Half Betty

We have always loved the way conversations wander. Not because they lose their way, but because they so often find something better.

A story about a first job becomes a story about courage. A memory from childhood becomes a reflection on friendship. Someone mentions a woman named Alice, and suddenly you're talking about the people who quietly change the direction of our lives without ever knowing they have.

It's exactly where this conversation with Denise and Kamesha from Wisdom in Bloom took us.
Together, Andrea, Krista, Denise and Kamesha explore the stories that shape us—the unexpected turns, the friendships that carry us, the mentors who see something in us before we see it ourselves, and the courage it takes to begin something new.
Denise and Kamesha share the story behind Wisdom in Bloom, a podcast created from their shared belief that women’s stories and wisdom deserve to be heard. They reflect on friendship, creative partnership, and the ongoing journey of becoming.

And, as every Half Betty conversation does, this episode eventually arrives at Five Words.

What had originally started as a simple invitation for each guest to gather five words that feel true has become one of the most meaningful moments in every conversation.
There is no right answer. No perfect combination. No expectation to arrive at them quickly. Just curiosity, honesty, and the bravery of reflecting on who we have been, who we are, and who we are becoming.

For Denise and Kamesha, this reflection became something much bigger than a question at the end of an episode. They shared how these words will stay with them long after the conversation ends - a powerful declaration of self, shaped by the experiences, challenges, friendships and moments that have brought them here.
Because stories help us make sense of our lives. Conversations help us hear those stories differently. And, Five Words help us remember who we are.
Bio

Denise and Kamesha are the co-hosts and creators of Wisdom in Bloom, a podcast and community celebrating women in midlife through honest conversations about identity, friendship, growth, resilience and the wisdom that comes from lived experience.

Through their conversations, Denise and Kamesha create space for women to share their stories, reflect on the moments that shaped them, and embrace the ongoing journey of becoming.
Their friendship and shared belief that every woman carries stories worth telling are at the heart of Wisdom in Bloom.
References
Website
Instagram 
Facebook 
YouTube
 
Denise’s Five Words
Nurturer, Grace, Brave, Resilient, Worrier
Kamesha’s Five Words
Resilient, Kind, Figure-Outer, Evolving, Spirited
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Guest: Denise & Kamesha | Wisdom in Bloom
Founder/Host/Producer: Andrea Rathborne
Producer/Co-Host: Krista Gruen
Editors: Andrea Rathborne & Krista Gruen
Audio Engineer: Alex McCarthy
Episode sponsors: Zaleska size-inclusive jewelry

In this thoughtful and inspiring conversation, Andrea and Krista welcome their first UK guest to the Half Betty Podcast - writer, wellbeing curator, coach, and podcast host Claire Fitzsimmons.

Claire is the co-founder of If Lost, Start Here, a wellbeing company supporting people as they navigate life’s wilds with greater emotional honesty, clarity, and self-compassion. She is also the host of the podcast A Thought I Kept, where she explores the ideas, moments, and conversations that stay with us long after they happen.
This episode marks more than simply Half Betty’s first conversation with a UK guest; it feels like the beginning of a meaningful bridge between communities, cultures, and shared conversations around midlife, identity, growth and transformation. 

Together, Andrea, Krista, and Claire explore the cultural differences between North America and the UK when it comes to visibility in midlife, emotional expression, and conversations about women’s evolving identities. They discuss the uniquely British tendency to soften discomfort with humour, the challenges of asking for what we need, and why so many of us are still learning how to articulate what we feel.
Claire shares her personal story -  from witnessing her mother’s struggles with mental health in midlife to navigating her own experiences with anxiety and depression - and reflects on how these experiences shaped both her work and her understanding of whole and well-being.

This conversation gently but powerfully challenges the modern obsession with wellness hacks, optimization, and the endless pursuit of self-improvement. Instead, Claire offers listeners a more compassionate and sustainable perspective that our health and wellness may not be something to chase, but something that we shape within the beautifully imperfect reality of everyday life.

