We recently connected with Casie Danenhauer Humble and have shared our conversation below.
Casie, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. So, naming is such a challenge. How did you come up with the name of your brand?
Funny enough I have a brother-in-law whose livelihood and career is based solely on naming things! Companies, brands, products… you imagine it and Liam Humble has named it! He was of course my go-to guy when my co-founder and I decided we wanted to make CBD suppositories as a supportive business to our pelvic health physical therapy practices.
Liam has a dedicated system to helping find names for products and brands that feel authentic, in alignment, and memorable. We started by filling him in on exactly what our products and brand would be: vaginal and/or rectal suppositories aimed at helping people maintain optimal pelvic health. Our primary product would be our CBD and hyaluronic acid suppository designed to help people with pelvic pain and enhance pleasure especially with intimacy. Next we got specific about what set our brand apart: we are co-founded by two women Doctors of Physical Therapy with years of speciality in the pelvic and abdominal health field. We have daily hands on experience with the patients we were designing these products for.
Liam then guided us through brainstorming about how we wanted our customers to feel when they used our products. We came up with words like “effervescent ease”, “nurturing”, “connected”, “approachable and balanced,”, “chill and relaxed” as objectives and tone that we wanted to convey through our name. We next listened to Liam pitch us names, filling us in on etymology and historical context for different options, and giving us a chance to try on the “mouth feel” of different names.
We landed on “Kunda” after 2 rounds of naming. We were presented with context and definition of different options.
In Sanskrit Kunda can translate to night lily, oleander, jasmine, or lotus. Kunda’s english translation “night lily” makes a nice connection to experiencing a restful, restorative state or enjoying romance after sunset. It also feels connected to Hindu’s “kundalini” which could present an opportunity to celebrate the divine potential energy stored within the root chakra or the perineum/pelvic floor. We loved the image of the lotus blossoming just like we encourage our patients to let their pelvic floors relax, open, and expand. Dr. Sherine and I agreed quickly on Kunda and off we went with a business name!
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I’m a Doctor of Physical Therapy with a passion for facilitating wellness and empowerment from the pelvis up. I am the owner of Enlighten Physical Therapy in Culver City, CA and co-founder of Kunda LLC, a pelvic wellness brand. My pelvic health career has centered around creating experiences that allow for healing through the pelvis whether it’s one-on-one with me in the clinic, on my retreat, Retreat to Your Root, or by using my Kunda suppositories (which we affectionately call Drops).
My mission is to provide conscious care for the pelvis through education, embodiment practices, empowerment, and nervous system nurturing. My history with pelvic pain has given me the opportunity to see first hand that a holistic and integrative path is the most effective way towards wellness. I support people experiencing pelvic pain, menstrual difficulties including endometriosis, and those who have difficulty with peeing, pooping, and having s*x. I also love supporting pregnant and postpartum people especially since my daughter came into the world 4 years ago. My philosophy maintains a balance between evidence-based science and an integrative consideration of the physical, emotional, energetic, and spiritual systems for maximizing whole body health. In the clinic this approach looks like a cohesive blend of manual therapy, neuromuscular re-education, strengthening, physical yoga postures, breathing activities, and a home program that often involves Kunda Drops for pelvic floor nourishment. On Retreat to Your Root this approach looks like fostering community through time spent in circles, somatic movement practices, yoga for the pelvic floor, and lots of time for rest.
I co-founded Kunda with Dr. Sherine Aubert 11 years into my PT career as a response to a need for excellent quality, high potency, and clean pelvic wellness products for our patients. Many of our patients were prescribed Valium suppositories and estrogen,or used cannabis to manage their vaginal or pelvic pain. We decided we could make better, higher dose, cleaner products specifically catering to the people we were caring for. We designed a product to facilitate pelvic juiciness, hydration, excellent range of motion and mobility, and happy healthy pelvic tissues.
My priorities in life are my family, our health, finding comfy beautiful places to rest, and keeping my heart open. I love helping people learn about their nervous systems, what nurtures them, and the portal of wellness and joy that can open from those discoveries. I feel confident that Kunda is fully in alignment with these passions as Sherine and I have poured our hearts into these products.
