How We Really Feel

Dr Sula
  • 5.0 (5)
  • Medicine

How We Really Feel is the podcast that takes an honest, evidence-based look at what it means to live in a body, especially when that body is doing something no test has fully explained, no appointment has had time to address, or no one has joined the dots on yet. Hosted by Dr Sula Windgassen, PhD, health psychologist, researcher, author of It's All In Your Body and specialist in chronic illness, burnout and the mind-body connection. Each episode brings together leading clinicians, researchers and people with deep lived experience to examine the whole picture: biological, psychological and social. Guests are chosen for their years of peer-reviewed research, frontline clinical practice or a rich lived experience of illness, injury and healing. Every episode is fact-checked by Dr Sula and the show researcher, a trainee health psychologist and PhD student. All studies and resources referenced are listed at howwereallyfeel.com so you can read further, question it and make it your own. Series one explores pelvic and bladder health. One of the least explored areas of health, especially from a holistic and integrated approach that incorporates mind and body and the human at the heart of symptoms. Episodes cover chronic UTI, bladder pain syndrome, the nervous system, pelvic pain, sex and intimacy after illness, and what it means to befriend a body that has fundamentally changed. Between guest episodes, Dr Sula shares her own therapeutic reflections: what stood out, what the evidence means in practice, and what might be worth sitting with or trying. How We Really Feel is for you if:  You're curious about how our biology, psychology and lived experience are woven together and what that means for how we healYou're a urologist, pelvic health physiotherapist, GP, health psychologist, gynaecologist or clinician with an interest in holistic, integrated and evidence-based careYou've ever felt like medicine ran out of answers before you did You're navigating bladder pain, pelvic pain, chronic UTIs, chronic illness or burnout and want to understand what's really going on beneath the surface New guest episodes released weekly on Mondays and reflective summary episodes with Dr Sula Windgassen on Thursdays. All resources at howwereallyfeel.com

  1. 18 hr ago ·  Bonus

    My reflections on confidence, catheterising & finding your way back to yourself following episode 9

    Sometimes the hardest part of a new way of managing your body isn't the technique. It's everything that happens in your head before you even get there. This is my reflection following last week's conversation with Dr Angie Rantell, consultant nurse in urogynaecology at King's College Hospital, and Keira McGarrity, psychological wellbeing practitioner and intermittent catheter user. We talked about how long bladder symptoms can go unheard, what a negative test actually does to someone who knows something's wrong, and the moment everything shifted for Keira as she stopped trying to do it "right." I keep coming back to that. How much of healing - physical, practical, everyday healing - depends on how we're relating to ourselves while we do it. A few things I sit with in this episode: Why self-blame so often fills the gap before a diagnosis arrives, and what that does to the nervous system over time. What it really means when a test comes back clear but the symptoms don't. Why easing up on perfectionism changed Keira's catheter use more than any equipment could, and what that tells us about the mind-body loop in chronic and intermittent health management. This conversation connects closely with the work I'm doing with Convatec Continence Care and their Me+ programme, which supports people using intermittent catheters with both practical guidance and emotional wellbeing resources. Find out more at www.howwereallyfeel.com/in-partnership-with-convatec. More resources and references for this episode are at www.howwereallyfeel.com

    9 min

  2. 4 days ago

    Confidence, catheterising, fear and finding your way back to yourself

    If you've ever been handed a medical device and sent home to figure it out alone, this episode is for you. Dr Sula is joined by Angie Rantell, Consultant Nurse in Urogynaecology at King's College Hospital and Senior Lecturer in Pelvic Health at Brunel University, and Kiera, a psychological wellbeing practitioner, patient advocate with Convatec and catheter user herself. Two perspectives on the same experience -one clinical, one lived - sitting down together. Kiera shares what it was like growing up with bladder symptoms from childhood, the years of being told tests were normal, and the long road to finally learning intermittent self-catheterisation, including the months of setbacks that nearly made her give up. Angie brings twenty years of teaching patients to catheterise, and how her own approach has changed dramatically over that time once she realised the skill isn't really about the technique at all. Here's some of what you'll take away: Why help-seeking takes years for so many women with bladder issues, and what tends to be the tipping point that finally gets someone into a doctor's officeThe difference between teaching a procedure and teaching a life skill. Why where and how catheterisation is taught matters as much as what's taughtHow fear and tension physically interfere with catheterisation, and the small mindset shift that helped Kiera stop bracing against her own bodyWhat recurrent UTIs after starting catheter use actually mean, and the realistic, layered approach to managing and reducing them Whether you're navigating bladder symptoms yourself, learning to use a catheter, or supporting someone who is, this episode will help you feel less alone, better informed, and clearer on what comes next. This conversation connects closely with the work I'm doing with Convatec Continence Care and their Me+ programme, which supports people using intermittent catheters with both practical guidance and emotional wellbeing resources. Find out more at www.howwereallyfeel.com/in-partnership-with-convatec You can access the Me+ free holistic programme here (UK) https://shorturl.at/TsOdG or here (USA) https://shorturl.at/Lh8XS  You can access references and resources discussed in this episode, fact checked and collated by our show researcher and trainee health psychologist, here: www.howwereallyfeel.com

