Wilder Wellness

Kristen Ales, LPC + Kristin Mathes, LCSW

Wilder Wellness is a podcast all about exploring our relationship with our bodies, minds, and communities through an adventurous lens. Tune in each week as we navigate new topics around mental and physical health, adventure, and living life outside of the box. Join us, Kristen Ales and Kristin Mathes, two licensed therapists, and friends, for empowering and inspiring interviews with wellness professionals, outdoor enthusiasts, and big thinkers, dreamers and doers who are changing the prescription for true well-being.

  1. 05/27/2024

    Wilder Pod Updates

    Did you miss us?? Because we missed you!  Kristen Ales and Kristin Mathes return to the podcast to fill you in after Kristen’s maternity leave. As it turns out they both have been busy nursing new babies! Kristen tells us more about her first few months of motherhood welcoming her daughter into the world and navigating role transitions as a new mother and group therapy practice owner. Meanwhile Kristin Mathes has been in full creative mode launching yet another surf therapy retreat in Costa Rica and full rebrand of her business. They both reflect on both the discomforts and excitement navigating big life transitions. As they both expand and take on new challenges, they discuss the future of the podcast and what to expect moving forward. In this episode we explore: Kristen reveals some highs and lows within her first few months of motherhood after she welcomed her baby girl into the world.  Kristen also discusses the expansion of Wilder Wellness and the direction she is taking her business in the future - with more in person events to come!  Kristin Mathes launches her second retreat-  Finding Flow a week of mind- body surf therapy in Costa Rica. Registration opens soon.   Kristin discusses overcoming a lot of anxiety related to the vulnerability of rebranding her business and working with social media.  To sign up or learn more about Finding Flow a mind body surf therapy retreat to Costa Rica hosted by Kristin Mathes, LCSW see her website for the juicy details.  You can learn more about the hosts Kristen Ales, LPC and Kristin Mathes, LCSW by visiting their websites. This show is brought to you by: The Wilder Wellness Intuitive Eating online course is a self-paced program that will help you heal your relationship with food and your body. This 10 module course will help you stop obsessing over food so you can reclaim your time and mental clarity, take charge over how you take care of yourself, and begin to take steps towards finding food freedom. Learn more and sign up here.

    26 min
  2. 03/13/2024

    Replay: Slowing down, avoiding burnout, and creating consistency in your movement practice with Abby Chan, MS, RDN

    While Kristen Ales is out on maternity leave, we are revisiting some of our favorite episodes from the past. These are powerful conversations that we would love for you to hear or are worth listening to again! Abby Chan, MS, RDN discusses how to build a movement practice around empowerment and choice, rather than a place of punishment or in pursuit of purely aesthetic goals. Abby helps us explore how we can begin to slow down and shift our focus to how our body FEELS rather than just focusing on numbers, stats, or how our bodies look in athletic wear. Abby Chan, MS, RDN is a non-diet, weight-inclusive Registered Dietitian who specializes in helping others re-establish their relationship to food, and movement. She is the co-owner of EVOLVE Flagstaff, an integrative facility that focuses on injury prevention and rehabilitation, strength training, nutrition, and meal preparation to help you do what you love, for life. When she isn’t working with patients you may find her in the gym strength coaching, teaching a yoga class, or in the cheffing it up in the kitchen. Other than work, she spends her time as an artistic director for Dark Sky Aerial. She is a movement artist who uses her love for dance and aerial arts as a form of expression and processing. When she isn’t working or creating you can find her outside on shredding trails on her mountain bike, skiing, or vanning with her pups!

    41 min
  3. 03/06/2024

    Replay: The impact of masking our fears and insecurities with perfectionism, with Joanna Townsend, LCSW

    While Kristen Ales is out on maternity leave, we are revisiting some of our favorite episodes from the past. These are powerful conversations that we would love for you to hear or are worth listening to again! In this episode, we talk all about how clinging to perfectionism can increase feelings of anxiety, depression, and loneliness. And how we can begin to loosen our grasp on feeling like we need to be perfect all of the freaking time. In this episode, we also discuss our own relationships with perfectionism and how showing up messy or imperfectly has allowed us to show up as better therapists in our client work and as business owners. We will share with you strategies we both use in our practices to help clients take the first steps toward letting go of perfectionistic habits and tendencies. Joanna is a licensed psychotherapist based in Bozeman, Montana and the owner of Root & Rise — a modern and inclusive mental wellness practice for millennials. Joanna brings her true self and inner nerd to the therapy space. She specializes in the areas of anxiety, perfectionism, self-worth, life transitions, burn out, eating disorder recovery, and is a big advocate of feeling all the feels, authenticity, self-compassion, and letting go of shame. When she's not with clients, she's either hiking, camping, skiing, climbing, making a mess in the kitchen, talking to her plants, or getting lost in fiction novels.

