The Clam Jam Podcast

RELAUNCH COMING SOON!

I originally launched The Clam Jam podcast as a live, video interview series in 2020 and had some incredible conversations with truly amazing people which you can still view here and on YouTube.

Now I’m relaunching The Clam Jam as a weekly audio podcast and new episodes will be available in the next few months. More details to come!

In the meantime, check out some older eps!

Abortion Support & Ending Multiple Abortion Stigma with Kristen Portney

This week on The Clam Jam we're talking about abortion support, stigma, and complicated emotions with Kristen Portney of Abortion Wheel. Kristen is a post-abortion counselor and a community mental health advocate, passionate about providing care for those often overlooked. We talk about the importance of addressing multiple abortion stigma, grief and other complicated emotions, support for partners, and how to mine our "psychic gold" post-abortion.

More about Kristen: I am a post-abortion counsleor and community mental health advocate. In addition to my education in counseling psychology, I trained as a birth doula and abortion doula and have led workshops using ritual and community-resourcing for people who have experienced abortion(s). As a storyteller and public speaker, including at prior events with The Bay Area Doula Project, UC Berkeley, and Spirit Weavers, I shine a light - revealing and normalizing the nuance and humanity of having multiple abortions. Within the wide range of abortion responses in our society - from acceptance to hostility, my mission is to destigmatize and fortify compassion for all people who choose abortion. After graduating with an M.A. in Integral Counseling Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies, I worked in various settings as a psychotherapist including in community mental health settings such as Bonita House (social rehabilitation for adults with co-occuring mental health and substance abuse diagnoses), and Seeds of Awareness (teaching empathy and social-emotional skills to children), in Berkeley, California. I trained as both an abortion and birth doula through Bay Area Doula Project and Cornerstone Doula Trainings, respectively.

Healing PCOS with Melissa Danielle

PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome) can be a very confusing diagnosis characterized by irregular or missing periods, elevated androgen levels (hormones such as testosterone), and enlarged ovaries with 12 or more cysts seen on an ultrasound (aka underdeveloped follicles). It's both an endocrine and metabolic disorder, but often reduced down to just having irregular periods and not being able to get pregnant. It's also incredibly common. Treatment is usually limited to hormonal birth control, weight loss, and perhaps ovulation inducing drug treatments (if you're trying to get pregnant), but that doesn't address the root cause nor does it help you to heal. Endocrine disorders are no joke!

Enter this week's Clam Jam guest, Melissa Danielle! She's a PCOS health coach who helps women over 40 with PCOS go from depressed, stressed, and obsessed to fit, fertile, and free. She's also a doula, disruptor, and too much woman reimagining menstruation, motherhood, and money for a more wild and juicy life. When she's not helping women give birth to babies and dreams, she's baking, reading, beaching, gardening, or being a human jungle gym for one wild toddler (but a wildly cute toddler!).