    1hr 9min

  3. 6 days ago ·  Bonus

    My reflections on acceptance, resignation and advocacy following episode 8

    Acceptance gets treated like a dirty word in chronic illness. So does resignation, but for the opposite reason  we barely talk about it at all. This is my reflection following the episode with Matt Castelluccio and Jane Werbicky from United Spinal Association, where we explored what it actually takes to keep going when the systems around you weren't built with you in mind. I sit with the distinction between acceptance and resignation, why they can look identical from the outside, and why resignation isn't poor coping, it's a natural, protective response to feeling like control has been taken away. I also reflect on what Matt shared about the power of one question from his urologist, "what's not working for you?", and what that tells us about what collaborative care could look like, even within short appointment times. If you haven't yet listened to the episode with Matt and Jane, you can find it in the show notes. I hope this reflection gives you something to sit with. This conversation connects closely with the work I'm doing with Convatec Continence Care and their Me+ programme, which supports people using intermittent catheters with both practical guidance and emotional wellbeing resources. Find out more at: www.howwereallyfeel.com/in-partnership-with-convatec Show notes, resources and references: https://www.howwereallyfeel.com/acceptance-advocacy-bladder-care

    12 min

  4. 15 Jun

    Acceptance, advocacy & bladder care: navigating systems without losing yourself | How We Really Feel

    When your body changes, the system rarely changes with it. Here's what you can do about that. This episode explores one of the most under-examined tensions in living with a health condition: the space between genuine acceptance and quiet resignation. Knowing the difference might be the most practical thing you can do for your own care. Matthew Castelluccio is the interim CEO of United Spinal Association and has been a wheelchair user and paraplegic for over twenty-three years. He brings both lived experience and two decades of professional work in rehabilitation, peer mentoring, and patient advocacy to this conversation. Jane Werbicky is a nurse information specialist at United Spinal Association, with over thirty-five years of nursing experience focused on spinal cord injuries, bladder and continence care. Together, they field calls from people at every stage of navigating their condition,  from newly injured to decades in, recognising where the system helps and where it lets people down. What we explore: Why acceptance and resignation can look identical from the outside and how peer connection is often the thing that starts to pull them apartThe isolation that commonly follows a new diagnosis or injury, how bladder and continence concerns intensify it, and what small steps genuinely helpWhat collaborative, curiosity-led care looks like in practice  and why the question "what's not working for you?" can open more than a full clinical assessmentHow to advocate for yourself in a medical appointment, including what to prepare, how to paint a full picture for your clinician, and when it is okay to change your doctorThe systemic barriers -geographic, financial, architectural - that make this harder than it should be, and why collective voice has already shifted thingsWhat advocacy actually looks like for someone who is overwhelmed and exhausted and why showing up to listen counts Whether you're navigating bladder or continence changes yourself, supporting someone who is, or working clinically with people who are, this conversation offers something grounding: the reminder that systems can and do shift, and that small, sustainable steps towards engagement are where it begins. Show notes, resources and references: www.howwereallyfeel.com This podcast is supported by Convatec Continence Care and their Me+ programme, which supports people using intermittent catheters with both practical guidance and emotional wellbeing resources. Find out more at www.howwereallyfeel.com/in-partnership-with-convatec

