Your host, Maureen Spielman, joins you today to educate you on how to be your own advocate when it comes to your body and your physical health. Maureen is a breast cancer thriver who learned a lot about the personal care industry following her mother’s death from cancer. In a world inundated by information that an often be difficult to wade through, Maureen provides some tangible action steps to protect your health and that of your family. Join her and grab some takeaways as you become your own advocate!

EPISODE TAKEAWAYS (what you’ll learn):

• 10 tips to consider for your physical health
• Applications to help you research product safety
• EWG’s Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen lists
• Resources for breast health
• Legislation for health protective laws
• A company protecting consumers with EMF products

References mentioned:

● Apps: ThinkDirty, EWG Skin Deep, Clearya

● Safe Space Protection

● Breastcancer.org and komen.org

● Breast Cancer Prevention Partners (BCPP)

● Credo Cosmetics

● Environmental Working Group

● Maureen’s Beautycounter link (10% of all October proceeds go to BCPP)

About the Host:

Maureen Spielman is the Founder of Mystical Sisterhood, a podcast dedicated to bringing more joy, healing and expansion to the world. She is a seasoned life coach who supports individuals through one-on-one coaching, groups and workshops.

Connect with Maureen:

● Check out her Instagram: @maureeenspielman

● Learn more about her work at www.maureenspielman.com

● Want to join our Mystical Sisterhood Membership community? Find out more here: https://www.maureenspielman.com/mysticalsisterhood

● Email Maureen at hello@maureenspielman.com to inquire about coaching, podcasting & speaking engagements

● Want to view Mystical Sisterhood episodes? Visit the Mystical Sisterhood YouTube Channel here: Magical Sisterhood Youtube

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Hey there, welcome to mystical sisterhood. This is

your host, Maureen Spielman. I started the show to highlight

the intuitives, healers and other courageous women that I've

met along my journey and continue to meet. Through

amazing interviews, I seek to ask insightful questions to

uncover ways in which you the listener can apply the wisdom

and knowledge to your own life. I believe that we're all in this

together. So sharing healing and joy, and bringing community

together is both my passion and purpose. If you'd like to learn

more about the mystical sisterhood community I'm

building please visit www mystical sisterhood.com See you

in the episode.

Hi, and welcome back to mystical sisterhood. This is your host,

Maureen Spielman, I am here on my own this week, I knew that I

wanted to do an episode around health, for breast cancer

awareness month.

It's a month that is very near and dear to my heart. Not

because I'm wearing pink every day in any way, shape, or form.

But because I have gone through the journey myself. And so I

think there's many things to be said about our health, our

wellness, when it comes to just awareness in general. And so I

titled today's episode, Episode, be an advocate for your health.

And I hope today that there's just takeaways and things that

you walk away with, to consider implementing or possibly

changing in your own life, as it has to do with our physical

health, but also just a theme of being our own advocate in

general.

There is nothing like being catapulted into the medical

system, as so many people out there know, and learning how to

become your own advocate, as to what's best for you in your

journey. And a lot of times, that's not what convention tells

you, or your conditioning, but what's right for you. And so,

you know, that sort of pertains to the medical journey and the

hospital journey in the end if you go along Western medicine

journey, but there's a lot of ways we can become advocates in

our own lives. And today, I am talking about health, but I

think that we can become an advocate across many domains, if

not all of our lives. So you know, usually I'm talking about

emotional work and spiritual work, which I love. But I

actually deeply love what I'm going to talk about today, too.

So this episode is about October and breast cancer getting us

here, but I really want to do a huge, huge, you know, wide open

arms embrace. And just

just an ode to anyone who is currently traveling this path,

who has traveled it in the past who has traveled it with a loved

one.

And just just a huge embrace and compassion. And I'm like I said,

I know firsthand that going through the process and, and all

the ups and downs and the wonderings and the curiosities

and the upsets and the setbacks and the disappointments and the

fear and the, in the research and the and the crying and the

and the the high parts to you know, they're all part of it.

And we process it when we do as we do, but just raising my cup

of coffee this morning to

everyone in this moment who has been with someone on the

journey, whether it's yourself or a loved one.

You know, it is true that almost everywhere we turn on a weekly

basis, we learn of someone in our circles or concentric

circles, who has a diagnosis of cancer. So as I talked about

becoming an advocate today for your physical health,

you know, hopefully there's some tips in here that we can all use

around prevention and treating our physical body

in such a way that we are honoring we know that what we

put on it and Intuit and surround it with is important

also for our overall health.

