global Yoga Ambassador for 10 years. She is currently a mother of two, a blogger, and a podcast host herself for Voices on the Side. She is also a writer with a book in the works!Because Leah grew up around her mother who was mentally unwell for as long as she could remember, she tried to set herself up to be as mentally well as possible before she became a mother. Leah thought that being a yoga and mindfulness expert meant that she would be able to think her way out of any darkness. She had a firm belief that she should be able to have a "natural" birth to fit her narrative as Nike's Yoga Ambassador. But 9 years ago, when her birth plan for her first child went south, she was not prepared for the traumatic aftermath.In this episode, we talk about what she describes as "years long PPD after my first child," including how she first realized she actually needed more help when she started getting anxiety and panic attacks. These panic attacks didn't start until her son was 1.5 years old and finally led her to seek out therapy and help. We talk about how we cannot put a timeline on mental health and that PPD can go on longer than a year. If you are someone who has had PPD for longer than a year or experienced panic disorder or C-PTSD, you may resonate deeply with this episode. But even if you have not, Leah touches on a lot of themes of mental health challenges that many new moms go through. Back when she had her first child, social media had not been such a safe space to talk openly about things like PPD, but Leah was one of the few AAPI voices on maternal mental health back then and continues to be now.Please tune in and listen for yourself to Leah, who was the inspiration to Jasmine (one of our Healing the Tigress cohosts) for realizing how important having an AAPI voice in this space really was to her.Resources mentioned:This is Not What I Expected: Overcoming Postpartum Depression by Karen Kleiman, MSW, LCSWFind Leah at: IG: @leahsoojinkim Podcast: Voices on the Side Blog: https://www.on-motherhood.com/Please share with a friend if you found this helpful, and we always welcome ratings and reviews to help us increase visibility for our AAPI community in the maternal mental health space. Thank you!Note: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speakers' own. This podcast is not a replacement for therapy or professional/medical advice. If you are in need of more support or advice, please reach out to your own medical professional who can answer your questions with your individual medical history and background in context.Support the show

Trigger Warning: This episode discusses Pregnancy Loss and Termination For Medical Reasons“The Sun shone brightest the day you returned to the sky,” writes Katrina dela Cruz to her son, Zeo Thomas, who was 19 weeks in the womb when she lost him. It happened to be Summer Solstice that day. Not long after, she unexpectedly had a miscarriage of another baby, Solis Vida, and bled over Zeo’s due date.And despite all of heartbreak, Katrina still finds ways to hold onto joy after these pregnancy losses.To end Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month, we are honored to sit down and speak with Katrina about how her unique experience of motherhood and loss over the past 2 years have heightened her intuition and transformed the way in which she holds space in her own practice as a therapist. Katrina dela Cruz is a licensed mental health professional (LCSW), psychotherapist, spiritual coach, counselor, and the mother of two Spirit babies. She worked with patients in hospitals for over a decade, including in care for maternal mental health on OB/GYN and L&D units, before beginning her private practice, where she integrates Western psychological theory with energy work, sound healing, plant spiritism, and ancestral healing traditions.Katrina is also a HOPEtober Ambassador for RTZ Hope--a national non-profit organization that provides holistic support, resources, and community for all people who have experience pregnancy and infant loss. She is Filipino American and proud to be 100% Ilocano (indigenous to Ilocos, the northernmost region of the Philippines). She discusses with us how Filipinos are known for their optimism but how discussing something as tragic as miscarriage and loss can feel unnatural in her community.1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage but many will suffer in silence. We hope this episode will leave listeners with a better awareness of pregnancy loss and how to better support families going through this extremely difficult time.Resources and Links mentioned: RTZ Hope: https://rtzhope.org/ Katrina's HOPEtober Ambassador page: https://rtzhope.org/2023-hopetober-ambassadors/2023/katrina-delacruz Maternal Mental Health Now Courageous Conversations registration (Free on 11/9/23): https://maternalmentalhealthnow.networkforgood.com/events/63292-courageous-conversations-pregnancy-and-infant-loss Postpartum Support International Loss and Grief Support: https://www.postpartum.net/get-help/loss-grief-in-pregnancy-postpartum/ Find Katrina at:Website: www.firemoonmedicines.comIG: @firemoonmedicinesPlease share with a friend if you found this helpful, and we always welcome ratings and reviews to help us increase visibility for our AAPI community in the maternal mental health space. Thank you!Note: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speakers' own. This podcast is not a replacement for therapy or professional/medical advice. If you are in need of more support or advice, please reach out to your own medical professional who can answer your questions with your individual medical history and background in context.Support the show