    1hr 18min

  5. 11 Jun ·  Bonus

    My reflections on bladder feelings, emotion and trauma - following episode 7

    What role does trauma play in bladder and pelvic conditions? There's more awareness than ever that traumatic experiences live on in the body and with it, a lot of myths. This short solo reflection is me thinking out loud after my conversation with Dr Lindsey McKernan, PhD MPH, Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Urology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and a longtime research collaborator of mine, and Saoirse Nash, women's health coach and Director of Live UTI Free. I sit with the findings that stayed with me most: that in one integrated clinic, 42% of women presenting with interstitial cystitis or bladder pain syndrome met criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder. And that it's not a question of whether trauma came first or the condition did. It's the interaction between past trauma and present stress that shapes pain, symptoms and how taxed the body becomes. I also reflect on: Why it's so hard to heal a body you hate or feel betrayed by and what changes when that relationship begins to softenThe story Lindsey shared of a patient who'd had multiple surgeries and relentless urinary frequency, and had never once asked for leave from work.  What that tells us about self-subjugation and the impacts on our body Allostatic load: the cumulative wear and tear of never tending to what your body needsMoving from reacting to responding, and why gentle self-monitoring - not hypervigilance-  is the starting pointA simple question from Lindsey that can shift everything: would you expect this of a friend? The goal isn't to lower your expectations of yourself. It's to soften the way you respond to yourself. And there's good evidence that when you do, your body starts processing things differently. If you haven't yet listened to the full episode with Lindsey and Saoirse, I'd recommend starting there, the link is in the show notes, along with details of Seemira, an app that syncs with your Apple Watch to help you build gentle bodily awareness through the day. Show notes and resources: www.howwereallyfeel.com This podcast is supported by Convatec Continence Care and their Me+ programme, which supports people using intermittent catheters with both practical guidance and emotional wellbeing resources. Find out more at www.howwereallyfeel.com/in-partnership-with-convatec Seemira - learning to hear your body’s signals and regulate your nervous system - https://seemira.com/

    20 min

  6. 7 Jun

    When your bladder holds your trauma: emotion, the nervous system, and bladder health

    When your bladder holds your trauma: emotion, the nervous system, and bladder health You know your body is telling you something. But when every test comes back clear, it becomes very hard to trust what you're feeling or to understand why it won't get better. In this episode, I'm joined by Dr Lindsey McKernan, PhD, Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Urology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and pioneer of uro-psychology, and Saoirse Nash, women's health coach and Director of Live UTI Free. Together we explore something that doesn't get nearly enough airtime: what happens to the bladder and pelvis when the nervous system has been under sustained stress, or when trauma has never fully been processed. Saoirse shares her own journey from recurring acute UTIs in her teens to chronic symptoms that no one could explain, including the link she made between her mother’s passing and the way her body responded. Lindsey brings the science: why childhood adversity and trauma change the way the nervous system processes pain, how the stress response directly affects bladder function, and what uro-psychology, the field she has spent her career building, offers to people who haven't found answers in standard care. This conversation covers: Why emotional history can show up as physical symptoms in the bladder and pelvis and what that actually means for treatmentWhat PTSD looks like in a urology clinic, and why it's more common than most clinicians realiseHow sustained stress keeps the nervous system in a state of threat and what that does to pelvic muscles and pain processingThe research behind psychological interventions for interstitial cystitis, and why outcomes can improve even after 14 years of chronic painWhat it means to move from being at war with your body to working with it This episode will resonate deeply with anyone who has long suspected that it is their bladder or pelvis holding the score. It is also essential listening for clinicians looking for a more integrated framework for supporting people with bladder and pelvic pain. This podcast is supported by Convatec Continence Care and their Me+ programme, which supports people using intermittent catheters with both practical guidance and emotional wellbeing resources. Find out more at www.howwereallyfeel.com/in-partnership-with-convatec

    1hr 16min

  7. 4 Jun ·  Bonus

    My reflections on urgency, urgently thinking, or thinking away the urge - following episode 6

    There's a moment of significance in so many health journeys that rarely gets explored. The moment when you go from believing the healthcare system will help you, to realising it won't. I call this a belief flip. In this short solo reflection on my conversation with Melissa Kramer and Dr Laura Katz on the subject of the role of thoughts and beliefs in bladder conditions, I want to sit with what that actually does to a person, and why it matters so much for how we then talk about the role of thoughts in bladder and pelvic conditions. Because here's the thing. If your beliefs have been flipped, if you've gone from feeling safe and supported to feeling alone and dismissed, then someone exploring the psychological side of your symptoms is almost certainly going to feel like another version of being told it's all in your head. And that response makes complete sense. A threatened brain doesn't have much room for nuance. What I wanted to unpack here is the nuance that I think is so worth having. Thoughts are not fluffy or incidental. They are biologically mediated. They have downstream effects on the nervous system, on pain processing, on how your body responds. That is not the same as saying you caused this, or that you're doing something wrong. You are not in control of the thousands of thoughts your brain generates every day. But once you can see some of those patterns -the threat forecasting, the perfectionist tracking spiral, the self-blame that follows a flare -there is something you can do with that awareness. I also reflect on what Laura said about validation -that you cannot ask someone to explore the psychological dimensions of their condition until they feel genuinely believed. Not just in words. In practice. That means biology and psychology together, not one instead of the other. This one is a bit more thinking out loud than usual. I hope it adds something after episode 6. This podcast is supported by Convatec Continence Care and their Me+ programme, which supports people using intermittent catheters with both practical guidance and emotional wellbeing resources. Find out more at www.howwereallyfeel.com/in-partnership-with-convatec

    24 min

  8. 1 Jun

    Urgency, urgently thinking, or thinking away the urge: Is chronic UTI psychological?