So yeah,

I'm going to name today, just different organizations that I

think are either good resources for our journeys in life and

prevention and taking care of ourselves. And so take what you

will, I'm really curious, as I put together today's episode, I

kind of went by what I know. And so feedback from you know, you

the audience members, and either when I post this on Instagram,

or through my newsletter this week, or any way that you want

to give me feedback, it's Hello at Maureen spielman.com Is my

email. But um, I'm curious, because I will add things to a

list that, you know, I can, I can send out to people.

And so, as always, no perfection here. All ideas, welcome. I'm

just going off what I know and try to practice. So

you know, when it comes just to prevention, for breast cancer, I

would be remiss not to mention that there are great community

forums and

prevention and what to look for, and signs and symptoms, for you

to just educate yourself on breast health. And for that

breast cancer.org. And the komen.org websites have just so

much information. And so, you know, we can educate ourselves

through our doctors and through our own education, maybe as

well, I was gonna say as often as you like, and I had a doctor

who always thought it was important, no matter if the

federal, I guess, medical guidelines, were saying, Get

your mammogram every two years or

further apart, she always advocated for the annual

mammogram. And I had no signs, signs and symptoms at all. And

that's how mine was detected in 2018. And so for that, I'm

grateful. And I see women posting when they go through it,

remember to get your mammograms. And, and it is I know, there's

controversy about mammograms, and this is not a controversial

podcast today. But, you know, that's how mine was found. And

I, by the time it was found, it had traveled to my lymph system.

So I tend to be an advocate for annual mammograms, because,

quite frankly, if I would have waited the next year, and

another year, I don't know what would have happened. But I'll

just say that. So I wanted to say that. That to begin with.

But my world kind of opened up after my mom died. And she had

also died of lung cancer, I shouldn't say also, she had died

of lung cancer, she had been a lifelong smoker and ended up

with small cell lung cancer and hugely correlated with smoking.

So there's that right there.

But then, a friend of mine, hosted a party for a beauty

counter. And Beautycounter, you know, is a direct selling

company, which a lot of people off the bat are like, Ooh, you

know, it's not a good thing, because it's a direct selling

company, you know, one person to person, woman to woman. But I

have to tell you, that the education that goes on in a

company, like Beautycounter, it kind of opened my eyes, and it

opened my eyes to the advocacy I could be doing around personal

care products, and my own health and the health of my family. And

so for me, I was like eternally grateful. And I'm still, you

know, on their roster as representing their products,

because they are a cleaner source for me and for my family.

And so I'll put that in the show notes too.

But

who I learned about a great organization through

Beautycounter. And let me just say I had something to say from

Greg Renfrew the founder. What she said is when she went to

form that company, which is a very big advocacy company to go

into Washington, DC for legislation, she said, and this

is 12 years ago, in 2011, I learned that the US bans 30

ingredients from personal care products. And for context at

that time, the EU was at 1400. And so she started Beautycounter

to set out to transform the beauty industry and created the

never list.

And it's made up now of 2800 questionable or harmful

chemicals that they never use in their ingredients or products. I

know that there are cleaner companies out there

and so

I can you know if anyone

wants to give me feedback on what they use and what they

found. Because today's a lot about resources, please do. And

it all depends. I remember, you know, when I was educating

around cleaner, safer products back then someone said, Well,

I'm not going to put that on my face, I would only put like

olive oil and avocado was on my face or something like that. At

the time, I thought, like, wow,

that's, that's a lot. But I, you know, now I'm like, hey,

whatever you want to put on your face. But the truth of the

matter is that most of us are using cosmetics, and personal

care products, and many of them on a daily basis. So when we

think about the health repercussions that can have, you

know, it's significant, and I think it's an important

conversation. And I, despite all the advocacy, I still think it's

something that's is buried, and I'm going to talk about a little

legislation that's going on as well around it. But that's why

one of the reasons I wanted to bring it to the forefront today,

in this conversation around advocacy and advocating for our

health is because when I walk into a big brand cosmetic store,

unless I'm missing it, I'm not always seeing on the door, you

know, an app that's going to help me find the cleanest

products. I think things are changing, though. And I've seen

stores like Sephora

carrying a lot more cleaner, conscious, health conscious

products. And so it's amazing. It's really amazing. One store

that we have here in Chicago, and I'm sure they have an online

presence is credo, it's CR E D, O, and credo is committed to

cleaner products, again,

there's going to be a whole excuse me a range of what people

consider as clean. So that's up to you. Today is just about

resources and advocacy.

