Hello, hello! I’m back with the first official Warm Bread podcast episode, an interview with someone who has inspired me for over a decade, Asia Rikard. You’ll learn lots more about Asia in this episode, but at a glance, Asia is a doula, a community gardener, and an outdoorist—and I dare you not to fall in love with her over the next 37 minutes. We dive into how taking care of yourself can actually help you take better care of others, and Asia shares her passionate thoughts on self-care, community building, and the healing power of nature and doing hard things. If you are someone looking to nurture yourself and your connections to your community and the world around you, you will find a treasure trove of insights and inspiration here. Check out the video podcast above (I’m having a hard time using the word “vodcast”) and find the full transcript below if you'd prefer to read along! If you’d rather listen to audio only, you can find the episode on Spotify, too. If you want more Asia, you can find her on Instagram at @thebirthpartner. Thank you so much for being here. I’ll be back in two weeks with lots to share! xo Taylor Episode Transcript: Taylor Rippy Monson (00:03) Hi, and welcome to Warm Bread. I'm Taylor, and this podcast is all about creating a life that feels good to live in. Each episode, we'll explore stories, conversations, and ideas that help us create more connected homes, more thoughtful communities, and richer lives. So grab a cup of something cozy, settle in, and let's get started. Taylor Rippy Monson (00:29) What a treat I have for you today. You get to hear from an absolute ray of sunshine, Asia Rikard. Asia is one of the most inspiring people I know. I feel so fortunate to call her a friend. A little bit about her background. Asia is a Pacific Northwest native that has found her way to Orange County, California. She began her journey as a birth and postpartum doula in 2016 and is deeply committed to being a compassionate advocate to empower pregnancy, birth and the postpartum experience. Asia's background is an intercultural peace building, specifically transformative mediation and business. And when she isn't attending births and supporting through the postpartum period, Asia enjoys spending time with loved ones, swimming, gardening, hiking, and enjoying live music. In this episode, we talk about the simple pen and paper exercise that changed the course of her life, her unwavering beliefs about self-care, what she learned from walking solo 500 miles in 32 days across northern Spain, the importance and power of doing hard things, fighting the temptation of hyperindependence, why showing up is one of the most important things we can do to connect with ourselves and others, and the magic of nourishing ourselves to nourish others. Without further ado, the one and the only. Taylor Rippy Monson (01:49) Asia. I wanted to start by talking about how we nurture ourselves first. And I know in your work as a doula, you spend so much of that time supporting others. How do you nurture yourself in the process of those crazy long hours and the time that you spend with other people being their support person? Asia (01:51) Yes. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Hmm. Yeah, I think the way that I nourished myself is knowing the things that fill my soul. So kind of a little backstory, the way that I became a doula was, I was going through a really hard time and I needed something to help me like heal and bring myself back into, joy and happiness. And so I got out a piece of paper and I wrote at the top, what am I passionate about and what excites me? And it's like, I still have to list it's like a bullet point listen, like, Sunshine, the ocean, macaroni and cheese, celebrity gossip. And they were funny things, but then I also wrote women and empowering stories and overcoming obstacles, entrepreneurship. And so I had this list and I wrote, what can I do with these passions? And that's how I got into doula work, but I still go back to that list when I need to nourish myself of what do I love? And so it's like, if I need to nourish myself, I need to get outside in the sunshine. I need to go swim in the ocean. I need to listen to like a trashy celebrity gossip podcast. know, those type of things that I know tried and true are going to like nourish my soul, treat myself. I always say like, have like a birth hangover, like after a birth. And I'm like, I'm gonna go through the drive-through and get like a KFC bowl because it's like, I need those things to like help me recover, recoup. And so I think, yeah, just knowing the stuff that Taylor Rippy Monson (03:07) Yes. Hahaha. Asia (03:32) fills my soul and helps me recover is the best way that I can take care of and nourish myself in order to do the work that I do. Taylor Rippy Monson (03:41) And it's like that level of work having like being a doula and being present at birth is such a like crazy profession, something that you're doing on a weekly basis or like, I know that you've been doing a ton