    What if the thing keeping your bladder symptoms going isn't just the infection, it's also what your brain is doing with the threat of it? And what if that doesn’t mean that your symptoms aren’t real? That it instead is reflective of your body being a highly interconnected system that needs some further understanding. That is what this conversation with Dr Laura Katz and Melissa Kramer explores.  Dr Laura Katz is a clinical health and rehabilitation psychologist whose research has focused specifically on how women cope with bladder pain and interstitial cystitis including landmark work on emotion regulation, fear of pain, and helplessness as predictors of long-term outcomes. Melissa Kramer is the founder and CEO of Live UTI Free, a PhD researcher at the University of Reading, and someone with five years of her own chronic UTI experience. Between them, they bring rigorous science and deep lived understanding to a conversation that I think fills a real gap. For a lot of people navigating bladder and pelvic conditions, the moment anyone mentions psychology or thinking, it feels like another version of being told it's all in your head. We address that directly, clarifying terms, science and the neurobiology of thoughts.  What this episode covers: Why thoughts are not fluffy or separate from physical experience -they are part of the neurobiology of your nervous system, and they have measurable effects on painWhat Laura's research shows about emotion regulation as a predictor of quality of life in women with bladder pain- and why this is not about blame or willpowerThe word catastrophising: why both guests take issue with it, what the research actually measures, and why fear of pain is a normal, human, adaptive response - not an overreactionHow fear of pain can longitudinally predict more pain -the chicken and egg, and what it means practicallyWhat helplessness does to outcomes over time, and how perfectionism and self-blame can quietly compound a flareWhy validation must come before acceptance and what goes wrong clinically when it doesn'tWhat actually helps: forward motion, community used wisely, self-transcendence, and what happened when one of my own patients tried being kinder to herself mid-flareWhy clinicians should share the neuroscience directly with patients and how psychoeducation alone can shift fear Whether you're living with bladder symptoms, supporting someone who is, or you're a clinician working in this space  I hope this leaves you with something that genuinely reframes things. Show notes, references and resources: https://www.howwereallyfeel.com/episode-6-urgency-urgently-thinking-thinking-away-the-urge This podcast is supported by Convatec Continence Care and their Me+ programme, which supports people using intermittent catheters with both practical guidance and emotional wellbeing resources. Find out more at www.howwereallyfeel.com/in-partnership-with-convatec

    1hr 25min
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5
out of 5
5 Ratings

About

How We Really Feel is the podcast that takes an honest, evidence-based look at what it means to live in a body, especially when that body is doing something no test has fully explained, no appointment has had time to address, or no one has joined the dots on yet. Hosted by Dr Sula Windgassen, PhD, health psychologist, researcher, author of It's All In Your Body and specialist in chronic illness, burnout and the mind-body connection. Each episode brings together leading clinicians, researchers and people with deep lived experience to examine the whole picture: biological, psychological and social. Guests are chosen for their years of peer-reviewed research, frontline clinical practice or a rich lived experience of illness, injury and healing. Every episode is fact-checked by Dr Sula and the show researcher, a trainee health psychologist and PhD student. All studies and resources referenced are listed at howwereallyfeel.com so you can read further, question it and make it your own. Series one explores pelvic and bladder health. One of the least explored areas of health, especially from a holistic and integrated approach that incorporates mind and body and the human at the heart of symptoms. Episodes cover chronic UTI, bladder pain syndrome, the nervous system, pelvic pain, sex and intimacy after illness, and what it means to befriend a body that has fundamentally changed. Between guest episodes, Dr Sula shares her own therapeutic reflections: what stood out, what the evidence means in practice, and what might be worth sitting with or trying. How We Really Feel is for you if:  You're curious about how our biology, psychology and lived experience are woven together and what that means for how we healYou're a urologist, pelvic health physiotherapist, GP, health psychologist, gynaecologist or clinician with an interest in holistic, integrated and evidence-based careYou've ever felt like medicine ran out of answers before you did You're navigating bladder pain, pelvic pain, chronic UTIs, chronic illness or burnout and want to understand what's really going on beneath the surface New guest episodes released weekly on Mondays and reflective summary episodes with Dr Sula Windgassen on Thursdays. All resources at howwereallyfeel.com

Information

  • Creator
    Dr Sula
  • Years Active
    2k
  • Episodes
    18
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Dr Sula

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