Thank you for joining us for episode 459 of Live Happy Now.

If you feel like you're merely surviving instead of thriving, this week's episode could be just what the doctor or the dula ordered.

I'm your host, Paula Phelps, and today I'm talking with Brandy Sellers Jackson, a life

dula, an author of the book On Thriving, harnessing joy through life's greatest labors.

Brandy learned to thrive despite her own traumatic past, and now she walks others down the path

of healing and self-nurturing to help them find true joy in life. In this episode, Brandy sits down with me to explain why it's so important for us to learn to

practice self-care, and she offers tips that will improve both our physical and our mental

health.

Let's have a listen.

Brandy, thank you for coming on Live Happy Now.

Thank you for having me.

I'm so excited to be here.

You are, unlike any guests that we've had, you are a life doula. Now, so to set this up, explain to us what that is. So I started my work

initially in birth and birth and postpartum doula work, which means, you know, I was there to support

families as they give birth., which means, you know, I was there to support families as they

give birth. But during 2020, you know, something happened, you know, is this little small,

little global pandemic thing that happened. Yeah, there was a hiccup that happened. Yeah, it was a little

small hiccup. No big deal. No big deal. That happened and shook our world, of course. And so, you know, long story short, we ended up happening is, you know, I had a conversation with a friend many years ago, a dear friend named A Ishaasathe, who's a healer who I talk about in the book. And she was saying how, you know, man, wouldn't it be great if we had someone to dola us through life? And we were like,

yeah, like a life dula. And we kind of just were joking. But basically what happened is I ended up

finding myself in that work. And I was like, oh, that's what a life dula is. It's someone who

supports you through various transitions and various moments of rediscovery in your life. So yeah.

And with this book, first of all, I feel like you have a lot of books in you. And I wondered why

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