I like to point out because I think it's really significant

that six years ago, when I started doing the advocacy work

around personal care products, it was an ad. At that time, I

think it was let me start a $63 billion industry. I remember

that being the number that was quoted and it was like, oh, you

know, blow your socks off $63 billion industry and we know

that's true. Because in the US here, we're just there's just so

much around appearance and you know, what's going to create the

the least lines and the longevity with our youth. And

you know, those are the lotions and then the makeup to make us

feel prettier, or whatever it is. And I'm all in man, I grew

up in a family of girls and, and we really liked our products.

And I raised my coffee cup to my mom, she did too. So knowing

that there's going to be alternatives and resources for

us is incredibly powerful for me. So, Oh, that

$63,000,000,000.06 years ago, is now quoted at an $84 billion

dollar personal care product industry. And it remains one of

the least regulated in the United States. So breast cancer

prevention partners that I became aware of their work is

BCP breast cancer prevention partners. I think via

Beautycounter. They partner with them and they are doing vigorous

research and

pursuing health protective cosmetic safety legislation. So

I love BC pp.org I'll put all all these resources I'm going to

have a lot today in the show notes. But they do a great job

on education and it's it's actually kind of fun to go look

at their site I think

they are correlated with the safe cosmetics.org which goes

into more information and the campaign for safe cosmetics.

Then they've got just all these beautiful initiatives including

the non toxic black beauty project

because there are so many chemicals in toxic chemicals in

the products marketed to black women. And so the work that

they're doing around this non toxic black beauty project is

groundbreaking I'd say and just so health promotive and so

necessary in this world.

Where Beautycounter has the never list and their ingredients

that are questionable

and they do not put in their products the campaign for safe

cosmetics at safe cosmetics.org has the red list and they have

different tiers and tier they have a tier one. These are do

not use chemicals for everyone.

Tier one do not use chemicals Of greater concern for black women.

They have tier one PFS forever chemicals I believe those are

the ones that sometimes coat our clothing

And I've got a look, this might not be right. But I just saw on

their site, their site has so much information that Rei had

committed to discontinuing any products with whatever the

chemical was that coats clothing. And so they've

committed to take that

out of any products they sell in their class in their stores. So

if you want details on that, don't ask me go to BC pp.org.

Yeah, so they're, they're tackling the environmental

injustice of not only all of our health, but

before Black women in particular, in their initiative,

non toxic beauty for black women. They've got tips on safer

sunscreens,

and lots of different guides. So I just wrote out and I'll share

with you 10 health promoting habits to take on and advocate

for, these are always you can guarantee almost everything I

share with you on this podcast is for my own benefit too.

Because you know, sometimes we lose the plot, we have an

intention to eat well, you know, do well, by our physical bodies,

meditate, whatever it is,

become a better parent become a better partner, and we lose the

plot. So I'm just going to talk about 10 health promoting habits

to take on. And if it can make a change for any of us, I want us

to consider that the way we buy is can be culturally societally

conditioned, you may buy the way your parents bought, you may buy

because of marketing advertising.

The one that I switched a long time ago was around a cleaner

detergent and I tried to look for one with no fragrance and

not all the bells and whistles and the colorful, you know, jug

with the neat colors on it at Target and just get cleaner when

it comes to that and washing my children's or my family's

clothes, or finding a hand soap that is not also like pumpkin

flavor for fall and all these things unless it's just cleaner

that's put into it. But I'm going to tell you 10 tips now.

And name some more resources. Number one is Be on the lookout

for hormone disruptors in your products. This is really

important for you know, our overall health, breast cancer or

breast health I should say for sure, because there is something

called a Zeno estrogen. It's a type of Xeno hormone false

hormone that imitates estrogen. So for me, I had an estrogen

progesterone positive type of breast cancer. And so estrogen

in my most, you know, simple of understanding it fed

or nourished my breast cancer cells I should say.

So, you know, this can come from the outside. So looking for

hormone disruptors and in our products is really important. So

I'm gonna tell you some apps to use in just a little bit. These

are just food for thought though. I'm avoiding fragrance.

This is hard for a lot of us because perfume smell good,

right? But the reason I say avoid fragrance, or limited is

the word fragrance can cover up a cocktail of ingredients. They

can it can mask carcinogens and hormone disrupting chemicals.