What happens when you’re a mental health professional who knows more than enough about postpartum depression and you embark on your own postpartum journey—only to discover that there’s a whole world of postpartum anxiety you’ve never seen?In today’s episode, our Healing the Tigress cohost, Peggy, shares her story about how she was blindsided by postpartum anxiety amidst a pandemic. She dives into how she felt the social pressures to sleep train in order to be a “perfect” mother and the journey through learning the value of being a Good Enough Mother. Peggy also explains how becoming a mother enlightened her understanding of being a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) and how rediscovering her own intuition led her to see there are other ways to respond to your baby that may not be what the dominant Western culture imposes. She was reminded that there are centuries of traditions and cultures around the world that embrace a different way of responsive parenting that may not be the norm in Western society.As she gave herself permission to parent her new baby from her own intuition and cultural lens, she finally found relief from her postpartum anxiety. She also discovered a therapist who was a better cultural fit to honor how she wanted to parent. If you have ever had doubts about sleep training or are unsure about how postpartum anxiety might look, this will be a great episode for you to tune into!Books:Hunt, Gather, Parent: What Ancient Cultures Can Teach Us About the Lost Art of Raising Happy, Helpful Little Humans by Michaeleen DoucleffParenting Without Borders: Surprising Lessons Parents Around the World Can Teach Us by Christine Gross-Loh, PhDThe Highly Sensitive Person by Elaine N Aron, PhDSocial media recommendationsInstagram - @HeySleepyBabyLa Leche League International resource:The Safe Sleep Seven Note: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speakers' own. This podcast is not a replacement for therapy or professional/medical advice. If you are in need of more support or advice, please reach out to your own medical professional who can answer your questions with your individual medical history and background in context.Support the show

"It takes a village," we're often told about motherhood. But what happens when you're a single teen mom who had to move out of the home she grew up in while pregnant and even your (Asian) church community isolated your parents? Add on top of that the Asian mentality of "saving face" and there's a whole other complex layer that everything is stacked against you going into new motherhood. That is what Tiffany Cheung talks with us about in this episode.Together, we discuss all the obstacles Tiffany faced when starting off motherhood. Tiffany tells us how she was never told about postpartum depression in any of her OB/GYN visits, and one day a Google search led her to discover that PPD was likely what she had and that she needed help. We talk about how Tiffany realized she had to leave her abusive relationship, how she lived off food stamps while being in school, and how she healed from the depression and turned it into fuel to care for her daughter. We even get to hear how she eventually became immensely successful by founding her own business during the pandemic.Tiffany is a second-generation Asian American entrepreneur known as The Business Activation Coach, a manifestation expert, published author, and podcast host of the Social Reset Podcast. She is deeply passionate about connecting women of color to their soul gifts, and building a business that is rooted in sharing their magic. Tiffany cares deeply about helping her students break generational curses and alchemizing them into legacies of wealth, abundance and magic.You can find more of Tiffany at the following places: Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/tiffanycheung.co Website: www.tiffanycheung.co Podcast: Search= Social Reset PodcastIf you enjoy our podcast and our mission to shine light on conversations and stories of AAPI mothers, please take a moment to leave us a review! Reviews help us become more visible and we really want this podcast to reach more AAPI mothers who may need it. You may also follow us @healingthetigress on Instagram and TikTok. Thank you for tuning in! Note: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speakers' own. This podcast is not a replacement for therapy or professional/medical advice. If you are in need of more support or advice, please reach out to your own medical professional who can answer your questions with your individual medical history and background in context.Support the show

Trigger Warning: This episode will discuss maternal suicide.On today's episode, we are sitting down with Priya Bhakta, the sister of Nima Bhakta, who died by suicide on July 24, 2020. Nima was a new mother suffering with postpartum depression (PPD) and unfortunately lost the battle when her son was just over half a year old. Priya graciously talked with us about Nima's background and described how her vibrant, loving sister changed almost as soon as she became a mother.In talking about the events leading up to Nima's passing, we hope to shed light on how PPD can be so insidious and help destigmatize the maternal mental health discussion in the Indian American community and beyond in our AAPI communities. Priya talks about how Nima's husband and the rest of her family came together and decided they needed to honor Nima by spreading her whole story to break the stigma in their communities. They have already seen some of the positive effects on other families because of this.We hope this conversation will also be a source of light to honor Nima and help others realize they are not alone. There is help out there, and talking about mental health is the first step. Accepting help is the second.If you would like to connect more with Priya or learn more about Nima's story and legacy, here are a few ways:Email: priyabbhakta@gmail.comInstagram: @breakthestigma4nimaYou can also check out the social media hashtag movement of #BreakTheStigma4NimaMaternal Mental Health in the AAPI Community (Pearls of Jasmine Newsletter): https://pearlsofjasmine.substack.com/p/002-maternal-mental-health-in-theAnd if you or someone you know is having thoughts of self-harm, please call or text:1. National Crisis and Suicide Hotline: 9882. National Maternal Mental Health Hotline: 1-833-852-6262 (1-833-TLC-MAMA)3. Postpartum Support International Hotline: 1-800-944-4773Note: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speakers' own. This podcast is not a replacement for therapy or professional/medical advice. If you are in need of more support or advice, please reach out to your own medical professional who can answer your questions with your individual medical history and background in context.Support the show