of births lately. So more than just a weekly basis, but like what that requires from you compared to a lot of other professions is a lot. I love the list idea. And it reminds me of like, I always think of like happy equations, like, okay, if I'm feeling off or some things like not right in my life. Asia (03:46) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Taylor Rippy Monson (04:07) what's a happy equation that I can plug and play and whether that's like watching an episode of The Office and getting Thai take out or whatever it is doing those things that help me kind of re-center. So I love that and I love the idea of writing out everything that helps you feel alive. That's beautiful. Asia (04:19) Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I mean, I think that's a recipe, right, for life. But when you are in a giving profession or if you're in a season of life where you're giving, I just went and saw a client. I was their birth doula. You know, they're transitioning into postpartum. And I was telling the mom and the dad, like, 24-7, you are giving, giving, giving. And so my assignment to them is every day you look at each other and say, OK, this is my time out. And they get to go have 20 to 30 minutes of like selfish time. And I don't even like to call it selfish, but right, something that fills their soul because we have to be able to give that to ourselves, you know, and know the things that will help, whether that's working out, reading a trashy novel, right? Something that you feel like you really need, For everyone, yeah, always, yeah, yeah. Taylor Rippy Monson (05:10) Yeah, for everyone, for everyone always. yes. So has that, have those practices changed for you over time as like you've grown as a person? Has it always been the same type of stuff that you've returned to that you know works for you? Asia (05:28) yeah, I think I'm a pretty I'm a creature of habit. I think there are a few things that maybe I've incorporated over the years, but I kind of know my go to joys and happiness yeah. Yeah. Taylor Rippy Monson (05:42) And it's interesting because I said, like, we can obviously develop new happy equations or new things that bring us joy and learn new things and have different experiences like that. But so many of the things for me, at least that like bring me joy are things that have brought me joy since I was a little kid. Asia (05:47) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly I'm like, okay, eight year old Asia, like, she wanted to put on a swimsuit, find a body of water and kick her legs. And like, I still feel like that's what I want to do or go like ride a bike and have my hair in the wind. Like, I still want to do those things. I hope and yeah, and yeah, and like, and I hope I can do that when I'm 85 years old. You know? Yeah. Yeah. Taylor Rippy Monson (06:14) Yes, that is one of mine. Riding a bike really fast. Yeah, yeah, and have it nurture you the same way. I love that. Okay, so I want to talk to you about you did the Camino. Did that. It's a big deal. Asia (06:25) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I did, yes. Yeah, the Camino de Santiago. I did it in 2022. Yeah. Taylor Rippy Monson (06:41) Okay, so for people who aren't familiar with that, what is the Camino de Santiago? Asia (06:43) Yeah, so the Camino de Santiago is a pilgrimage across Spain, so there's different routes that all end up in this specific city, Santiago, and I did the French Way, which is essentially 500 miles from the border of France and Spain all the way across northern Spain. So I walked for a total of 32 days. I had two rest days. Everything I owned was in a backpack and I walked from like town to town, city to city until I arrived in Santiago. And so people from all over the world do this pilgrimage. It's like the way of St. James. So a lot of Catholics will do it from like a religious perspective, Muslims will do their journey to Mecca. A lot of Catholics will do kind of the pilgrimage of the Camino, but you don't have to be religious at all to do it. But again, I've been always really drawn to some of my favorite books have been about people that have done physical journeys and the emotional, mental, often spiritual transformations that happen. So one of my favorite books is about a guy, it's called A Million Miles and A Thousand Years, and he rode his bike across America or about this woman who did the Appalachian Trail. You're familiar with Wild and another guy rode his bike from Canada to Patagonia. And I just love pushing ourselves to the max and then what happens to that. I think there's a lot of symbolism to that in birth, which we'll probably get into a little bit later. But yeah, I had been doing birth work for so long and I was seeing these women go through this physical journey, the transformation of Taylor Rippy Monson (08:15) Yeah. Asia (08:24) becoming a parent, becoming a mother. And I was like, I'm not a mom. Yeah, I don't have children, but I love that journey. What can I do? I heard about the Camino,