At the heart of this episode, there is a sense of unlearning of emotional courage and the moving  truth that midlife is not a finished chapter, but an ongoing becoming.

Sometimes being lost is not a signal that something has gone wrong. But. simply the beginning of a new chapter. And, for some, an entirely new book. 

Bio
Claire Fitzsimmons is a wellbeing writer, coach, podcast host, and co-founder of If Lost, Start Here, a wellbeing company on a mission to help people find their way to a better place.

As an ICF Associate Certified Coach and a certified Emotions Coach Practitioner, Claire works with women navigating change, burnout, emotional overwhelm, or an experience of feeling stuck. She helps people untangle what they’re feeling, find clarity, and create a sustainable wellbeing practice that fits the shape of their everyday lives.

Claire’s writing on mental health, emotions, and midlife wellbeing has appeared in Happiful, Breathe, The Simple Things, and others, with features in Stylist, Red, and Psychologies. Her first book, If Lost, Start Here: Wellbeing for the anxious, disconnected or uncertain, co-authored with Amanda Sheeren, is available now.

Claire is also the host of the podcast A Thought I Kept, where each week she speaks with guests from across creative, academic, business, and wellbeing fields about the ideas that stay with us for a lifetime. (Andrea was a guest on Claire’s podcast with her conversation found here: A Library made of Moments ) 

Book
If Lost Start Here - Wellbeing for the Anxious, Disconnected or Uncertain
Created by Amanda Sheeren and Claire Fitzsimmons

References
Website https://www.ifloststarthere.com/ 
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/ifloststarthere
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/ifloststarthere
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@AThoughtIKept
Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/claire-fitzsimmons-4130aa100 
Podcast https://www.buzzsprout.com/2521342 
Substack https://moregooddays.substack.com AND https://itsalotactually.substack.com 
 
Claire’s Five Words 
Emotional
Curious (thoughtful)
Creative
Loyal
Tenacious

Sponsor Information
Zaleska size-inclusive jewelry
Use the code HALFBETTY and receive 20% off your first purchase

Connect with us
Website link here
Instagram link here
LinkedIn link here
Facebook link here

Leave a voicemail for us
https://www.halfbetty.com/voicemail/

Guest: Claire Fitzsimmons
Founder/Host/Producer: Andrea Rathborne
Producer/Co-Host: Krista Gruen
Editors: Andrea Rathborne & Krista Gruen
Audio Engineer: Alex McCarthy
Episode sponsors:  Zaleska size-inclusive jewelry

What happens when the career you’ve built no longer fits the life you want? This week, Andrea and Krista sit down with Dr. Kelly Kasteel—emergency physician, Mum, and founder of Emerge Wellness.

After 17 years in emergency medicine, Kelly found herself facing burnout, questioning her identity, and navigating the very real challenges of perimenopause. She shares how the pressures of COVID, coupled with a traumatic workplace incident, became the catalyst for stepping away and reimagining her future.
What started as an interest in aesthetics quickly revealed something much bigger: women in midlife (including herself) were struggling to find support, answers, and care. Determined to fill that gap, Kelly immersed herself in learning all the information she wasn’t taught in medical school and now helps women navigate hormones, perimenopause, confidence, energy, and overall wellbeing.

We dive into the symptoms so many women experience but rarely talk about, the evolving conversation around testosterone, and why self-advocacy is one of the most important tools we have. It's an honest, empowering conversation about reinvention, resilience, and taking ownership of your health—because, as Kelly reminds us, no one's coming to save you.

Whether you're curious about hormones, feeling stuck in a season of change, or simply wondering if what you're experiencing is "normal," this episode offers practical guidance, reassurance, and plenty of reasons to keep asking questions.