    46 min
  4. 02/07/2024

    EMERGE surf retreat to Costa Rica with Kristin Mathes

    Our cohost Kristin Mathes is launching EMERGE, a surf retreat to Costa Rica where she currently lives and is here to tell us all the juicy details about this incredible adventure! Kristin is inspired to share the fun, and joy in surfing with others who are ready to break free from self limiting beliefs and give anxiety space to breathe. This therapeutic and trauma informed surf retreat will offer mindfulness activities and therapeutic workshops to support you in discovering personal freedom and self love through surfing Mother Ocean’s waves.  EMERGE is a retreat for first time surfers / beginners who want to hone in on their skills. But surfing is not the only adventure on this retreat. Tune in to hear more about why you don’t want to miss this epic adventure! In this episode, we explore: The intention behind EMERGE, which is to inspire more play, create joy, and reclaiming confidence through surfing.  Kristin walks us through a day in the life at Emerge including everything from where you’ll be staying, what to expect from the surf experience, and other adventures included in the retreat experience and of course, pricing. Kristin and Kristen explore body image on the beach and why this retreat would be a great place to challenge negative beliefs about your body’s ability and spend time actually celebrating what your body can do instead of what it looks like.  Kristin addresses common anxieties and fears to joining a group of strangers on a retreat and the most common objection: sharks! You can learn more about the hosts ⁠Kristen Ales, LPC⁠, and ⁠Kristin Mathes, LCSW⁠ by visiting their websites. This show is brought to you by: EMERGE, a surf therapy retreat that will help you discover peace and reclaim your power through surf, community, and ocean healing. This 7 day / 6 night retreat to Costa Rica is reenergizing, our community is supportive, and the surf therapy experience is the perfect blend of adventure and deep transformation. Emerge as a more confident you. Learn more and sign up here.

    40 min
  5. 01/31/2024

    What is surf therapy and more on Kristin's journey learning to surf.

    We are finally sitting down and asking cohost Kristin Mathes, LCSW all of our questions regarding surf therapy - what is surf therapy? how does this relate to therapy work and trauma healing? how in the world did this therapist from Wisconsin learn to surf? and how she plans to partner with a local surf school to offer surf therapy retreats down in Costa Rica. Kristin explains as a newer surfer how she was drawn to the water and how surfing became a part of her life. She tells us her hopes to share a little bit of her paradise and community in an upcoming surf retreat Emerge. In this episode, we explore: Using ocean healing and surfing as an experiential modality for embodying healing, presence, and empowerment. How surf therapy increases resilience through nervous system regulation and skill building that help us move through the hard stuff Kristin tells us more about her story learning to surf and how it brought her to a new life and community in Costa Rica. How Kristin plans to incorporate surf therapy in retreat format down in Costa Rica where she lives. You can learn more about the hosts ⁠Kristen Ales, LPC⁠, and ⁠Kristin Mathes, LCSW⁠ by visiting their websites. This show is brought to you by: The Wilder Wellness Intuitive Eating online course is a self-paced program that will help you heal your relationship with food and your body. This 10-module course will help you stop obsessing over food so you can reclaim your time and mental clarity, take charge of how you take care of yourself, and begin to take steps toward finding food freedom. ⁠Learn more and sign up here.⁠

    35 min
  6. 01/24/2024

    Kristen and Kristin reveal their IN and OUTs for the year.

    We are jumping on the latest instagram trend this week and revealing what’s IN and what’s definitely OUT for us this upcoming year. Kristen and Kristin both get personal on some of their growth edges and what they each are making more space to welcome into their lives. And of course, on the flip side what is getting booted out the door in 2023. Some in’s include: self confidence, boundaries around work, grace in motherhood, mentorship, and movement. And some defining outs are perfectionism, people pleasing, hyper independence, and comparison. In this episode, we explore: Kristen and Kristin reveal their personal Ins and Outs for 2023. We discuss ways in which we can support each other in boundaries around work and running our businesses.  A theme of vulnerability and being real about the process (the highlights and the mess) helping combat things like people pleasing, perfectionism, shame, and comparison in friendships, business partnerships, and mentorship. An overall hope for grace in motherhood, business ownership, and doing our best as humans.  You can learn more about the hosts ⁠Kristen Ales, LPC⁠, and ⁠Kristin Mathes, LCSW⁠ by visiting their websites. This show is brought to you by: The Wilder Wellness Intuitive Eating online course is a self-paced program that will help you heal your relationship with food and your body. This 10-module course will help you stop obsessing over food so you can reclaim your time and mental clarity, take charge of how you take care of yourself, and begin to take steps toward finding food freedom. ⁠Learn more and sign up here.⁠

    42 min

Ratings & Reviews

4.8
out of 5
5 Ratings

About

Wilder Wellness is a podcast all about exploring our relationship with our bodies, minds, and communities through an adventurous lens. Tune in each week as we navigate new topics around mental and physical health, adventure, and living life outside of the box. Join us, Kristen Ales and Kristin Mathes, two licensed therapists, and friends, for empowering and inspiring interviews with wellness professionals, outdoor enthusiasts, and big thinkers, dreamers and doers who are changing the prescription for true well-being.