EPISODE 0

This Is Fine! Episode 0 | Audio Transcript

INTRO

This is... This Is Fine! [echoes] This is fine. This is a poor substitute for therapy, but an excellent substitute for Jo... other podcasts. We're not like other podcasts. Join us as we find the answers to the universe's biggest questions like is butter a carb? Does crying burn calories? And what the **** am I doing with my life? We're here to be your part time therapist, astrologer, concierge doctor and fairy godmother. Do you need someone to validate you today? Cool, cool. Cool. Come on in. We're fine. This is fine. 

EPISODE

Hey, guys, welcome to the very, very, very, very first episode of This is fine. This is the one where I introduce you to the podcast. I hope you're doing great. I hope you're fine. If you didn't physically give birth to me or receive a link to this episode via text from me... First of all, who are you!? Slide into my DMs... How did you find me?? And second of all, nice to make auditory acquaintance with you in a weird one-sided way. I'm Dominique. Dominique Michelle Astorino, to some of you on the internet, and I'll be your captain aboard this ship. By ship I mean the floating dumpster that is engulfed in flames cruising down a river that's actually just a moving flood. 

A little about me in case you sort of want to take me seriously... I am a health, wellness and beauty journalist, a certified health and nutrition coach, a business owner, a Libra moon, mother to a golden retriever with a Prozac prescription, who is the absolute love of my life. And a very small human who is simply doing her best. We are all doing the best we can just trying to figure shit out. And that's what This Is Fine! is here for: figuring shit out. This show is dedicated — my pledge to you — to adding value to your life. That's going to come via some education, teaching you something new, expanding your worldview, plus some really good storytelling and entertainment. We're going to talk about the human experience, possibly with a very femme lens, because it's me. And we'll get into a lot of topics on mental health, stigmas, and taboos... we're also going to get into conversations about things like antidepressants, insecurities, vulnerabilities, and some of the topics that you don't feel totally comfortable talking about with your friends and family just yet. Maybe starting that conversation here or hearing someone else start it will help it feel a little less scary and intimidating. 

I want you to feel seen and heard and not alone, which is why we're going to have a series within this show called Validate Me Harder Daddy — sometimes we just need some validation, you know!? And of course another series called Trauma Hour, which is like happy hour in that there's wine, but there's also trauma. 

Some of the more powerful and transformative experiences in my life, the ones that have contributed to my personal growth and development... They've happened when I'm hearing and reading about people who have shared a certain lived experience with me. Hearing someone talk about or simply reading an account of something that happened to them, that has also happened to me (or something that is still ongoing in my life)... It takes that thing that once felt so isolating and made me feel "othered," and suddenly that part of me is seen and validated and verified. It helped me overcome some really crazy shit. And I want to do that for you, too. 

I'm not your therapist, and this show is not a substitute for therapy, *buuuuut* we're gonna have some incredible, brilliant guests on this show. And we're going to get the scoop from doctors and psychologists and coaches outside of your scheduled sessions. So think of it as like the TA hours or tutoring for your current course and Earth school. We're not the professor but we'll help you ace your test. You know what I'm saying? We'll also learn from everyday normal people like you and me who have important lessons, shared experiences, and stories to tell. 

Add in a sprinkle of cannabis, a dash of Chinese medicine and skincare, and a monthly dose of astrology lessons and forecasts — put all of that together in an absolutely unhinged, sparkly pink oven and bake it 350 for 30 minutes and you've got the podcast. Will you learn something? Yeah! Will you laugh? I hope so! Will this podcast help you get healthier? Unclear. But at the end of it all, I hope you remember, you're fine. This is fine. 

I actually do really want to help people and not just hear myself talk and secure advertisers. So my hope here is that I can help put my health coaching certificate to use, bring in some of the many amazing people that I've worked with over the past decade, people with real degrees in different healing fields, and make the world a little bit happier and healthier. I know that you probably have a lot of audiobooks that you want to listen to right now and other podcasts that you subscribe to, so thank you so much for being here! We know you have a lot of choices when you travel, so thanks for flying. This Is Fine! Airlines! But seriously, you could have listened to Brené Brown or Atomic Habits for the third time or someone who's given a TED talk. So I'm really grateful you've tuned in. Speaking of gratitude… 

I think this is my 30 seconds to give my acceptance speech. I'd like to thank everyone who told me to start this podcast, including my incredible producer and engineer Dan De La Isla who probably has given an acceptance speech at the Emmys. Also to my manager and very dear, decade-plus friend Zan, my family and especially my mom, the angel investor and first Patreon member because she's an absolute treasure, and of course my best friends who are my hype humans, who validated and reassured me 1000s of times in the process of getting to this microphone — and beyond. 

If you would like to support this burgeoning, blossoming little baby bird of a podcast and bring in more incredible guests, so you can low-key get free therapy via podcast, help me out a trifle, be a doll and like, comment, subscribe for me. That's a singular verb now, like-comment-subscribe. Leave us a nice review, share the link with your friends. Subscribe on Spotify or Apple... like, if you could take a second right now — if you're not driving, of course — and do any one of those things, I'd be massively massively grateful and forever indebted to you. If you'd like to take it a step further, and you've got some dollars to spare, you can volunteer as our sugar daddy slash sugar mama and or glucose guardian, and head to our Patreon where you can financially contribute to our success for a few bucks a month or even just a few bucks here and there. That's all at patreon.com/thisisfinepodcast. Blessings upon you, and may all your children be prodigies. This is fine. 

CREDITS

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of This Is Fine! I've been your host Dominique Michelle Astorino. We're based in San Diego recording in-studio at DLI productions and Pacific Beach, with Emmy award winning sound designer Dan De La Isla. This is a comedy and advice podcast, but for legal reasons, this entire podcast is a joke and none of it is medical advice. To download a transcript or learn more visit thisisfinepodcast.com