Bio
Dr. Kelly Kasteel, MD, CCFP-EM, known as Dr. KK, is the founder of Emerge Wellness MD in New Westminster, BC, Canada. After 17 years in emergency medicine, she built one of the most in-demand aesthetics practices in Vancouver's Lower Mainland, the kind of place where you finally feel like you have a girlfriend who also happens to be your doctor. She's known for a boutique, natural-outcomes approach at accessible price points that leaves women looking like themselves, just better. She believes aesthetics and hormone health belong together, and her own perimenopause journey and testosterone therapy is what brought those two worlds under one roof. You can find her candid, evidence-based take on midlife women's health on her Substack, Dr. KK: Hot and Informed, and on Instagram at @drkellykasteel, where she shows up with the same warmth and radical honesty she brings to her clinic every day.

Website https://www.emergewellnessmd.com/ 
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/drkellykasteel/
Substack https://substack.com/@drkellykasteel 

Dr. Kelly’s words - Radically authentic, warmly disruptive, refreshingly real, unapologetically direct, brilliantly approachable

Sponsor Information
Zaleska size-inclusive jewelry
Use the code HALFBETTY and receive 20% off your first purchase

Connect with us
Website link here
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LinkedIn link here
Facebook link here

Leave a voicemail for us
https://www.halfbetty.com/voicemail/

Guest: Dr. Kelly Kasteel
Founder/Host/Producer: Andrea Rathborne
Producer/Co-Host: Krista Gruen
Editors: Andrea Rathborne & Krista Gruen
Audio Engineer: Alex McCarthy
Episode sponsors:  Zaleska size-inclusive jewelry

Some people find that their entire lives are about learning how to read a room. Christina Pitts Jazzar built a career learning how to care for the people inside of it.
Long before she became an intimacy coordinator (IC) at 45 years old, Christina had spent years working as a performer, actor, and choreographer, instinctively attuned to the emotional energy, vulnerability and unspoken dynamics on both the stage and the screen. So when a friend suggested she explore the emerging field of Intimacy Coordination, something in her immediately and wholeheartedly responded. As Christina shares in this conversation, it was a full-body and resounding “yes”.
In this episode of Half Betty, we explore the deeply human work behind Intimacy Coordination and the growing importance of care, communication, consent, and emotional safety within storytelling. From scenes involving romantic intimacy to the tenderness between parents and children, friends, partners, or chosen family, Christina shares what it means to support actors and crews through moments that require trust, boundaries, clarity, and compassion.

Together, we talk about midlife reinvention, advocacy, and what happens when the work you step into feels less like a pivot and more like an alignment with who you have always been. Christina also opens up about her family life, her marriage, motherhood, and growing up with a father who was hard of hearing and later vision impaired -  experiences that profoundly shaped her understanding of communication, emotional awareness, and human connection.

As film and television continue to evolve, Intimacy Coordinators like Christina are helping to redefine what safe, ethical, emotionally intelligent storytelling can look like, not just for actors, but for entire creative communities.

This conversation is thoughtful, deeply grounded and such an important and beautiful reminder that the things we are naturally drawn toward often hold clues to the work we are meant to do.

Bio

With over 30 years of experience in the entertainment industry, Christina Pitts Jazzar (she/her) is a celebrated Performer, choreographer, and Certified Intimacy Coordinator (IC). She has been at the helm of Canada’s IC community with extensive training in Movement, Motion Pictures and Mental Health.

When it comes to being an IC, Christina is a true collaborator. She has a fun, natural ability to put people at ease, focusing on Communication, Consent & Boundaries and Care. She creates inclusive, welcoming work environments for both cast and crew during sensitive and vulnerable content/situations. 

