How We Really Feel

About How We Really Feel

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 (http://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 heal You're a urologist, pelvic health physiotherapist, GP, health psychologist, gynaecologist or clinician with an interest in holistic, integrated and evidence-based care You'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 (http://howwereallyfeel.com)

Publisher

Dr Sula

Category

health & fitness

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

26 Apr 2026

Latest episode

9 Jul 2026

Latest episodes

22 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   9 Jul 2026

   My reflections on holding on, letting go and integrated care following episode 11

   This is my last solo reflection of the season and I'm glad it's following this particular conversation. After speaking with Shelli Burton and Katy Hansen about integrated care for pelvic and bladder conditions, three ideas stayed with me long after the recording ended. This reflection is where I sit with them properly. The first is what Katy called "baby birding." That image of holding something just tightly enough. Not so loose it escapes, not so tight you suffocate it. I've been thinking about it ever since in relation to how we pursue recovery, and whether the grip we're applying is helping or getting in the way. The second is Katy's framework of stability, regulation and capacity building and why this matters so much for knowing when to introduce new tools or approaches. If something hasn't worked, it may not be wrong. It may just be the wrong stage. And the third is the thing I keep coming back to from visiting Vanderbilt myself: what it means for a psychologist and a physician to be in the room together. Not as a luxury. As a signal that neither the physical nor the psychological story is more real than the other. This is a short episode, but it carries the weight of a full season's worth of conversations. If you've been listening along, thank you. If this is your first episode, the full conversation with Shelli and Katy is linked below — it's a good place to start. 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 (http://www.howwereallyfeel.com/in-partnership-with-convatec). Show notes and resources available here https://www.howwereallyfeel.com/ (https://www.howwereallyfeel.com/)

2. 

   5 Jul 2026

   Women's health: Just your hormones? The integrated nature of bodily systems, the mind & medical care

   Most people who end up with chronic pelvic or bladder pain have seen a lot of clinicians. Often separately. Often with no one quite connecting the dots. Dr Sula is joined by Shelli Burton and Katy Hansen, both nurse practitioners at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. Shelli specialises in interstitial cystitis, bladder pain syndrome and pelvic health, working within Vanderbilt's multidisciplinary IC clinic. Katy works at the Osher Center for Integrative Health, bringing a whole-body lens shaped by her earlier years as a massage therapist. Together, they unpick why treating pelvic and bladder symptoms in isolation so often stalls recovery, what changes when care is genuinely integrated, and why hormones, fascia, the nervous system and the mind are never really separate stories. Here's some of what you'll take away: Why looking at one body part in isolation misses the picture. The cost of treating symptoms without asking about sleep, stress, hormones or other overlapping pain conditions. The difference between two types of pain, and why it matters. Understanding nociceptive versus central sensitisation pain changes which tools are actually likely to help. Why being seen by two clinicians together changes the experience of being believed. How integrated care quietly removes the "it's in your head" framing before it even starts. The fear and the evidence around vaginal hormone treatment. Why a localised, low-risk option is so often avoided, and what's actually true about it. A new way to think about control. Katy's idea of "baby birding": Holding on just tightly enough to make progress, without gripping so hard that nothing can move. 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 (http://www.howwereallyfeel.com/in-partnership-with-convatec). Whether you're navigating a complex pelvic or bladder condition yourself, supporting someone who is, or working clinically with this patient group, this episode will help you feel less alone, better informed, and clearer on what integrated, whole-person care can actually look like. References and resources discussed in this episode, fact-checked and collated by our show researcher, are available at www.howwereallyfeel.com (http://www.howwereallyfeel.com)

3. 

   2 Jul 2026

   My reflections on dismissal, medical misogyny and self-advocacy following episode 10

   This is one of my solo reflection episodes. Just me, sitting with what the conversation with Dr Catriona Anderson and Neha Visavadia stirred up. We covered a lot of ground in that episode: chronic UTI, the gap in the medical definition, what it means to be dismissed by the healthcare system, and what you can actually do about it. This reflection picks up on three threads that I couldn't let go of afterwards. The first is the psychological cost of not being believed - not just as a frustrating experience, but as something that actively changes your behaviour, closes down your options, and makes the next appointment feel harder before it's even happened. Neha described this so clearly, and I've seen it in clinical practice more times than I can count. The second is medical misogyny - the expectation, embedded across centuries, that women will absorb a higher baseline of pain and difficulty without it being fully investigated. Dr Catriona named it plainly in the episode and I want to sit with it plainly here too, because naming it is part of shifting it. And the third is what self-advocacy actually looks like in the room — not as a performance, but as a regulated, grounded way of communicating that actually changes how the person in front of you responds. This reflection is for anyone who has ever left an appointment feeling smaller than when they walked in. And for anyone who works with patients and wants to understand why that happens. 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 (http://www.howwereallyfeel.com/in-partnership-with-convatec). Show notes and resources at https:// (https://www.howwereallyfeel.com/episode-10-when-youre-not-believed)www.howwereallyfeel.com/episode-10-when-youre-not-believed (http://www.howwereallyfeel.com/episode-10-when-youre-not-believed)

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Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

4 ratings

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Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.