EVEN BETTER WITH: Erica Chidi
powerhouse founder and creative on permission for scarcity and pleasure, and grounding with home cooked meals
today’s guest is a cherished friend and truly powerhouse founder and creative erica chidi! i met erica ten years ago as wellness peers and friendships like hers make me comforted in getting older and deeper and weirder with good people :) the one thing ab erica is if she’s gonna do it, she’s gonna do it with tenderness and care and today she shares:
- the 30lb item she always brings on vacations to help with chronic pain
- what mothering herself means to her these days (her answer deeply moved me, i resonated deeply)
- her unfussy but gorg go-to meals including the tuna niçoise salad she has perfectttted
- the value of scarcity and how she weaves in nervous system regulating practices
- her honestly deep cut myofascial release rec
- the essential oil remedy she uses to help ease jaw pain
- her skincare heroes
Erica! How would you describe what you do?
Right now I would describe myself as a writer, strategist, and health educator. I split my time between innovation consulting for brands like Nike and other new startups, plus strategic advising for Perelel Health, who acquired my company LOOM last year, and Birth Fund, a maternal health nonprofit. I’m also in the early stages of developing a television series with a major studio.
When I’m not busy with those things, I spend my downtime here on Substack, writing about my personal experiences, sharing ways to self-soothe, and offering useful advice on how to tend to our inner worlds.
What I’ve come to realize about this chapter of my career is that storytelling interconnects everything I do—helping people tell the stories of their bodies, bringing stories to life on screen, and helping companies craft narratives around what they’re building.
I find most everyone I know and work with in my private practice is looking for some mothering for themselves. What does mothering oneself mean to you? How do you honor that?
Mothering myself has evolved over the years. I would say right now it looks like giving myself permission to be scarce, giving myself permission to not have to do and go to everything I’m invited to, and being selective about what I do and who I spend my time with. That’s not something I did as I was building my business and my career because I needed to connect and loved connecting with a lot of people, but at this second act or third act maybe, I’m allowing myself to move a lot slower. I’m also mothering myself by letting myself do things that I find pleasurable and making a lot of space for play, even in terms of what I’m doing for work right now, whether it’s storytelling across television or spending time writing.