As a mother of two, caregiver, partner, and working creative, Christina stepped into intimacy coordination at the age of 45 - in the middle of a global pandemic - and quickly realized something important: productions need care, but so do the people doing the caring. That understanding led her to become a proud board member of the National Society of Intimacy Professionals (NSIP), as well as co-founder of ICU (Intimacy Coordinators United), a Collective prioritizing intimacy coordination as a holistic, sustainable, and community-centred practice.
You can see Christina’s work on Netflix, Paramount+, Disney FX, Hallmark, CBC and CBS with shows like FUBAR, Adults, Umbrella Academy, Miniature Wife, The WESTIES, Sheriff Country, Boston Blue, Devil In Disguise John Wayne Gacy, and The Way Home to name a few. 

And finally, a special thank you from Christina to Dani, for 25 years of love and support, and to Krista Gruen and Laura Adkin for her first intimacy coordination credit on their beautiful film Re: Uniting. 
If you haven’t seen it yet, consider this your sign to add it to the list! 

Website
Instagram
IMDB

Christina’s words - Communication, Curious, Creativity, Collaboration, Capable

Sponsor Information
Zaleska size-inclusive jewelry
Use the code HALFBETTY and receive 20% off your first purchase

Connect with us
Website link here
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LinkedIn link here
Facebook link here

Leave a voicemail for us
https://www.halfbetty.com/voicemail/

Guest: Christina Jazzar
Founder/Host/Producer: Andrea Rathborne
Producer/Co-Host: Krista Gruen
Editors: Andrea Rathborne & Krista Gruen
Audio Engineer: Alex McCarthy
Episode sponsors:  Zaleska size-inclusive jewelry

We sat down with Danielle Mika Nagel for a conversation that moved dynamically between both reflection and clarity. A conversation that stayed with us long after it was over and, now, finds its opportunity to be shared with our listeners.
At the heart of this episode is a phrase Danielle often returns to - “effort and ease”. The idea that everything meaningful in life asks something of us, but not everything should feel like strain. And that learning the difference is often how she describes beginning to understand herself more fully.

Danielle speaks to the earlier decades that shape us in ways we don’t always notice at the time - learning boundaries, building courage, figuring out care, and sometimes finding our way back to who we truly are. And how those lessons don’t ever end but simply evolve.

Now in this midlife chapter, Danielle describes being in a season that feels both grounded and expansive - continuing her long-standing yoga practice, leading retreats, and deepening her coaching work. She also co-founded and co-hosts the podcast Coffee Unlimited with J&D alongside her friend Janelle Aaker - a space that reflects much of her honest, lived-in way of seeing the world.
She also speaks to the practices that have supported her along the way - yoga, meditation, and staying in an honest relationship with herself.
It’s a conversation about what we carry, what we release, and what it means to keep choosing a life that fits.
Bio

Danielle Mika Nagel is a wellness coach with over two decades of experience weaving together yoga, Ayurveda, and leadership. A former Director of Leadership Development at lululemon and Vancity, she also spent 14 years as a lead educator with the Chopra Center.
Today, she supports leaders to thrive across all areas of their lives through 1:1 coaching, workshops, and global retreats - bringing a grounded, integrative approach to how people live, lead, and sustain themselves over time.
Website https://www.daniellemika.com/ 
Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniellemikanagel/ 
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/daniellemikawellbeing/?hl=en 
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@CoffeeUnlimitedwithJandD 
Podcast https://open.spotify.com/show/6bwPMMAfs1wpbIJhp54MZq?si=8be2a07645e540df 

Danielle’s Words - Student (learning), Flexibility, Bossy Guru, bougie 

Sponsor Information
Zaleska size-inclusive jewelry
Use the code HALFBETTY and receive 20% off your first purchase

Connect with us
Website link here
Instagram link here
LinkedIn link here
Facebook link here

Leave a voicemail for us
https://www.halfbetty.com/voicemail/

Guest: Danielle Mika Nagel
Founder/Host/Producer: Andrea Rathborne
Producer/Co-Host: Krista Gruen
Editors: Andrea Rathborne & Krista Gruen
Audio Engineer: Alex McCarthy 
Episode sponsors:  Zaleska size-inclusive jewelry