And they can be found fright fragrance can be found in nearly

half of all personal care products. So avoid purchasing

and using products with the word fragrance or perfume on the

label and be especially vigilant with children's products. Some

of this information I took directly from the breast cancer

prevention partner site so it's BC p p.org.

Oh, I love this one. Number three. use online tools and

official seals. So

ditch your old daily routine and replace it with safer beauty

products. There's apps that you can put on your phone, including

think dirty, ew G skin deep. And the good guide. I read about

another one called clear yet see Leary a and these apps help us

with ratings on our personal care products. You have to have

a little bit of extra time to do it, but it's worth it.

Ew G's skin deep has a barcode scanner and it rates the

products from one to 10 one being the safest lowest

hazard and 10 being the highest. So I love that one clear area I

hadn't heard of but it can alert on ingredients linked to cancer

infertility, baby developmental harm hormone imbalance chemicals

that are banned in Europe, and ingredients that cause allergic

reaction.

As we go along, think about which ones of these you're

already doing. Or that you're kind of like, who I want to do

that number for such a big one. For me, it's a, it's one and

this is full transparency helped me with it, if you can, cleaning

more naturally, using baking soda to neutralize order odors,

vinegar to clean and deodorize. And you can add a cup of vinegar

to your laundry to brighten up whites, remove voters.

A few drops VCP says a few drops of your favorite citrus juice,

lemons or oranges, to a vinegar based cleaning spray to fill

your home with a fresh scent.

Yeah, and I it's one of those areas where I think I'm

conditioned or maybe

to I'm just gonna say to purchase something that's a bit

stronger. So that's an intention I have for my house and home and

health is to get cleaner with my products.

Number five, decreasing canned foods. Always good for us, we've

heard this, but a lot of companies now are maybe freeze

drying or freezing even

the foods we can buy like if your choice is beans within a

bag.

Maybe it's going to take longer, but it's better not to have the

BPA that's in the cans. Same thing goes with six getting out

of plastic using less plastic. And the one that I'm looking at

is using more glass. For my leftovers. I still have some

glass some plastic. So let me know about that. I also heard

you know, a health practitioners say to me, like just just don't

drink from the plastic water bottles. Especially if you've

got a plastic water bottle like in a hot car, I'm talking about

the ones that we that we didn't grow up with. We didn't who

bought water when we were eight. If you're my age, come on that

type of water. So bring your own water cup. You know that might

be that might be an easy one for people. But also, you know, we

got to plan we got to plan when our water drinking is gonna be

so we're not always buying bottled water. Hey, I did it

yesterday, when I took my son on a college visit. And I was so

thirsty. Did you even know you were thirsty when you were

growing up?

Gs

seven is an important one to ditching Teflon pots and pans.

So just toxic compounds can be in nonstick cookware.

That's really important. A one that I learned recently was well

not learned recently, but did something about it was

protecting myself from the EMFs the electromagnetic frequency

that comes off our phones. And the reason that I did something

about it was because my guest couple months ago, Therese

Raleigh, who talked about work with children had a friend who

started a company, and it's called Safe Space protection.

And I'll put that link in Safe Space protection.com. And what I

ended up purchasing were these little smart patches that you

can put on the back of your phone, and they neutralize the

EMFs in six feet around you, including your phone. So others

whose phones are around you, too. This is just like this is

this energy we can't see right in the frequency of these waves.

But they're not healthy for us. And so again, they always say

don't sleep near your phone and we've just become so attached to

these things like I think like well what if one of my kids text

me in the night my phone's got to be next to me. Hey, give me

some teaching on that one. But I really liked the protective

field and safe space protection.com also has

patches and neutralizing

I guess products for your

like devices at home to computers, outlets. Microwaves

it's pretty cool.

Oh, I heard this is a this is an interesting but funny one. Skip

the print go online. And it's really funny because I saw Matt

Damon is probably 10 years ago, talking about how he doesn't

like take the receipts from the when you go to the bank and get

money out. But I do it when I go to my grocery store because the

Um, ink that use can have BPA, or BPA like chemicals on them.

And touching them just opens us up to toxic chemical exposure.