If I’m not in the clinic I’ll be dancing with my daughter, traveling, or taking a nap. Learn more at Enlightenphysicaltherapy.com.
How’d you meet your business partner?
Sherine and I met when I was growing Enlighten Physical Therapy, but picking up extra shifts at a pelvic floor PT clinic in 2016. I was instantly impressed by Sherine’s laid back confidence and also the depth of knowledge she had when it came to the pelvic floor. It was a professional girl crush that grew as we starting taking annual continuing education courses together. As we traded treatments with each other, teamed up for teaching opportunities, and travelled to study myofascial release we had a lot of time to discuss patient cases and the nuances of patient care in our very niche specialty. I’m forever indebted to Sherine for keeping my clinic going while I was on maternity leave in the early Covid days!
Sherine and I have a shared passion for treating and seeing the whole person and appreciating the spiritual and alternative side of healing, particularly in the pelvis. With more than 2 decades of experience combined in caring for people with pelvic concerns we believe a happy pelvis is a happy person. We saw an opportunity to create a very niche product based on the needs of our patients and in between the births of each of our daughters Kunda was born.
Have you ever had to pivot?
I always had a vague feeling I would work for myself, but in physical therapy school I assumed it might be 10-15 years into my career which at the time was very orthopedic and sports medicine focused. As I explored the PT profession as an early therapist my interest in pelvic health grew. I decided to dive into to specialize in what I saw being a very taboo, but highly needed area of health. Let’s be real… peeing, pooping, having s*x are not topics most people feeling comfortable talking about, but when something goes wrong in those areas there are major impacts on quality of life. I wanted to help and my personal journey with pelvic floor PT helping me was reason enough to commit to the pelvic floor. Little did I know that commitment would shape my career and my life on so many levels.
My first job in pelvic health was at a very highly esteemed clinic in San Francisco. I found helping people from their pelvic floors up rewarding, however the intensity of the work especially when working with patients with chronic pelvic pain started to take a toll on my body and my nervous system. The high demands of the environment I was working in eventually had me burning out big time. Over a couple years I got to the point where I needed a break and I realized something had to change. I requested time off to attend a spiritual retreat to fill up my cup, but the time was denied. I thought long and hard about what my options were and ultimately I decided to pivot. I was only 5 years into my career, but I took the opportunity to leave my job (benefits and all) and take some time off.
I ended up traveling for 2 months and while on retreat I realized that the power of healing in a group is incredibly powerful. I realized I wanted to host pelvic-floor based yoga retreats so that I could have an impact on more than one person at a time while also facilitating community and connection. Pelvic health problems can be so isolating and Retreat to Your Root was born with the intention of helping people to feel that they are not alone. I started planning from my dining room table and a few months later I held my first retreat. I’ve held retreats across the US/internationally over the last few years and plan to keep hosting annual Retreat to Your Root opportunities for a very long time.
It took three months until one of my former patients found me and asked me where I was treating. Inspired by that phone call I took a week to find a room I could rent, bought a massage table, and contacted a lawyer about setting up a corporation. Founding Enlighten Physical Therapy was a total do it yourself, figure it out as you go kind of situation, but slowly and surely patients started to fill my schedule. My private practice has grown organically for the last 8 years. I’ve been able to design my schedule in way that caters to my energy levels and other aspects of my life which has been particularly important as a mom to a four year old. Working for myself has allowed for freedom, flexibility, and space to really decide and explore the kind of pelvic care I’m bringing to this world… and most importantly to help so many people with pelvic problems! I now have two employees and a practice that pretty much sustains itself on an integrative philosophy all of which I am very proud of.
I definitely identify as a clinician before I’d call myself a business woman, but when I zoom out and look at the fact I own two pelvic-health businesses I realize how important that pivot back in 2015 was!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.kundawellness.com and www.enlightenphysicaltherapy.com
- Instagram: @kunda_wellness. and @enlightenpt
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/enlighten-physical-therapy-conscious-care-for-pelvic-health-culver-city
Image Credits
Credit to Chrystal Starr Photography