So those are what did I say? 10? I think I did. One was demanding

out surance transparency. And I'm going to talk about that in

one minute with the legislation. So if you are in a workplace,

that you would like some transparency, and the big one

that comes to mind is if you're in the hairdressing industry, or

know somebody close to you that is, or you have a hairdresser,

which is probably 99.9% of America, maybe 95, maybe 90, I

don't know.

You can ask them do you advocate what's How are the workers being

protected, protected? So what I learned through

the I think it was B CPP, but it's really great. You know, I

know when Beautycounter was started that the the legislation

was written, protecting our consumer health, and brace

yourself, you might fall off your chair in 1938. And so

there's been some work especially done out in

California passing protective bills within the state. But

right now on our house floor, and I'm not, I don't know when

these bills will be considered. But there's a safety safer

beauty bill package and it includes four bills. And so it

really cool HR three 619 Is the toxic free beauty act of 2023,

which would prohibit 11 hazardous chemicals from Beauty

and personal care products sold in the US that are currently

banned by the European Union, California and Maryland. That

gives me chills. HR 3620 Is the cosmetic safety for community of

color and professional salon workers act of 2023. Would

federally mandate access to translated safety data data

sheets, funding for research grants to identify chemicals of

concern, and health impacts from cosmetics and personal care

products used by these communities.

HR 3621, the Federal cosmetic fragrance and flavor ingredient

right to know act of 2023 would require companies to publicly

disclose a full list of fragrance and flavor ingredients

in their products on product labels and websites. And lastly,

this encompasses hr 3622, the cosmetics supply chain

transparent Transparency Act of 2023 would require upstream

suppliers including fragrance houses, formulating labs and

suppliers of ingredients, finished products and raw

materials to provide brand owners with the ingredient

disclosure, toxicity and safety data.

I think when I was reading about

just all this information, there's a HBO Max movie not so

pretty. And I've got another movie that's escaping my mind

right now that I want to add to the show notes. But um, I hope

that the walk away today is that we're all here for each other.

Sharing ideas, sharing resources, sharing courage to

become your own advocate. And I may have said earlier in the

episode, but I had learned that women are the principal buyers

for their home.

But maybe I think that's a truth. And I think that a lot of

my listeners are women. But let's let's change that. Let's

bring men on board caring about what we put on our bodies, what

our families are using. Because this shouldn't just be a woman's

issue. This should be something that we're all sort of

advocating for. And I hope that you received one thing of

value for you today. And as always, oh, I just looked down

at a sheet in front of me. Let me not forget the EW G dot orgs

shoppers guide to pesticides in protest. That's the one that I

meant to put on my list of 10 and they've got the Dirty Dozen

and they have the clean 15 I'm gonna say him real quick for

you. The Dirty Dozen are chemicals that are known to have

pesticides on the crops. He had a statistic but I don't know

where I put it about. Like it's like 75% of us.

Products have pesticides that are non organic. So the Dirty

Dozen strawberries spinach, kale, collard and mustard

greens. P

Just pears nectarines, apples, grapes, Val and hot peppers,

cherries, blueberries and green beans. And that's 12. And so

these are known to have pesticides when you're not

buying organic, and the clean 15 avocados, sweet corn,

pineapples, onions, papayas sweet peas, asparagus, honeydew

melon, melons, kiwi cabbage, mushroom, mango, sweet potatoes,

watermelon and carrots. And so those are the ones that I think

have the least pesticides. But ew G, you can sign up for these

two guides. And they have like little you can eat a little

like, rectangle you can cut out and you can keep in your wallet

or your purse when you go to the grocery store. So

this is just for us as mystical sisters in the mystical

sisterhood. Let's keep caring for each other. Let's keep

supporting each other in the most expansive of ways.

And let's just ensure that our health keeps on getting better

and better.

Instead of falling, you know victim to things that we can

change. And that goes for the emotional, the spiritual, and

our physical level. So any questions comments? I'd love to

hear them. You could always find me at Maureen spielman.com and

email me at hello at Maureen spielman.com. And I look forward

to being with you in the next episode. As always, you know,

I've got my coaching practice on the side where I see women one

on one and also the mystical sisterhood membership. If you're

not a member consider being one because we have wonderful

conversations in that group with a live call every week and a

guest speaker every month. And

yeah, that's it mystical sisterhood.com So I will leave

it at that and

you know, abundant health for us all.

Thanks for listening to this episode of mystical sisterhood.

If you love what you heard, please visit Apple podcast and

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Maureen spielman.com or mystical sisterhood.com Thanks so much.

I'll see you in the next episode.